When asked to give a second address before the Concord School of
Philosophy, I gladly accepted the invitation, as affording a proper
occasion for saying certain things which I had for some time wished to
say about theism. My address was designed to introduce the discussion
of the question whether pantheism is the legitimate outcome of modern
science. It seemed to me that the object might best be attained by
passing in review the various modifications which the idea of God
has undergone in the past, and pointing out the shape in which it is
likely to survive the rapid growth of modern knowledge, and especially
the establishment of that great doctrine of evolution which is fast
obliging us to revise our opinions upon all subjects whatsoever.
Having thus in the text outlined the idea of God most likely to be
conceived by minds trained in the doctrine of evolution, I left it for
further discussion to decide whether the term "pantheism" can properly
be applied to such a conception. While much enlightenment may be got
from carefully describing the substance of a philosophic doctrine,
very little can be gained by merely affixing to it a label; and I
could not but feel that my argument would be simply encumbered by the
introduction of any question of nomenclature involving such a vague and
uninstructive epithet as "pantheism." Such epithets are often regarded
with favour and freely used, as seeming to obviate the necessity for
that kind of labour to which most people are most averse,--the labour
of sustained and accurate thinking. People are too apt to make such
general terms do duty in place of a careful examination of facts, and
are thus sometimes led to strange conclusions. When, for example, they
have heard somebody called an "agnostic," they at once think they know
all about him; whereas they have very likely learned nothing that is
of the slightest value in characterizing his opinions or his mental
attitude. A term that can be applied at once to a Comte, a Mansel, and
a Huxley is obviously of little use in the matter of definition. But,
it may be asked, in spite of their world-wide differences, do not these
three thinkers agree in holding that nothing can be known about the
nature of God? Perhaps so,--one cannot answer even this plain question
with an unqualified yes; but, granting that they fully agree in this
assertion of ignorance, nevertheless, in their philosophic attitudes
with regard to this ignorance, in the use they severally make of the
assertion, in the way it determines their inferences about all manner
of other things, the differences are so vast that nothing but mental
confusion can come from a terminology which would content itself
by applying to all three the common epithet "agnostic." The case is
similar with such a word as "pantheism," which has been familiarly
applied to so many utterly diverse systems of thought that it is
very hard to tell just what it means. It has been equally applied to
the doctrine of "the Hindu philosophers of the orthodox Brahmanical
schools," who "hold that all finite existence is an illusion, and life
mere vexation and mistake, a blunder or sorry jest of the Absolute;"
and to the doctrine of the Stoics, who "went to the other extreme,
and held that the universe was the product of perfect reason and in
an absolute sense good." (Pollock's "Spinoza," p. 356.) In recent
times it has been commonly used as a vituperative epithet, and hurled
indiscriminately at such unpopular opinions as do not seem to call
for so heavy a missile as the more cruel term "atheism." The writer
who sets forth in plain scientific language a physical theory of the
universe is liable to be scowled at and called an atheist; but, when
the very same ideas are presented in the form of oracular apophthegm or
poetic rhapsody, the author is more gently described as "tinctured with
pantheism."
But out of the chaos of vagueness in which this unhappy word has been
immersed it is perhaps still possible to extract something like a
definite meaning. In the broadest sense there are three possible ways
in which we may contemplate the universe.
_First_, we may regard the world of phenomena as sufficient unto
itself, and deny that it needs to be referred to any underlying and
all-comprehensive unity. Nothing has an ultimate origin or destiny;
there is no dramatic tendency in the succession of events, nor any
ultimate law to which everything must be referred; there is no
reasonableness in the universe save that with which human fancy
unwarrantably endows it; the events of the world have no orderly
progression like the scenes of a well-constructed plot, but in the
manner of their coming and going they constitute simply what Chauncey
Wright so aptly called "cosmical weather;" they drift and eddy about in
an utterly blind and irrational manner, though now and then evolving,
as if by accident, temporary combinations which have to us a rational
appearance. This is Atheism, pure and unqualified. It recognizes no
Omnipresent Energy.
