them to this or that individual who belongs to the school which gives them
currency; but what I read about the “gratification” of keeping pace in our
scientific researches with “the Architect of Nature;” about the said
gratification “giving a dignity and importance to the enjoyment of life,”
and teaching us that knowledge and our duties to society are the only
earthly objects worth our notice, all this, I own it, Gentlemen, frightens
me; nor is Dr. Maltby’s address to the Deity sufficient to reassure me. I
do not see much difference between avowing that there is no God, and
implying that nothing definite can for certain be known about Him; and
when I find Religious Education treated as the cultivation of sentiment,
and Religious Belief as the accidental hue or posture of the mind, I am
reluctantly but forcibly reminded of a very unpleasant page of
Metaphysics, viz., of the relations between God and Nature insinuated by
such philosophers as Hume. This acute, though most low-minded of
speculators, in his inquiry concerning the Human Understanding,
introduces, as is well known, Epicurus, that is, a teacher of atheism,
delivering an harangue to the Athenian people, not indeed in defence, but
in extenuation of that opinion. His object is to show that, whereas the
atheistic view is nothing else than the repudiation of theory, and an
accurate representation of phenomenon and fact, it cannot be dangerous,
unless phenomenon and fact be dangerous. Epicurus is made to say, that the
paralogism of philosophy has ever been that of arguing from Nature in
behalf of something beyond Nature, greater than Nature; whereas, God, as
he maintains, being known only through the visible world, our knowledge of
Him is absolutely commensurate with our knowledge of it,—is nothing
distinct from it,—is but a mode of viewing it. Hence it follows that,
provided we admit, as we cannot help admitting, the phenomena of Nature
and the world, it is only a question of words whether or not we go on to
the hypothesis of a second Being, not visible but immaterial, parallel and
coincident with Nature, to whom we give the name of God. “Allowing,” he
says, “the gods to be the authors of the existence or order of the
universe, it follows that they possess that precise degree of power,
intelligence, and benevolence, which appears in their workmanship; but
nothing farther can be proved, except we call in the assistance of
exaggeration and flattery to supply the defects of argument and reasoning.
So far as the traces of any attributes, at present, appear, so far may we
conclude these attributes to exist. The supposition of farther attributes
is mere hypothesis; much more the supposition that, in distant periods of
place and time, there has been, or will be, a more magnificent display of
these attributes, and a scheme of administration more suitable to such
imaginary virtues.”
Here is a reasoner, who would not hesitate to deny that there is any
distinct science or philosophy possible concerning the Supreme Being;
since every single thing we know of Him is this or that or the other
phenomenon, material or moral, which already falls under this or that
natural science. In him then it would be only consistent to drop Theology
in a course of University Education: but how is it consistent in any one
who shrinks from his companionship? I am glad to see that the author,
several times mentioned, is in opposition to Hume, in one sentence of the
quotation I have made from his Discourse upon Science, deciding, as he
does, that the phenomena of the material world are insufficient for the
full exhibition of the Divine Attributes, and implying that they require a
supplemental process to complete and harmonize their evidence. But is not
this supplemental process a science? and if so, why not acknowledge its
existence? If God is more than Nature, Theology claims a place among the
sciences: but, on the other hand, if you are not sure of as much as this,
how do you differ from Hume or Epicurus?
9.
I end then as I began: religious doctrine is knowledge. This is the
important truth, little entered into at this day, which I wish that all
who have honoured me with their presence here would allow me to beg them
to take away with them. I am not catching at sharp arguments, but laying
down grave principles. Religious doctrine is knowledge, in as full a sense
as Newton’s doctrine is knowledge. University Teaching without Theology is
simply unphilosophical. Theology has at least as good a right to claim a
place there as Astronomy.
In my next Discourse it will be my object to show that its omission from
the list of recognised sciences is not only indefensible in itself, but
prejudicial to all the rest.
Discourse III.
Bearing Of Theology On Other Branches Of Knowledge.
1.
