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THE RELATIONS
BETWEEN
RELIGION AND SCIENCE
EIGHT LECTURES
PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
IN THE YEAR 1884
ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M.A.
CANON OF SALISBURY
BY THE RIGHT REV.
FREDERICK, LORD BISHOP OF EXETER
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1903
_First Edition_, 8vo, 1884.
_Reprinted January and February (twice)_, 1885, _April_, 1885;
_Re-issue_ (_Crown_ 8vo), _November_, 1885, 1903.
OXFORD: HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
EXTRACT
THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
OF THE LATE
REV. JOHN BAMPTON,
CANON OF SALISBURY.
--"I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the Chancellor, Masters,
and Scholars of the University of Oxford for ever, to have and to hold
all and singular the said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the
intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned; that is to say, I will and
appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford for the
time being shall take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits
thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions
made) that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of eight Divinity
Lecture Sermons, to be established for ever in the said University, and
to be performed in the manner following:
"I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter Term, a
Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges only, and by no
others, in the room adjoining to the Printing-House, between the hours
of ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity
Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between
the commencement of the last month in Lent Term, and the end of the
third week in Act Term.
"Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons
shall be preached upon either of the following Subjects--to confirm and
establish the Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics and
schismatics--upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures--upon the
authority of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and
practice of the primitive Church--upon the Divinity of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ--upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost--upon the
Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in the Apostles' and
Nicene Creeds.
"Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons
shall be always printed, within two months after they are preached; and
one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the University, and one
copy to the Head of every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city
of Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library; and the
expenses of printing them shall be paid out of the revenue of the Land
or Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the
preacher shall not be paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they
are printed.
"Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to preach
the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the degree of Master
of Arts at least, in one of the two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge;
and that the same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons
twice."
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC BELIEF.
Psalm civ. 24.
_O Lord, how manifold are Thy works: in wisdom hast Thou made them all;
the earth is full of Thy riches._
The subject introduced: Scientific belief. Mathematics and Metaphysics
excluded. The Postulate of Science: the Uniformity of Nature. Hume's
account of it. Kant's account of it. Insufficiency of both accounts.
Science traced back to observation of the Human Will. The development of
Science from this origin. The increasing generality of the Postulate:
which nevertheless can never attain to universality.
LECTURE II.
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.
Genesis i. 27.
_So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He
him._
The voice within. The objection of the alleged relativity of knowledge.
Absolute knowledge of our own personal identity. Failure to show this to
be relative; in particular by Mr. Herbert Spencer. The Moral Law. The
command to live according to that Law; Duty. The command to believe in
the supremacy of that Law; the lower Faith. The Last Judgment. The hope
of Immortality. The personification of the Moral Law in Almighty God;
the higher Faith. The spiritual faculty the recipient of Revelation, if
any be made. The contrast between Religion and Science.
LECTURE III.
APPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION ON FREE-WILL.
Genesis i. 27.
_So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He
him._
Contradiction of Free-Will to doctrine of Uniformity. Butler's
examination of the question. Hume's solution. Kant's solution.
Determinism. The real result of examination of the facts. Interference
of the will always possible, but comparatively rare. The need of a fixed
nature for our self-discipline, and so for our spiritual life.
LECTURE IV.
APPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION.
Romans i. 20.
_For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His
eternal power and Godhead._
Foundation of the doctrine of Evolution. Great development in recent
times. Objection felt by many religious men. Alleged to destroy argument
from design. Paley's argument examined. Doctrine of Evolution adds force
to the argument, and removes objections to it. Argument from progress;
from beauty; from unity. The conflict not real.
LECTURE V.
REVELATION THE MEANS OF DEVELOPING AND COMPLETING SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.
Hebrews i. 1.
_God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to
the Fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by His
Son._
The evolution of Knowledge. Does not affect the truth of Science. Nor of
Religion. Special characteristic of evolution of Religious Knowledge,
that it is due to Revelation. All higher Religions have claimed to be
Revelations. The evolution of Religious Knowledge in the Old Testament;
yet the Old Testament a Revelation. Still more the New Testament. The
miraculous element in Revelation. Its place and need. Harmony of this
mode of evolution with the teaching of the Spiritual Faculty.
LECTURE VI.
APPARENT COLLISION BETWEEN RELIGION AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION.
Psalm c. 3.