_Secondly_, we may hold that the world of phenomena is utterly
unintelligible unless referred to an underlying and all-comprehensive
unity. All things are manifestations of an Omnipresent Energy which
cannot be in any imaginable sense personal or anthropomorphic; out
from this eternal source of phenomena all individualities proceed, and
into it they must all ultimately return and be absorbed; the events
of the world have an orderly progression, but not toward any goal
recognizable by us; in the process of evolution there is nothing that
from any point of view can be called teleological; the beginning and
end of things--that which is Alpha and Omega--is merely an inscrutable
essence, a formless void. Such a view as this may properly be called
Pantheism. It recognizes an Omnipresent Energy, but virtually
identifies it with the totality of things.
_Thirdly_, we may hold that the world of phenomena is intelligible
only when regarded as the multiform manifestation of an Omnipresent
Energy that is in some way--albeit in a way quite above our finite
comprehension--anthropomorphic or quasi-personal. There is a
true objective reasonableness in the universe; its events have
an orderly progression, and, so far as those events are brought
sufficiently within our ken for us to generalize them exhaustively,
their progression is toward a goal that is recognizable by human
intelligence; "the process of evolution is itself the working out of
a mighty Teleology of which our finite understandings can fathom but
the scantiest rudiments" ("Cosmic Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 406); it is
indeed but imperfectly that we can describe the dramatic tendency in
the succession of events, but we can see enough to assure us of the
fundamental fact that there is such a tendency; and this tendency is
the objective aspect of that which, when regarded on its subjective
side, we call Purpose. Such a theory of things is Theism. It recognizes
an Omnipresent Energy, which is none other than the living God.
It is this theistic doctrine which I hold myself, and which in the
present essay I have sought to exhibit as the legitimate outcome
of modern scientific thought. I was glad to have such an excellent
occasion for returning to the subject as the invitation from Concord
gave me, because in a former attempt to expound the same doctrine I
do not seem to have succeeded in making myself understood. In my
"Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy," published in 1874, I endeavoured to
set forth a theory of theism identical with that which is set forth
in the present essay. But an acute and learned friend, writing under
the pseudonym of "Physicus," in his "Candid Examination of Theism"
(London, 1878), thus criticizes my theory: In it, he says, "while I am
able to discern the elements which I think may properly be regarded as
common to Theism and to Atheism, I am not able to discern any single
element that is specifically distinctive of Theism" (p. 145). The
reason for the inability of "Physicus" to discern any such specifically
distinctive element is that he misunderstands me as proposing to
divest the theistic idea of every shred of anthropomorphism, while
still calling it a theistic idea. This, he thinks, would be an utterly
illegitimate proceeding, and I quite agree with him. In similar wise my
friend Mr. Frederick Pollock, in his admirable work on Spinoza (London,
1880), observes that "Mr. Fiske's doctrine excludes the belief in a
so-called Personal God, and the particular forms of religious emotion
dependent on it" (p. 356). If the first part of this sentence stood
alone, I might pause to inquire how much latitude of meaning may be
conveyed in the expression "so-called;" is it meant that I exclude the
belief in a Personal God as it was held by Augustine and Paley, or as
it was held by Clement and Schleiermacher, or both? But the second
clause of the sentence seems to furnish the answer; it seems to imply
that I would practically do away with Theism altogether.
Such a serious misstatement of my position, made in perfect good faith
by two thinkers so conspicuous for ability and candour, shows that,
in spite of all the elaborate care with which the case was stated in
"Cosmic Philosophy," some further explanation is needed. It is true
that there are expressions in that work which, taken singly and by
themselves, might seem to imply a total rejection of theism. Such
expressions occur chiefly in the chapter entitled "Anthropomorphic
Theism," where great pains are taken to show the inadequacy of
the Paley argument from design, and to point out the insuperable
difficulties in which we are entangled by the conception of a Personal
God as it is held by the great majority of modern theologians
who have derived it from Plato and Augustine. In the succeeding
chapters, however, it is expressly argued that the total elimination
of anthropomorphism from the idea of God is impossible. There are
some who, recognizing that the ideas of Personality and Infinity are
unthinkable in combination, seek to escape the difficulty by speaking
of God as the "Infinite Power;" that is, instead of a symbol derived
from our notion of human consciousness, they employ a symbol derived
from our notion of force in general. For many philosophic purposes the
device is eminently useful; but it should not be forgotten that, while
the form of our experience of Personality does not allow us to conceive
it as infinite, it is equally true that the form of our experience
of Force does not allow us to conceive it as infinite, since we know
force only as antagonized by other force. Since, moreover, our notion
of force is purely a generalization from our subjective sensations of
effort overcoming resistance, there is scarcely less anthropomorphism
lurking in the phrase "Infinite Power" than in the phrase "Infinite
Person." Now in "Cosmic Philosophy" I argue that the presence of God
is the one all-pervading fact of life, from which there is no escape;
that while in the deepest sense the nature of Deity is unknowable by
finite Man, nevertheless the exigencies of our thinking oblige us to
symbolize that nature in some form that has a real meaning for us; and
that we cannot symbolize that nature as in any wise physical, but are
bound to symbolize it as in some way psychical. I do not here repeat
the arguments, but simply state the conclusions. The final conclusion
(vol. ii. p. 449) is that we must not say that "God is Force," since
such a phrase inevitably calls up those pantheistic notions of blind
necessity, which it is my express desire to avoid; but, always bearing
in mind the symbolic character of the words, we may say that "God is
Spirit." How my belief in the personality of God could be more strongly
expressed without entirely deserting the language of modern philosophy
and taking refuge in pure mythology, I am unable to see.
