God and the World Part 1

G.o.d and the World.

by Arthur W. Robinson.

PREFATORY NOTE

I have read what Dr. Arthur Robinson has written, and find it a most interesting, singularly fair, and I may add, within its limits, able and comprehensive survey of the thoughts of the past and pa.s.sing age.

I commend it to the coming generation as a useful means of acquiring some notion of the main puzzles and controversies of the strenuous time through which their fathers have lived. Fossil remains of these occasionally fierce discussions they will find embedded in literature; and although we are emerging from that conflict, it can only be to find fresh opportunities for discovery, fresh fields of interest, in the newer age. Towards a wise reception of these discoveries, as they are gradually arrived at in the future, this little book will give some help.

OLIVER LODGE.

G.o.d AND THE WORLD

INTRODUCTION

A man, so it has been said, is distinguished from the creatures beneath him by his power to ask a question. To which we may add that one man is distinguished from another by the kind of question that he asks. A man is to be measured by the size of his question. Small men ask small questions: of here and now; of to-day and to-morrow and the next day; of how they may quickest fill their pockets, or gain another step upon the social ladder. Great men are concerned with great questions: of life, of man, of history, of G.o.d.

So again, the size of an age can be determined by the size of its questions. It has been claimed that the age through which we have pa.s.sed was a great age, and tried by this test we need not hesitate to admit the claim. It was full of questions, and they were great questions. As never before, the eyes of men strained upwards and backwards into the dim {8} recesses of the past to discover something, if it might be, of the beginnings of things: of matter and life; of the earth and its contents; of the solar system and the universe. We know with what interest inquiries of this sort were regarded, and how ready the people were to read the books that dealt with them; to attend lectures and discussions about them, and to give their money for the purposes of such research. It was a great age that could devote itself so eagerly to questions of this importance and magnitude.

But as men cannot live upon appet.i.te, so neither can they be for ever satisfied with questions. Hence it follows that a period of questioning is ordinarily followed by another, in which the acc.u.mulated information is sorted and digested and turned to practical account; a time in which constructive work is attempted, and some understanding is arrived at as to the relation that exists between the old knowledge and the new. It looks as if we were nearing such a time, when, for a while at all events, there will be a pause for reconsideration and reconstruction, and the human spirit will gather strength and confidence before again setting out upon its quest of the Infinite.

Already we are asked to give attention to statements that are intended to review the whole situation and to summarise, provisionally at {9} all events, the results that have been attained. Each of these attempts will, in its turn, be superseded by something that is wider in its outlook and wiser in its verdicts. This little book is an effort of this nature, and it is offered in the hope that it may serve some such useful and temporary purpose.

Much more competent writers than its author might well apologise for consenting to enter upon the task which he has been invited to undertake. All that he can say, by way of excuse for his boldness in complying, is that for many years he has endeavoured to follow the trend of modern thinking, and that the growing interest with which he has done this encourages him to hope that he may be able to make what he has to tell about it both intelligible and interesting to others.

He does not imagine that he can escape mistakes, and he will most gladly submit himself to the correction of others who know better and see more clearly than he does. He only begs that those who disagree with his judgments will try to give him credit for a sincere desire to be true to facts, and to welcome the light, from whatever quarter it may have come.

When we speak of the age that is pa.s.sing, we shall have in mind what may roughly be reckoned as the last hundred years. That s.p.a.ce includes, for those of us who are not in our first youth, the time of our {10} parents, and even, it may be, of our grandparents. The period has a certain distinctiveness of character in spite of superficial diversities. It was marked, as we have said, by the intelligence and vigour of its questionings. It was a time of intellectual movement and turmoil. It witnessed a succession of wonderful discoveries leading on to ever bolder investigations. Rapid generalisations were advanced, to be often as quickly abandoned. Only by degrees was it possible to see the new facts in their proper proportion and significance. Nor was it at all easy for men to keep their discussions free from heat and bitterness, when the most deeply-rooted convictions appeared to be a.s.sailed, and the most sacred a.s.sociations to be regarded as of little account. Looking back, as we can, it is possible to see that in spite of the eddies and backwaters a steady progress was made. And it is of that progress that it will now be our endeavour to speak.

We know how it has happened to us over and over again in our own individual experiences to have been made conscious of a gradual modification of our opinions as new evidence has reached us, and we have had time to relate it to our previous understanding and knowledge.

We have had our first thoughts, and our second thoughts, and then there have come third thoughts, which were the ripest {11} and soundest of all. Just such a process of which we can mark the stages in ourselves is to be seen on a larger scale--in bigger print, as it were--in the thought movements of an age. In the case of the period which we are to review, the three stages have been more than commonly clear, as we shall aim to shew in the survey we are to make.

