belief in objective reality. Both have been explained away by
philosophers. Neither can be proved but by a circular argument. Both
persist in the consciousness of mankind. Both have been purified and
rationalized by the growth of knowledge. But the moment reason
attempts to start without assumptions, and claims exclusive
sovereignty over man, a paralysis of thought results. There have been,
before now, philosophers who professed to begin at the beginning, and
accept nothing till it was proved, and the result was a pure
Pyrrhonism. They could not prove the existence of an external world.
They believed it, even if they did not, like Hume, exult in the fact
that belief triumphed over demonstration, but there was no sure ground
for believing that the world was not a mere cerebral phenomenon,
except the curiously rational coherence of its visions. Even Prof.
Huxley, in his ultra-sceptical moods, admits this. He says[140] that
'for any demonstration that can be given to the contrary effect, the
"collection of perceptions," which makes up our consciousness, may be
an orderly phantasmagoria generated by the Ego, unfolding its
successive scenes on the background of the abyss of nothingness.' But
no one, least of all a man of science, believes this to be so. He
takes reality for granted, and only tries to interpret it aright, i.e.
in such a way as to make a rational unity of the facts perceived. Tell
a scientific specialist,--'I am not going to let you beg the question.
You must first prove that nature exists, and then I will hear about
the science of nature,' and he will say 'That is metaphysics,' which
to him is probably a synonym for an intellectual waste of time. 'Look
at nature,' he will say, 'what more do you want? If nature had been
merely a phantasmagoria there would have been no science of nature. Of
course you must make your "act of faith[141]." You must believe not
only that nature exists, but that it is a cosmos which can be
interpreted, if you can only find the key. The proof that nature is
interpretable is that we have, at least in part, been able to
interpret her. There were people in John Locke's day who professed to
doubt their own existence, and he was content to answer them according
to their folly. "If anyone," he says[142], "pretends to be so
sceptical as to deny his own existence (for really to doubt of it is
manifestly impossible) let him, for me, enjoy his beloved happiness of
being nothing, until hunger, or some other pain, convince him to the
contrary."' We do not call a scientific man unreasonable if he answers
thus, though he is justifying his premisses by his conclusion. We know
that he that would study nature must believe that it is, and that it
is a rational whole which reason can interpret. And 'he that cometh to
God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of such as
diligently seek Him.' We feel our kinship with both before the
instinctive consciousness is justified by reason.
And there is a remarkable parallelism in the process of verification.
The counterpart of the theological belief in the unity and
omnipresence of God is the scientific belief in the unity of nature
and the reign of law. But that belief, though implicit in the simplest
operation of reason[143], is not consciously attained till late in the
history of science. And even when it is reached, it is not at once
grasped in all its wealth and fulness. It is thought of as mere
uniformity, a dull mechanical repetition of events, which is powerless
to explain or include the rich variety of nature and the phenomena of
life and growth. It is to meet this difficulty that J. S. Mill naively
assures us that 'the course of nature is not only uniform, it is also
infinitely various[144].' But soon the truth is grasped, that the
reign of law is a unity which is higher than mere uniformity, because
it is living and not dead, and includes and transcends difference. It
is the analogue in science to that higher and fuller view of God in
which He is revealed as Trinity in Unity.
But as these parallel processes of verification go on, the truth is
forced upon the world that religion and philosophy must either be in
internecine conflict, or recognise the oneness of their Object. 'We
and the philosophers,' says S. Clement, 'know the same God, but not in
the same way[145].' Philosophy and religion have both been enriched by
wider knowledge, and as their knowledge has become deeper and fuller,
the adjustment of their claims has become more imperatively necessary.
Few in our day would willingly abandon either, or deliberately
sacrifice one to the other. Many would be ready to assent to the words
of a Christian Father; 'when philosophy and the worship of the gods
are so widely separated, that the professors of wisdom cannot bring us
near to the gods, and the priests of religion cannot give us wisdom;
it is manifest that the one is not true wisdom, and the other is not
true religion. Therefore neither is philosophy able to conceive the
truth, nor is religion able to justify itself. But where philosophy is
joined by an inseparable connection with religion, both must
necessarily be true, because in our religion we ought to be wise, that
is, to know the true Object and mode of worship, and in our wisdom to
worship, that is, to realize in action what we know[146].'