_Know ye that the Lord He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we
ourselves._
Evolution examined. The formation of the habitable world. The formation
of the creatures which inhabit it. Transmission of characteristics.
Variations perpetually introduced. Natural selection. On the other side,
life not yet accounted for by Evolution. Cause of variations not yet
examined. Moral Law incapable of being evolved. Account given in Genesis
not at variance with doctrine of Evolution. Evolution of man not
inconsistent with dignity of humanity.
LECTURE VII.
APPARENT COLLISION OF SCIENCE WITH THE CLAIM TO SUPERNATURAL POWER.
St. John xiv. 11.
_Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else
believe Me for the very works' sake._
The claim to work miracles parallel to the freedom of the will. The
miracles of Revelation need not be miracles of Science. Our Lord's
Resurrection, and His miracles of healing, possibly not miraculous in
the scientific sense. Different aspect of miracles now and at the time
when the Revelation was given. Miracles attested by the Apostles, by our
Lord's character, by our Lord's power. Nature of evidence required to
prove miracles; not such as to put physical above spiritual evidence;
not such as to be unsuited to their own day. Impossibility of
demonstrating universal uniformity. Revelation no obstacle to the
progress of Science.
LECTURE VIII.
THE CONCLUSION OF THE ARGUMENT.
1 Corinthians xii. 3.
_No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost._
Uniformity of nature not demonstrated, but established, except in two
cases; the interference of human will and of Divine Will. The exception
no bar to the progress of Science. Unity to be found not in the physical
world, but in the physical and moral combined. The Moral Law rests on
itself. Our recognition of it on our own character and choice. But we
expect it to show its marks in the physical world: and these are the
purpose visible in Creation, the effects produced by Revelation.
Nevertheless a demand for more physical evidence; but the physical
cannot be allowed to overshadow the spiritual. Dangers to believers from
leaning this way: superstition; blindness; stagnation. The guarantee for
spiritual perceptiveness: to take Jesus as the Lord of the conscience,
the heart, the will.
LECTURE I.
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC BELIEF.
The subject introduced: Scientific belief. Mathematics and Metaphysics
excluded. The Postulate of Science: the Uniformity of Nature. Hume's
account of it. Kant's account of it. Insufficiency of both accounts.
Science traced back to observation of the Human Will. The development of
Science from this origin. The increasing generality of the Postulate:
which nevertheless can never attain to universality.
LECTURE I.
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC BELIEF.
'O Lord, how manifold are Thy works: in wisdom hast Thou made them
all; the earth is full of Thy riches.'--_Psalm_ civ. 24.
Those who believe that the creation and government of the world are the
work of a Being Whom it is their duty to love with all their hearts, Who
loves them with a love beyond all other love, to Whom they look for
guidance now and unending happiness hereafter, have a double motive for
studying the forms and operations of Nature; because over and above
whatever they may gain of the purest and highest pleasure in the study,
and whatever men may gain of material comfort in a thousand forms from
the results of the study, they cannot but have always present to their
minds the thought, that all these things are revelations of His
character, and to know them is in a very real measure to know Him. The
believer in God, if he have the faculty and the opportunity, cannot find
a more proper employment of time and labour and thought than the study
of the ways in which God works and the things which God has made. Among
religious men we ought to expect to find the most patient, the most
truth-seeking, the most courageous of men of science.
We know that it is not always so; and that on the contrary Science and
Religion seem very often to be the most determined foes to each other
that can be found. The scientific man often asserts that he cannot find
God in Science; and the religious man often asserts that he cannot find
Science in God. Each often believes himself to be in possession, if not
of the whole truth, at any rate of all the truth that it is most
important to possess. Science seems to despise religion; and religion to
fear and condemn Science. Religion, which certainly ought to put truth
at the highest, is charged with refusing to acknowledge truth that has
been proved. And Science, which certainly ought to insist on
demonstrating every assertion which it makes, is charged with giving the
rein to the imagination and treating the merest speculations as
well-established facts.
To propose to reconcile these opposites would be a task which hardly any
sane man would undertake. It would imply a claim to be able to rise at
once above both, and see the truth which included all that both could
teach. But it is a very useful undertaking, and not beyond the reach of
thoughtful inquiry by an ordinary man, to examine the relations between
the two, and thus to help not a few to find a way for themselves out of
the perplexity. And this inquiry may well begin by asking what is the
origin and nature of scientific belief on the one hand and of religious
belief on the other. In this Lecture I propose to deal with the former.