There are two points in the present essay which I hope will serve to
define more completely the kind of theism which I have tried to present
as compatible with the doctrine of evolution. One is the historic
contrast between anthropomorphic and cosmic theism regarded in their
modes of genesis, and especially as exemplified within the Christian
church in the very different methods and results of Augustine on the
one hand and Athanasius on the other. The view which I have ventured
to designate as "cosmic theism" is no invention of mine; in its most
essential features it has been entertained by some of the profoundest
thinkers of Christendom in ancient and modern times, from Clement of
Alexandria to Lessing and Goethe and Schleiermacher. The other point is
the teleological inference drawn from the argument of my first Concord
address on "The Destiny of Man, viewed in the Light of his Origin."
When that address was published, a year ago, I was surprised to find it
quite commonly regarded as indicating some radical change of attitude
on my part,--a "conversion," perhaps, from one set of opinions to
another. Inasmuch as the argument in the "Destiny of Man" was based
in every one of its parts upon arguments already published in "Cosmic
Philosophy" (1874), and in the "Unseen World" (1876), I naturally could
not understand why the later book should impress people so differently
from the earlier ones. It presently appeared, however, that none of
my friends who had studied the earlier books had detected any such
change of attitude; it was only people who knew little or nothing
about me, or else the newspapers. Whence the inference seemed obvious
that many readers of the "Destiny of Man" must have contrasted it, not
with my earlier books which they had not read, but with some vague and
distorted notion about my views which had grown up (Heaven knows how or
why!) through the medium of "the press;" and thus there might have been
produced the impression that those views had undergone a radical change.
It would be little to my credit, however, had my views of the
doctrine of evolution and its implications undergone no development
or enlargement since the publication of "Cosmic Philosophy." To carry
such a subject about in one's mind for ten years, without having
any new thoughts about it, would hardly be a proof of fitness for
philosophizing. I have for some time been aware of a shortcoming
in the earlier work, which it is the purpose of these two Concord
addresses in some measure to remedy. That shortcoming was an imperfect
appreciation of the goal toward which the process of evolution is
tending, and a consequent failure to state adequately how the doctrine
of evolution must affect our estimate of Man's place in Nature. Nothing
of fundamental importance in "Cosmic Philosophy" needed changing, but
a new chapter needed to be written, in order to show how the doctrine
of evolution, by exhibiting the development of the highest spiritual
human qualities as the goal toward which God's creative work has from
the outset been tending, replaces Man in his old position of headship
in the universe, even as in the days of Dante and Aquinas. That which
the pre-Copernican astronomy naively thought to do by placing the home
of Man in the centre of the physical universe, the Darwinian biology
profoundly accomplishes by exhibiting Man as the terminal fact in that
stupendous process of evolution whereby things have come to be what
they are. In the deepest sense it is as true as it ever was held to be,
that the world was made for Man, and that the bringing forth in him of
those qualities which we call highest and holiest is the final cause
of creation. The arguments upon which this conclusion rests, as they
are set forth in the "Destiny of Man" and epitomized in the concluding
section of the present essay, may all be found in "Cosmic Philosophy;"
but I failed to sum them up there and indicate the conclusion, almost
within reach, which I had not quite clearly seized. When, after long
hovering in the background of consciousness, it suddenly flashed
upon me two years ago, it came with such vividness as to seem like a
revelation.