It is sometimes argued,--You have let in more than the thin end of the
wedge. You admit that 'it is the province of reason to judge of the
morality of the Scripture[147].' You profess no antagonism to
historical and literary criticism. Under the criticism of reason,
Fetichism has given way to Polytheism, Polytheism to Monotheism, even
Monotheism has become progressively less anthropomorphic. Why object
to the last step in the process, and cling to the belief in a Personal
God? Simply because it would make the difference between a religion
purified and a religion destroyed. The difference between the 30,000
gods of Hesiod, and the One God of Christianity, is a measurable
difference: the difference between a Personal God and an impersonal
reason is, so far as religion is concerned, infinite. For the
transition from Monotheism to Pantheism is made only by the surrender
of religion, though the term 'theism' may be used to blur the line of
separation, and make the transition easy.
Religion has, before all things, to guard the heritage of truth, the
moral revelation of God in Christ, to 'contend earnestly for the faith
once delivered to the saints,' and to trust to the promised guidance
of the Spirit of Truth. And reason interprets religion to itself, and
by interpreting verifies and confirms. Religion therefore claims as
its own the new light which metaphysics and science are in our day
throwing upon the truth of the immanence of God: it protests only
against those imperfect, because premature, syntheses, which in the
interests of abstract speculation, would destroy religion. It dares to
maintain that 'the Fountain of wisdom and religion alike is God: and
if these two streams shall turn aside from Him, both must assuredly
run dry.' For human nature craves to be both religious and rational.
And the life which is not both is neither.
[59] Fiske, _Idea of God_, p. 139, quoting H. Spencer.
[60] S. Clem. Alex. _Strom._ I. v.
[61] Cf. Herbert Spencer, _First Principles_, Pt. I.
[62] See this criticism excellently stated in Caird's _Phil. of
Religion_, pp. 32, etc.
[63] _Natural Religion_, iii. p. 45, quoted by Martineau.
[64] Ibid., iv. p. 74.
[65] Frederic Harrison's _New Year's Address_, 1884.
[66] _A Study of Religion_, vol. i. pp. 11, 12.
[67] Ibid., p. 15.
[68] _Old Faith and New_, § 41.
[69] 'Hoc vinculo pietatis obstricti Deo et religati sumus, unde ipsa
religio nomen accepit, non ut Cicero interpretatus est, a relegendo,'
Lact. _Inst._ iv. 28.
[70] _De verâ religione_, sub fin.
[71] _Sum. Theol._ 2. 2. 81. Art. 1.
[72] _Idea of God_, p. 117.
[73] See Seth's _Hegelianism and Personality_, pp. 223, 224, one or
two sentences from which are, almost verbatim, transferred to the
text.
[74] Justin Martyr (_Exhort. ad Graec._, ch. xxxiv) explains the
anthropomorphisms of polytheism as an inversion of the truth that man
is in the image of God.
[75] Hume, _Essays_, II. 425.
[76] H. Spencer, _Eccl. Inst._, p. 1.
[77] _Psych._ vol. ii. §§ 388-391.
[78] Caird, _Philosophy of Religion_, p. 162.
[79] Ritter and Preller, _Hist. Phil. Graec._, 7th ed. § 82.
[80] Ibid., § 83.
[81] Plat. _Rep._ 377-385.
[82] _Theaet._ 176 C.
[83] H. Spencer, of course, follows Kuenen in assuming a polytheistic
origin of Hebrew monotheism. See Kuenen, _Religion of Israel_, i. 223.
[84] It is strange that Mr. Darwin should have failed to see that this
was the answer to his difficulty. It appeared to him, he tells us
(_Autobiography_, p. 308), 'utterly incredible that if God were now to
make a revelation to the Hindoos, he would permit it to be connected
with the belief in Vishnu, Siva, &c., as Christianity is connected
with the Old Testament.' Incredible, no doubt. But why? For the very
reason which makes it 'incredible' that man should be evolved directly
from a fish, as Anaximander is said to have taught, and not incredible
that he should be evolved, as Darwin teaches, from one of the higher
vertebrates. The very idea of development, whether in species or
religions, implies a law, and order in the development.
[85] S. Athan. _De Incarn._ c. xii.
[86] It is needless to say that this section is largely indebted to
Dean Church's _Discipline of the Christian Character_.