It is not necessary to include in the Science of which I am to speak
either Mathematics or Metaphysics. In as far as I need touch on what
belongs to either, it will be only for the purpose of answering
objections or of excluding what is irrelevant. And the consequent
restriction of our consideration to the Science which concerns itself
with Nature greatly simplifies the task that I have undertaken. For it
will be at once admitted in the present day by all but a very few that
the source of all scientific knowledge of this kind is to be found in
the observations of the senses, including under that word both the
bodily senses which tell us all we know of things external, and that
internal sense by which we know all or nearly all that takes place
within the mind itself. And so also will it be admitted that the Supreme
Postulate, without which scientific knowledge is impossible, is the
Uniformity of Nature.
Science lays claim to no revelations. No voice of authority declares
what substances there are in the world, what are the properties of those
substances, what are the effects and operations of those properties. No
traditions handed down from past ages can do anything more than transmit
to us observations made in those times, which, so far as we can trust
them, we may add to the observations made in our own times. The
materials in short which Science has to handle are obtained by
experience.
But on the other hand Science can deal with these materials only on the
condition that they are reducible to invariable laws. If any observation
made by the senses is not capable of being brought under the laws which
are found to govern all other observations, it is not yet brought under
the dominion of Science. It is not yet explained, nor understood. As far
as Science is concerned, it may be called as yet non-existent. It is for
this very reason possible that the examination of it may be of the very
greatest importance. To explain what has hitherto received no
explanation constitutes the very essence of scientific progress. The
observation may be imperfect, and may at once become explicable as soon
as it is made complete; or, what is of far more value, it may be an
instance of the operation of a new law not previously known, modifying
and perhaps absorbing the law up to that time accepted. When it was
first noticed in Galileo's time that water would not ascend in the
suction pipe of a pump to a greater height than 32 feet, the old law
that nature abhors a vacuum was modified, and the reasons why and the
conditions under which Nature abhors a vacuum were discovered. The
suction of fluids was brought under the general law of mechanical
pressure. The doctrine that Nature abhorred a vacuum had been a fair
generalization and expression of the facts of this kind that up to that
time had been observed. A new fact was observed which would not fall
under the rule. The examination of this fact led to the old rule being
superseded; and Science advanced a great step at once. So in our own day
was the planet Neptune discovered by the observation of certain facts
which could not be squared with the facts previously observed unless the
Law of Gravitation was to be corrected. The result in this case was not
the discovery of a new Law but of a new Planet; and consequently a great
confirmation of the old Law. But in each case and in every similar case
the investigation of the newly observed fact proceeds on the assumption
that Nature will be found uniform, and on no other assumption can
Science proceed at all.
Now it is this assumption which must be first examined. What is its
source? What is its justification? What, if any, are its limits?
It is not an assumption that belongs to Science only. It is in some
form or other at the bottom of all our daily life. We eat our food on
the assumption that it will nourish us to-day as it nourished us
yesterday. We deal with our neighbours in the belief that we may safely
trust those now whom we have trusted and safely trusted heretofore. We
never take a journey without assuming that wood and iron will hold a
carriage together, that wheels will roll upon axles, that steam will
expand and drive the piston of an engine, that porters and stokers and
engine-drivers will do their accustomed duties. Our crops are sown in
the belief that the earth will work its usual chemistry, that heat and
light and rain will come in their turn and have their usual effects, and
the harvest will be ready for our gathering in the autumn. Look on while
a man is tried for his life before a jury. Every tittle of the evidence
is valued both by the judge and jury according to its agreement or
disagreement with what we believe to be the laws of Nature, and if a
witness asserts that something happened which, as far as we know, never
happened at any other time since the world began, we set his evidence
aside as incredible. And the prisoner is condemned if the facts before
us, interpreted on the assumption that the ordinary laws of Nature have
held their course, appear to prove his guilt.
What right have we to make such an assumption as this?
The question was first clearly put by Hume, and was handled by him with
singular lucidity; but his answer, though very near the truth, was not
so expressed as to set the question at rest.
