misconceptions as to its nature, which, though mutually inconsistent,
are both widely spread. One is that the latest products of time, simply
because they are the latest, are superior to all that has preceded. The
other is that to know the origins of a thing will best enable us to
assign its value. The tendency of the one is to result in the idea that
because a thing has been evolved it must be superior; of the other to
lead to the conclusion that because a thing has been evolved out of
certain elements it cannot be superior to them. The truth is that the
mere fact that a thing has been evolved--be it an institution, a mode of
life, or a disease--does not in itself prove either that the thing is or
is not an advance on that out of which it was evolved. Regressive
metamorphosis, degeneration, pathological developments--physiological,
mental, moral, and religious--are all processes of evolution, but are
not progress. A society in its decay, or an art in its decline, is
evolved out of a previous healthier state or more flourishing period,
but is not because later therefore better. Nor, on the other hand, does
it follow, because the earliest manifestations of a tendency are the
lowest, and can be shown by the theory of evolution to be so, that no
progress has been made in the process of evolution. The artistic impulse
in its earliest manifestations, in children and in savages, is rude
enough; but it would be absurd to say, therefore, that art in its
perfection has no more value than in its origins, that the Hermes of
Praxiteles is on a level with a misshapen idol from the South Sea
islands.
If the continuity of evolution does not warrant us in assigning the same
value, æsthetic or moral, to all the links, highest and lowest, in the
chain, still less does it authorise or require us to deny all value to
the lowest. On the contrary, we should rather see in the lowest what it
has of the highest, than look in the highest for the lowest we can find.
We should beware lest in reducing everything to its lowest terms we
prove to have been seeking simply to bring it to our own level, when at
the cost of a little more generosity we might have raised ourselves
somewhat nearer to the ideal prefigured even in the lowest stage of the
evolution of love, of beauty, of piety or of goodness. Indeed, as a mere
matter of logic, it is impossible to state the nature of a cause
accurately, quite apart from any question of estimating its value, until
or unless we know the effect which it produces. It is not only that we
may underrate or entirely overlook the importance of a thing, so long as
we are ignorant that it is a factor largely influencing some result in
which we are interested; but, until we know what effects it is capable
of producing, we do not know what the thing is. We could not be said to
have knowledge of a drug if we did not know what its effects were. Nor
is that knowledge to be acquired by analysing the causes which produce
the drug. It is not from the mechanical causes which give rise to a
thing that we can learn what a thing is: no amount of knowledge of the
properties of hydrogen and oxygen would enable us to predict _a priori_
the nature of the compound which is formed when electricity is passed
through two molecules of the former and one of the latter; nor is the
least light thrown upon the properties of water by our knowledge of its
constituent elements: on the other hand, our knowledge of them is
materially and serviceably increased when we learn what they are capable
of producing in combination. We learn most truly what a thing is from
observing what it becomes, what use it subserves, what end it answers,
what purpose it fulfils--in a word, when we know not its mechanical but
its final cause. In biology, knowledge of an organ means knowledge of
its function--that is, of its purpose; and evolutional biology also
teaches that function is the cause of the organ.
It is by observing what a thing becomes that we learn the part it may
hereafter play in the general scheme of things, and come to know its
real nature, and estimate it at its real value. Thus our estimate of the
value of such an institution as "taboo" goes up, and our knowledge of it
is increased, when we recognise in it one of the early manifestations of
the sense of moral obligation on its negative side. Again, in tracing
the evolution of religion it is impossible to know which of the various
rites and ceremonies, practised by a savage tribe in its dealings with
the supernatural, are religious and which non-religious, without taking
into consideration the question, What do such customs tend to develop
into? Until we know that, and until we can say whether what is evolved
out of them is religious or non-religious--a question which we cannot
answer unless we know what religion is--we cannot be said to understand
the nature of the savage rites that we are studying. But it is not from
the origins of art, religion, or morality that we shall gain the answer
to the question what art, morality, or religion is; for the question
must be answered before we can recognise the origins when we see them,
and can only be answered by reference to the ideal, which is the test
and final cause not only of progress, but of the real.
The ideal is a principle both of thought and of action. As a principle
of thought it is the test by which we determine whether any given
movement is progressive or regressive, and whether any given thing is
what it appears or is alleged to be. As a principle of action it is that
for which we strive, the purpose with which we act, the cause of any
progress that we make. If we are not prepared to maintain that
everything which takes place is an advance upon what preceded, we
require some test whereby to distinguish what is progress from what is
not, and we admit that progress is a possibility which may or may not be
realised, and it becomes of interest to inquire on what conditions its
realisation depends.
