from the lower animals is the understanding of articulate sounds--for,
as every one knows, dogs understand many words and sentences; and Darwin
says, at this stage they are at the same stage of development as
infants, between the ages of ten and twelve months, who understand many
words and sentences, but still cannot utter a single word. It is not the
mere articulation which is our distinguishing character; for parrots and
other birds possess the power. Nor is it the mere capacity of connecting
definite sounds with definite ideas; for it is certain that some
parrots, which have been taught to speak, connect unerringly words with
things, and persons with events." The lower animals, as has already been
stated, differ from man solely in his almost infinitely larger power of
associating together the most diversified sounds and ideas; and this
obviously depends on the high development of his mental powers.
We now come to the consideration of a very delicate subject--a subject
which is certainly at best very unsatisfactory to handle, as far as
popular sentiment is concerned; for, no matter how successfully it may
be handled, according to one class of thinkers, to another class of more
orthodox thinkers it would be entirely at fault. The subject is, _Man's
Moral Sense, Belief in God, Religion, Conscience, and Hope of
Immortality_.
It has been stated by some writers that where "faith commences science
ends." How erroneous is such a statement as this! for, as Krauth has
said, "The great body of scientific facts is actually the object of
knowledge to a few, and is supposed to be a part of the knowledge of the
many, only because the many have faith in the statements of the few,
though they can neither verify them, nor even understand the processes
by which they are reached."[62]
"We believe," says Lewes, "that the sensation of violet is produced by
the striking of the ethereal waves against the retina more than seven
hundred billions of times in a second. * * * These statements are
accepted _on trust_ by us who know that there are thinkers for whom they
are irresistible conclusions." It is evident that it is to faith that
science owes, to a very great extent, her progress and development; for
it is impossible for man to prove by experimental demonstration all the
facts of science, and since a certain number of facts have got to be
accepted before a new experiment can be attempted, he has to accept on
faith that such and such a statement is a fact, because such and such a
scientist has claimed to have demonstrated it. "We are not _responsible_
for the fact," says Krauth, "that under the conditions of knowledge we
_know_, or in defect of them do not know; we are responsible if, under
the conditions of a well-grounded faith, we disbelieve."[63]
Let us look, then, at the belief in God. The question under
consideration at first will not be whether there exists a God, the
creator and ruler of the universe--for this will be afterward
considered--but is there any evidence that man was aboriginally endowed
with the ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent God.
Schweinfurth relates that the Niam-niam, that highly interesting dwarf
people of Central Africa, have no word for God, and therefore, it must
be supposed, no idea; and Moritz Wagner has given a whole selection of
reports on the absence of religious consciousness in inferior nations.
The idea that conscience is a sort of permanent inspiration or dwelling
of God in the soul, I think, on consideration, any reasonable man will
not assume. "It is a purely human faculty," says Savage, "like the
faculty for art or music; and it gets its authority, as they do by being
true, and just in so far as it is true. Consciousness is our own
knowledge of ourselves and of the relation between our own faculties and
powers. Conscience is our recognition of the relations, as right or
wrong, in which we stand to those about us, God and our fellows.
_Con-scio_ is to know with, in relation.
There is such a thing, of course, as a _false conscience_ and a _true
conscience_. All the false "conscientiousness grows out of the fact that
men suppose they stand in certain relationships that do not really
exist. Thus they imagined duties that are not duties at all." The
virtues which must be practised by rude men, so that they can hold
together in tribes, are of course important. No tribe could hold
together if robbery, murder, treachery, etc., were common; in other
words, there must be honor among thieves. "A North-American Indian is
well pleased with himself, and is honored by others, when he scalps a
man of another tribe; and a Dyak cuts off the head of an unoffending
person, and dries it as a trophy. The murder of infants has prevailed on
the largest scale throughout the world, and has been met with no
reproach; but infanticide, especially of females, has been thought to be
good for the tribe, or at least not injurious. Suicide during former
times was not generally considered as a crime, but rather, from the
courage displayed, as an honorable act; and it is still practised by
some semi-civilized and savage nations without reproach, for it does not
obviously concern others of the tribe. It has been recorded that an
Indian Thug conscientiously regretted that he had not robbed and
strangled as many travelers as did his father before him."[64]
See how weak the conscience of even more highly civilized men are in
their dealings with the brute creation; how the sportsman delights in
hunting-scenes, Spanish bull-fights, cock-fights, etc.; how indignant
was the sensitive Cowper, if any one should "needlessly set foot upon a
worm"! The rights of the worm are as sacred in his degree as ours are,
and a true conscience will recognize them. What, then, is a true
conscience? Savage states in a few words, it is "one that knows and is
adjusted to the realities of life. When men know the truth about God,
about themselves--body and mind and spirit--about the real relations of
equity in which they stand to their fellow-men in state and church and
society, and when they appreciate these, and adjust their conscience to
them, then they will have a true conscience. An absolutely true
conscience, of course, cannot exist so long as our knowledge of the
reality of things is only partial."
