Religion and Philosophy, the two best gifts of Heaven, set up in opposition
to each other at the revival of letters; and never did competing tradesmen
more grossly misbehave. Bad wishes and bad names flew about like swarms of
wasps. The Athanasian curses were intended against philosophers; who, had
they been a corporation, with state powers to protect them, would have
formulized a _per contra_. But the tradesmen are beginning to combine: they
are civil to each other; too civil by half. I speak especially of Great
Britain. Old theology has run off to ritualism, much lamenting, with no
comfort except the discovery that the cloak Paul left at Troas was a
chasuble. Philosophy, which always had a little sense sewed up in its
garments--to pay for its funeral?--has expended a trifle in accommodating
itself to the new system. But the two are poles of a battery; and a
question arises.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pepper,
Where is the peck of pepper Peter Piper picked?
If Religion and Philosophy be the two poles of a battery, whose is the
battery Religion and Philosophy have been made the poles of? Is the change
in the relation of the wires any presumption of a removal of the managers?
We know pretty well who handled the instrument: has he resigned or been[77]
turned out? Has he been put under {38} restriction? A fool may ask more
questions than twenty sages can answer: but there is hope; for twenty sages
cannot ask more questions than one reviewer can answer. I should like to
see the opposite sides employed upon the question, What are the _commoda_,
and what the _pericula_,[78] of the current approximation of Religion and
Philosophy?
All this is very profane and irreverent! It has always been so held by
those whose position demands such holding. To describe the Church as it is
passes for assailing the Church as it ought to be with all who cannot do
without it. In Bedlam[79] a poor creature who fancied he was St. Paul, was
told by another patient that he was an impostor; the first maniac lodged a
complaint against the second for calling St. Paul an impostor, which, he
argued, with much appearance of sanity, ought not to be permitted in a well
regulated madhouse. Nothing could persuade him that he had missed the
question, which was whether _he_ was St. Paul. The same thing takes place
in the world _at large_. And especially must be noted the refusal to permit
to the _profane_ the millionth part of the licence assumed by the _sacred_.
I give a sound churchman the epitaph of St. John Long; the usual
pronunciation of whose name must be noted--
"Behold! ye quacks, the vengeance strong
On deeds like yours impinging:
For here below lies St. John Long[80]
Who now must be _long singeing_."
How shameful to pronounce this of the poor man! What, Mr. Orthodox! may I
not do in joke to one pretender what {39} you do in earnest--unless you
quibble--to all the millions of the Greek Church, and a great many others.
Enough of you and your reasoning! Go and square the circle!
The few years which end with 1867 have shown, not merely the intermediate
fusion of Theology and Philosophy of which I have spoken, but much
concentration of the two extremes, which looks like a gathering of forces
for some very hard fought Armageddon. Extreme theology has been aiming at a
high Church in England, which is to show a new front to all heresy: and
extreme philosophy is contriving a physical organization which is to
_think_, and to show that mind is a consequence of matter, or thought a
recreation of brain. The physical speculators begin with a possible
hypothesis, in which they aim at explanation: and so the bold aspirations
of the author of the _Vestiges_ find standing-ground in the variation of
species by "natural selection." Some relics--so supposed--of extremely
ancient men are brought to help the general cause. Only distant hints are
given that by possibility it may end in the formation of all living
organisms from a very few, if not from one. The better heads above
mentioned know that their theory, if true, does not bear upon morals. The
formation of solar systems from a nebular hypothesis, followed by
organizations gradually emerging from some curious play of particles, nay,
the very evolution of mind and thought from such an apparatus, are all as
consistent with a Personal creative power to whom homage and obedience are
due, and who has declared himself, as with a blind Nature of Things. A pure
materialist, as to all things visible, may be even a bigotted Christian:
this is not frequent, but it is possible. There is a proverb which says, A
pig may fly, but it isn't a likely bird. But when the psychological
speculator comes in, he often undertakes to draw inferences from the
physical conclusions, by joining on his tremendous apparatus of _a priori_
knowledge. He deduces that he can _do without_ a God: he can deduce all
things {40} without any such necessity. With Occam[81] and Newton he will
have no more causes than are necessary to explain phenomena _to him_: and
if by pure head-work combined with results of physical observation he can
construct his universe, he must be a very _unphilosophical_ man who would
encumber himself with a useless Creator! There is something tangible about
my method, says he; yours is vague. He requires it to be granted that his
system is _positive_ and that yours is _impositive_. So reasoned the stage
coachman when the railroads began to depose him--"If you're upset in a
stage-coach, why, there you are! but if you're upset on the railroad, where
are you?" The answer lies in another question, Which is most positive
knowledge, God deduced from man and his history, or the postulates of the
few who think they can reason _a priori_ on the tacit assumption of
unlimited command of data?
We are not yet come to the existence of a school of philosophers who
explicitly deny a Creator: but we are on the way, though common sense may
interpose. There are always straws which show the direction of the wind. I
have before me the printed letter of a medical man--to whose professional
ability I have good testimony--who finds the vital principle in highly
rarefied oxygen. With the usual logic of such thinkers, he dismisses the
"eternal personal identity" because "If soul, spirit, mind, which are
merely modes of sensation, be the attribute or function of nerve-tissue, it
cannot possibly have any existence apart from its material organism!" How
does he know this _impossibility_? If all the mind _we_ know be from
nerve-tissue, how does it appear that mind in other planets may not be
another thing? Nay, when we come to _possibilities_, does not his own
system give a queer one? If highly rarefied oxygen be vital power, more
highly rarefied oxygen {41} may be more vital and more powerful. Where is
this to stop? Is it _impossible_ that a finite quantity, rarefied _ad
infinitum_, may be an Omnipotent? Perhaps the true Genesis, when written,
will open with "In the beginning was an imperial quart of oxygen at 60
deg. of Fahrenheit, and the pressure of the atmosphere; and this oxygen
was infinitely rarefied; and this oxygen became God." For myself, my
aspirations as to this system are Manichaean. The quart of oxygen is the
Ormuzd, or good principle: another quart, of hydrogen, is the Ahriman, or
evil principle! My author says that his system explains Freewill and
Immortality so obviously that it is difficult to read previous speculations
with becoming gravity. My deduction explains the conflict of good and evil
with such clearness that no one can henceforward read the New Testament
with becoming reverence. The surgeon whom I have described is an early bud
which will probably be nipped by the frost and wither on the ground: but
there is a good crop coming. Material pneuma is destined to high functions;
and man is to read by gas-light.