[87] _Edinb. Rev._, Apr. 1888, p. 512.
[88] _Discipline of the Christian Character_, p. 85.
[89] Ibid., p. 87.
[90] Hegel, _Phil. of Hist._, p. 247, Eng. Tr.
[91] _Cont. Rev._, Oct. 1878, p. 645.
[92] Ranke, _Popes_, i. 395.
[93] Dollinger, _The Church and the Churches_, p. 239.
[94] _Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy_, p. 103.
[95] H. Spencer, _Data of Ethics_, pref.
[96] See Ihne's remarks on the separation of morals and religion in
Rome at the time of the Punic wars. 'The religious cravings were not
satisfied, and men were carried either to the schools of Greek
Philosophy or to the grossest and meanest superstition.' _Hist. of
Rome_, vol. ii. pp. 477, 478.
[97] _History of Religions_, p. 22.
[98] Edersheim, _Life and Times_, i. p. 17.
[99] See Edersheim, i. pp. 31, etc.
[100] Hegel, _Philosophy of History_, p. 343, Eng. Tr.
[101] 2 S. Pet. ii. 1.
[102] 1 Tim. vi. 20.
[103] 1 Cor. viii. 6.
[104] 1 Cor. iii. 19.
[105] Euseb. iii. 28.
[106] 1 Cor. ii. 12.
[107] Newman's _Arians_, ch. ii. § 1.
[108] _Natural Truth of Christianity_, §§ 1, 2.
[109] _Phil. of Hist._, p. 343, Eng. Tr.
[110] Dorner. _Hist. of Doct._ i. pp. 362, etc.
[111] _Adv. Prax._ ch. iii.
[112] _Cont. Noet._ § xiv.
[113] _Inst._ iv. c. 29.
[114] _Strom._ v. 1.
[115] _De Princ._ I. ii. § 10.
[116] _Adv. Arianos_ i. § 20.
[117] _De Trin._ viii. 10 and ix. 2.
[118] Iren. _Adv. Haer._ IV. iv. I. 2.
[119] Cf. pp. 333-336.
[120] Plat. _Phaed._ 98 B. Arist. _Met._
[121] p. 455ᵇ17. The references are to the Berlin edition.
[122] p. 199ᵃ8, 18: 415ᵇ17: 731ᵃ24.
[123] p. 1070ᵃ7, 1033ᵇ8, 753ᵃ3.
[124] Dorner, _Hist. of Doct._ i. p. 366.
[125] S. Athan. _Contra Gentes_, § 42.
[126] Morison's _Service of Man_, p. 48.
[127] Quoted by W. S. Lilly, _Nineteenth Century_, Aug. 1888, p. 292.
[128] Morison, _Service of Man_, p. 49.
[129] It is far from our purpose to undervalue the work of Dr.
Martineau. No more earnest and vigorous, and so far as it goes, no
truer defence of religion has been published in our day. But his
strength lies mainly in his protest against what destroys religion,
and in his uncompromising assertion of what religion, as a condition
of its existence, demands. He has done little to shew us how these
demands can be rationally satisfied, how the personal God, which
religion demands, is even an intelligible idea. He wavers between a
view which logically developed must result in pantheism, and a view
implying a distinction in the Divine nature, which carries him far in
the Trinitarian direction. More often he contents himself with leaving
the speculative question alone, or storming the rational position by
the forces of religion and morals. See _A Study of Religion_, vol. ii.
p. 145 compared with p. 192.
[130] Newman's _Arians_, p. 84.
[131] Cf. Fiske, _Idea of God_, pp. 103, 104. Martineau, _A Study of
Religion_, ii. 172, 173.
[132] _Idea of God_, cf. § v. and pp. 105-110.
[133] Apparently by Prof. Allen's _Continuity of Christian Thought_.
[134] Fiske, _Idea of God_, p. 94.
[135] Ibid., § vii.
[136] _De Incarn._ c. 17.
[137] _De Civ. Dei_, vii. c. xxx; cf. too _De Gen. ad lit._ iv. c. 12;
_Enchir. ad Laur._ c. 27.
[138] S. Thoa. Aq. _Sum. Theol._ I. i. Quaest. 2, says that the
Existence of God is demonstrable, but he explains that he does not
mean strict demonstration, _demonstratio apodeictica_ but
_demonstratio ab effectibus_.