It is evident, then, that the conscience of man depends on his education
and environments, and therefore is the subject of improvement. It
becomes, then, the duty of every man to search for truth, for his
conscience is not infallible, and by so doing he will bring it to accord
with the real facts of God. "Throw away," says Savage, "prejudice and
conceit, seek to make your conscience like the magnetic needle. The
needle ever and naturally seeking the unchanging pole." As conscience,
then, is but a faculty capable of development, it is not so difficult to
understand a race of people whose conscience was in just the first
stages of development; and, finally, a race which did not possess this
faculty at all, as in the inferior nations which Wagner speaks of.
[Illustration: FIG. I.--Butcher's Shop of the Anziques, Anno 1598.
(From Man's Place in Nature, by _Huxley_.)]
What kind of conscience and intelligence had the people near Cape Lopez,
called the Anziques, which M. du Chaillu describes. They had incredible
ferocity; for they ate one another, sparing neither friends nor
relations. Their butcher-shops were filled with human flesh, instead of
that of oxen or sheep, for they ate the enemies they captured in battle.
They fattened, slayed, and devoured their slaves also, unless they
thought they could get a good price for them; and moreover, for
weariness of life or desire for glory (for they thought it a great thing
and a sign of a generous soul to despise life), or for love of their
rulers, offered themselves up for food. There were, indeed, many
cannibals, as in the East Indies and Brazil and elsewhere, but none such
as these, since the others only ate their enemies, but these their own
blood relations.
There is therefore, combining the fact mentioned by Wagner with the fact
that some nations have no idea of one or more gods, not even a word to
express it (proving that they have no idea), I say, there is therefore
no evidence that man was aboriginally endowed with any such belief as
the existence of an Omnipotent God; and in this assertion almost all the
learned men concur. "If, however," says Darwin, "we include under the
term religion, the belief in unseen or spiritual agencies, the case is
wholly different; for this belief seems to be universal with the less
civilized races. Nor is it difficult to understand how it arose."
The savage has a stronger belief in bad spirits than in good ones. "The
same high mental faculties which first led man to believe in unseen
spiritual agencies, then in fetishism, polytheism, and ultimately in
monotheism, would infallibly lead him, as long as his reasoning powers
remained poorly developed, to very strange superstitions and customs.
Many of these are terrible to think of: such as the sacrifice of human
beings to a blood-loving god, the trial of innocent persons by the
ordeal of poison, of fire, of witchcraft, etc.; yet it is well
occasionally to reflect on these superstitions, for they show us what an
infinite debt of gratitude we owe to the improvement of our reason, to
science, and to our accumulated knowledge."[65] As Sir J. Lubbock has
well observed: "It is not too much to say that the possible dread of
unknown evil hangs like a thick cloud over savage life, and embitters
every pleasure. These miserable and indirect consequences of our highest
faculties may be compared with the incidental and occasional mistakes of
the instincts of the lower animals."
The belief, then, of the existence of an Omnipotent God came with the
development of the mental faculties; and although there does exist such
a belief in the minds of men whose conscience is in a normal condition,
still there are temptations to unbelief, and these have led men to
atheism. I cannot think of an atheist unless I associate in my thoughts
the words:
"The ruling passion, be it what it may--
The ruling passion conquers reason still."
The atheist has decided not to believe in the existence of a God, unless
he can see Him and understand Him; in other words, the finite would
comprehend the infinite. Following the logical method of reasoning of an
atheist, the simple fact of seeing God in no way ought to prove his
existence. For when you say you see a person, and that you have not the
least doubt about it, I answer, that what you are really conscious of is
an affection of your retina. And if you urge that you can check your
sight of the person by touching him, I would answer, that you are
equally transgressing the limits of fact; for what you are really
conscious of is, not that he is there, but that the nerves of your hand
have undergone a change. All you hear and see and touch and taste and
smell are mere variations of your own condition, beyond which, even to
the extent of a hair's-breadth, you cannot go. That anything answering
to your impression exists outside of yourself is not a _fact_, but an
_inference_, to which all validity would be denied by an idealist like
Berkeley, or by a skeptic like Hume.[66]
Thomas Cooper[67] said:
"I do not say--there is no God;
But this I say--I KNOW NOT."
