With this acknowledgment of important drawbacks, requiring many words
for their proper description, I proceed to indicate certain results
of Darwin's doctrine which I believe to be in the long run wholly
beneficial to Christian thought. These are:
The encouragement in theology of that evolutionary method of observation
and study, which has shaped all modern research:
The recoil of Christian apologetics towards the ground of religious
experience, a recoil produced by the pressure of scientific criticism
upon other supports of faith:
The restatement, or the recovery of ancient forms of statement, of the
doctrines of Creation and of divine Design in Nature, consequent upon
the discussion of evolution and of natural selection as its guiding
factor.
(1) The first of these is quite possibly the most important of all.
It was well defined in a notable paper read by Dr Gore, now Bishop of
Birmingham, to the Church Congress at Shrewsbury in 1896. We have learnt
a new caution both in ascribing and in denying significance to items of
evidence, in utterance or in event. There has been, as in art, a study
of values, which secures perspective and solidity in our representation
of facts. On the one hand, a given utterance or event cannot be drawn
into evidence as if all items were of equal consequence, like sovereigns
in a bag. The question whence and whither must be asked, and the
particular thing measured as part of a series. Thus measured it is not
less truly important, but it may be important in a lower degree. On the
other hand, and for exactly the same reason, nothing that is real is
unimportant. The "failures" are not mere mistakes. We see them, in St
Augustine's words, as "scholar's faults which men praise in hope of
fruit."
We cannot safely trace the origin of the evolutionistic method to the
influence of natural science. The view is tenable that theology led the
way. Probably this is a case of alternate and reciprocal debt. Quite
certainly the evolutionist method in theology, in Christian history,
and in the estimate of scripture, has received vast reinforcement
from biology, in which evolution has been the ever present and ever
victorious conception.
(2) The second effect named is the new willingness of Christian thinkers
to take definite account of religious experience. This is related to
Darwin through the general pressure upon religious faith of scientific
criticism. The great advance of our knowledge of organisms has been an
important element in the general advance of science. It has acted,
by the varied requirements of the theory of organisms, upon all other
branches of natural inquiry, and it held for a long time that leading
place in public attention which is now occupied by speculative physics.
Consequently it contributed largely to our present estimation of science
as the supreme judge in all matters of inquiry (F.R. Tennant: "The Being
of God in the light of Physical Science", in "Essays on some theological
questions of the day". London, 1905.), to the supposed destruction of
mystery and the disparagement of metaphysic which marked the last age,
as well as to the just recommendation of scientific method in branches
of learning where the direct acquisitions of natural science had no
place.
Besides this, the new application of the idea of law and mechanical
regularity to the organic world seemed to rob faith of a kind of refuge.
The romantics had, as Berthelot ("Evolutionisme et Platonisme", pages
45, 46, 47. Paris, 1908.) shows, appealed to life to redress the
judgments drawn from mechanism. Now, in Spencer, evolution gave us a
vitalist mechanic or mechanical vitalism, and the appeal seemed cut off.
We may return to this point later when we consider evolution; at
present I only endeavour to indicate that general pressure of scientific
criticism which drove men of faith to seek the grounds of reassurance
in a science of their own; in a method of experiment, of observation,
of hypothesis checked by known facts. It is impossible for me to do more
than glance across the threshold of this subject. But it is necessary to
say that the method is in an elementary stage of revival. The imposing
success that belongs to natural science is absent: we fall short of
the unchallengeable unanimity of the Biologists on fundamentals. The
experimental method with its sure repetitions cannot be applied to our
subject-matter. But we have something like the observational method of
palaeontology and geographical distribution; and in biology there are
still men who think that the large examination of varieties by way
of geography and the search of strata is as truly scientific, uses as
genuinely the logical method of difference, and is as fruitful in sure
conclusions as the quasi-chemical analysis of Mendelian laboratory work,
of which last I desire to express my humble admiration. Religion also
has its observational work in the larger and possibly more arduous
manner.
But the scientific work in religion makes its way through difficulties
and dangers. We are far from having found the formula of its combination
with the historical elements of our apologetic. It is exposed,
therefore, to a damaging fire not only from unspiritualist psychology
and pathology but also from the side of scholastic dogma. It is hard to
admit on equal terms a partner to the old undivided rule of books and
learning. With Charles Lamb, we cry in some distress, "must knowledge
come to me, if it come at all, by some awkward experiment of intuition,
and no longer by this familiar process of reading?" ("Essays of Elia",
"New Year's Eve", page 41; Ainger's edition. London, 1899.) and we are
answered that the old process has an imperishable value, only we have
not yet made clear its connection with other contributions. And all
the work is young, liable to be drawn into unprofitable excursions,
side-tracked by self-deceit and pretence; and it fatally attracts, like
the older mysticism, the curiosity and the expository powers of those
least in sympathy with it, ready writers who, with all the air of
extended research, have been content with narrow grounds for induction.