[139] _The Existence of God._ By Rev. R. F. Clarke, S.J., p. 6.
[140] Huxley's _Hume_, p. 81.
[141] 'The one act of faith in the convert to science, is the
confession of the universality of order and of the absolute validity,
in all times and under all circumstances, of the law of causation.
This confession is an act of faith, because, by the nature of the
case, the truth of such propositions is not susceptible of proof.'
Huxley in _Darwin's Life and Letters_, vol. ii. p. 200.
[142] _Essay_ IV. 10. § 2.
[143] Cf. Green's _Works_, vol. ii. p. 284.
[144] _Log._ Bk. III. ch. iii. § 2.
[145] _Strom._ vi. 5.
[146] Lact. _Institt._ IV. iii.
[147] Butler's _Analogy_, Pt. II. ch. iii. p. 183.
III.
_THE PROBLEM OF PAIN._
J. R. ILLINGWORTH.
The problem of pain, always prominent in a sensitive age, has been
exceptionally emphasized in the literature of modern pessimism as an
objection to Theism in general, and Christianity in particular. The
existence of pain is urged as incompatible with the belief in a God
who is at once omnipotent and benevolent, that is with Theism in its
ordinary form; while Christianity is further charged with being a
religion of pain, a religion which has increased the sum of actual,
and the expectation of prospective pain, darkening the shadow that
lies upon our race. Suffering is not a subject upon which anything new
can be said. It has long ago been probed, to the utmost limit of our
capacity, and remains a mystery still. But, in face of the adverse use
now made of it, it may be well to bear in mind how much has been said
and is to be said upon the other side.
To begin with, there are two classes of pain, animal and human, which
however intimately they may be connected must, for clearness, be
considered apart. The universality of pain throughout the range of the
animal world, reaching back into the distant ages of geology, and
involved in the very structure of the animal organism, is without
doubt among the most serious problems which the Theist has to face.
But it is a problem in dealing with which emotion is very often
mistaken for logic. J. S. Mill's famous indictment of nature, for
example, is one of the most emotional pieces of rhetoric of which a
professed logician was ever guilty. When a certain class of facts is
urged in objection to our Christian belief, we are entitled to ask how
many of those facts are known, and how many are only imagined. There
is of course a scientific use of the imagination, but it is only
permissible within the bounds of possible, or at least conceivable,
verification. Imaginative conjectures which, from the nature of the
case, will never admit either of verification or disproof are poetry
and not science, and must be treated as such in argument. With all the
changes that have passed over our knowledge, we may still do well to
attend to the caution with which Butler begins his Analogy:--
'One cannot but be greatly sensible how difficult it is to silence
imagination enough to make the voice of reason even distinctly heard;
as we are accustomed from our youth up to indulge that forward
delusive faculty, ever obtruding beyond its sphere; of some assistance
indeed to apprehension, but the author of all error: as we plainly
lose ourselves in gross and crude conceptions of things, taking for
granted that we are acquainted with what indeed we are wholly ignorant
of.'
This needs repeating, because much of the popular knowledge of the day
consists in the acceptance of results without examination of the
methods of their attainment; somewhat as, in the countryman's simple
faith, a thing must needs be true because he has seen it in a book.
While the case in point is further confused by the fact that
imagination has an important bearing on all our conduct towards the
lower animals, and cannot, for that purpose, be too emotionally
developed. But it is one thing to err on the safe side in practice,
and another to convert such possible error into argument.
What then do we really know about the suffering of animals? No
reasonable man doubts that they suffer. But the degree and intensity
of their suffering is almost entirely a matter of conjecture. We speak
of, and are affected by the mass of animal suffering; but we must
remember that it is felt distributively. No one animal suffers more
because a million suffer likewise. And what we have to consider is the
amount which an individual animal suffers. We have no knowledge, but
we are entitled to meet conjecture by conjecture. We may fairly
suppose that the animals do not 'look before and after,' and it is
this that gives its sting to human pain. Again, they would seem like
children to give strong indications of slight pain. Further, many
muscular contortions which simulate extreme suffering are believed on
scientific evidence to be due to quite other causes. And then there
are the phenomena of fascination, which may well resemble the
experience of Livingstone in the lion's mouth. While many pains are
prophylactic and directly contribute to the avoidance of danger and
maintenance of life. All these considerations may mitigate our view of
animal suffering. But a stronger argument is to be drawn from our
profound ignorance of the whole question. Animals can perceive colours
invisible to us; they seem to have organs of sensation of whose nature
we know nothing; their instincts are far more numerous and finer than
our own; what compensations may they not have? Again, what are they?