When men of great intellect, who have long and intently and exclusively
given themselves to the study or investigation of some one particular
branch of secular knowledge, whose mental life is concentrated and hidden
in their chosen pursuit, and who have neither eyes nor ears for any thing
which does not immediately bear upon it, when such men are at length made
to realize that there is a clamour all around them, which must be heard,
for what they have been so little accustomed to place in the category of
knowledge as Religion, and that they themselves are accused of
disaffection to it, they are impatient at the interruption; they call the
demand tyrannical, and the requisitionists bigots or fanatics. They are
tempted to say, that their only wish is to be let alone; for themselves,
they are not dreaming of offending any one, or interfering with any one;
they are pursuing their own particular line, they have never spoken a word
against any one’s religion, whoever he may be, and never mean to do so. It
does not follow that they deny the existence of a God, because they are
not found talking of it, when the topic would be utterly irrelevant. All
they say is, that there are other beings in the world besides the Supreme
Being; their business is with them. After all, the creation is not the
Creator, nor things secular religious. Theology and human science are two
things, not one, and have their respective provinces, contiguous it may be
and cognate to each other, but not identical. When we are contemplating
earth, we are not contemplating heaven; and when we are contemplating
heaven, we are not contemplating earth. Separate subjects should be
treated separately. As division of labour, so division of thought is the
only means of successful application. “Let us go our own way,” they say,
“and you go yours. We do not pretend to lecture on Theology, and you have
no claim to pronounce upon Science.”
With this feeling they attempt a sort of compromise, between their
opponents who claim for Theology a free introduction into the Schools of
Science, and themselves who would exclude it altogether, and it is this:
viz., that it should remain indeed excluded from the public schools, but
that it should be permitted in private, wherever a sufficient number of
persons is found to desire it. Such persons, they seem to say, may have it
all their own way, when they are by themselves, so that they do not
attempt to disturb a comprehensive system of instruction, acceptable and
useful to all, by the intrusion of opinions peculiar to their own minds.
I am now going to attempt a philosophical answer to this representation,
that is, to the project of teaching secular knowledge in the University
Lecture Room, and remanding religious knowledge to the parish priest, the
catechism, and the parlour; and in doing so, you must pardon me,
Gentlemen, if my subject should oblige me to pursue a lengthy and careful
course of thought, which may be wearisome to the hearer:—I begin then
thus:—
2.
Truth is the object of Knowledge of whatever kind; and when we inquire
what is meant by Truth, I suppose it is right to answer that Truth means
facts and their relations, which stand towards each other pretty much as
subjects and predicates in logic. All that exists, as contemplated by the
human mind, forms one large system or complex fact, and this of course
resolves itself into an indefinite number of particular facts, which, as
being portions of a whole, have countless relations of every kind, one
towards another. Knowledge is the apprehension of these facts, whether in
themselves, or in their mutual positions and bearings. And, as all taken
together form one integral subject for contemplation, so there are no
natural or real limits between part and part; one is ever running into
another; all, as viewed by the mind, are combined together, and possess a
correlative character one with another, from the internal mysteries of the
Divine Essence down to our own sensations and consciousness, from the most
solemn appointments of the Lord of all down to what may be called the
accident of the hour, from the most glorious seraph down to the vilest and
most noxious of reptiles.
Now, it is not wonderful that, with all its capabilities, the human mind
cannot take in this whole vast fact at a single glance, or gain possession
of it at once. Like a short-sighted reader, its eye pores closely, and
travels slowly, over the awful volume which lies open for its inspection.
Or again, as we deal with some huge structure of many parts and sides, the
mind goes round about it, noting down, first one thing, then another, as
it best may, and viewing it under different aspects, by way of making
progress towards mastering the whole. So by degrees and by circuitous
advances does it rise aloft and subject to itself a knowledge of that
universe into which it has been born.