The main relation in which the uniformity of Nature is observed is that
of cause and effect. Hume examines this and maintains that there is
absolutely nothing contained in it but the notion of invariable
sequence. Two phenomena are invariably found connected together; the
prior is spoken of as the cause, the posterior as the effect. But there
is absolutely nothing in the former to define its relation to the
latter, except that when the former is observed the latter, as far as we
know, invariably follows. A ball hits another ball of equal size, both
being free to move. There is nothing by which prior to experience we
can determine what will happen next. It is just as conceivable that the
moving ball should come back or should come to rest, as that the ball
hitherto at rest should begin to move. A magnet fastened to a piece of
wood is floating on water. Another magnet held in the hand is brought
very near one of its poles or ends. If two north poles are thus brought
together the floating magnet is repelled; if a north and a south pole
are brought together the floating magnet is attracted. The motion of the
floating magnet is in each case called the effect; the approach of the
magnet held in the hand is called the cause. And this cause is, as far
as we know, invariably followed by this effect. But to say that one is
cause and the other effect is merely to say that one is always followed
by the other; and no other meaning, according to Hume, can be attached
to the words cause and effect.
Having established this interpretation of these words, Hume goes on to
ask: What can be the ground in reason for the principle universally
adopted, that the law of cause and effect rules phenomena, and that a
cause which has been followed by an effect once will be followed by the
same effect always? And he concludes that no rational ground can be
found at all, that it is the mere result of custom without anything
rational behind it. We are accustomed to see it so, and what we have
been so perpetually accustomed to see we believe that we shall continue
to see. But why what has always been hitherto should always be
hereafter, no reason whatever can be given. The logical conclusion
obviously is to discredit all human faculties and to land us in
universal scepticism.
It was at this point that Kant took up the question, avowedly in
consequence of Hume's reasoning. He considered that Hume had been misled
by turning his attention to Physics, and that his own good sense would
have saved him from his conclusion had he thought rather of Mathematics.
Kant's solution of the problem, based mainly on the reality of
Mathematics, and especially of Geometry, is the direct opposite of
Hume's.
It will be most easy to give a clear account of Kant's solution by using
a very familiar illustration. There is a well-known common toy called a
Kaleidoscope, in which bits of coloured glass placed at one end are seen
through a small round hole at the other. The bits of glass are not
arranged in any order whatever, and by shaking the instrument may be
rearranged again and again indefinitely and still without any order
whatever. But however they may be arranged in themselves they always
form, as seen from the other end, a symmetrical pattern. The pattern
indeed varies with every shake of the instrument and consequent
re-arrangement of the bits of glass, but it is invariably symmetrical.
Now the symmetry in this case is not in the bits of glass; the colours
are there no doubt, but the symmetrical arrangement of them is not. The
symmetry is entirely due to the instrument. And if a competent enquirer
looks into the instrument and examines its construction, he will be able
to lay down with absolute certainty the laws of that symmetry which
every pattern as seen through the instrument must obey.
Just such an instrument, according to Kant, is the human mind. Space
and Time and the Perceptive Faculties are the parts of the instrument.
Everything that reaches the senses must submit to the laws of Space and
Time, that is, to the Laws of Mathematics, because Space and Time are
forms of the mind itself, and, like the kaleidoscope, arrange all things
on their way to the senses according to a pattern of their own. This
pattern is as it were super-added to the manifestations that come from
the things themselves; and if there be any manifestations of such a
nature that they could not submit to this addition, or, in other words,
could not submit to Mathematical Laws, these manifestations could not
affect our senses at all. So too our Understanding has a pattern of its
own which it imposes on all things that reach its power of perception.
What cannot be accommodated to this pattern cannot be understood at all.
Whatever things may be in themselves, their manifestations are not
within the range of our intelligence, except by passing through the
arranging process which our own mind executes upon them.
It is clear that this wonderfully ingenious speculation rests its
claims for acceptance purely on the assertion that it and it alone
explains the facts. It cannot be proved from any principle of reason. It
assumes that there is a demonstrative science of Mathematics quite
independent of experience, and that there are necessary principles of
Physics equally independent of experience. And it accounts for the
existence of these.
With Mathematics we are not now concerned, and I will pass them by with
only one remark. The ground on which Kant's theory stands is not
sufficient, for this simple reason. It accounts for one fact; it does
not account for another fact. It accounts for the fact that we attach
and cannot help attaching a conviction of necessity to all mathematical
reasoning. We not only know that two straight lines cannot enclose a
space, but we know that this is so and must be so in all places and at
all times, and we know it without any proof whatever. This fact Kant
accounts for. Space is according to him a part of our kaleidoscope; you
can always look into it and see for yourself what are the laws of it.