Mr. Bradlaugh says: "The atheist does not say, 'There is no God'; but he
says, I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God; the
word 'God' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation.
I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no
conception, and the conception of which, by its affirmer, is so
imperfect that he is unable to define it to me."
Austin Holyoake[68] says: "The only way of proving the fallacy of
atheism is by _proving_ the existence of a God."
If it is logical proof that is wanted, there is plenty. The following
arguments, although not all meeting my approbation, are still of
interest:
The _Ontological Argument_ has been presented in different forms. 1.
Anselm,[69] Archbishop of Canterbury (1093-1109), states this argument
thus: We have an idea of an infinitely perfect being. But real existence
is an element of infinite perfection. Therefore an infinitely perfect
being exists; otherwise the infinitely perfect, as we conceive it, would
lack an essential element of perfection.
2. Descartes[70] (1596-1650) states the argument thus: The idea of an
infinitely perfect being which we possess could not have originated in a
finite source, and therefore must have been communicated by an
infinitely perfect being.
3. Dr. Samuel Clark[71] (1705) argues that time and space are infinite
and necessarily existent, but they are not substances. Therefore there
must exist an eternal and infinite substance of which they are
properties.
4. Cousin[72] maintained that the idea of the finite implies the idea of
the infinite as inevitably as the idea of the "me" implies that of the
"not me."
The _Cosmological Argument_ may be stated thus: "Every new thing and
every change in a previously existing thing must have a cause sufficient
and pre-existing. The universe consists of a series of changes.
Therefore the universe must have a cause exterior and anterior to
itself.
The _Teleological Argument_, or argument from design or final causes, is
as follows: Design, or the adaptation of means to effect an end, implies
the exercise of intelligence and free choice. The universe is full of
traces of design. Therefore the "First Cause" must have been a personal
spirit.
The _Moral Argument_ may be thus stated: "In looking at the works of God
there is," says Rev. Dr. Hopkins, "I suppose, evidence enough,
especially if interpreted by the moral consciousness, to prove to a
candid man the being of God." The educated man is a religious being. The
instinct of prayer and worship, the longing for and faith in divine love
and help, are inseparable from human nature under normal conditions, as
known in history.
It is evident from the above that it is not for logical reasoning or
arguments that the atheist is led to say, "that up to this moment the
world has remained without knowledge of a God."[73] It is from the folly
of his heart; and, as Solomon says, that "though you bray him and his
false logic in the mortar of reason, among the wheat of facts, with the
pestle of argument, yet will not his folly depart from him."[74] I fully
agree with Hobbes when he says, "where there is no reason for our
belief, there is no reason we should believe," but I think the several
arguments given above, which could be greatly expanded, affords
sufficient reason for a perfect belief in an Infinite God. For--
"God is a being, and that you may see
In the fold of the flower, in the leaf of the tree,
In the storm-cloud of darkness, in the rainbow of life,
In the sunlight at noontide, in the darkness of night,
In the wave of the ocean, in the furrow of land,
In the mountain of granite, in the atom of sand;
Gaze where ye may from the sky to the sod--
Where can you gaze and not see a God."
Yes, the infinite God must include all. If he is not in the dust of our
streets, in the bricks of our house, in the beat of our hearts, then he
is not infinite, but is finite, having boundaries. Yes, God's power it
was that set the nebulous mass into vibration, and caused the world to
be formed; it was His force which first shaped the atoms into molecules,
and then into more complex chemical products, till finally "organizable
protoplasm" was reached, which, by evolution, climbed up to man. 'Tis
God we see in the family, in society, in the state, in all religions, up
to the highest outflowings of Christianity. 'Tis Him we see in art,
literature, and science; and so proclaims Evolution. "God is the
universal causal law; God is the source of all force and all matter."
"For us," says Haeckel, "all nature is animated, _i. e._, penetrated
with Divine spirit, with law, and with necessity." We know of no matter
without this Divine spirit.
