Chapter VI.

THE FAILURE OF THEISTIC ARGUMENTS

§ 1. Preliminary Remarks.

Our next task is to study the arguments for theism. Under these may

be ranged--the cosmological argument, which concludes that there must

be one eternal, unconditioned, self-existent cause; the teleological

[190] argument, which concludes that nature's first cause must be an

intelligence; and the ethical argument--the proof from the moral order

and conscience--which concludes that the supreme intelligence must

be a moral, a beneficent being. To these may be added the argument

from religious experience.

THEISM, AND WHO ARE THEISTS.

First a word about theism. Theism is belief in the existence of a

God as the creator and ruler of the universe. It assumes a living

relation of God to his creatures, but does not define it. Although

Theos and Deus are equivalent, theism has come to be distinguished

from deism. The latter, according to some theologians, while equally

opposed to atheism, denies or ignores the personality of God,

and therefore denies [191] Christianity. Theism, on the contrary,

underlies Christianity. Accordingly, in considering the truth or

untruth of Christianity, we are concerned only with theism. However,

it should be borne in mind that, although a man cannot be a Christian

without being a Theist, he may be, and very often is in these days,

a Theist without being a Christian. Of the cultured men who think they

can still lay claim to the name of Christian, the bulk are, in point

of fact, non-Christian Theists. Some of these quiet their conscience

by the thought that they are still preserving a "reverent agnosticism"

with regard to Christian dogmas; while certain anti-Haeckelites of the

type of Professor E. Armitage (who urges scientific men to "remember

that we only know appearances, and that whenever we affirm anything

about what lies behind appearances we are making hazardous inferences"

[192]) do not seem to be aware that they are adherents of one of the

fundamental principles of agnosticism.

Theism in its modern Unitarian form is the creed of many of the most

cultured and most religious minds of our time, alike in Europe and

America; and it has also signally shown its power in contemporary

India. Before I left the latter country a few years ago, I had an

interesting discussion with one of the leading spirits of the Brahmo

Samaj movement, and, in answer to my queries, he replied that it

was with the Unitarians that he and his fellow thinkers were most in

sympathy, and that they were never likely to turn Christians. This

Unitarian theism, it may be remarked, is often seen to approximate

to, or become absorbed into, pantheism or agnosticism. But it is not

of Unitarians that I would speak so much as of the man who calls and

often thinks himself a Christian proper, notwithstanding the admission

that the Christian dogmas may be partially or wholly false. This

misconception of "What it is to be a Christian" [193] is one of the

many that tend to confuse and delay a straight reply to the question,

"Is Christianity true?" Having digested these prefatory remarks,

let us now proceed to consider the Theistic arguments.

§ 2. The Existence of a First Cause--An Uncaused Cause. [194]

The hypothesis of modern science is that everything as it now exists

in the universe is the result of an infinite series of causes and

effects; everything that happens is the result of something else that

happened previously, and so on backwards to all eternity. The agnostic

scientist says that we know nothing about this Infinite Cause, and

that the idea of a First Cause is absurd. The Theist affirms that

there is an Eternal Infinite Being who is the First Cause. He says

that it is absurd not to believe in a First Cause, that materialistic

theories are so absurd compared with his that for this reason alone he

would remain a Theist. He appears entirely to lose sight of the fact

that by predicating a First Cause he only removes the mystery a stage

further back. He tells us nothing about the origin of the First Cause

or the state of things that preceded it. The appearance of a First

Cause upon the scene only increases the great mystery. Certainly it

does not solve it. We are no forwarder. The creation of a mystery to

explain a mystery is a very ancient custom, but it is a custom that

has not met with the approbation of science.

The Theist apparently thinks, however, that he has science on his

side. Thus, in the Baird Lectures of 1876, Dr. Flint stated that "the

progress of science has not more convincingly and completely dispersed

the once prevalent notion that the universe was created about 6,000

years ago than it has convincingly and completely established that

everything of which our senses inform us has had a commencement in

time." [195] This opinion is still proclaimed by the Church to be the

opinion of science. But modern science does not point to a beginning

of the scheme of things. The consensus of opinion is entirely the

other way. So far as we know, the ultimate cause recedes for ever and

ever beyond the time when there was no distinction of earth and sea

and atmosphere, all being mingled together in nebulous matter. Where

would the Theist fix the "commencement"? The gaps on which theology

at one time relied are rapidly disappearing. The apparent chasm

between the organic and inorganic, between the lifeless and that

which lives, according to the latest conceptions of science, no

longer exists. Man may even succeed in manufacturing life, so that

yet another teleological argument may collapse.

§ 3. The First Cause an Intelligence.

DESIGN AND DIRECTIVITY.

The argument from design is one which appeals perhaps more than any

other to the average man. As he looks around and reflects, he feels

that there must be design, and, therefore, a Designer. He feels

also that God must be constantly present directing the carrying

out of His design. He is in accord with the Theist who maintains

that purpose and plan are manifest throughout the cosmos, and that,

although it might be conceded that every step of the process has been

achieved by the forces of Evolution, it is impossible to exclude

the presiding activity of a mind which has planned the whole and

predetermined the movements of every portion. We are to believe, then,

that the Designer Himself put the forces in motion for the first time,

that He knew exactly what would be the product of those forces down

to the minutest detail and for all time, and yet, in face of the

undeviating law-regulated cosmos which He has created, He in some

way continues to guide these forces. From the very first step, the

making of the electron and thence the atom, to the last, the making of

man's brain, the Theist sees the finger of God. The mystery of life

is thus taken to be explained or diminished by asserting that it is

produced and controlled by some other mystery. The only alternative

to this belief, so he maintains, is a universe of random chance and

capricious disorder. But "Haeckel and his colleagues hold that the

direction which the evolutionary agencies take is not 'fortuitous';

that they never could take but the one direction which they have

actually taken." [196] While "the Theist says the ultimate object

must have been foreseen and the forces must have been guided, or

they would never have worked steadily in this definite direction,

the Monist says that these forces no more needed guiding than does

a tramcar; there was only one direction possible for them." [197] To

refute this the apologist gravely replies that, "if you cast to the

ground an infinite (or a finite) number of letters, they might after

infinite gyrations make a word here and there; but we should think

the man an enthusiast who expected even a short sentence, and a fool

if he ever expected them to make a poem." We are expected, it seems,

to regard it as a miracle that natural forces should not lose their

uniform character, and act miraculously! Evidently, either the question

is begged or the analogy is absurd. An argument of this kind is worse

than useless, for it only serves to demonstrate the hopelessness of

the teleologist's position. Spinoza's position is more reasonable;

for he conceives that all is the outcome of inexorable necessity--that

neither chance nor purpose governs the eternal and the infinite.

DIRECTIVITY.

Directivity has hitherto been insisted upon by Theists. It would

not conform with our ideas of God that He should remain a passive

observer so soon as He had invented a machine that would never stop,

and had started it going. Yet interference with the machinery is

inconceivable, the universe being ruled by eternal, immutable, and

irrefragable laws. "The only possible conception of telic [purposeful]

action on a cosmic scale is that, from the start, the matter-force

reality was of such a nature that it would infallibly evolve into the

cosmos we form part of to-day. Any other conception of 'guidance' and

'control' is totally unthinkable. And, as a fact, Theists are settling

down to formulate their position in that way. The interference, as

Ward says, took place before the process began." [198] A Law Maker

can be postulated, but there is not a particle of evidence that He

is also a Law Breaker.

Attempts are still made, however, by clerical scientists to prove

that there is directivity. The Rev. Professor George Henslow, in

his book, Present-Day Rationalism Critically Examined, argues that

the tendency which living organisms show to develop in one direction

rather than another, and their capacity to respond to environment,

betoken a directing Mind. Granting, for the moment, that the doctrine

of Natural Selection is false or inadequate, it seems to me that the

acknowledged facts of the "struggle for existence" and "survival of the

fittest" sufficiently dispose of this new apology. Organisms do not

all adapt themselves to environment, and their fate, in consequence,

is first one of increasing misery, and finally of extinction. Only

those that do adapt themselves survive. It appears that a scientist

when he turns apologist is conveniently able to forget all but the

more fortunate organisms.

DESIGN.

If the evidence for a directing Mind has to be given up, the

difficulties of a Theist are certainly increased. There would be

difficulties, for instance, regarding the utility of prayer. Still,

he could think with Father Waggett that "the interaction of forces

inherent in the whole produces the infinite variety of living

beauty which we see." [199] And he can still join with Dr. Flint in

exclaiming: "Every atom, every molecule, must, even in what is ultimate

in it, bear the impress of a Supernatural Power and Wisdom; must

reflect the glory of God, and proclaim its dependence upon Him." [200]

To remain a Theist, however, one must have not only evidence of design,

but of the benevolent intention of the Designer. Before considering

the latter question, I venture to offer a few further remarks about

the former. Is there consistent evidence of design?