But there is another fact. This space of which we are speaking is
unquestionably to our minds not a thing inside of us but outside of us.
We are in it. We cannot get rid of a sense that it is independent of
ourselves. We can imagine ourselves non-existing, minds and all. We
cannot imagine space non-existing. If it be a part of our minds, how is
it that we can picture to ourselves the non-existence of the mind which
is the whole, but not the non-existence of space which, according to the
hypothesis, is the part? For this fact, which we commonly call the
objectivity of space, Kant's theory does not account. In fact Kant
appears to have no escape from assigning this objectivity of space to
delusion. But a theory which requires us to call an ineradicable
conviction of consciousness a delusion cannot be said to explain all the
facts. John Stuart Mill maintains that the other fact, namely, the
conviction of the necessity of mathematical truth, is a delusion. And
his account also must be pronounced for that reason to fail in
accounting for all the facts.
But our present concern is not with Mathematics but with Physics. And
here Kant fails altogether to convince; for, taking Time and the
Perceptive Powers of the Understanding as parts of the human mind, he
shows, what indeed is clearer and clearer every day, that the principles
(so called) of Physics are indispensable Postulates, not indeed of
observing with the senses, but of comprehending with the understanding,
whatever happens. In order to give anything that can be called an
explanation of any event we must show that it falls under the general
rules which constitute the uniformity of Nature. We have no other
meaning for the words understanding or explaining an event. Thinking,
when analysed, is found to consist in bringing all that happens under
universal laws, and no phenomenon can be said to be explained in thought
except by being so related to all other phenomena. But it does not by
any means follow that events cannot happen or cannot affect our senses
without being susceptible of such explanation. To say that an event
cannot be understood, and to say either that it cannot happen or that it
cannot be observed by the senses, are two very different things. The
fact is that Mathematics and Physics do not, as Kant assumes, present
the same problem for solution, and do not therefore admit of one
solution applicable to both. It is not the case that there is a science
of abstract Physics corresponding to the science of Mathematics and
sharing in the same character of necessity. In Mathematics we have
truths which we cannot but accept, and accept as universal and
necessary: in Physics we have no such truths, nor has Kant even
endeavoured to prove that we have. The very question therefore that we
are asked to solve in regard to Mathematics does not present itself in
Physics. I am constrained to believe that two and two are four and not
five; I am not constrained to believe that if one event is followed by
another a great many times it will be so followed always. And the
question is, why, without any constraint, I nevertheless so far believe
it that I require special evidence in any given case to convince me to
the contrary. And Kant's answer is irrelevant. He says that we cannot
think the sequence of events unless they fall under the postulates of
thinking, that is, the postulates of science; but this is no answer to
the question. Why do we believe that, unless the contrary be proved,
everything that is observed by the senses is capable of being reduced
under these postulates of thinking? The sequence of things cannot
otherwise be explained; but why should the sequence of all things that
happen be capable of being explained? The question therefore still
remains unanswered. What right have we to assume this Uniformity in
Nature? or, in other words, what right have we to assume that all
phenomena in Nature, observed by our senses, are capable of being
brought within the domain of Science? And to answer this question we
must approach it from a different side.
And there is the more reason for this because it is undeniable that both
the definition and the universality of the relation of cause and effect,
as they were accepted by Hume and his followers, are not accepted by men
in general. In ordinary language something more is meant by cause and
effect than invariable sequence, and the common assumption is not that
all Nature obeys this rule with absolutely no variation, but that the
rule is sufficiently general for all practical purposes.
If then we begin by asking what is the process of Science in dealing
with all questions of causation, we find that this process when reduced
to its simplest elements always consists in referring every event as an
effect to some cause which we know or believe to have produced some
other and similar event. Newton is struck by a falling apple. His first
thought is, 'how hard the blow.' His second is wonder, 'how far the
earth's attraction, which has caused this hard blow, extends.' His
third, 'why not as far as the moon?' And he proceeds to assign the
motion of the moon to the same cause as that which produced the motion
of the apple. Taking this as a working hypothesis, he examines what
would be the motions of all the planets if this were true. And the
examination ends with establishing the high probability of the Law of
Gravitation.