If, as Professor Huxley maintains, the test of progress is approximation
to the ideal, then one condition of progress is that man shall be
conscious, to whatever extent is necessary for the purpose, of the
ideal, shall feel that the ideal of love, tenderness, compassion,
justice, truth, beauty, etc., is a thing for him to strive for, an end
for him to attain. To the chosen few--the great artists, the moral or
religious reformer--a sense of the ideal is dealt in a larger measure
than to the rest of men. By the chosen few it is manifested to the many.
But it does not become the cause of progress, unless it leavens the
mass, unless they too are inspired by it to do better and be better. In
a word, when, or if, ever the ideal has been manifested in its fulness,
it is not a fresh revelation which is necessary for progress, but fresh
conviction in us and renewed determination. Indeed, so long as we do not
act up to the light that we have, even an imperfect revelation of the
ideal may serve for imperfect beings.
So far, then, as the genius in art or science, or the reformer in
religion or morals, is the cause of the progress that is made by his
school, his disciples, and them that follow after, it is clear that he
is the cause and not the product of evolution. It is his works or words
which inspire his followers with a fresh sense of the reality of the
ideal and a fresh resolve to devote their lives to the pursuit of art or
the service of science. But it is only because his perfect work is felt
by them, judging for themselves, to realise the ideal that it has this
effect on them; and they could not judge it to approach the ideal more
closely than anything known to them before, unless they had some
surmise, however vague, of the ideal, with which to compare this work,
perfect as it seems to them. It is not necessary to suppose that this
vague surmise existed, or if it existed that it was attended to,
previously: it may have been first called into existence or into notice
by the contemplation of the master's work, but its presence, however
evoked, is attested by the judgment that his work does come nearest to
the ideal. The manifestation of the masterpiece may be the occasion of
this fresh revelation of the ideal, but the revelation must be made if
the work is to be judged highest and is to inspire the disciple.
It is, however, one thing to have an ideal, and another to live up to
it. "To scorn delights and live laborious days" in the search for truth
or in single-minded devotion to the cause of art requires some will.
Granted that the ideal has been revealed, either to the disciple on the
occasion of another's teaching or directly as to the master, for
progress there is further required will. It requires an act of will to
prefer the ideal, with its laborious days, and to scorn delights; and it
requires many acts of will to make any progress. Yet the will to believe
and the will to act are the same will. We may, if we choose, define
belief as the readiness to act, and take action as the test of belief:
if a man in a hurry makes a short cut, _i.e._ goes straight from one
point to another rather than round a corner, his action is proof that he
believes that a straight line is the shortest distance between two
points. From this point of view we may regard the many acts of will
which are necessary to progress, _i.e._ movement in the direction of the
ideal, as so many reaffirmations of the original act of will by which we
affirmed our belief that the ideal was the goal of progress; and if our
object is to show that the behaviour of man, so far as he pursues the
ideal, can be exhibited as a logical and rational behaviour, we are
justified in thus demonstrating that our renewed resolutions to realise
the ideal are but the logical consequences of our original will to
believe in the ideal as the proper goal of action. Our belief in the
ideal is thus shown to be the principle from which our subsequent acts
of will can be logically deduced, just as Nature's uniformity can be
shown to be the principle from which the conclusions of science
logically flow.
But it may be doubted whether this logical order of ideas is the
chronological order of events. As a matter of fact, we go through a
number of struggles and temptations long before we reflect, if ever we
do reflect, upon them in such a way as to see what is the general
principle logically implied by our repeated if intermittent resistance
to temptation, just as a child acts in a way that for its logical
justification would require a formal recognition of the uniformity of
Nature, though the infant of two years, or less, does not formulate that
principle as a condition precedent of crying for its food or its nurse.
Chronologically, then, the will to act seems to precede the will to
believe in the uniformity of Nature, and in the case of most human
beings is never followed by any fully conscious formulation of the
principle on which we act as an abstract principle in which to believe.
That fact, however, does not in the least detract from the value which
the formulation of the abstract principle has: when formulated it
becomes in the hands of science as Ithuriel's spear for the detection of
lingering superstitions and confusions of thought--
"for no falsehood can endure
Touch of celestial temper, but returns
Of force to its own likeness."
At touch of the question, "Does it contradict the uniformity of Nature?"
error is seen for what it is, and is exploded sooner thus than in any
other way.
The ideal of truth, then, with its "celestial temper," is logically
implicit in the earliest acts of will, but chronologically is developed
in consciousness later, if indeed and when it reaches that later stage
of its evolution from the potential to the actual. The ideals of
morality and religion, again, though equally implicit in the acts of
will which form their earliest manifestation, are, as a rule, both in
the individual and the race, more slowly evolved from the particulars in
which they are immersed. The period of their gestation is longer, and
results in the birth of a higher organism.
