existed among men as a fact, or, in the words of the author of "Ecce
Homo," as "an attempt to treat the subject of religion in a practical
manner." But, backed as it was by the influence of a despotic
government, and _felix opportunitate_ as it must be deemed to have been
in the period of its establishment, very few were added to it.
Whereupon, as the author of "Ecce Homo" relates, not without a touch of
gentle irony, La Reveillère confided to Talleyrand[39] his
disappointment at his ill-success. "'His propaganda made no way,' he
said, 'What was he to do?' he asked. The ex-bishop politely condoled
with him, feared indeed it was a difficult task to found a new
religion--more difficult than could be imagined, so difficult that he
hardly knew what to advise! 'Still'--he went on, after a moment's
reflection--'there is one plan which you might at least try: I should
recommend you to be crucified, and to rise again the third day'" (p.
181). Is the author of "Ecce Homo" laughing in his sleeve at us? Surely
his keen perception must have suggested to him, as he wrote this
passage, "mutato nomine, deme." It may be confidently predicted
that, unless he is prepared to carry out Talleyrand's suggestion, the
Natural Religion which he exhibits "to meet the wants of a sceptical
age" will prove even a more melancholy failure than it proved when
originally introduced a century ago by La Reveillère-Lepeaux.
V.
Are we then thrown back on Pessimism--"the besetting difficulty of
Natural Religion" (p. 104), as the author of "Ecce Homo" confesses? Is
that after all the key to the enigma of life? And is the prospect before
the world that "universal darkness" which is to supervene, when, in the
noble verse of the great moral poet of the last century--the noblest he
ever wrote--
"Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires,
And unawares morality expires;
Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine,
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine."
I venture to think otherwise. And as with regard to the subject of which
I am writing, it may be said that "egotism is true modesty," I shall
venture to say why I think so, even at the risk of wearying by a
twice-told tale, for I shall have to go over well-worn ground, and I
must of necessity tread more or less in the footprints of others. The
reasons which satisfy me have satisfied, and do satisfy, intellects far
more subtle, acute, and penetrating than mine. All I can do is to state
them in the way in which they present themselves to my own mind. I shall
be genuine, if not original, although indeed I might here shelter myself
under a dictum--profoundly true it is--of Mr. Ruskin: "That virtue of
originality that men so strive after is not newness, as they vainly
think (there is nothing new) it is only genuineness."
Cardinal Newman, in writing to me a few weeks ago, suggests the pregnant
inquiry, "Which is the greater assumption? that we can do without
religion, or that we can find a substitute for Christianity?" I have
hitherto been surveying the substitute for Christianity which the author
of "Ecce Homo" has exhibited to the world in his new book. I shall now
briefly consider the question whether the need for such a substitute
does in truth exist. The book, as I have already more than once noted,
assumes that it does. It takes "the scientific view frankly at its
worst"[40] as throwing discredit upon the belief "that a Personal Will
is the cause of the Universe, that that Will is perfectly benevolent,
that that Will has sometimes interfered by miracles with the order of
the Universe," which three propositions are considered by its author to
sum up the theological view of the universe. "If," he writes, "these
propositions exhaust [that view] and science throws discredit upon all
of them, evidently theology and science are irreconcilable, and the
contest between them must end in the destruction of one or the other"
(p. 13). I remark in passing, first, that no theologian--certainly no
Catholic theologian--would accept these three propositions as exhausting
the theological view of the universe; and secondly, that if we were
obliged to admit that physical science throws discredit upon that view,
it would by no means necessarily follow that physical science and
theology are irreconcilable, for ampler knowledge might remove the
discredit.
"What do we see? Each man a space,
Of some few yards before his face.
Can that the whole wide plan explain?
Ah no! Consider it again."
But is it true, as a matter of fact, that physical science throws
discredit upon these three propositions? Let us examine this question a
little. I must of necessity be brief in the limits to which I am here
confined, and I must use the plainest language, for I am writing not for
the school but for the general reader. Brevity and plainness of speech
do not, however, necessarily imply superficiality, which, in truth, is
not unfrequently veiled by a prolix parade of pompous technicalities.