Now this being the invariable process of Science, it follows that our
conception of cause must come originally from that cause which we have
within ourselves and with which we cannot but begin, the action of the
human will. It is from this action that is obtained that conception
which underlies the ordinary conception of cause, namely, that of force
or power.
This conception of force or power is derived from the consciousness of
our own power to move our limbs, and perhaps too of passions,
temptations, sentiments to move or oppose our wills. This power is most
distinctly felt when it is resisted. The effort which is necessary when
we choose to do what we have barely strength to do, impresses on us more
clearly the sense of a force residing in ourselves capable of overcoming
resistance. Having the power to move our limbs, and that too against
some resistance, we explain, and in no other way can we explain, other
motions by the supposition of a similar power. In so doing we are
following strictly the scientific instinct and the scientific process.
We are putting into the same class the motions that we observe in other
things and the motions that we observe in ourselves; the latter are due
to acts of our own wills, the former are assigned to similar acts of
other wills. Hence in infancy, and in the infancy of mankind, the whole
world is peopled with persons because everything that we observe to move
is personified. A secret will moves the wind, the sun, the moon, the
stars, and each is independent of the others.
Soon a distinction grows up between the things that seem to have a
spontaneous motion and those that have not, and spontaneous motion is
taken as the sign of life. And all inanimate things, of whatever kind,
are held to be moved, if they move at all, by a force outside
themselves. Their own force is limited to that of resisting, and does
not include that of originating motion. But though they cannot originate
motion they are observed to be capable of transmitting it. And the
notion of force is expanded by the recognition that it can be
communicated from one thing to another and yet to another, and that we
may have to go back many steps before we arrive at the will from which
it originated. We began with the notion of a power the action of which
was or appeared to be self-originated: we come to the notion of a power
the action of which is nothing more than the continuance of preceding
action. And the special characteristic of the action of this force as
thus conceived, which we may call the derivative force, is seen to be
its regularity, just as the special characteristic of the
self-originating action was its spontaneity.
As experience increases the regularity of the action of the derivative
force is more and more observable, and then arises the notion of a law
or rule regulating the action of every such force. And a perpetually
increasing number of phenomena are brought under this head, and are
shown to be, not the immediate results of self-originating action, but
the more or less remote results of derivative action governed by laws.
And even a large number of those phenomena, which specially belong to
life and living creatures, in whom alone, if anywhere, the
self-originating action is to be found, are observed to be subject to
law and therefore to be the issue not of self-originating but of
derivative action. And this observed regularity it is found possible to
trace much more widely than it is possible to trace any clear evidence
of what we understand by force. And so, at last, we frequently use the
word force as it were by anticipation, not to express the cause of the
phenomena, which indeed we do not yet know, but as a convenient
abbreviation for a large number of facts classed under one head. And
this it is which enables Hume to maintain that we mean no more by a
cause than an event which is invariably followed by another event. We
discover invariability much faster than we can discover causation; and
having discovered invariability in any given case, we presume causation
even when we cannot yet show it, and use language in accordance with
that presumption. Thus, for instance, we speak of the force of
gravitation, although we cannot yet prove that there is any such force,
and all that we know is that material particles move as if such a force
were acting on them.
As Science advances it is seen that the regularity of phenomena is far
more important to us than their causes. And the attention of all
students of Nature is fixed on that rather than on causation. And this
regularity is seen to be more and more widely pervading all phenomena of
every class, until the mind is forced to conceive the possibility that
it may be absolutely universal, and that even will itself may come
within its supreme dominion.
But to the very last the idea of causation retains the traces of its
origin. For in the first place every step in this building up of science
assumes a permanence underlying all phenomena. We cannot believe that
the future will be like the past except because we believe that there is
something permanent which was in the past and will be in the future. And
this assumption of something permanent in things around us comes from
the consciousness of something permanent within us. We know our own
permanence. Whatever else we know or do not know about ourselves, we are
sure of our own personal identity through successive periods of life.
And as our explanation of things outside begins by classing them with
things inside we still continue to ascribe permanence to whatever
underlies phenomena even when we have long ceased to ascribe individual
wills to any except beings like ourselves. And without this assumption
of permanence our whole science would come to the ground.