This conclusion as to the implications of the doctrine of evolution
concerning Man's place in Nature supplies the element wanting in the
theistic theory set forth in "Cosmic Philosophy,"--the teleological
element. It is profoundly true that a theory of things may seem
theistic or atheistic in virtue of what it says of Man, no less than
in virtue of what it says of God. The craving for a final cause is so
deeply rooted in human nature that no doctrine of theism which fails to
satisfy it can seem other than lame and ineffective. In writing "Cosmic
Philosophy" I fully realized this when, in the midst of the argument
against Paley's form of theism, I said that "the process of evolution
is itself the working out of a mighty Teleology of which our finite
understandings can fathom but the scantiest rudiments." Nevertheless,
while the whole momentum of my thought carried me to the conviction
that it must be so, I was not yet able to indicate _how_ it is so, and
I accordingly left the subject with this brief and inadequate hint.
Could the point have been worked out then and there, I think it would
have left no doubt in the minds of "Physicus" and Mr. Pollock as to the
true character of Cosmic Theism.
But hold, cries the scientific inquirer, what in the world are you
doing? Are we again to resuscitate the phantom Teleology, which we had
supposed at last safely buried between cross-roads and pinned down with
a stake? Was not Bacon right in characterizing "final causes" as vestal
virgins, so barren has their study proved? And has not Huxley, with
yet keener sarcasm, designated them the _hetairæ_ of philosophy, so
often have they led men astray? Very true. I do not wish to take back a
single word of all that I have said in my chapter on "Anthropomorphic
Theism" in condemnation of the teleological method and the peculiar
theistic doctrines upon which it rests. As a means of investigation
it is absolutely worthless. Nay, it is worse than worthless; it is
treacherous, it is debauching to the intellect. But that is no reason
why, when a distinct dramatic tendency in the events of the universe
appears as the _result_ of purely scientific investigation, we should
refuse to recognize it. It is the object of the "Destiny of Man"
to prove that there is such a dramatic tendency; and while such a
tendency cannot be regarded as indicative of purpose in the limited
anthropomorphic sense, it is still, as I said before, the objective
aspect of that which, when regarded on its subjective side, we call
Purpose. There is a reasonableness in the universe such as to indicate
that the Infinite Power of which it is the multiform manifestation is
psychical, though it is impossible to ascribe to Him any of the limited
psychical attributes which we know, or to argue from the ways of Man to
the ways of God. For, as St. Paul reminds us, "who hath known the mind
of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?"
It is in this sense that I accept Mr. Spencer's doctrine of the
Unknowable. How far my interpretation agrees with his own I do not
undertake to say. On such an abstruse matter it is best that one should
simply speak for one's self. But in his recent essay on "Retrogressive
Religion" he uses expressions which imply a doctrine of theism
essentially similar to that here maintained. The "infinite and eternal
Energy from which all things proceed," and which is the same power that
"in ourselves wells up under the form of consciousness," is certainly
the power which is here recognized as God. The term "Unknowable" I have
carefully refrained from using; it does not occur in the text of this
essay. It describes only one aspect of Deity, but it has been seized
upon by shallow writers of every school, treated as if fully synonymous
with Deity, and made the theme of the most dismal twaddle that the
world has been deluged with since the days of mediæval scholasticism.
The latest instance is the wretched positivist rubbish which Mr.
Frederic Harrison has mistaken for criticism, and to which it is almost
a pity that Mr. Spencer should have felt called upon to waste his
valuable time in replying. That which Mr. Spencer throughout all his
works regards as the All-Being, the Power of which "our lives, alike
physical and mental, in common with all the activities, organic and
inorganic, amid which we live, are but the workings,"--this omnipresent
Power it pleases Mr. Harrison to call the "All-Nothingness," to
describe it as "a logical formula begotten in controversy, dwelling
apart from man and the world" (whatever all that may mean), and to
imagine its worshippers as thus addressing it in prayer, "O _x_^n,
love us, help us, make us one with thee!" If Mr. Harrison's aim were
to understand, rather than to misrepresent, the religious attitude
which goes with such a conception of Deity as Mr. Spencer's, he could
nowhere find it more happily expressed than in these wonderful lines of
Goethe:--
"Weltseele, komm, uns zu durchdringen!