Beauty.--As a proof of design we are asked by the Theist to

contemplate the beauty and sublimity which the universe exhibits. Let

us contemplate, then, the beauty of the Bay of Naples. Is it not purely

accidental, purely the outcome of natural agencies, of effects produced

by position, distance, etc.? Again, "the beauty of the diatoms that

are brought from the lowest depths of the ocean, the beauty of the

radiolaria that swarm about the coast, and the beauty of a thousand

minute animal structures, are obviously not designed and purposed

beauties. They were unknown until the microscope was invented; the

polariscope reveals yet further beauties; the telescope yet more. The

idea of these being designed for our, or for God's, entertainment

belongs, as Mr. Mallock says, 'to a pre-scientific age.'" [201]

It is sometimes urged that the tendency of evolution is towards

greater beauty. Is it? That all depends upon what your idea of beauty

may be--whether you will consider the structure best suited to its

environment beautiful or otherwise. We are told that there are signs

that the human race will one day be toothless. At present we admire

pretty teeth; perhaps our descendants will go into raptures over a

toothless gum. That their sense of beauty may not be outraged, let

us hope it may be so. The hideous pigmies of Central Africa probably

think themselves beautiful, and in the distant future, when the

conditions of existence on this globe have radically changed, and when

its inhabitants have adapted themselves to those conditions, the new

"beauties" may possibly be quite as ugly as "missing links." After

all, beauty is a matter of taste. The sufficient objection to the

"beauty" argument is, to my mind, contained in a very few words:

"Look at the ugliness! Who designed that?"

Harmony.--But, it will be urged, if beauty is a poor argument, at least

you must grant that the general harmony in Nature still remains to

be accounted for. Beauty is only one of its countless harmonies. The

objection to this argument is a very simple one. Nature is full of

discords. Ugliness is by no means the only discord. It is because

this is so little realised that M. Elie Metchnikoff has devoted

nearly the whole of his book, The Nature of Man, to the discussion

of the disharmonies in man's nature alone. There are disharmonies

in the organisation of the digestive system, in the organisation

and activities of the reproductive apparatus, in the family and

social instincts, and in the instinct of self-preservation, etc. For

instance, in the human body there are disharmonies of the wisdom teeth,

the bête-noire of dentistry; of the useless vermiform appendage,

the seat of the disease appendicitis; of the large intestine, which

could very well be dispensed with, and is the seat of many grave

diseases, such as dysentery, and so on. The perversions of instinct

among human beings (another disharmony) are likely to be attributed by

the conservative Theist to the Devil, and by the liberal to Dr. Gore's

"Fall from Without," so it will be better to take an example from the

animal world. Darwin informs us that the "female of one of the emus

(Dromoeus irroratus), as soon as she catches sight of her progeny,

becomes violently agitated, and, notwithstanding the resistance of

the father, appears to use her utmost endeavours to destroy them"

(Descent of Man, vol. ii., chap, xvi., pp. 204-205). To those who

still hold by this argument I can only recommend a perusal of Professor

Metchnikoff's book of disharmonies, and would beg them to remember that

it has been written by a man whose profession and attainments entitle

his opinions on such a subject to the highest consideration. The

cruelty attending the process by which harmony is attained has already

been commented upon by me in § 2 of the previous chapter.

DIFFERENCES OF OPINION AMONG THEISTIC APOLOGISTS.

I have finally to call attention to the fact that even among the

apologists themselves there is considerable difference of opinion

as to the value of these arguments for Theism. Dr. Flint exclaims:

"Strange as it may seem, there are many Theists at the present day

who represent it [revelation of God in the whole of nature external to

us] as insufficient, or even worthless, and who join the Atheists in

denying that God's existence can be proved, and in affirming that all

the arguments for His existence are inconclusive and sophistical. Such

Theists seem to me not only the best allies of Atheists, but even

more effective labourers in the cause of unbelief than Atheists

themselves." [202] Since Dr. Flint wrote these words the number of

"such Theists" has vastly increased. It is owned on all sides by the

advanced school of apologists that God's existence cannot be proved

by an appeal to the reasoning faculties; and, among other arguments,

that from design is gradually being discarded.

Father Waggett offers us interesting information regarding this

argument in his little book, Religion and Science. [203] He considers

that Paley and others of the old teleologists were wrong in leaning

upon a narrow argument from design. "It need not here be repeated,"

he says, "that the evidence of such workmanship cannot prove God

in the true sense of an infinite and all-wise Cause; but only a

cause possessed of immense wisdom and immense though limited power,

a Demiurgus of the greatest force and the most minute care, but not

a Creator in the sense of theology." [204] Father Waggett, who is

a biologist, and, therefore, necessarily an Evolutionist, would not

be disconcerted if living things were manufactured in the laboratory

to-morrow. In his opinion, "If anywhere we catch nature in the making,

if we surprise the sequence by which even man himself gained his

difference from other things, we shall not by this find reverence

lowered.... It is a theological readjustment which is required,

and not one in 'natural science.'" [205] The position here taken up

is wise, and one that all who remain Theists will eventually have

to adopt. But for most of us these theological readjustments are

no easy matter. We reason that Paley's Evidences have in their time

assisted men to be Theists, and now his arguments are condemned by

the better informed. How do we know that the same fate may not await

the new arguments of the Christian evolutionist? How is it that God

allowed earnest and learned divines to commit themselves to arguments

in proof of His existence, the subsequent overthrow of which has been

a potent cause for unbelief?

§ 4. The First Cause a Beneficent Intelligence.

A PERSONAL GOD.

As ages roll on, God's attributes--or rather, we should say, the

attributes given Him by man--are continually altering. All that the

early gods demanded was fear and worship. Even the Jehovah of the Jews

asked at first little else than this. Anthropomorphic conceptions of

God are now admitted by the cultured to be a thing of the past. Do

they not, however, still survive when human emotions, such as love

and anger, happiness and sorrow, are attributed to the Deity? We

acknowledge God to be infinite, and, consequently, incomprehensible by

finite minds; yet we imagine and attempt to argue that He possesses

the same qualities--those we most admire--as ourselves! "How can

we believe in a personal God?" asks the Rationalist. "A person

must have limitations, or he ceases to be a person." However, we

must not forget that in philosophy and theology the word "person"

simply implies "a nature endowed with consciousness," and does not

involve limits. Demurring to this definition, there still remains

another difficulty. In all our experience and knowledge, emotions

and intelligence are connected with nerve structures; how, then,

can we attribute these qualities to a Being who is described to us

as devoid of any nerve structure? I know of no answer that could be

called satisfactory from a Theistic standpoint.

In the previous section we considered the doctrine of final

causes. This doctrine, as Spinoza points out, [206] "does away with

the perfection of God; for, if God acts for an object, He necessarily

desires something which He lacks." The Theist goes a step further than

the mere teleologist, and insists on a benevolent purpose throughout

nature. Is he, then, oblivious to Spinoza's objection? No, he is not;

and therefore it is that he struggles to save his personal God by an

infinite extension of the limits of His personality. In fine, Theism,

in the hands of its modern advocates, and in spite of the seeming

orthodoxy of the phrase, "Divine Immanence," is often nothing less

than another form of Pantheism.

DIVINE IMMANENCE IN NATURE.

The Church's great philosopher to-day, the Rev. J. R. Illingworth,

D.D., argues [207] that "Divine Immanence in Nature" excludes

Pantheism--the belief that God is merely immanent in nature--as well

as Deism and Monism, while it harmonises with Trinitarianism. We are to

"conceive of God as at once transcending and immanent in nature." [208]

He admits that "this relationship may be incomprehensible," [209] but

states that "we know it in our own case to be a fact." [210] Afterwards

he puts the question, "Is the universe His body or His work?" [211] and

proceeds to explain that the Trinitarian conception of God furnishes,

or helps to furnish, an answer to this question. "It is," he maintains,

"intellectually the most satisfactory." [212] It apparently is so to

certain subtle and biassed intellects; but the question is, Is it so,

will it ever be so, to the average mortal?

A FACT IN HISTORY.

In another place, [213] when speaking again of the doctrine of the

Trinity, he says: "Men forget that it supports and is supported by

the whole weight of a fact in history, with which nothing else in

the wide world can even for a moment be compared. That fact is the

age-long empire of Jesus Christ over the hearts of men." This, then,

is the final argument in support of the Christian dogmas, including

this the most incomprehensible of them all. Why should not the Buddhist

claim the same authority for the dogmas of his faith? The evidential

value is precisely the same. Turn to any well-known work bearing on

this phase of the question. Read, we will say, Edwin Arnold's poem,

The Light of Asia; or, better still, read Mr. Fielding's books,

The Soul of a People and The Hearts of Men, and hear the words of

one who has lived for years among Buddhists and studied their hearts.