Had they a past? May they not have a future? What is the relation of
their consciousness to the mighty life which pulses within the
universe? May not Eastern speculation about these things be nearer the
truth than Western science? All these questions are in the region of
the unknown, and the unknowable; and in face of them the Theistic
position is simply this. We believe, on complex and cumulative proof,
in an omnipotent and benevolent Creator. That belief is a positive
verdict of our reason, interpreting evidence which we consider
irresistible. And against such a conclusion no presumption of the
imagination, which from the nature of the case cannot possibly be
verified, has any logical validity at all: not to mention that such
presumptions admit of being met by as probable presumptions on the
other side. We decline to arraign our Creator for a deed which we have
not even the means of knowing that He has done.
'All difficulties as to how they (the animals) are to be disposed of
are so apparently and wholly founded in our ignorance that it is
wonderful they should be insisted upon by any but such as are weak
enough to think they are acquainted with the whole system of
things.'... 'What men require is to have all difficulties cleared; and
this is, or at least for anything we know to the contrary it may be,
the same as requiring to comprehend the Divine nature, and the whole
plan of providence from everlasting to everlasting[148].'
But with human suffering the case is different, for here we are in a
measure behind the scenes. We watch the process no longer from the
outside but from within; and though it still remains mysterious, its
mystery is full of meaning. In saying this we make two assumptions;
first, that moral evil is an ultimate fact for us, in our present
state of being, in the sense that it can neither be explained nor
explained away: and, secondly, that character and not pleasure, being,
and not feeling, or to phrase it more generally, the greatest goodness
of the greatest number, is the primary end of ethics. The first of
these assumptions most men are willing to admit, while the few
philosophical attempts to disprove it have conspicuously failed. The
second has the assent of all moralists except the hedonists, and those
who without being aware of it are hedonists in disguise; the
pessimism, for example, which makes so much of pain, being simply
disappointed hedonism. Starting then from these premises, the problem
of practical ethics is the formation of character in the face of moral
evil. And in the solution of this problem pain and sorrow have a place
which no other known agency conceivably could fill.
To begin with its simplest if lowest aspect, pain is a punishment; and
without importing any _a priori_ notions into the question, we find
punishment to be a necessary element in the evolution of character.
Punishment is a complex thing, and the tendency of civilization is to
lay stress upon its corrective rather than its vindictive aspect. But
we must remember that with uncivilized races this cannot be the case;
and that pains and penalties, considered simply as retrospective
vengeance for the past, have been historically, and in some cases
still are, essential to our social development. Indeed, it is a
shallow view that regards vengeance as a survival of savagery.
Vengeance is intimately bound up with our sense of justice, and the
true difference between the savage and the sage is that what the one
eagerly inflicts upon his neighbour, the other would far more
willingly inflict upon himself. Plato expressed this once for all when
he said that the sinner who is punished is happier than the sinner who
escapes scot free. We rightly shrink, as far as possible, from sitting
in judgment on our fellow-men; but we feel none the less that our own
ill deeds demand a penalty, which may vary from bodily suffering to
interior shame, but which in one form or another must be endured
before we can recover our self-respect. And self-respect is a
necessary factor in all moral progress. Punishment, then, considered
as vengeance, is a necessity for the social development of barbarous
races; and though less obviously, quite as really for the personal
progress of the civilized man.
Now, without committing ourselves to the statement that suffering was
introduced into the world by sin, which is not a Christian dogma,
though it is often thought to be so, a vast amount of the suffering in
the world is obviously punishment, and punishment of a very searching
kind. For not only are obvious vices punished with remorse, and
disease, and shame, but ignorance, impatience, carelessness, even
mistakes of judgment are punished too, and that in a degree which we
are apt to consider disproportionate; forgetful that consequences are
God's commentaries, and this apparent disproportion may reflect light
upon the real magnitude of what we often are too ready to consider
trivial things.