First, then, as to causation. The shepherd in the play, when asked by
Touchstone, "Hast any philosophy in thee?" replies, "No more but that I
know that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good
pasture makes fat sheep: and that a great cause of the night is lack of
the sun," and upon the strength of this knowledge is pronounced by the
clown to be "a natural philosopher." Well, is not in truth the "science"
of the mere physicist, however accomplished, _in pari materia_ with that
of honest Corin? He observes certain sequences of facts, certain
antecedents and consequents, but of the _nexus_ between them he knows no
more than the most ignorant and foolish of peasants. He talks, indeed,
of the laws of Nature, but the expression, convenient as it is in some
respects, and true as it is in a sense--and that the highest--is
extremely likely to mislead, as he uses it ordinarily. What he calls a
law of Nature is only an induction from observed phenomena, a formula
which serves compendiously to express them. As Dr. Mozley has well
observed in his Bampton Lectures, "we only know of law in Nature, in
the sense of recurrences in Nature, classes of facts, _like_ facts in
Nature:"[41]
"In vain the sage with retrospective eye
Would from the apparent what conclude the why;"
physical "science has itself proclaimed the truth that we see no causes
in nature"[42]--that is to say, in the phenomena of the external world,
taken by themselves. We read in Bacci's "Life of St. Philip Neri" that
the Saint drew men to the service of God by such a subtle irresistible
influence as caused those who watched him to cry out in amazement,
"Father Philip draws souls, as the magnet draws iron." The most
accomplished master of natural science is as little competent to explain
the physical attraction as he is to explain the spiritual. He cannot get
behind the _fact_, and if you press him for the reason of it--if you ask
him why the magnet draws iron--the only reason he has to give you is,
"Because it does." It is just as true now as it was when Bishop Butler
wrote in the last century that "the only distinct meaning of the word
[natural] is, stated, fixed, or settled," and it is hard to see how he
can be refuted when, travelling beyond the boundaries of physics, he
goes on to add, "What is natural as much requires and presupposes an
intelligent agent to render it so--_i.e._, to effect it continually, or
at stated times--as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it
for once."[43] Then, again, the indications of design in the universe
may well speak to us of a Designer, as they spoke three thousand years
ago to the Hebrew poet who wrote the Psalm "_C[oe]li enarrant_," as they
spoke but yesterday to the severely disciplined intellect of John Stuart
Mill, who, brushing aside the prepossessions and prejudices of a
lifetime, has recorded his deliberate judgment that "there is a large
balance in favour of the probability of creation by intelligence."[44]
Sir William Thomson, no mean authority upon a question of physical
science, goes further, and speaks not of "a large balance of
probability," but of "overpowering proofs." "Overpowering proofs," he
told the British Association, "of intelligence and benevolent design,
lie all around us; and if ever perplexities, whether metaphysical or
scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they come back upon us
with irresistible force, showing to us through Nature the influence of a
free will, and teaching us that all living beings depend upon one
ever-acting Creator and Ruler."[45] And, once more, it is indubitable
that matter is inert until acted upon by force, and that we have no
knowledge of any other primary[46] cause of force than will. Whence, as
Mr. Wallace argues in his well-known work, "it does not seem improbable
that all force may be will-force, and that the whole universe is not
merely dependent upon, but actually is, the will of higher intelligences
or of one Supreme Intelligence."[47]
If then things are so--as who can disprove?--we may reasonably demur to
the assertion that physical science throws discredit upon the position
that a Personal Will is the cause of the universe. Let us now glance at
the last of the propositions supposed to be condemned by the researches
of the physicists--namely, that this Personal Will has sometimes
interfered by miracles with the order of the universe. Now, here, as I
intimated in an earlier portion of this article, I find myself at
variance with the author of "Natural Religion" upon a question, and a
very important question, of terminology. I do not regard the
supernatural as an interference with, or violation of, the order of the
universe. I adopt, unreservedly, the doctrine that "nothing is that errs
from law." The phenomena which we call supernatural and those which we
call natural, I view as alike the expression of the Divine Will: a Will
which acts not capriciously, nor, as the phrase is, arbitrarily, but by
law, "attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviterque disponens
omnia." And so the theologians identify the Divine Will with the Divine
Reason. Thus St. Augustine, "Lex æterna est ratio divina vel voluntas
Dei,"[48] and St. Thomas Aquinas, "Lex æterna summa ratio in Deo
existens."[49] It is by virtue of this law that the sick are healed,
whether by the prayer of faith or the prescription of a physician, by
the touch of a relic or by a shock from a galvanic battery; that the
Saint draws souls and that the magnet draws iron. The most ordinary