That an ideal should reign over the hearts of men is no new thing;

much less is this a cause for marvel when "One has come, claiming to

be God made manifest--manifest in order to attract our love." [214]

Christian apologists urge that He has not only attracted the hearts

of men in the past, but still retains His hold upon their affections,

and that therein lies an essential difference between Christianity

and all other religions. Christianity, say they, in this respect

at least, stands pre-eminently alone. Is not Buddhism, then,

one of the great living religions of the present day? Has it not

existed during twenty-four centuries? Does it not at the present

time surpass, in the number of its followers and the area of its

prevalence, any other form of creed? Is not Gautama Buddha worthy

of men's love, if we are to credit the best authenticated records

of his life? "Discordant in frequent particulars," writes [215]

Sir Edwin Arnold, "and sorely overlaid by corruptions, inventions,

and misconceptions, the Buddhistical books yet agree in the one

point of recording nothing--no single act or word--which mars the

perfect purity and tenderness of this Indian teacher, who united

the truest princely qualities with the intellect of a sage and the

passionate devotion of a martyr." Loving disciples, living in an age

of ignorance and superstition, piously ascribed to him divine powers,

and, disobeying his mandate, gave him fervent worship. That worship,

that adoration, still persists. So likewise the adoration of Jesus

Christ still persists. This is certainly a fact in history; but can we

safely build upon it the metaphysical theories of the Christian Faith?

THE PAST AND PRESENT POSITION OF THE ETHICAL ARGUMENT.

In my comments upon Dr. Illingworth's views regarding "Divine

Immanence" I fear I have digressed somewhat from the subject at

present under consideration--the Theistic argument from a Beneficent

Intelligence. "The ethical argument held a very subordinate place in

the estimation of writers on natural theology until Kant rested on it

almost the whole weight of Theism. It has ever since been prominent,

and has been the argument most relied upon to produce practical

conviction." [216] What was once the weakest argument has now become

the strongest. Why? Not, I take it, because anything has occurred to

make the weaker any stronger, but because what was thought to be the

strongest is now found to be weaker than the weakest! How can the

ethical argument be maintained in face of objections which continue

to become ever graver as our knowledge increases? Theists contend

[217] that there must be a future life if only because the glaring

wrongs of this world have to be righted. What is this but a naïve

admission that the proofs of the Deity's benevolence are sadly wanting?

EVIL FOR WHICH MAN IS NOT HELD RESPONSIBLE.

The problem of pain, and of evil generally, has been partially

discussed in the chapter on "Evolution." The importance of this

problem is very great, for, by the universal consent of Christendom

(not of mankind, as we shall see later on), the very name of God

carries with it the sense of goodness, the highest and best that

we know of or can imagine. For this reason it is customary for the

pious to regard every calamity reverently as a punishment from God,

or as serving some good purpose. Thus the German Emperor, imbued from

childhood with this pious theory, warned his people that the Japanese

had been sent as a scourge from God, and Father Bernard Vaughan

(preaching at Lancaster on August 26th, 1906) declared that God had

uttered warnings to England by the eruption of Vesuvius and the San

Franciscan and Chilian earthquakes. Can this supposition be maintained

when the catastrophe occurs in the wrong place, when tornadoes and

earthquakes destroy God's own temples, and when the innocent suffer

for the guilty? With the opinion of the scientist we are, or ought to

be by now, familiar. "The fundamental axiom of scientific thought is

that there is not, never has been, and never will be, any disorder

in Nature. The admission of the occurrence of any event which was

not the logical consequence of the immediately antecedent events,

according to those definite, ascertained, or unascertained rules which

we call the 'laws of Nature,' would be an act of self-destruction on

the part of science" (Huxley on Catastrophes, p. 247 of his Essays

on Controverted Questions).

I remember, at the time of the terrible catastrophe in Martinique,

due to the eruption of Mont Pelée, asking a lady: "Do you think

this wholesale slaughter and awful suffering has any connection with

the wickedness of the afflicted people?" "Certainly," she replied;

"they must have been very wicked people." It just so happened that

the only man who escaped scatheless was a murderer who had been

imprisoned in a cell below ground. So the theory she and I had been

brought up to believe in would not work, whichever way you looked at

it. The apologist has usually a number of strings to his bow; and,

as the Old Testament teaching concerning bad men descending "quick

into the pit" would not suit, he might argue that the criminal was

given an opportunity for repentance. In that case, we must suppose

that all the others who perished had no need of repentance. Again,

with regard to the terrible tortures that many endured, it could be

argued that those "whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth"; but what

possible object could there be in this chastening during the last

moments of their life upon earth? The agony of the death-struggle,

suffered by the good and the bad alike, has yet to be shown to be in

accord with the theory of a benevolent Deity.

The old-fashioned idea that catastrophes, plagues, famines, etc.,

were sent as punishments for our misdoings is gradually being

modified. Dr. Flint says distinctly: "I cannot agree with those

who think there is no mystery in mere pain--that it is sufficiently

accounted for by moral evil." [218] It seems a pity that his advocacy

for benevolence in the Deity should lead him afterwards to qualify

this sensible statement by an amazing assertion which begs the

whole question. "The character of pain itself," he says, "is such

as to indicate that its author must be a benevolent being--one

who does not afflict for his own pleasure, but for his creatures'

profit." [219] The profit consists, we are told, in the fact that

we are prevented through fear of pain from running into danger. How

peculiarly appropriate and consolatory such a view of pain must be

to, let us say, a person crippled with rheumatoid arthritis! Man's

highly sensitive and delicate organisation inevitably entails pain

when no useful purpose of this kind can possibly be served; yet we

are to suppose that an Omnipotent Being devised this crude and cruel

method for teaching us to avoid the perils with which He Himself has

surrounded us! One of our greatest living surgeons, Sir Frederick

Treves, assures us [220] that "the symptoms of disease are marked by

purpose, and the purpose is beneficent." "The processes of disease,"

he goes on to explain, "aim not at the destruction of life, but at

the saving of it." Here, indeed, is more grist for the mill of the

apologist. But what does this special pleading amount to? To this:

Because through suffering we may survive a dangerous disease, we should

be grateful to the Supreme Intelligence who created the preservative as

well as the destructive microbes; we should be grateful to the Almighty

who has fashioned friend and foe, and who, much to our discomfort,

has selected our interior economy for the battlefield! Surely, if

the surmise of benevolence is to be entertained at all, it must be at

the sacrifice of the surmise of omnipotence. The Supreme Intelligence

cannot be an "Almighty God" if He be the "Father of all mercies."

There are Theists who candidly admit the perplexities of the

situation. On the horns of a dilemma they have no option but to fall

back upon the primitive theory: All unaccountable evil is the work

of a hostile and evil power which seeks continually to frustrate

the benevolent intentions of the Creator. "Speaking for myself,"

says the author of Pro Fide, [221] "I am unable to believe that

hideous and excruciating diseases, such as cancer, which affect

both men and animals, and which cannot, in the case of animals at

least, be explained as a moral discipline, are the work of a good and

benevolent God. I endorse absolutely the words of Dr. E. A. Abbott. 'I

cannot think,' he says, 'of diseases and pain, and the conflict

in the animal world for life and death, as being, so to speak,

part of God's first intention.'" Disease, suffering, the struggle

for existence, and the law of prey are then, after all, the Devil's

handiwork, and so is also, presumably, the law of the survival of

the fittest. (Christian evolutionists, take note! In exonerating and

extolling the evolutionary processes, you are exonerating and extolling

the works of the Devil!) "The Zoroastrian view," he continues,

"must be rejected because it postulates two first principles, which

is a plain metaphysical impossibility." The view which is not open

to this or any other objection, and which he calls the Theistic view,

"supposes that a large share of the government of the material universe

was committed, at the creation, to a personal spirit, of great, but not

unlimited, power and intelligence, who, having been originally created

good, subsequently fell, and introduced evil and disorder into the

world.... This hypothesis of a personal devil has many advantages. It

explains the whole of the facts; it avoids the postulation of two

first causes; it vindicates the moral perfection of the Deity; and

it allows the optimistic hope to be entertained that in the end good

will triumph over evil." All this is highly instructive. For it means

that, in the opinion of an erudite apologist of the Church of England,

flourishing a.d. 1906, the moral perfection of the Deity can only

be vindicated on the hypothesis of a personal devil! Doubtless this

hypothesis--and, remember, it is nothing more than a hypothesis,

and one that is now generally discredited--fits in admirably; but

the question is, Are we to accept it, however imaginary and opposed

to the facts of science, just because it is so suitable?

There remains the usual retort of the religionist when closely

cornered: "The finite mind cannot expect to understand the

Infinite." He appears to forget entirely that when he advances proofs

of the God of his heart he himself is using his finite mind, and

that his opponents therefore have an equal right to use theirs when

criticising his "proofs." This by the way. The particular point we have

to notice is that the appeal to this negative argument amounts to an

admission that the proofs do indeed appear all the other way. Thus

in the question now before us, "Is the First Cause a beneficent

intelligence?" we find that a statement confidently proclaimed by

the pious is not only unsupported by evidence, but in spite of it--a

mere assertion suggested by the emotions. With more modesty and (may

I add?) with more common sense, the agnostic disclaims any knowledge

of God, holding that human knowledge is limited to experience, and

that, since the absolute and unconditioned, if it exists at all,

cannot fall within experience, we have no right to assert anything

whatever with regard to it.