And in the second place let it be remembered that we began with the will
causing the motions of the limbs. Now there is, as far as we know, no
other power in us to affect external nature than by setting something in
motion. We can move our limbs, and by so doing move other things, and by
so doing avail ourselves of the laws of Nature to produce remoter
effects. But, except by originating motion, we cannot act at all. And,
accordingly, throughout all science the attempt is made to reduce all
phenomena to motions. Sounds, colours, heat, chemical action,
electricity, we are perpetually endeavouring to reduce to vibrations or
undulations, that is, to motion of some sort or other. The mind seems to
find a satisfaction when a change of whatever kind is shown to be, or
possibly to be, the result of movement. And so too all laws of Nature
are then felt to be satisfactorily explained when they can be traced to
some force exhibited in the movement of material particles. The law of
Gravitation has an enormous evidence in support of it considered simply
as a fact. And yet how many attempts have been made to represent it as
the result of vortices or of particles streaming in all directions and
pressing any two bodies together that lie in their path! The facts which
establish it are enough. Why then these attempts? What is felt to be yet
wanting? What is felt to be wanting is something to show that it is the
result of some sort of general or universal motion, and that it thus
falls under the same head as other motions, either those which originate
in ourselves and are propagated from our bodies to external objects, or
those which, springing from an unknown beginning, are for ever
continuing as before.
This then is the answer to the question, Why do we believe in the
uniformity of Nature? We believe in it because we find it so. Millions
on millions of observations concur in exhibiting this uniformity. And
the longer our observation of Nature goes on, the greater do we find the
extent of it. Things that once seemed irregular are now known to be
regular. Things that seemed inexplicable on this hypothesis are now
explained. Every day seems to add not merely to the instances but to
the wide-ranging classes of phenomena that come under the rule. We had
reason long ago to hold that the quantity of matter was invariable. We
now have reason to think that the quantity of force acting on matter is
invariable. And to this is to be added the evidence of scientific
prediction, the range of which is perpetually increasing, and which
would be obviously impossible if Nature were not uniform. And yet again
to this is to be added that this uniformity does not consist in a vast
number of separate and independent laws, but that these laws already
form a system with one another, and that that system is daily becoming
more complete. We believe in the uniformity of Nature because, as far as
we can observe it, that is the character of Nature.
And I use the word character on purpose, because it indicates better
than any other word that I could find at once the nature and limitation
of our belief.
For, if the origin of this belief be what I have described, it is
perfectly clear that, however vast may be the evidence to prove this
uniformity, the conclusion can never go beyond the limits of this
evidence, and generality can never be confounded with universality. The
certainty that Nature is uniform is not at all, and never can be, a
certainty of the same kind as the certainty that four times five are
twenty.
We can assert that the general character of Nature is uniformity, but we
cannot go beyond this. Every separate law of nature is established by
induction from the facts, and so too is the general uniformity. Every
separate law of Nature is a working hypothesis. So too is the uniformity
of Nature a working hypothesis, and it never can be more. It is true
that there is far more evidence for the uniformity of Nature as a whole
than for any one law of Nature; because a law of Nature is established
by the uniformity of sequences in those phenomena to which it applies;
whereas every uniformity of sequence, of whatever kind, is an evidence
of the general uniformity. The evidence for the uniformity of nature is
the accumulated evidence for all the separate uniformities. But, however
much greater the quantity of evidence, the kind ever remains the same.
There is no means by which we can demonstrate this uniformity. We can
only make it probable. We can say that in almost every case all the
evidence is one way; but whenever there is evidence to the contrary we
cannot refuse to examine it.
If a miracle were worked science could not prove that it was a miracle,
nor of course prove that it was not a miracle. To prove it to be a
miracle would require not a vast range of knowledge, but absolutely
universal knowledge, which it is entirely beyond our faculties to
attain. To say that any event was a miracle would be to say that we knew
that there was no higher law that could explain it, and this we could
not say unless we knew all laws: to say that it was not a miracle would
be _ex hypothesi_ to assert what was false. In fact, to assert the
occurrence of a miracle is simply to go back to the beginning of
science, and to say: Here is an event which we cannot assign to that
derivative action to which we have been led to assign the great body of
events; we cannot explain it except by referring it to direct and
spontaneous action, to a will like our own will. Science has shown that
the vast majority of events are due to derivative action regulated by
laws. Here is an event which cannot be so explained, any more than the
action of our own free will can be so explained. Science may fairly
claim to have shown that miracles, if they happen at all, are
exceedingly rare. To demonstrate that they never happen at all is
impossible, from the very nature of the evidence on which Science rests.