The "ultimate repulsion, constituting the extension and impenetrability
of the atoms of matter," says Dr. Samuel Brown, "could be conceived of
in no other way than as the persistent existence of the will of God
himself, in whom we live and move and have our being, and which, if but
for an instant withdrawn, the whole material universe and its forces in
all their vastness, glory, and beauty, would collapse and sink in a
moment into their original nothingness."
The advancement of science, instead of depriving man of his God, only
deprives men of their earlier and ruder conceptions of Deity, only to
impart a larger and grander thought of Him. "It is true, in the
educational process some few minds have lost sight of Him altogether,
but these are the exceptional, and therefore notable instances; with the
great body of men, the conception of God has steadily enlarged with the
progress of science."[75] If science can demonstrate that Evolution is
true, then it is God's truth, and as such it is man's religious duty to
accept it; if he rejects it, superstitiously or unreasonably, he not
only defrauds himself but insults the Author of truth.
What, then, has science demonstrated? Science has demonstrated the UNITY
OF THE FORCES: Light, heat, electricity, magnetism, motion, are all
correlated to one another, and are all mutually convertible one into
another. Heat may be said to produce electricity--electricity to produce
heat; magnetism to produce electricity--electricity, magnetism, and so
on for the rest.
UNITY OF MATTER AND FORCE.--"For if matter were not force, and
immediately known as force, it could not be known at all--could not be
rationally inferred."
UNITY OF THE LIFE SUBSTANCE IN ALL ORGANIC AND ANIMAL BODIES.--"A unity
of power or faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of substantial
composition."
UNITY OF ANIMATE AND INANIMATE NATURE IN MATTER, FORM, AND FORCE.
UNITY OF THE LAWS OF DEVELOPMENT.--Hence we can proclaim the unity of
all nature and of her laws of development.
In the beautiful words of Giordano Bruno: "A spirit exists in all
things, and no body is so small but contains a part of the divine
substance within itself, by which it is animated." Hence we arrive at
the sublime idea, since we can in no other way account for the ultimate
cause of anything, that it is God's spirit which pervades and sustains
all nature. By this admission we are not led to say: "There is no God
but force;" but rather, "There is no force but God." God is infinite,
and therefore includes nature; but is nature all? It is all that our
finite minds can discover, 'tis true; but can there not exist another
nature or world unknown to us; and if so, since God is infinite, he will
include that world also. Let us look to this and see what science can
answer.
It will be necessary for us to consider before proceeding, what is meant
by the term soul; and this becomes a somewhat difficult task, as the
term has been variously applied to signify the principle of life in an
organic body, or the first and most undeveloped stages of individualized
spiritual being, or finally, all stages of spiritual individuality,
incorporeal as well as corporeal.[76] The popular belief is, that the
soul is not material but substantial, a divine gift to the highest alone
of God's creatures; but scientific men, such as Carl Vogt, Moleschott,
Büchner, Schmidt, Haeckel, consider the phenomena of the soul to be
functions of the brain and nerves. Schmidt says: "The soul of the
new-born infant is, in its manifestations, in no way different from that
of the young animal. These are the functions of the infantine nervous
system, with this they grow and are developed together with speech."
The idea of the immortality of the soul was not aboriginal with mankind,
as Sir J. Lubbock has shown that the barbarous races possess no clear
belief of this kind, and Rajah Brook, at a missionary meeting in
Liverpool, told his hearers there that the Dyaks, a people with whom he
was connected, had no knowledge of God, of a soul, or of any future
state.
Darwin remarks, that "man may be excused for feeling some pride at
having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit
of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of
having been aboriginally placed there, may give hope for a still higher
destiny in the distant future."
The belief in a future life amongst the civilized race of mankind is
almost universally prevalent. The proofs of immortality are various. The
desire that man has to live forever and his horror of annihilation is
one; the good suffer in this world and the wicked triumph--this would
indicate the necessity of future retribution. The infinite
perfectibility of the human mind never reaches its full capacity in this
life; the faculty of insight which sees in an individual all its past
history at a glance is the immortal attribute and is continually on the
increase; and it is possible that Aristotle was right so far as he
stated that the lower faculties of the soul, such as sensation,
imagination, feeling, memory, etc., are perishable. No matter if this be
so or not, it is certain that in the next life, where all is perfection,
only the fittest attributes will exist, the others would have perished.
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has been defended by
Marhemeke, Blasche, Weisse, Hinnichs, Fecham, J. H. Fichte, and others.