EVIL FOR WHICH MAN IS HELD RESPONSIBLE.

The very existence of the God of our hearts depends upon the proof

of His morality. The argument from moral order seems at first sight

a strong one. Morality, even adopting the naturalist's explanation

that it is only a social instinct, can be regarded as the result of

a divine spark. Its beneficial influence on the happiness of the

individual and the well-being of the race cannot be too strongly

insisted upon as a well-ascertained fact. "Virtue is self-rewarding,

and vice is self-punishing." [222] But the Rationalist asks: "Why

design man's nature so that he is more likely to go wrong, when he

gets the chance, than to go right; and this in despite of the moral

or social instinct?" The usual answer of the religionist is that,

if we could not do wrong, we should be mere machines. "No doubt,"

says the author of Pro Fide, "if God had made us what Mr. Huxley says

we are, conscious automata, we should have been incapable of sin;

but it is better to be men, with all the glorious possibilities of

freedom and virtue, than to be machines, however excellent." Now,

do we allow our children to choose for themselves when we know they

will choose wrongly? Do we not guard them against the inglorious

possibilities--the slavery of vice? If we fail in our duty to them

and they fall, should we add to our guilt by perpetrating on them

unimaginable cruelties? Again, do we not prefer the fellowship of the

good-natured? Yet these, according to the religionist, are the veriest

automata compared with those who have inherited vicious or disagreeable

characteristics, and do their best to fight against them. Be this as

it may, the fact remains that the less fortunately endowed are seldom

able to raise themselves up to the level of the more fortunately

endowed--environment may, of course, elevate the one, as it may also

degrade the other--and there is no doubt whose society we prefer. Why

should it be better for men to be capable of--or, rather, may we

not say prone to--sin? Why should their Maker grant them "glorious

possibilities" which He has denied to Himself? Why should He alone be

a machine that cannot go wrong? Surely there is something amiss in an

argument that furnishes such inadequate excuses in order to explain

why the Designer gave us natures infinitely inferior to His own.

Oh, Thou who man from basest clay didst make,

And e'en for Paradise devised the snake,

For all the sin wherewith the face of man

Is blackened, man's forgiveness give--and take!

Some of Nature's plans would appear to be specially designed to bring

out the worst side of the diverse nature implanted in man. The plan of

the struggle for existence is a palpable instance. Take another--take

the plan for the reproduction of life. Could any Omnipotent Being

be proud of it? Let alone the unfair division of pain, which the

discredited Eden story can now no longer account for, is it helpful to

man in his struggle to improve his nature? The plan being God's plan,

it is enjoined upon us that the procreation of children is a sacred

duty; but it is also plainly intimated that to abstain from marriage

altogether is yet more meritorious. Similarly in Mithraism, Buddhism,

the religions of ancient America and other pre-Christian cults, the

sanctity of the celibate life is upheld. If man is not doing his best

in obeying the behests of his Maker, how can he do right? Has he been

given a fair chance when an instinct so hurtful is implanted in him

that even its natural gratification in the divinely appointed manner

is likely to hinder him in the cultivation of his spiritual nature;

this although matrimony was ordained--so our prayer-book tells us--for

a remedy against sin? The truth is that this necessary instinct,

quite apart from its responsibility for much sorrow and strife and

quite apart from its terrible tendency to perversion, is innately

prejudicial to our moral elevation, and, in order to preserve a

healthy, happy mind, the less we allow our thoughts to dwell upon

its fulfilment the better.

Again, "a very little disorder in the organisation of the brain

suffices to cause hallucinations of the senses, to shake the intellect

from its throne, to paralyse the will, and to corrupt the sentiments

and affections." [223] "How precise and skilful," remarks Dr. Flint,

lost in admiration of the Designer, "must be the adjustment between

the sound brain and the sane mind!" "How fiend-like," says the

horrified Rationalist, "would be the Intellect which could have

exercised its ingenuity to devise a mechanism inherently liable to

get out of order, and thereby to transform its unhappy possessor into

a fool or villain." In the event of the latter result, moreover, man,

according to Christ's teaching (if honestly interpreted), is to suffer

eternal torment!

CONSCIENCE.

Regarding theories of the origin of conscience such as those

of J. S. Mill, Bain, Darwin, and Spencer, Dr. Flint remarks:

"It does not matter whether conscience be primary or derivative;

it exists." [224] That it does matter is shown by the fact that the

bulk of the apologists still stoutly maintain that conscience is a

special attribute of man--a divine instinct--and is not derived from

the lower animals. We have, I think, gone into this sufficiently

in the previous chapter, and I shall confine my remarks to another

aspect of the question--the fallibility of the moral consciousness.

"The existence," it is urged, "of a moral principle within us, of

a conscience which witnesses against sin and on behalf of holiness,

is of itself evidence that God must be a moral being, one who hates

sin and loves holiness." [225] Given the existence of a personal God,

this argument is plausible enough till we examine it more closely. The

liability of conscience to err is, or should be, a platitude. Its

two components--the reason and the emotions--both being fallible,

it necessarily follows that conscience must have the same quality. We

have only to think for a moment to discover innumerable examples in

proof of this. An illustration which occurs to me, and which will

hurt no one's susceptibilities, is that of the Wa Daruma. This is

an East African tribe practising a strict morality which is all the

more remarkable on account of the gross immorality of the neighbouring

tribes. Nevertheless, the conscience of the Wa Daruma bids them kill

their twin offspring. If conscience, then, be fallible, how is it

a Theistic proof? Because, though it may make a mistake through an

untutored reason, or through a reason clouded by deceptive emotions,

the consciousness that there is a right or wrong at all is sufficient

proof of a moral intelligence? So be it; but it is passing strange

that God should allow conscience to deceive us. John Locke well

said, many years ago: "Children are travellers newly arrived in a

strange country: we should therefore make conscience not to deceive

them." Are we not children of God in a strange country? We would not

deceive our children. The acquittal of conscience gives pleasure,

as the condemnation gives pain--remorse--and every man must obey his

conscience if he would be happy. What a thousand pities it seems that

it should ever lead him into error! Should it not be a divine intuition

of the right both in our religious beliefs and in our conduct?

It is an intuition of the right, the believer will say, when it

tells you to believe in Christ and God. I would gladly think so;

but every believer of every creed on the face of the earth says

the same about his belief, and hence the amazing persistence of

erroneous beliefs. When the voice of conscience is composed of a

blind reliance on intuition (i.e., on the emotions) and a distrust

of reason, how can the result be otherwise? The whole question of the

truth of beliefs hinges upon whether intuition can or cannot be relied

upon. We know that mistakes do occur through trusting to intuition,

especially in the matter of beliefs; how, then, can we assume that

it is infallible? Strange as the freaks of faith among cultured

persons may appear, they are perfectly intelligible. They are the

result of reliance on intuition rather than on reason. I will give

an example. Who more logical, apparently, than John Henry Newman,

the coadjutor of Whately in his popular work on logic? His illogical

conduct is, therefore, particularly instructive. In 1832, after a

visit to Rome, he wrote describing the Roman Catholic religion as

polytheistic, degrading, and idolatrous, [226] and then, after all,

entered the Roman Catholic Church in 1845. He did so because he found

that the difficulties of the creed and of the canon of Scripture were

insurmountable unless over-ridden by the authority of the Church. To

escape becoming an agnostic he elected to join a Church calling herself

infallible. He was able to come to this decision although, to his own

knowledge, her infallibility was belied by her conduct! Further, so

eloquent was his reasoning on the subject, so apparently logical, that

some hundreds of clergymen joined him in making their submission to

the Church of Rome. Underlying all this apparent inconsistency is the

assertion, so eloquently pleaded by Cardinal Newman, of the supremacy

of conscience and the correctness of intuition. So also have asserted

the followers of every religion from all time, and to what have their

consciences and intuitions led them--to truth, or to a pot-pourri of

absurd and conflicting beliefs? We have the testimony of all history

to prove the extreme fallibility of conscience. Conscience possesses no

divine spark to keep a man from acting wrongly through ignorance. Even

when knowledge is present we see, as in Cardinal Newman's case, that

the voice of conscience may still speak incorrectly; for reason is

swamped when emotion's flood-gate is left ajar.