But for the same reason Science can never in its character of Science
admit that a miracle has happened. Science can only admit that, so far
as the evidence goes, an event has happened which lies outside its
province.
To believers the progress of Science is a perpetual instruction in the
character which God has impressed on His works. That He has put Order in
the very first place may be a surprise to us; but it can only be a
surprise. In the great machinery of the Universe it constantly happens
to us to find that that which is made indispensable, is nevertheless not
the highest. The chosen people were not the highest in all moral or even
in all spiritual characteristics; if we refuse the explanation given by
Goethe that they were chosen for their toughness, yet we have no better
to give. The eternal moral law is of all we know the highest and
holiest. Yet the religious instinct seems to have been more
indispensable for the development of humanity according to the Divine
purpose than the observance of that moral law in all its fulness. It
would never have occurred to us beforehand to permit in Divine
legislation any concession to the hardness of men's hearts; yet we know
that it was done. Science now tells us that Order takes a rank in God's
work far above where we should have placed it. It is not the highest; it
is far from the highest: but it appears to be in some strange way the
most indispensable. God is teaching us that Order is far more universal,
far more penetrating than we should have supposed. But, nevertheless, it
is not itself God; nor the highest revelation of God. It is the stamp
which, for reasons higher than itself, He appears to have put on His
works. What is the limit to its application we do not know. There may be
instances where this Order is apparently broken, but really maintained,
because one physical law is absorbed in a higher; there may be instances
where the physical law is superseded by a moral law. But we shall
neither refuse to recognise that God has stamped this character on His
works, nor let it on the other hand come between us and Him. For we know
still that He is greater than all that He hath made, and He speaks to us
by another voice besides the voice of Science.
LECTURE II.
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.
The voice within. The objection of the alleged relativity of knowledge.
Absolute knowledge of our own personal identity. Failure to show this to
be relative; in particular by Mr. Herbert Spencer. The Moral Law. The
command to live according to that Law; Duty. The command to believe in
the supremacy of that Law; the lower Faith. The Last Judgment. The hope
of Immortality. The personification of the Moral Law in Almighty God;
the higher Faith. The spiritual faculty the recipient of Revelation, if
any be made. The contrast between Religion and Science.
LECTURE II.
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.
'So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created
He him.' _Genesis_ i. 27.
The order of phenomena is not the highest revelation of God, nor is the
voice of Science the only nor the most commanding voice that speaks to
us about Him. The belief in Him and in the character which we assign to
Him does not spring from any observation of phenomena, but from the
declaration made to us through the spiritual faculty.
There is within us a voice which tells of a supreme Law unchanged
throughout all space and all time; which speaks with an authority
entirely its own; which finds corroboration in the revelations of
Science, but which never relies on those revelations as its primary or
its ultimate sanction; which is no inference from observations by the
senses external or internal, but a direct communication from the
spiritual kingdom, the kingdom, as philosophers call it, of things in
themselves; which commands belief as a duty, and by necessary
consequence ever leaves it possible to disbelieve; and in listening to
which we are rightly said to walk not by sight but by faith.
Now, before going on to say anything more about the message thus given
to us from the spiritual world, it is necessary to consider an objection
that meets us on the threshold of all such doctrines, namely, that it is
simply impossible for us to know anything whatever of things in
themselves. Our knowledge, it is urged, is necessarily relative to
ourselves, whereas absolute as distinct from relative knowledge is for
ever beyond our reach. We can speak of what things appear to us to be;
we cannot speak of what they are. We know or may know whatever comes
under the observation of our senses as phenomena; we cannot know what
underlies these phenomena. And sometimes it has been maintained that we
not only cannot know what it is that underlies the phenomena, but cannot
even know whether anything at all underlies the phenomena, and that, for
aught we can tell, the whole world and all that exists or happens in it
may be nothing but a system of appearances with no substance whatever.
This doctrine of the relativity of all knowledge is not only applied to
things external but to our very selves. We know ourselves, it is
maintained, only through an internal sense which can only tell us how we
appear to ourselves, but cannot tell us in any the least degree what we
really are.