Thus, when we reach the age of reflection, whenever it may come, we wake
up to find that we have been acting as though we had beliefs, when, as
in our infancy, we could have had no beliefs, and as though we willed
our actions, at a time when we can scarcely be said to have had any will
in the matter. For years we have been acting as we should have done
supposing that we had believed certain things and had willed our action
accordingly. When we wake up to this state of things the question is,
Are we bound to go on in this way? are we bound now to believe as well
as to act as though we believed in God, morality, and Nature's
uniformity? Does the fact that our physiological and psychological
mechanism has been started--perhaps by Nature's cosmic forces, perhaps
by the social environment, certainly not by us--to run in certain
grooves, prove either that we ought or that we must continue to run the
particular organism we are in charge of on the same lines? The agnostic
and the atheist exercise their freedom of will to say No. They claim the
right and exercise the power of free choice. The agnostic, further, is
fully aware that in choosing to believe the uniformity of Nature his
choice is not determined by evidence--it is "a great act of faith," no
amount of evidence could justify it, the only evidence anyone can bring
to justify his belief in the general abstract principle is the fact that
he does believe it in every concrete, particular instance. In a word, he
believes it because he chooses to believe it--and that is exactly what
is meant by the dictum, which he finds it so hard to understand, that
his will is self-determining.
When it comes to the question of morality and religion, the agnostic
again exercises his freedom of choice: he wills to believe in the former
and not in the latter--the evidence for and against either being equally
_nil_. It is not, therefore, the evidence which determines his choice;
and he shows that it is not his previous history, not the momentum which
his psychological mechanism gained during the period when he had no
conscious or no self-conscious control over it, which determines his
choice, for in the first place he denies that it ought or must influence
him, and next he shows that it does not, by willing differently in the
case of the two principles. In both cases his will is equally
self-determining, though his will is to believe in the moral principle
or ideal and not to believe in the religious.
If we wish either to define progress or to make it, we must choose,
arbitrarily or otherwise, some particular goal and say, definitely and
decidedly, any movement which being continued in the same straight line
leads to that goal is progress, every other movement is regress, being
necessarily away from the goal. If we choose, by a great act of faith or
otherwise, to say the ideal is the goal, then we have therein a
principle both of belief and action: we have a standard by which to test
everything offered for judgment, a general principle to apply to every
particular case; and we have an object to aim at, a principle to carry
out in every act of our lives, an ideal to strive for. But whether we
choose the ideal as the goal or something else, our choice is the free
act of a self-determining will. Progress, on the human side, is--as
indeed is regress--the expression of the free will of human beings,
whose choice, though free, is limited to the alternatives offered to
them. Those alternatives reduce themselves ultimately to aiming at the
ideal or at something else.
What, then, of the environment, of the cosmos, in which man finds
himself, in which he has to act and may act so as to advance or not to
advance towards the ideal? To begin with, we may distinguish between
those forces in the cosmos which man can to some extent control, and
those over which he has no control. The former, from this point of view,
the point of view of action, are means whereby man secures his ends: his
regulation of them effects that adaptation _of_ the environment which,
according to Professor Huxley, is essential to ethical progress. Now, as
a matter of observed fact, no one doubts that the advance which
civilised man has made in controlling the forces of Nature is due to
science and to civilised man's devotion to the scientific ideal of
truth. Even the savage made what little progress he did make in this
direction by acting fitfully and unconsciously, or at the most
semi-consciously, on the principle of the uniformity of Nature: the
savage was faithful in little things to the scientific ideal--which was
revealed to him but dimly--the _savant_ is fully conscious of the
principle on which he acts, walks in its light, and strives by example
and precept to save his fellow-men from relapsing into the darkness of
error and superstition. It is not merely because of the material
advantages, the comforts and luxuries, which science indirectly secures
to mankind, that the man of science devotes himself to the scientific
ideal and seeks to make it universal: it is for the sacred cause of
truth. In a word, what at first sight presents itself merely as a
principle of the scientific reason, proves, in the conception of those
who have spent their lives in endeavouring to seek the scientific ideal
and to ensue it, to be a manifestation of the moral reason, to be not
merely in harmony with the moral ideal, but to have been its harbinger,
making the way straight for it. Belief which implies a violation of the
uniformity of Nature is denounced not because it violates a scientific
principle, but because it is immoral, a pretence, and a lie. The final
cause of science is thus made out to be to subserve the moral ideal, to
secure that adaptation of the environment without which ethical progress
is impossible. The labour of adapting his environment would have for man
as a rational being no sufficient reason if it did not tend to realise
his moral ideal. Man may use his science and the power of adapting his
environment for other than moral ends; but such use is not, according to
this view, progress. In other words, it is not science or the scientific
ideal alone which enables us to lay down the line of progress, but
science and morality together: one point cannot give us our direction,
but the line which connects two points may.