so-called "operations of Nature" may be truly described in the words of
St. Gregory as God's daily miracles;[50] and those events, commonly
denominated miraculous, of which we read in the Sacred Scriptures, in
the Lives of the Saints, and elsewhere, may as truly be called natural,
using the word in what, as I just now observed, Bishop Butler notes as
its only distinct meaning--namely, stated, fixed, or settled;[51] for
they are the normal manifestations of the order of Grace--an order
external to us, invisible, inaccessible to our senses and reasonings,
but truly existing and governed by laws, which, like the laws of the
physical and the intellectual order, are ordained by the Supreme
Lawgiver. Once purge the mind of anthropomorphic conceptions as to the
Divine Government, and the notion of any essential opposition between
the natural and the supernatural disappears. Sanctity, which means
likeness to God, a partaking of the Divine nature, is as truly a force
as light or heat, and enters as truly into the great order of the
universe. There is a passage in M. Renan's "Vie de Jésus" worth citing
in this connection. "La nature lui obéit," he writes; "mais elle obéit
aussi à quiconque croit et prie; la foi peut tout. Il faut se rappeler
que nulle idée des lois de la nature ne venait, dans son esprit ni dans
celui de ses auditeurs, marquer la limite de l'impossible.... Ces mots
de 'surhumain' et de 'surnaturel,' empruntés à notre théologie mesquine,
n'avaient pas de sens dans la haute conscience religieuse de Jésus. Pour
lui, la nature et le développement de l'humanité n'étaient pas des
règnes limités hors de Dieu, de chétives réalités assujetties aux lois
d'un empirisme désesperant. Il n'y avait pas pour lui de surnaturel, car
il n'y avait pas pour lui de nature. Ivre de l'amour infini, il oubliait
la lourde chaîne qui tient l'esprit captif; il franchissait d'un bond
l'abîme, infranchissable pour la plupart, que la médiocrité des facultés
humaines trace entre l'homme et Dieu."[52] These words seem to me to
express a great truth. The religious mind conceives of the natural, not
as opposed to the supernatural, but as an outlying province of it; of
the economy of the physical world as the complement of the economy of
Grace. And to those who thus think, the great objection urged by so many
philosophers, from Spinoza downwards--not to go further back--that
miracles, as the violation of an unchangeable order, make God contradict
himself, and so are unworthy of being attributed to the All-Wise, is
without meaning. The most stupendous incident in the "Acta Sanctorum"
is, as I deem, not less the manifestation of law than is the fall of a
sparrow.[53] The budding of a rose and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
are equally the effect of the One Motive Force, which is the cause of
all phenomena, of the Volition of the Maker, Nourisher, Guardian,
Governor, Worker, Perfecter of all. Once admit what is involved in the
very idea of God as it exists in Catholic theology--as it is set forth,
for example, in the treatise of St. Thomas Aquinas "De Deo"--and the
notion of miracles as abnormal, as infractions of order, as violations
of law, will be seen to be utterly erroneous.
And now one word as to the bearing of physical science upon the doctrine
of the Divine goodness[54]--the second of the theological positions
which, as we have seen, the author of "Natural Religion" assumes to be
discredited by physical science. No doubt he had in his mind what has
been so strongly stated by the late Mr. Mill: "Not even on the most
distorted and contracted theory of good, which ever was framed by
religious or philosophical fanaticism, can the government of Nature be
made to resemble the work of a being at once good and omnipotent."[55]
Now there can be no question that physical nature gives the lie to that
shallow optimism, which prates of the best of all conceivable worlds,
and hardly consents to recognize evil, save as "a lower form of good;"
unquestionably recent researches of physicists have brought out with
quite startling clearness what St. Paul calls the subjection of the
creature to vanity. Ruin, waste, decay are written upon every feature of
the natural order. All that is joyful in it is based on suffering; all
that lives, on death; every thrill of pleasure which we receive from the
outward world is the outcome of inconceivable agonies during
incalculable periods of time. But how does this discredit the teaching
of theology as to God's goodness? Theology recognizes, and recognizes
far more fully than the mere physicist, the abounding misery that is in
the world, the terribleness of that "unutterable curse which hangs upon
mankind," for it sees not only what he sees, but what is infinitely
sadder and more appalling, the vision of moral evil presented by the
heart and conscience of man, by every page in the history of the
individual and of the race. It was not reserved for professors of
physical science in the nineteenth century to bring to light the fact
that "the world is out of joint," and thereby to discredit the
theological view of the universe. Theology knows only too well that life
is "a dread machinery of sin and sorrow." It is the very existence of
the vast aboriginal calamity, whatever it may have been, in which the
human race, the whole creation, is involved, that forms the ground for
the need of the revelation which Christianity professes to bring. If
there were no evil, there would be no need of a deliverance from evil.