These various partial views or abstractions, by means of which the mind
looks out upon its object, are called sciences, and embrace respectively
larger or smaller portions of the field of knowledge; sometimes extending
far and wide, but superficially, sometimes with exactness over particular
departments, sometimes occupied together on one and the same portion,
sometimes holding one part in common, and then ranging on this side or
that in absolute divergence one from the other. Thus Optics has for its
subject the whole visible creation, so far forth as it is simply visible;
Mental Philosophy has a narrower province, but a richer one. Astronomy,
plane and physical, each has the same subject-matter, but views it or
treats it differently; lastly, Geology and Comparative Anatomy have
subject-matters partly the same, partly distinct. Now these views or
sciences, as being abstractions, have far more to do with the relations of
things than with things themselves. They tell us what things are, only or
principally by telling us their relations, or assigning predicates to
subjects; and therefore they never tell us all that can be said about a
thing, even when they tell something, nor do they bring it before us, as
the senses do. They arrange and classify facts; they reduce separate
phenomena under a common law; they trace effects to a cause. Thus they
serve to transfer our knowledge from the custody of memory to the surer
and more abiding protection of philosophy, thereby providing both for its
spread and its advance:—for, inasmuch as sciences are forms of knowledge,
they enable the intellect to master and increase it; and, inasmuch as they
are instruments, to communicate it readily to others. Still, after all,
they proceed on the principle of a division of labour, even though that
division is an abstraction, not a literal separation into parts; and, as
the maker of a bridle or an epaulet has not, on that account, any idea of
the science of tactics or strategy, so in a parallel way, it is not every
science which equally, nor any one which fully, enlightens the mind in the
knowledge of things, as they are, or brings home to it the external object
on which it wishes to gaze. Thus they differ in importance; and according
to their importance will be their influence, not only on the mass of
knowledge to which they all converge and contribute, but on each other.
Since then sciences are the results of mental processes about one and the
same subject-matter, viewed under its various aspects, and are true
results, as far as they go, yet at the same time separate and partial, it
follows that on the one hand they need external assistance, one by one, by
reason of their incompleteness, and on the other that they are able to
afford it to each other, by reason, first, of their independence in
themselves, and then of their connexion in their subject-matter. Viewed
altogether, they approximate to a representation or subjective reflection
of the objective truth, as nearly as is possible to the human mind, which
advances towards the accurate apprehension of that object, in proportion
to the number of sciences which it has mastered; and which, when certain
sciences are away, in such a case has but a defective apprehension, in
proportion to the value of the sciences which are thus wanting, and the
importance of the field on which they are employed.
3.
Let us take, for instance, man himself as our object of contemplation;
then at once we shall find we can view him in a variety of relations; and
according to those relations are the sciences of which he is the
subject-matter, and according to our acquaintance with them is our
possession of a true knowledge of him. We may view him in relation to the
material elements of his body, or to his mental constitution, or to his
household and family, or to the community in which he lives, or to the
Being who made him; and in consequence we treat of him respectively as
physiologists, or as moral philosophers, or as writers of economics, or of
politics, or as theologians. When we think of him in all these relations
together, or as the subject at once of all the sciences I have named, then
we may be said to reach unto and rest in the idea of man as an object or
external fact, similar to that which the eye takes of his outward form. On
the other hand, according as we are only physiologists, or only
politicians, or only moralists, so is our idea of man more or less unreal;
we do not take in the whole of him, and the defect is greater or less, in
proportion as the relation is, or is not, important, which is omitted,
whether his relation to God, or to his king, or to his children, or to his
own component parts. And if there be one relation, about which we know
nothing at all except that it exists, then is our knowledge of him,
confessedly and to our own consciousness, deficient and partial, and that,
I repeat, in proportion to the importance of the relation.
That therefore is true of sciences in general which we are apt to think
applies only to pure mathematics, though to pure mathematics it applies
especially, viz., that they cannot be considered as simple representations
or informants of things as they are. We are accustomed to say, and say
truly, that the conclusions of pure mathematics are applied, corrected,
and adapted, by mixed; but so too the conclusions of Anatomy, Chemistry,
Dynamics, and other sciences, are revised and completed by each other.