Dann mit dem Weltgeist selbst zu ringen
Wird unsrer Kräfte Hochberuf.
Theilnehmend führen gute Geister,
Gelinde leitend, höchste Meister,
Zu dem der alles schafft und schuf."
Mr. Harrison is enabled to perform his antics simply because he happens
to have such a word as "Unknowable" to play with. Yet the word which
has been put to such unseemly uses is, when properly understood, of the
highest value in theistic philosophy. That Deity _per se_ is not only
unknown but unknowable is a truth which Mr. Spencer has illustrated
with all the resources of that psychologic analysis of which he is
incomparably the greatest master the world has ever seen; but it is not
a truth which originated with him, or the demonstration of which is
tantamount, as Mr. Harrison would have us believe, to the destruction
of all religion. Among all the Christian theologians that have lived,
there are few higher names than Athanasius, who also regarded Deity
_per se_ as unknowable, being revealed to mankind only through
incarnation in Christ. It is not as failing to recognize its value
that I have refrained in this essay from using the term "Unknowable;"
it is because so many false and stupid inferences have been drawn
from Mr. Spencer's use of the word that it seemed worth while to show
how a doctrine essentially similar to his might be expounded without
introducing it. For further elucidation I will simply repeat in this
connection what I wrote long ago: "It is enough to remind the reader
that Deity is unknowable just in so far as it is not manifested to
consciousness through the phenomenal world,--knowable just in so
far as it is thus manifested: unknowable in so far as infinite and
absolute,--knowable in the order of its phenomenal manifestations;
knowable, in a symbolic way, as the Power which is disclosed in every
throb of the mighty rhythmic life of the universe; knowable as the
eternal Source of a Moral Law which is implicated with each action
of our lives, and in obedience to which lies our only guaranty of
the happiness which is incorruptible, and which neither inevitable
misfortune nor unmerited obloquy can take away. Thus, though we may
not by searching find out God, though we may not compass infinitude
or attain to absolute knowledge, we may at least know all that it
concerns us to know, as intelligent and responsible beings. They who
seek to know more than this, to transcend the conditions under which
alone is knowledge possible, are, in Goethe's profound language, as
wise as little children who, when they have looked into a mirror, turn
it around to see what is behind it." ("Cosmic Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
470.)
* * * * *
The present essay must be regarded as a sequel to the "Destiny of
Man,"--so much so that the force of the argument in the concluding
section can hardly be appreciated without reference to the other
book. The two books, taken together, contain the bare outlines of a
theory of religion which I earnestly hope at some future time to state
elaborately in a work on the true nature of Christianity. Some such
scheme had begun vaguely to dawn upon my mind when I was fourteen years
old, and thought in the language of the rigid Calvinistic orthodoxy
then prevalent in New England. After many and extensive changes of
opinion, the idea assumed definite shape in the autumn of 1869, when
I conceived the plan of a book to be entitled "Jesus of Nazareth and
the Founding of Christianity,"--a work intended to deal on the one
hand with the natural genesis of the complex aggregate of beliefs and
aspirations known as Christianity, and on the other hand with the
metamorphoses which are being wrought in this aggregate by modern
knowledge and modern theories of the universe. Such a book, involving a
treatment both historical and philosophical, requires long and varied
preparation; and I have always regarded my other books, published from
time to time, as simply wayside studies preliminary to the undertaking
of this complicated and difficult task. While thus habitually shaping
my work with reference to this cherished idea, I have written some
things which are in a special sense related to it. The rude outlines of
a very small portion of the historical treatment are contained in the
essays on "The Jesus of History," and "The Christ of Dogma," published
in the volume entitled "The Unseen World, and Other Essays." The
outlines of the philosophical treatment are partially set forth in the
"Destiny of Man" and in the present work.
It amused me to see that almost every review of the "Destiny of Man"
took pains to state that it was my Concord address "rewritten and
expanded." Such trifles help one to understand the helter-skelter way
in which more important things get said and believed. The "Destiny of
Man" was printed exactly as it was delivered at Concord, without the
addition, or subtraction, or alteration of a single word. The case is
the same with the present work.
PETERSHAM, _September 6, 1885_.