Cardinal Newman's opinions have a special interest for us at the

present time. He held that, "apart from an interior and unreasoned

conviction, there is no cogent proof of the existence of God"; that

"the man who has not this interior conviction has no choice but to

remain an agnostic, while the man who has it is bound sooner or later

to become a Roman Catholic." [227]

So inexplicable did his motives appear that Charles Kingsley accused

him of saying that "truth for its own sake need not be, and, on

the whole, ought not to be, a virtue of the Roman clergy." Newman's

Apologia pro Vita Sua, however, leaves no doubt of the author's own

personal rectitude. His premises--the infallibility of conscience

and intuition--were false. But that is not an unusual feature of

Christian apologetics. The keen intellects of the two pious brothers,

John Henry and Francis William, were really buried beneath a mass of

preconceptions. That of the latter, however, being less submissive,

proceeded to a slow and sure upheaval, and finally Francis Newman

rejected Christianity altogether. [228] In the Apologia pro Vita

Sua we find, I think, the key to Cardinal Newman's convictions. He

was intensely superstitious, and inclined also to be timid. On the

opening page, where he gives the recollections of his boyhood, we read:

"I used to wish the Arabian tales were true." And again: "I was very

superstitious, and for some time previous to my conversion (when I

was fifteen) used constantly to cross myself on going into the dark."

FREEWILL.

In my remarks on the "evil for which man is held responsible,"

I have alluded to the Rationalist's contention that man cannot be

justly blamed for his actions, and that, if there be a God, He alone

is to blame. This opens up the question of Freewill v. Determinism--a

thorny question, which I should prefer, if only for considerations of

space and my readers' patience, to leave severely alone. A whole volume

would be necessary to present the case for Determinism adequately, and

I am fully aware that a few brief words will fail to convince; but,

if I can remove a single iota of the misconceptions on this subject,

I shall feel rewarded.

Kant defines an act of volition as an act which is determined by the

anticipatory idea of the result of the act. Although he maintains

that there must be a moral God, he fully admits that the forecast or

anticipatory idea is the inevitable effect of precedent conditions,

such as temperament (heredity), education (environment), and the

like; and in a well-known passage he says that, if the whole history

of the subject could be known, the voluntary acts of a man might be

predicted with the same certainty as an eclipse. The tendency of modern

psychology is in the same direction. All voluntary acts, we are told,

depend on the memory of involuntary acts of the same sort previously

performed. It is true that a few Christian psychologists leave room

for a "sheer heave" of the will by means of which an idea naturally

feeble is fortified and held in place; but when they speak in this wise

they speak as metaphysicians. No metaphysical argument, it seems to me,

can reconcile this inflexible causality with true freedom of will. How

can the will be at one and the same time fettered and free? There is,

I grant, every appearance of freewill; but it belongs to the category

of appearances which deceive.

If we accept the Christian contention, we have to believe that a

benevolent God gives us a free will, the power to choose between

Him and the Devil, knowing, as in His omniscience He must, that the

vast majority will make a sad use of their gift! The modern Christian

admits that heredity and environment have their say also. Thus there

are, in all, four forces struggling for the mastery--God, the Devil,

heredity and environment; and it is the duty of the divinely-implanted

free will to choose between them. Rather, is it not that there are

two forces, and two forces only--heredity and environment--acting upon

our brain, and our choice is the resultant of them? Undoubtedly man,

as a self-conscious and reflecting animal, has what may be called

the power of choice; but the way this power will be used would be

a foregone conclusion did we know the sum-total of the effect of

heredity and environment up to the moment of its use. "But," it

may be objected, "surely there is such a thing as will-power. We

can overcome our heredity and environment by the exercise of our

will. Temptations to which the weak-willed succumb do not affect the

strong-willed. Here, at least, we have a distinct instance in which

heredity and environment are overcome." Yes, it is true, of course,

that heredity and environment are continually being overcome by

the happy possessor of sufficient will-power; but what we have to

bear in mind is that it is not a portion, but the whole, of a man's

heredity and environment which must be taken into consideration. In

the case of the man with the strong will, it is still his heredity

and environment which have in the first instance settled the line of

conduct to which, once resolved upon, he adheres so tenaciously. And,

again, this particular quality of the mind which enables him to keep

to his resolution is, like all other qualities of the mind, itself

the product of heredity and environment.

The Determinism of science and the Freewill of metaphysics are

essentially antagonistic. Determinism is completely subversive

of Christian teaching. It is directly opposed to the Thirty-nine

Articles of religion. Not only does it imply that man is not to blame

for his actions, but that, if there be a God, He, and He alone, is to

blame. Christian theologists are therefore its strenuous opponents. In

their apologetic efforts one finds the strangest misconceptions

of what is meant in a broad sense by heredity and environment. The

best apology I have seen so far is by the Rev. P. N. Waggett, in a

tractate called Science and Conduct. [229] Father Waggett seems to

realise better than most of his fellow-clerics the enormous influence

of heredity and environment. Still he comes to the conclusion that

"when, under given circumstances," a man "does what, under those

circumstances, and with his given constitution, he usually does

not do," he is exercising "some inward spring." The fallacy in this

argument is the common one. The effect of environment up to the moment

of action has not been considered. The obscurity of the expression

"given constitution" is doubtless unintentional, but it is none

the less misleading. Father Waggett would be the first to admit that

something must have occurred meanwhile to account for the new frame of

mind. It is for him to show that an alteration in environment is not

all that has occurred, and that there is room for this "inward spring."

Will not the acceptance of this doctrine have a paralysing effect

upon us? On the contrary. We shall be better able to discern where

our salvation lies. We shall pay far more attention to the real

forces which determine conduct. We shall devote our energies to

combating bad heredity with good environment; and we shall do this

with the knowledge that not only ourselves and our associates, but our

descendants also, will reap the benefit. We shall fly from unhealthy

thoughts, and avoid the surroundings likely to give rise to them. We

shall welcome healthy thoughts and seek helpful surroundings.

The doctrine of determinism is thought likely to corrupt our moral

character, but, in reality, it compares favourably with religious

doctrines. The belief in God's omniscience leads the Mohammedan to

fatalism, and the Christian to the doctrine of predestination. If

a Christian really believed as he professes, if he could honestly

subscribe to the seventeenth article of his Creed--in which it is

stated that "before the foundations of the world were laid God hath

constantly decreed by His counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse

and damnation those whom He hath chosen [the italics are mine, of

course] in Christ out of mankind"--God's Predestination would indeed

be "a dangerous downfall," "thrusting men into desperation." The

doctrine of predestination, therefore, appears, without doubt, to

be ethically mischievous. The doctrine of Determinism, on the other

hand, teaches a man to fight pernicious hereditary instincts with the

weapon of environment, and to keep a tender place in his heart for

unfortunates who succumb. [230] Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner.

§ 5. Religious Experience.

MYSTICISM AND CONVERSION.

Of late, the argument from "Religious Experience" has been much to

the front, and nothing written on the subject has created a deeper

impression, or been more cordially welcomed by the supernaturalist,

than Professor W. James's book, The Varieties of Religious

Experience. Professor James is a prominent member of the Society

for Psychical Research, and no one is better able than he to give

descriptions of psychic phenomena; but the conclusions he comes to as

to the spiritual signification of some of them will strike the normal

man as too absurd to be taken seriously. More than this. Indirectly he

furnishes one of the very best weapons for attacking supernaturalism

that has ever yet been put in the hands of the naturalist. I have

already given some examples of so-called religious experiences (in

Chap. II., pp. 59-61). These are still regarded by the superstitious

as spiritual manifestations; but Professor James discovers a spiritual

interpretation in still more palpable hallucinations. Unwittingly

he spoils the case for religious experience by trying to prove too

much. I will give an instance. He describes how an intimate friend

of his kept experiencing a "horrible sensation" of the presence of

something, which he "did not recognise as any individual being or

person." Professor James admits that "such an experience as this does

not connect itself with the religious sphere." [Why not? It might

have been the Devil that time.] Later on his friend had a pleasanter

experience. "There was not a mere consciousness of something there,

but, fused in the central happiness of it, a startling awareness of

some ineffable good. Not vague either--not like the emotional effect

of some poem or scent or blossom or music, but the sure knowledge of

the close presence of a sort of mighty person; and, after it went,

the memory persisted as the one perception of reality. Everything

else might be a dream, but not that." Professor James then remarks:

"My friend, as it oddly happens, does not interpret these later

experiences theistically, as signifying the presence of God." Why

oddly? The explanation seems simple enough. It was just because his

friend was not odd, but a normal individual of modern times. Perhaps,

after all, the secret lay in the well-known reply to the question,

"Is life worth living?"--It all depends on the liver. One may also

recall the words of the celebrated clerical wit who said: "They think

they are pious when they are only bilious."

Professor James then relates various experiences of other persons

who, unlike his friend, were positive they had felt "the presence

of God." And he tells us: "Nothing is more common in the pages of

religious biography than the way in which seasons of lively and

of difficult faith are described as alternating. Probably every

religious person has the recollection of particular crises in which

a direct vision of the truth, a direct perception, perhaps, of a

living God's existence, swept in and overwhelmed the languor of the

more ordinary belief." If this sort of thing accounts for the faith of

every religious person, the mystery (in these days) of the great faith

of the few and the little faith of the many is completely solved. So

few, relatively speaking, have this experience; so few are by nature

mystics. Also it helps to explain the prevalence of supernatural

belief in bygone ages. Thoughtful unbelievers have long ago come to

the conclusion that some such psychical experiences largely account

for religious superstitions, and now an eminent psychologist and

religious apologist confirms their theories.