Those several conclusions do not represent whole and substantive things,
but views, true, so far as they go; and in order to ascertain how far they
do go, that is, how far they correspond to the object to which they
belong, we must compare them with the views taken out of that object by
other sciences. Did we proceed upon the abstract theory of forces, we
should assign a much more ample range to a projectile than in fact the
resistance of the air allows it to accomplish. Let, however, that
resistance be made the subject of scientific analysis, and then we shall
have a new science, assisting, and to a certain point completing, for the
benefit of questions of fact, the science of projection. On the other
hand, the science of projection itself, considered as belonging to the
forces it contemplates, is not more perfect, as such, by this
supplementary investigation. And in like manner, as regards the whole
circle of sciences, one corrects another for purposes of fact, and one
without the other cannot dogmatize, except hypothetically and upon its own
abstract principles. For instance, the Newtonian philosophy requires the
admission of certain metaphysical postulates, if it is to be more than a
theory or an hypothesis; as, for instance, that what happened yesterday
will happen to-morrow; that there is such a thing as matter, that our
senses are trustworthy, that there is a logic of induction, and so on. Now
to Newton metaphysicians grant all that he asks; but, if so be, they may
not prove equally accommodating to another who asks something else, and
then all his most logical conclusions in the science of physics would
remain hopelessly on the stocks, though finished, and never could be
launched into the sphere of fact.
Again, did I know nothing about the movement of bodies, except what the
theory of gravitation supplies, were I simply absorbed in that theory so
as to make it measure all motion on earth and in the sky, I should indeed
come to many right conclusions, I should hit off many important facts,
ascertain many existing relations, and correct many popular errors: I
should scout and ridicule with great success the old notion, that light
bodies flew up and heavy bodies fell down; but I should go on with equal
confidence to deny the phenomenon of capillary attraction. Here I should
be wrong, but only because I carried out my science irrespectively of
other sciences. In like manner, did I simply give myself to the
investigation of the external action of body upon body, I might scoff at
the very idea of chemical affinities and combinations, and reject it as
simply unintelligible. Were I a mere chemist, I should deny the influence
of mind upon bodily health; and so on, as regards the devotees of any
science, or family of sciences, to the exclusion of others; they
necessarily become bigots and quacks, scorning all principles and reported
facts which do not belong to their own pursuit, and thinking to effect
everything without aid from any other quarter. Thus, before now, chemistry
has been substituted for medicine; and again, political economy, or
intellectual enlightenment, or the reading of the Scriptures, has been
cried up as a panacea against vice, malevolence, and misery.
4.
Summing up, Gentlemen, what I have said, I lay it down that all knowledge
forms one whole, because its subject-matter is one; for the universe in
its length and breadth is so intimately knit together, that we cannot
separate off portion from portion, and operation from operation, except by
a mental abstraction; and then again, as to its Creator, though He of
course in His own Being is infinitely separate from it, and Theology has
its departments towards which human knowledge has no relations, yet He has
so implicated Himself with it, and taken it into His very bosom, by His
presence in it, His providence over it, His impressions upon it, and His
influences through it, that we cannot truly or fully contemplate it
without in some main aspects contemplating Him. Next, sciences are the
results of that mental abstraction, which I have spoken of, being the
logical record of this or that aspect of the whole subject-matter of
knowledge. As they all belong to one and the same circle of objects, they
are one and all connected together; as they are but aspects of things,
they are severally incomplete in their relation to the things themselves,
though complete in their own idea and for their own respective purposes;
on both accounts they at once need and subserve each other. And further,
the comprehension of the bearings of one science on another, and the use
of each to each, and the location and limitation and adjustment and due
appreciation of them all, one with another, this belongs, I conceive, to a
sort of science distinct from all of them, and in some sense a science of
sciences, which is my own conception of what is meant by Philosophy, in
the true sense of the word, and of a philosophical habit of mind, and
which in these Discourses I shall call by that name. This is what I have
to say about knowledge and philosophical knowledge generally; and now I
proceed to apply it to the particular science, which has led me to draw it
out.