There is a danger, besides, which accompanies even the most genuine
work of this science and must be provided against by all its serious
students. I mean the danger of unbalanced introspection both for
individuals and for societies; of a preoccupation comparable to our
modern social preoccupation with bodily health; of reflection upon
mental states not accompanied by exercise and growth of the mental
powers; the danger of contemplating will and neglecting work, of
analysing conviction and not criticising evidence.
Still, in spite of dangers and mistakes, the work remains full of
hopeful indications, and, in the best examples (Such an example is given
in Baron F. von Hugel's recently finished book, the result of thirty
years' research: "The Mystical Element of Religion, as studied in
Saint Catherine of Genoa and her Friends". London, 1908.), it is truly
scientific in its determination to know the very truth, to tell what
we think, not what we think we ought to think. (G. Tyrrell, in
"Mediaevalism", has a chapter which is full of the important MORAL
element in a scientific attitude. "The only infallible guardian of truth
is the spirit of truthfulness." "Mediaevalism" page 182, London, 1908.),
truly scientific in its employment of hypothesis and verification, and
in growing conviction of the reality of its subject-matter through the
repeated victories of a mastery which advances, like science, in the
Baconian road of obedience. It is reasonable to hope that progress in
this respect will be more rapid and sure when religious study enlists
more men affected by scientific desire and endowed with scientific
capacity.
The class of investigating minds is a small one, possibly even smaller
than that of reflecting minds. Very few persons at any period are able
to find out anything whatever. There are few observers, few discoverers,
few who even wish to discover truth. In how many societies the problems
of philology which face every person who speaks English are left
unattempted! And if the inquiring or the successfully inquiring class
of minds is small, much smaller, of course, is the class of those
possessing the scientific aptitude in an eminent degree. During the last
age this most distinguished class was to a very great extent absorbed
in the study of phenomena, a study which had fallen into arrears. For
we stood possessed, in rudiment, of means of observation, means for
travelling and acquisition, qualifying men for a larger knowledge than
had yet been attempted. These were now to be directed with new accuracy
and ardour upon the fabric and behaviour of the world of sense. Our
debt to the great masters in physical science who overtook and almost
out-stripped the task cannot be measured; and, under the honourable
leadership of Ruskin, we may all well do penance if we have failed "in
the respect due to their great powers of thought, or in the admiration
due to the far scope of their discovery." ("Queen of the Air", Preface,
page vii. London, 1906.) With what miraculous mental energy and divine
good fortune--as Romans said of their soldiers--did our men of curiosity
face the apparently impenetrable mysteries of nature! And how natural
it was that immense accessions of knowledge, unrelated to the spiritual
facts of life, should discredit Christian faith, by the apparent
superiority of the new work to the feeble and unprogressive knowledge of
Christian believers! The day is coming when men of this mental character
and rank, of this curiosity, this energy and this good fortune in
investigation, will be employed in opening mysteries of a spiritual
nature. They will silence with masterful witness the over-confident
denials of naturalism. They will be in danger of the widespread
recognition which thirty years ago accompanied every utterance of
Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer. They will contribute, in spite of adulation,
to the advance of sober religious and moral science.
And this result will be due to Darwin, first because by raising the
dignity of natural science, he encouraged the development of the
scientific mind; secondly because he gave to religious students the
example of patient and ardent investigation; and thirdly because by the
pressure of naturalistic criticism the religious have been driven to
ascertain the causes of their own convictions, a work in which they were
not without the sympathy of men of science. (The scientific rank of its
writer justifies the insertion of the following letter from the late Sir
John Burdon-Sanderson to me. In the lecture referred to I had described
the methods of Professor Moseley in teaching Biology as affording a
suggestion of the scientific treatment of religion.)
Oxford, April 30, 1902.
Dear Sir,
I feel that I must express to you my thanks for the discourse which I
had the pleasure of listening to yesterday afternoon.
I do not mean to say that I was able to follow all that you said as to
the identity of Method in the two fields of Science and Religion, but I
recognise that the "mysticism" of which you spoke gives us the only way
by which the two fields can be brought into relation.
Among much that was memorable, nothing interested me more than what you
said of Moseley.
No one, I am sure, knew better than you the value of his teaching and in
what that value consisted.