Of course, why evil has been suffered to arise, why it is suffered to
exist, by the Perfect Being, of whom it is truly said that He is God,
because he is the highest Good, we know not, and no search will make us
know. All we know is that it is not from Him, of whom, and for whom, and
by whom, are all things; "because it has no substance of its own, but is
only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has
substance." The existence of evil is a mystery--one of the countless
mysteries surrounding human life--which, after the best use of reason,
must be put aside as beyond reason. But it is also a fact, and a fact
which is so far from discrediting the theological view of the universe,
that it is a primary and necessary element of that view.
VI.
Thus much as to physical science and the propositions in which the
author of "Natural Religion" supposes the theological view of the
universe to be summed up. But, as he notes, the case urged in the
present day against Christianity does not rest merely upon physical
science, properly so called; but upon the extension of its methods to
the whole domain of knowledge (p. 7), the practical effect being the
reduction of religion to superstition, of anthropology to physiology, of
metaphysics to physics, of ethics to the result of temperament or the
promptings of self-interest, of man's personality to the summation of a
series of dynamic conditions of particles of matter. I shall proceed to
state the case, as I often hear it stated, and I shall put it in the
strongest way I can, and to indicate the answer which, at all events,
has satisfied one mind, after long and patient consideration, and in
spite of strong contrary prepossessions. And this evidently has the most
direct bearing on my theme. If Christianity be irrational, its claims to
the world's future may at once be dismissed. But if, as I very strongly
hold, the achievements of the modern mind, whether in the physical
sciences, in psychology, in history, in exegetical criticism, have not
in the least discredited Christianity, as rightly understood, here is a
fact which is a most important factor in determining our judgment as to
the religious prospect of mankind. What I have to say on this grave
question I must reserve for the Second Part of this article. I end the
First Part with one observation. It seems to me that the issue before
the world is between Christianity and a more or less sublimated form of
Materialism--not necessarily Atheistic, nay, sometimes approximating to
"faint possible Theism"--which is most aptly termed Naturalism; a system
which rejects as antiquated the ideas of final causes, of Providence, of
the soul and its immortality; which allows of no other realities than
those of the physical order, and makes of Nature man's highest ideal:
and this issue is not in the least affected by decking out Naturalism in
some borrowed garments of Spiritualism, and calling it "Natural
Christianity."
W. S. LILLY.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] "La Génie des Religions," l. i. c. i.
[27] _Ibid._, c. iv.
[28] The author of "Natural Religion" thinks it mistaken in so declaring
itself. "Its invectives against God and against Religion do not prove
that it is atheistic, but only that it thinks itself so. And why does it
think itself so? Because God and Religion are identified in its view
with the Catholic Church; and the Catholic Church is a thing so very
redoubtable that we need scarcely inquire why it is passionately hated
and feared" (p. 37). But this is an error. God and Religion are not
identified, in the view of the Revolution, with the Catholic Church. It
will be evident to anyone who will read its accredited organs that it is
as implacably hostile to religious Protestantism as to Catholicism.
Perhaps I may be allowed to refer, on this subject, to some remarks of
my own in an article entitled "Free Thought--French and English,"
published in this REVIEW, in February last, p. 241.
[29] See his Preface to the Second Edition.