Thus far, then, by taking the environment into consideration, we seem to
have introduced no new factor into our conception of progress. It seems
that when I wake up from childhood's slumber I find myself surrounded by
men who believe that they can do certain things--make rain, send
telegraphic messages, etc.; and I am told that if certain
assumptions--that there is a God, that Nature is uniform, etc.--be
true, then it will be well for me to behave in a certain way. But what
if the assumptions be not true? My elders tell me that experience--in
the individual, in the race, enlarged by science and the theory of
evolution--shows it is quite safe to assume that they are true, at any
rate as a provisional hypothesis. Of course, if the future is going to
resemble the past, then experience of the past is a good guide to the
future: but that is just the question, _is_ the future going to resemble
the past? In other words, what attitude am I to assume towards my
environment, the cosmos? Am I to assume that it will work, and for
countless ages has worked, in such a way as to make it possible for me,
with some co-operation on my part, to do things which my elders tell me
are desirable and which I feel for myself I should rather like to do?
If I assume that the cosmic power does work thus, in such a way that I
can know the truth and do the right, and love the Power that gives me
the chance and makes it possible, even for me, so to do, I am only
exercising the will to believe in that principle which is logically
implied by every act of the scientific or moral life.
It is the common faith of mankind that experience may be trusted; and it
is the common experience of mankind that progress is approximation to
the ideals of truth, of goodness, and of love. It is not the common
experience of mankind that all men or all peoples approximate equally
to those ideals. The measure of progress is to be found in the clearness
and consistency with which men have carried out in science the principle
of the uniformity of Nature, in their dealings with their fellow-men the
principles of morality, in their dealings with the supernatural the
principle of love.
Science, and especially the theory of evolution, has enormously extended
our inferential experience, but it has done so only by accepting the
common faith that experience may be trusted, that is to say, that the
environment, the cosmos, is trustworthy within our experience of it.
When, then, the optimist alleges that the process of evolution has been,
on the whole, a course of progress, he is but showing that the common
faith in the trustworthiness of the reality in which we move and have
our being justifies itself. But he does not show us, nor does science
show us, why the real, the cosmos, is trustworthy: he ends by showing
that it is trustworthy because he began, like all of us, by trusting it.
He is quite right: it is the only way in which to demonstrate that
either science, or morality, or religion is trustworthy--by giving our
faith, to start with. Only when we are satisfied as to the fact can we
profitably inquire the reason; and the reason is to be found only in the
nature of the real, as revealed to us in the sum total of our
experience, scientific, moral, and religious. But the will to believe
that experience and to trust the real which it reveals, is free: if a
man will not accept it as trustworthy, there is for him no reason why.
The case is different with the man who does accept the testimony of
consciousness as evidence of the reality to which it testifies. For him
the one reality is Will, and the ideals of science, morality, and
religion are the expressions of that Will. In accepting them as the
principles of thought and action he does not learn what is the purpose
of evolution, the final cause of the cosmos: he chooses to believe that,
by so accepting them and by striving to realise the ideal, he is
fulfilling the Divine Will and contributing his share to the realisation
of the rational purpose to which, he assumes, the process of evolution
is tending.
But in so doing he does not renounce his freedom: his resolution to
believe is an exercise of his free will, an act, "a great act," of
faith. If carried into effect in his daily life, his resolution, daily
renewed and ever free, may in the end become a daily act of love, and
then he will understand the reason why the cosmos, or the cosmic power,
is trustworthy. Only love of man could have given man, as his ideals, to
know the truth and do the right. Only if man's ideals are so given is
the cosmos trustworthy--if it is trustworthy. If it is not, then there
is no truth to know, no right to do, no inference can be drawn from the
past to the future, for the past, even of a minute ago, may be a
delusion.
But though the will to believe that the cosmos is untrustworthy cannot
in practice be carried out in all its logical (or illogical)
conclusions, it can be and is acted on intermittently, and such action
is regress. So far as it is carried out, it is the negation of progress;
if it could be carried out completely and by all men, there would be an
end of progress; science, morality, and religion would be extinguished;
evil would triumph over good. The history of evolution shows that, as a
matter of fact, such unfaith in the reality of our ideals has been only
intermittent; for the course of evolution has been, on the whole,
progress. Individual experience shows that there comes a point, soon or
late, at which the will, acting freely, refuses to go further with its
rejection of morality: there are some things which even a bad man will
not do--however oddly they may seem chosen. In theory, in philosophy,
there is a point at which the will refuses to go further with its
rejection of the common reason, in which all men share: there are some
things which even the sceptic refuses to disbelieve, _e.g._ those which
are necessary to his conviction that nothing can be believed.