Professor James argues that "the neurotic temperament naturally

introduces one to regions of religious truth which are hidden from

the robust Philistine type of nervous system, that thanks heaven it

hasn't a single morbid fibre in its composition." This kind of "robust

Philistine" is, one is glad to think, a very common type. I hope I am

a fairly robust Philistine myself. The Rationalist may, or may not, be

emotional, but he certainly prefers to be without morbid fibres. Why,

of all the most undesirable states of mind, should morbidity assist

the human being to have faith in God? Why should spirituality and

strong faith be possible only for a person of nervous instability

whose intellectual canon (unacknowledged no doubt) is "Credo quia

impossibile"? Why, in the name of all that is reasonable, should

spiritual experiences be the prerogative of exceptional temperaments

only? Why, in all fairness, if there be any spiritual meaning in

hallucinations, should not the Agnostic be at least vouchsafed the

consciousness of the Devil's presence to cure him of his unbelief?

Professor James thinks "there can be no doubt that as a matter of

fact a religious life, exclusively pursued, does tend to make the

person exceptional and eccentric." He refers to "geniuses in the

religious line," who, "like many other geniuses ... have often shown

symptoms of nervous instability." "Even more perhaps," he says, "than

other kinds of genius, religious leaders have been subject to abnormal

psychical visitations ... often, moreover, these pathological features

in their career have helped to give them their religious authority and

influence." All this is exceedingly instructive, coming as it does from

the mouth of an earnest champion of religion [231] specially suited,

by his researches in psychical phenomena, to speak with authority on

the psychology of religion. His belief in the interference in human

life of spiritual agencies, and the whole tenour of his book, render

it certain that he is not consciously bringing any arguments to bear

against supernaturalism, but, on the contrary, intends to adduce new

arguments in its favour.

Have we not here a satisfactory and perfectly natural explanation

of the phenomena of conversion? The religionist is apt, I think,

to lose sight of the fact that conversion is not confined to any one

particular creed; that it cannot witness to the truth of the one and

not of the other. "The mystical feeling," remarks Professor James

(pp. 425-6), "of enlargement, union, and emancipation ... is capable

of forming matrimonial alliances with material furnished by the most

diverse philosophies and theologies, provided only they can find

a place in their framework for its peculiar emotional mood." The

most striking examples of conversion are those of the instantaneous

kind, of which St. Paul's is held out to us as the most eminent. I

have already outlined the probable explanation in St. Paul's case,

and other cases may be similarly explained. The supernaturalist's

interpretation of conversion cannot be considered seriously until

proofs are forthcoming of an instance in which nothing was known

previously of the truth alleged to have been revealed. Like Mr. Lowes

Dickinson, I have never, for example, discovered a case in which a

Mohammedan or a Hindoo, without having heard of Christianity, has

had a revelation of Christian "truth."

Of all visions, those of the death-bed especially invite our

attention, for they are looked upon by many pious persons as sure

evidence in favour of the truth of their Faith. Will this argument

bear analysis? We know that good men and women have had heavenly

visions during their last moments. We know also that others of equally

blameless lives have been terrified at the last by the sight of some

supreme horror. How can any argument be based upon the phantasms of a

disordered brain? Do not these visions, too, usually take their form

from the teaching with which the mind has been imbued? The Mohammedan

sees a heaven peopled with houris; do we on that account accept the

Koran as our guide? A dying Hindoo may have a vision of a heathen

deity of questionable character, and derive comfort from it. I have

myself stood by the bedside of a dying Mahratta whose ravings during

the delirium of fever indicated such a vision. There are, it is true,

cases where the visions of the dying may seem utterly unlike those we

should expect. But the brain retains impressions of things of which the

conscious memory has long ago passed away, and, if the early history of

the ecstatic could be fully known, we should, as Proctor points out,

[232] find nearly every circumstance of his vision explained, or at

least an explanation suggested. It may be said again of death-bed

visions, as of visions generally, that there has never yet been a

case of a Mohammedan or a Hindoo or any other non-Christian who has

had a revelation of Christian "truth."

Professor James is not the only person having the curious notion that

an abnormal state of mind admits the nearer presence of God. To take a

people possessing a marvellous self-control over their emotions, and,

therefore, the last among whom you would expect to find such ideas,

I may mention that the more ignorant and superstitious among the

Japanese throw themselves into hypnotic trances, and then fondly

imagine that a god is present in their body, and is making use

of them as a mouthpiece. [233] Again, no superstition is commoner

among the ignorant natives of India, Mohammedan and Hindoo alike,

than that people of unsound mind have some sort of special means of

communication with God; but that educated persons, having fairly normal

minds themselves, should hold such an opinion is yet another example

of the hallucinations to which religious enthusiasts are liable.

The folly of attributing any spiritual significance to these

experiences will be better understood if we compare them with cases

where there is no religious element whatsoever. A lady, a friend of

mine, is continually subject to a curious experience, which may serve

to illustrate this point. I give the account of it in her own words:--

As a child I was always a bad sleeper, and got into the habit of

making up stories to amuse myself when lying awake in bed. This

habit continued as I grew older; but, after a time, the stories

ceased to be connected in any way with myself. Years ago I began

a story which has grown gradually through three generations,

and there are signs of the coming of a fourth. The old house

has remained as the centre of the story for years; most of the

characters are men, and no one of either sex bears any possible

relationship to me. They have all become far more real to me

than my own relations; at bed-time, on long railway journeys

(sometimes), or when I am walking or doing needlework, they are

there. If I get to the house at bed-time, I sleep well. If I

am there when travelling, I don't get tired, and the characters

grow and develop quite naturally. It is my inner life, and, if I

were given that way, it might become a series of visions. I can

quite understand men having ecstasies in which the ideals they

have always before them become apparently materialised.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER.

I cannot too strongly insist that all this is extremely instructive. It

explains so many things that still have to be explained, if religion be

untrue. The new science of psychology has already accounted for many

abnormal phenomena that were formerly considered miraculous--"faith

cures," [234] for instance. Does it not account for the effects

of prayer? We know nothing of the efficacy of prayer in securing

material benefits--there is no proof either way; but we do know that

it has often an ethical value, and is also a means of strengthening

faith. Does it necessarily follow that a Supernatural Being hears

and answers the suppliant's prayers? I think not. Suggestion, it is

now known, exercises an extraordinary influence over the subjective

mind. In prayer auto-suggestion undoubtedly plays its subtle rôle.

Let me give an example of the benign results that may be effected

by suggestion without any appeal to the supernatural. Often a moral

change for the worse in a most estimable person is distinctly traceable

to causes over which he or she had no control, and the physician or

surgeon, having diagnosed the case, proceeds to do his best to bring

about a cure. Where it is some nervous malady, mental therapeutics

or psychic healing is sometimes extremely efficacious. [235] Vices

and weaknesses are now looked upon by many in the light of diseases

and ailments--curable, ameliorable, or incurable, as the case may

be. Disease or Devil, the fact remains that medical treatment may

effect a cure even where the patient's disorder has been brought on

by, as we say, his own fault. Dipsomania, morphinomania, kleptomania,

nymphomania, satyriasis, and various moral perversions may yield to a

purely natural treatment, whether it be the method of a Milne Bramwell

(by suggestion) or of Keeley.

When denouncing Mariolatry (in his sermon at the opening of the

Church Congress, October, 1905), the Bishop of London said: "It is not

revealed that the cry to any saint or to the Virgin Mary ever reaches

them at all." Apparently, therefore, the Bishop admits that appeals

to the supernatural may be wasted, and this in spite of the suppliant

being very much in earnest. Yet who would be prepared to say that

the Roman Catholic who prays to the Virgin Mary and to innumerable

saints does not derive quite as much benefit from the process as the

Protestant who directs his worship solely to the Holy Trinity, or

the Shintoist who invokes the benign spirits of his ancestors? [236]

The effect of the suggestion is the same in each case, and has all

the appearance of an answer to prayer.

Again, putting aside abnormal phases of the mind, is it not, as

Ralph Waldo Trine puts it (in his little book, Character Building:

Thought Power), a simple psychological law that any type of thought,

if entertained for a sufficient length of time, will, by and by,

reach the motor tracts of the brain, and finally burst forth into

action? There seems no need for the introduction of a supernatural

hypothesis to explain the moral effect of prayer. So, also, with

regard to faith, it is only natural that the believer, racked with

doubt, should find reassurance in prayer.