[30] Warburton, a shrewd observer enough, expressed the same view a
hundred years ago, with characteristic truculence:--"Mathematicians--I
do not mean the inventors and geniuses amongst them, whom I honour, but
the Demonstrators of others' inventions, who are ten times duller and
prouder than a damned poet--have a strange aversion to everything that
smacks of religion."--_Letters to Hurd_, xix.
[31] Preface to Second Edition, p. vii.
[32] _Ibid._, p. v.
[33] Summa, 1^ma 2^de qu. 60, art. 3.
[34] "Grammar of Assent," p. 389. 5th ed.
[35] What Wordsworth says is--
"We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love, And, even as these are well and
wisely fixed, In dignity of being we ascend."
This is widely different from the nude proposition that "we live by
admiration."
[36] See also p. 127.
[37] A good deal of information about Theophilanthropy and the
Theophilanthropists, in an undigested and, indeed, chaotic state, will
be found in Grégoire's "Histoire des Sectes Religieuses," vol. i.
[38] The Theophilanthropists were most anxious that the object of their
worship should not be supposed to be the Christian God. Thus in one of
their hymns their Deity is invoked as follows:--
"Non, tu n'es pas le _Dieu_ dont le prêtre est l'apôtre, Tu n'as point
par la Bible enseigné les humains."
[39] The author of "Natural Religion" says, Talleyrand; I do not know on
what authority. Grégoire writes:--"Au Directoire même on le raillait sur
son zèle thêophilantropique. Un de ses collègues, dit-on, lui proposait
de se faire pendre et de ressusciter le troisième jour, comme
l'infaillible moyen de faire triompher sa secte, et Carnot lui décoche
dans son _Mémoire_ des épigrammes sanglantes à ce sujet."--_Histoire des
Sectes Religieuses_, vol. I. p. 406. Talleyrand was never a member of
the Directory.
[40] Preface to second edition.
[41] "Eight Lectures on Miracles," p. 50.
[42] _Ibid._ See Dr. Mozley's note on this passage.
[43] "Analogy." Part I. c. i. I give, of course, Bishop Butler's words
as I find them, but, as will be seen a little later, I do not quite take
his view of the supernatural.
[44] "Three Essays on Religion," p. 174.
[45] "Address to the British Association," 1871.
[46] I say "_primary_ cause;" of course I do not deny _its own proper
causality_ to the non-spiritual or matter.
[47] "Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection," p. 368. I am,
of course, aware of Mr. Mill's remarks upon this view in his "Three
Essays on Religion" (pp. 146-150). The subject is too great to be
discussed in a footnote. But I may observe that he rests, at bottom,
upon the assumption--surely an enormous assumption--that causation is
order. Cardinal Newman's argument upon this matter in the "Grammar of
Assent" (pp. 66-72, 5th ed.) seems to me to be unanswerable; certainly,
it is unanswered. I have no wish to dogmatize--the dogmatism, indeed,
appears to be on the other side--but if we go by experience, as it is
now the fashion to do, our initial elementary experience would certainly
lead us to consider will the great or only cause. To guard against a
possible misconception let me here say that I must not be supposed to
adopt Mr. Wallace's view in its entirety or precisely as stated by him.
Of course, the analogy between the human will and the Divine Will is
imperfect, and Mr. Mill appears to me to be well founded in denying that
_our_ volition originates. My contention is that Matter is inert until
Force has been brought to bear upon it: that all Force must be due to a
Primary Force of which it is the manifestation or the effect: that the
Primary Force cannot exert itself unless it be self-determined: that to
be self-determined is to be living: that to be primarily and utterly
self-determined is to be an infinitely self-conscious volition: _ergo_,
the primary cause of Force is the Will of God. This is the logical
development of the famous argument of St. Thomas Aquinas. He contends
that whatever things are moved must be moved by that which is not moved:
_a movente non moto_. But Suarez and later writers complete the argument
by analyzing the term _movens non motum_, which they consider equivalent
to _Ens a se, in se, et per se_, or _Actus Purissimus_.
[48] "Contra Faustum," 22.
[49] Summa, 1, 2, qu. 83, art. 1. But on this and the preceding
quotation, see the note on page 118.
[50] "Quotidiana Dei miracula ex assiduitate vilescunt."--_Hom. xxvi. in
Evan_.