I say, then, that the systematic omission of any one science from the
catalogue prejudices the accuracy and completeness of our knowledge
altogether, and that, in proportion to its importance. Not even Theology
itself, though it comes from heaven, though its truths were given once for
all at the first, though they are more certain on account of the Giver
than those of mathematics, not even Theology, so far as it is relative to
us, or is the Science of Religion, do I exclude from the law to which
every mental exercise is subject, viz., from that imperfection, which ever
must attend the abstract, when it would determine the concrete. Nor do I
speak only of Natural Religion; for even the teaching of the Catholic
Church, in certain of its aspects, that is, its religious teaching, is
variously influenced by the other sciences. Not to insist on the
introduction of the Aristotelic philosophy into its phraseology, its
explanation of dogmas is influenced by ecclesiastical acts or events; its
interpretations of prophecy are directly affected by the issues of
history; its comments upon Scripture by the conclusions of the astronomer
and the geologist; and its casuistical decisions by the various
experience, political, social, and psychological, with which times and
places are ever supplying it.
What Theology gives, it has a right to take; or rather, the interests of
Truth oblige it to take. If we would not be beguiled by dreams, if we
would ascertain facts as they are, then, granting Theology is a real
science, we cannot exclude it, and still call ourselves philosophers. I
have asserted nothing as yet as to the pre-eminent dignity of Religious
Truth; I only say, if there be Religious Truth at all, we cannot shut our
eyes to it without prejudice to truth of every kind, physical,
metaphysical, historical, and moral; for it bears upon all truth. And thus
I answer the objection with which I opened this Discourse. I supposed the
question put to me by a philosopher of the day, “Why cannot you go your
way, and let us go ours?” I answer, in the name of the Science of
Religion, “When Newton can dispense with the metaphysician, then may you
dispense with us.” So much at first sight; now I am going on to claim a
little more for Theology, by classing it with branches of knowledge which
may with greater decency be compared to it.
5.
Let us see, then, how this supercilious treatment of so momentous a
science, for momentous it must be, if there be a God, runs in a somewhat
parallel case. The great philosopher of antiquity, when he would enumerate
the causes of the things that take place in the world, after making
mention of those which he considered to be physical and material, adds,
“and the mind and everything which is by means of man.”(8) Certainly; it
would have been a preposterous course, when he would trace the effects he
saw around him to their respective sources, had he directed his exclusive
attention upon some one class or order of originating principles, and
ascribed to these everything which happened anywhere. It would indeed have
been unworthy a genius so curious, so penetrating, so fertile, so
analytical as Aristotle’s, to have laid it down that everything on the
face of the earth could be accounted for by the material sciences, without
the hypothesis of moral agents. It is incredible that in the investigation
of physical results he could ignore so influential a being as man, or
forget that, not only brute force and elemental movement, but knowledge
also is power. And this so much the more, inasmuch as moral and spiritual
agents belong to another, not to say a higher, order than physical; so
that the omission supposed would not have been merely an oversight in
matters of detail, but a philosophical error, and a fault in division.
However, we live in an age of the world when the career of science and
literature is little affected by what was done, or would have been done,
by this venerable authority; so, we will suppose, in England or Ireland,
in the middle of the nineteenth century, a set of persons of name and
celebrity to meet together, in spite of Aristotle, in order to adopt a
line of proceeding which they conceive the circumstances of the time
render imperative. We will suppose that a difficulty just now besets the
enunciation and discussion of all matters of science, in consequence of
the extreme sensitiveness of large classes of the community, clergy and
laymen, on the subjects of necessity, responsibility, the standard of
morals, and the nature of virtue. Parties run so high, that the only way
of avoiding constant quarrelling in defence of this or that side of the
question is, in the judgment of the persons I am supposing, to shut up the
subject of anthropology altogether. This is accordingly done. Henceforth
man is to be as if he were not, in the general course of Education; the
moral and mental sciences are to have no professorial chairs, and the
treatment of them is to be simply left as a matter of private judgment,
which each individual may carry out as he will. I can just fancy such a
prohibition abstractedly possible; but one thing I cannot fancy possible,
viz., that the parties in question, after this sweeping act of exclusion,
should forthwith send out proposals on the basis of such exclusion for
publishing an Encyclopædia, or erecting a National University.