The Theist who lays store by the evidence from "religious experience"

will do well to ponder over the following words of one of Professor

James's critics: "Instead of producing anything that would strengthen

the belief in extra-human spirit agents influencing human destinies,

psychology has made intelligible, conformably to the rest of our

organised knowledge, most, if not all, of the striking phenomena which

have been the empirical props of the popular faith in spiritism,

whether Christian or not. We refer to anæsthesias, analgesias,

hallucinations, monitions, trances, the sense of illumination in

ecstasy, etc., including the facts considered in Professor James'

lectures. In making this statement, I do not forget the work of the

Society for Psychical Research. Its achievements may be declared

to have been so far, and without prejudice of the future, absolutely

inconclusive with regard to spiritism." [237] In other words, psychical

research, if conducted by the experimental method and without bias,

may be pregnant with consequences hardly in accord with the hopes of

either the spiritist or spiritualist (in its religious sense). For,

should abnormal phenomena of all kinds admit of a natural explanation,

their present obscurity will no longer furnish grounds for supernatural

speculation.

THE RELIGIOUS (?) EXPERIENCES OF INTOXICATION.

According to Professor James's theory, it is the person who chances to

have a well-developed subliminal life who is predestined to be saved,

for then God will be able to reach him. As Professor James informs

us that "nitrous oxide and ether, especially nitrous oxide, when

sufficiently diluted with air, stimulate the mystical consciousness

in an extraordinary degree," so that "depth beyond depth of truth

seems revealed to the inhaler," the unbelieving Philistine ought

to be recommended to inhale this truth-revealing, and therefore

faith-producing, gas. Like music, it must be meant as an aid to

worship. The new beatitude will then be, as Mr. Leuba remarks,

"Blessed are the intoxicated, for to them the kingdom of spirits is

revealed!" I can quite understand the interest aroused by Professor

James's remarkable book; but that Theists and would-be Theists

should take its chief conclusion seriously is beyond me--or, rather,

I should say it is one more proof to me that the inherited capacity

for superstition is still strong within us. We can understand why

supernatural beliefs die hard.

MUSIC AND THE EMOTIONS. [238]

Are our emotions reliable guides, or are they not? Though the

motive-power in our nature, though they go to make up that heart

upon which Mr. Fielding so eloquently discourses in his Hearts of

Men, do they not need to be carefully controlled by reason? Are they

not the very same emotions which, in all but religious matters, are

admittedly a fruitful source of self-deception? Take the emotion

excited by music. I know many good people who think they possess

considerable religious feeling, and have had a religious experience,

because they are peculiarly affected by music, and especially by fine

sacred music. [239] Similarly, Dr. Torrey's "Glory Song" appeals to the

untrained ear of his emotional audiences, and the Salvation band, all

out of tune, elevates the soul of the Salvationist. Yet lower down the

scale of musical culture we find a clash of discordant sounds exciting

the religious emotions of the savage. Is it too much to say that these

"experiences" differ only in degree from those of the dog who howls as

certain notes affect him? Granted that music, suited to the taste of

the worshipper, is an aid to worship, we have to remember that there

are those whose temperaments are so constituted that they are more

or less unaffected by music--good, bad, or indifferent--and, if the

religious feeling evoked be from God, may we not ask in all reverence:

"Why should the unmusical be debarred from this means of feeling His

presence? Why should the man without a note of music in his composition

have this much less chance of eternal salvation?" Surely we are not to

take seriously and literally the words of our great philosopher-poet

when he says: "Let no such man be trusted"?

SEXUAL LOVE.

Again, there is the religious feeling evoked by that strongest emotion

of all--sexual love; the one excites the other, and the effect produced

may be beneficial or may be mischievous. But sexual love appears to me

a strange aid to the worship of God; and persons who really imagine

they are nearer Him when in this state of emotion most certainly

deceive themselves. The ascetic who is debarred from this particular

"religious" experience should agree with me.

REVIVALISM.

An examination of religious experiences, however brief, cannot well

omit all mention of the question of revivalism. Has it an ethical

value? Has it a spiritual meaning? To the latter question the answer of

the Church is for the most part in the affirmative. In his Pentecostal

message for Whitsuntide, 1905, the Archbishop of Canterbury refers,

without directly naming them, to the extraordinary movement of which

the young Evan Roberts has been the leader, and to the preaching

of Messrs. Torrey and Alexander in London. "To whatever cause or

combination of causes we may attribute it," he says, "the fact

appears to be certain that expression has this year been given in

an unusual degree to a desire for increased spiritual earnestness

in the Christian life." I shall not embark upon the question of the

spiritual signification of revivalism. My remarks on other religious

experiences may be taken to apply here also. Regarding its ethical

value, I fancy most thoughtful onlookers will be with me when I

say that it is unadvisable to stir up hysteria in hysterical people

just for the sake of effects, the usefulness of which is extremely

problematical--effects which, if they benefit a few, are harmful to

the majority, and, in any case, are unlikely to be of a permanent

nature. We have it on excellent authority that "emotional appeals and

revivals do not destroy carnal sin in schools, and it is well known

how often they seem to stimulate, to increase, immorality." [240]

§ 6. The Inevitable Conclusion.

A candid and unbiassed examination of the so-called theistic proofs

can but lead to the one conclusion: they are worthless. Even if the

cosmological and teleological arguments were satisfactory, and even

if "religious" experiences proved the existence of a spirit world,

the ethical argument undoubtedly breaks down, carrying along with

it all that fragile structure of which the theist's theories are

composed. Yes, the problem of evil is insoluble. "We have not,"

says John Stuart Mill, [241] "to attempt the impossible problem of

reconciling infinite benevolence and justice with infinite power in

the Creator of such a world as this. To attempt to do so not only

involves absolute contradiction in an intellectual point of view,

but exhibits to excess the revolting spectacle of a Jesuitical defence

of moral enormities." The latest defence by an approved apologist of

the Church of England will be found in chap. xiv. of Pro Fide. It

has been conducted with conspicuous candour, and such harsh terms

as "Jesuitical" and "revolting" are no longer applicable. Whether,

however, this is likely to prove any more successful than previous

attempts, and to serve as an antidote to scepticism, may be seen by a

glance at the following summary of the line of argument. The author

relies, to begin with, upon the theological assumption that moral

evil arises from the abuse of God's gift to man of a free will. He

also argues that the transmission of a tendency to sin is not unjust,

because a remedy for it has been provided. As for physical evil,

this, he maintains, subserves important moral purposes in the case

of man, and in the case of animals it is more than compensated for

by physical good. In the end, however, he is forced, as we have seen,

to fall back upon the hypothesis of a personal devil. In other words,

he presents us with those sophistical arguments of theistic apologists

which we have been investigating, and then, finding, as a perfectly

honest mind must find, that these are inadequate, he has, after all,

to rely upon those ancient theological dogmas which owe their origin

to the insolubility of the problem. Let those accept his special

pleading who can. There are many who read an apologetic work with

minds already made up to be persuaded by it, and where there is this

bias there cannot be straight thinking. For those who keep an open mind

the conclusion is inevitable: apart from the revelation which has been

called in question there is no proof, there never can be any proof, of

the existence of the God of the Christian. If there be a First Cause,

if there be a Supreme Intelligence, if there be a Deity at all, we know

nothing of His nature and nothing of His intentions with regard to us.

NOTE ON RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY.

An examination of the development of philosophy leads to conclusions

of considerable import. Our present inquiry can be only an exceedingly

rapid one; but anyone wishing to study the subject a little more fully

will find it concisely treated in a book called Science and Faith,

by Dr. Paul Topinard, late General Secretary of the Anthropological

Society of Paris. From Chapter VIII. I cull the following:--

"Animals, in the presence of phenomena which they do not understand,

retire confounded. Savage man does the same. But he, at least, hazards

the attempt of an explanation by investing the objects or phenomena in

question with life and sentiments similar to his own. Later this same

savage, discovering or believing to discover in himself a double being,

the one corporeal and the other spiritual, transfers the new notions

regarding himself to objects without himself, to stones, plants,

animals, or stars.... Religions, at first more or less elementary,

with their founders and priests, do not appear until later.... For

a long time the sorcerer--that is to say, a man less credulous than

the rest, and adroit in the sense of knowing how to reap personal

advantage from the beliefs of his fellows--stood alone in his

class. Sorcerer and medicine man at once, he distributed amulets,

drove out spirits from the bodies of the deceased, and caused the

rains to fall.... The sacerdotal caste arose, at times recruiting

itself from the outside and at times hereditary. More intelligent

than the others, more disposed to reflect, the priests were naturally

inclined to seek more satisfactory explanations from the phenomena

of nature, to distinguish general causes from particular causes,

to reduce the number of the spirits, to champion the most important

of these, and even to symbolise many of them. The cult of heroes,

of personages in the tribe who had rendered it valuable services,

and of ancestors, was mingled with the preceding beliefs. Having

to speak to simple people, for whom it was necessary to materialise

things, they were obliged to recast their ideas and to expound them

by the help of fables and myths, which soon essayed to explain in a

tangible form the origin of things, the existing phenomena of nature,

and often to guide the conduct of men. These were the first attempts

of philosophy, already as utilitarian as they were mystical."

"Religions consecrated a multitude of usages and ceremonies from which

the sacerdotal class lived, and which greatly augmented its power;

and they also exerted a strong political influence. Again, they

led up to genuine moral codes, such as those of Brahma and Buddha in

India, and Confucius in China.... The utilitarian idea appears to have

dominated among the Phoenician and Canaanite peoples. It gave rise to

the doctrine of a personal national God, who had created man and the

people whom he had chosen and whose destinies he directed. He exacted

from them blind and exclusive worship and obedience to the laws which

he promulgated. In return he protected them, reserving his right of

terrestrial punishment.... The Egyptians are related to the Hindus by

their belief in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls from

animal to animal.... The conception of a judgment after death passed

through these peoples [the Egyptians] to the polytheism of Greece and

Rome.... Greek philosophy rose audaciously to the loftiest and boldest

conceptions, not conceptions crowning an intellectual edifice, but

conceptions which dominate it in imaginary realms of space. Aristotle

belongs apart. He is at once scientist and philosopher. He observes

nature. He is the founder of natural history, of anthropology, of

political science, and of political economy. According to Graef,

he is also the founder of political philosophy, because he was the

first to introduce positive facts into philosophy.... In the general

run, they [the Greek philosophers] were dialecticians, sophists, and

intellectual gymnasts only. But, such as they were, they founded free

inquiry, disintegrated the national polytheistic beliefs, and prepared

the way for the revolution which was on the verge of accomplishment."

"In an unknown [?] corner of Judæa, on the banks of a lake, the glad

tidings burst forth of a coming regeneration, and a voice was heard

pleading the cause of the feeble, the humble, and the oppressed,

and saying: 'Love ye one another!' The doctrine, at first local

and inculcated by a small number of apostles, soon extended with

St. Paul to the Gentiles, and thenceforward its progress was rapid

[?]. Philosophy was not indifferent to it.... Christianity, in effect,

instead of conquering the pagan world, was conquered by it, as Huxley

has remarked.... During the Middle Ages science had disappeared from

the West. Philosophy, hemmed in between metaphysics and theology,

became scholasticism, which sought to reconcile Plato, Plotinus, and

Aristotle with the needs of orthodoxy, and split hairs over subtle

essences and entities.... Then a concourse of circumstances occurred

which, as fifteen centuries before, was to transform the Western world,

although differently, and which inaugurated modern times, to wit: The

return to the West of the knowledge that had taken refuge among the

Arabs; the discovery of printing, which spread everywhere trustworthy

texts; the discovery of the New World, which quadrupled the surface

of the earth to be observed and studied; the awakening of science,

with Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Rondelet, Vesalius, Harvey; and,

finally, the Reformation."

"On the downfall of scholasticism the first care of philosophy

was not the renouncing of what had been its essence, the search

for the absolute by intuition [italics are mine] and reason, but

the overhauling of its methods, which it sought to render more

precise.... The subsequent divergencies were rooted less in the

varying intellectual and logical make-up of each philosopher and in

their method of applying their faculties than in their individual ways

of feeling and conceiving. Philosophy in effect is simply a struggle

between these elements.... Nevertheless, the conquests of science began

to make themselves felt. There was now less insistence on God and more

on the world, man, morals, and the conditions of social life. The

over-hanging metaphysical cloud is still more or less heavy, but at

spots it suffers the light to pass through. There are two streams:

the one continues Descartes--in France with Pascal, Bossuet, Fénélon,

and Malebranche, in Germany with Spinoza and Leibnitz; the other, in

England, is represented by Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke.... Bacon, Hobbes,

and Locke are the inaugurators of a school which is characterised by

its practical spirit, its observation and analysis of psychological

facts, and by its disposition to refer the conduct of man to the

advantages which he draws therefrom. It led to Adam Smith, who

discovers the sanction of morality in the public approbation of what

is right; to Bentham, who sees it in interest rationally understood;

to Hume and the Scottish school; and finally to the existing school

of John Stuart Mill, Darwin, and Herbert Spencer. Locke, on the other

hand, is also the starting-point of the French school of the eighteenth

century, which is characterised by a tendency at once anti-clerical,

altruistic, and sentimental."

"We shall say nothing of the philosophy of the nineteenth century

of the German school, which represents speculative philosophy, and

the English, which is physiological in bent, and of which we have

the highest opinion. In France the most notable achievement is the

attempt which was made by Auguste Comte. For Comte metaphysics must

be entirely eliminated. The day of intuitions, à priori conceptions,

entities, innate ideas, is past. If a problem cannot be solved, it is

to be let alone. Psychology is only a branch of physiology, and the

latter a division of biology. Morals rest not upon any imperative

obligation, but upon the altruism which education developes. There

are no rights besides those which society confers. Human knowledge

has passed through three stages: one of faith or theology, one of

conceptions or metaphysics, and one of observation or science. These,

in turn, are the basal principles of science, and would be perfect

if the positivist school were faithful to them. But in its own bosom

even there are refractory spirits who suffer themselves unconsciously

to be ruled by their sentiments rather than by observation, and who

are constantly lapsing back into the old methods.... For me there

is but one method of knowing what is, and of inducing therefrom what

has been and what will be--and that is observation; all suggestions

which transgress this method are void."

From his examination of the evolution of philosophy Dr. Topinard draws,

by way of résumé, the following conclusions:--

a. Philosophy, like religion, is the outcome of the belief in the

supernatural held by man in his more or less primitive state.

b. The philosophic spirit and the spirit which created the arts and

letters have as common characters their subjectivity, their need of

imagining and of constructing, and their firm belief in the reality

of their conceptions.

c. Philosophy is opposed to science. It answers to the impatient need

of man to explain at once things which elude his comprehension.

d. At the present day philosophy still lives, but is losing its

initial character and sees itself obliged more and more to reckon

with science and practice.

e. We are obliged to admit that the group of human faculties which

has given birth to philosophy has a less prolonged future than the

group which has given rise to science.

f. Philosophy, although on the wane, and apparently in disaccord with

the end of the nineteenth century, has nevertheless a beautiful domain

to exploit.

These conclusions concerning the past and present of philosophy cannot

be disseminated too widely. So many refuse point-blank to inquire

into their belief, because they have been led to think that this

will entail their wading through a mass of philosophical writings,

and because they expect to find these either incomprehensible or

unconvincing. Properly speaking, Christians should be the first to

admit that apologists who attempt to defend their Faith by abstruse

arguments are sadly inconsistent. For it is written, Jesus rejoiced

in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and

earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,

and hast revealed them unto babes. Let the humble truth-seeker take

heart. Whatever the value or present tendency of philosophy may or

may not be, the truth about the Christian religion can be ascertained

without a knowledge of metaphysics.

Metaphysics does not, and never will, appeal to the average man. He

agrees with the scoffer, who says: "When the man who is speaking no

longer knows what he is talking about, and the man who is listening

never knew what he was talking about, that is metaphysics!" The

obscurity inherent in profound and abstract philosophy may well be

objected to, not only as painful and fatiguing, but as the inevitable

source of uncertainty and error. "Here, indeed," exclaims Hume,

in his essay on The Different Species of Philosophy, "lies the

justest and most plausible objection against a considerable part of

metaphysics, that they are not properly a science, but arise either

from the fruitless efforts of human vanity, which would penetrate

into subjects utterly inaccessible to the understanding, or from

the craft of popular superstitions, which, being unable to defend

themselves on fair ground, raise these intangling brambles to cover

and protect their weakness." It is accurate and just reasoning like

that of Hume, in his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, which,

to quote his words again, "is the only catholic remedy, fitted for

all persons and all dispositions; and is alone able to subvert that

abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon which, being mixed up

with popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to

careless reasoners, and gives it the air of science and wisdom."

It may be urged that the famous Scottish philosopher and historian

has been unduly severe in his sceptical views concerning speculative

philosophy, or that he would have been less severe upon the later

metaphysical thinking which was affected by his criticisms. There

still remains, in any case, one feature common to all philosophies:

their difficulty. Philosophy is only studied, and, indeed, can only be

thoroughly understood, by the few. Take, for example, that intellectual

phenomenon, Hegelianism, the spirit and method of which have leavened

the whole mass of philosophical thought in Germany. It is confessedly

one of the most difficult of all philosophies. One has heard what

Hegel himself is supposed to have said: "Only one man ever understood

me, and even he couldn't." This difficulty of comprehension has an

important bearing on the argument for Agnosticism. Granting that there

is such a God as Hegel would have us accept, how can anyone suppose

for a moment that a Deity wrapping Himself up in such obscurity

would be unreasonable enough to expect all mankind to believe in

Him? He must not only pardon, but approve of, Agnosticism. A God,

whose existence can only be proved, if it can be proved at all, by

the abstruse arguments of a Hegel, is not a God anxious to reveal

Himself to His creatures.

POPULAR ARGUMENTS