We shall begin with the First thoughts, which were those of what may be termed the older orthodoxy. These were very generally accepted; indeed, they were regarded as for the most part beyond the reach of serious contradiction. Then we shall pa.s.s to the Second thoughts, which were forced upon an astonished and bewildered generation by the onslaughts upon traditional views that were made from the side of physical science. For fifty years or more the debate went on, with challenge and counter-challenge, and much noise and dust of controversy. They were great days, and in them great men fought with great courage in great issues. We shall seek to do justice to both sides, to those who dared to proclaim and suffer for the new, and to those who shewed an equal courage in their resolute determination to be loyal to what they held to be the truth of the old.

Then, finally, it will be our difficult task to discriminate between the surging thoughts of that {12} second period and those of the Third stage, through which we are advancing, and to shew what can already be made out of a common ground of agreement and co-operation, now much more likely to be reached than could at one time have been foreseen by the most optimistic imagination.

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CHAPTER I

THE OLDER ORTHODOXY

Never had there been greater unanimity of opinion in England in regard to the religious interpretation of the world than that which prevailed at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The excesses on the Continent which had accompanied the advocacy of free thought had disposed men's mind to fall back upon authority, and most of all in matters that affected the basis on which the continuance of social order and moral conduct depended. The general position was clearly apprehended, and was accepted as if beyond dispute. Men spoke and thought of the Order of Nature. The world was a Cosmos, a regulated system. Order implied an Orderer. It was regarded by them as obvious that there must have been a First Cause, a great Architect and Maker of the Universe. They agreed with Aquinas that "things which have no perception can only tend toward an end if directed by a conscious and intelligent being. Therefore there is an {14} Intelligence by which all natural things are ordered to an end."[1] They were fully prepared to endorse the indignant protest of Bacon: "I had rather believe all the folly of the 'Legend,' and the 'Talmud,' and the 'Alcoran,' than that this universal frame is without a mind."[2] In fact no other hypothesis seemed to them thinkable.

If at any time they felt a need for a more elaborate justification of their conviction, they had it ready to their hand in the familiar argument from design. Paley, when he set this out in his famous _Natural Theology_ (1802), was only expressing with conspicuous ability the view that was then accepted in all circles from the highest to the lowest. He was preaching to those who were already in the fullest accord with his doctrine. They followed with eager approbation his reasoning about the watch that he supposed himself to have found on the heath. According to his a.s.sumption he had never seen a watch made, nor known of anyone capable of making such a thing. He concludes, nevertheless, that it must have been made by someone. "There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for {15} the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its structure, and designed its use."

"Neither would it invalidate our conclusion that the watch sometimes went wrong, or that it seldom went exactly right. The purpose of the machinery, the design and the designer, might be evident in whatever way we accounted for the irregularity of the movement, or whether we could account for it at all." "Nor would it bring any uncertainty into the argument if there were a few parts of the watch concerning which we could not discover, or had not yet discovered, in what manner they conducted to the general effect; or even some parts concerning which we could not ascertain whether they conducted to that effect in any manner whatever." Least of all could it be sufficient to explain that the watch was "nothing more than the result of the laws of metallic nature." "It is a perversion of language to a.s.sign any law as the efficient operative cause of any thing. A law presupposes an agent, for it is only the mode according to which our agent proceeds: it implies a power, for it is the order according to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the law does nothing, is nothing."

From the watch we are led on to the eye, which exhibits a skill of design not less, but far greater, {16} than that of the man who gave us the telescope. Then follows a detailed examination of the use of the various bodily organs, the contrivances to be met with in vegetables and animals, the marvellous adaptations of anatomical structure, the provisions for the flight of birds, and for the movements of fishes; with instances of arrangements to suit particular conditions--the long neck of the swan, the minute eye of the mole, the beak of the parrot, the sting of the bee--all furnishing an ever acc.u.mulating body of irrefutable evidence to attest the existence and operation of an intelligent Author of Nature.

That these arrangements had been expressly intended to meet the circ.u.mstances of each particular case was a.s.sumed as necessarily involved in the acceptance of any design at all. It is interesting to observe that Paley did not think it improbable that the Deity may have committed to another being--"nay, there may be many such agents and many ranks of them"--the task of "drawing forth" special creations out of the materials He had made and in subordination to His rules. This, he thought, might in some degree account for the fact that contrivances are not always perfected at once, and that many instruments and methods are employed.

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Of the goodness of the Creator no manner of doubt was entertained. For proof of it attention was called to the fact that "in a vast plurality of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the contrivance is beneficial," and to the further fact that "the Deity has superadded pleasure to animal sensations beyond what was necessary for any other purposes or when the purpose, so far as it was necessary, might have been effected by the function of pain." Venomous animals there were, no doubt, but the fang and the sting "may be no less merciful to the victim, than salutary to the devourer"; and it was to be noted "that whilst only a few species possess the venomous property, that property guards the whole tribe." Then again, before we condemn the ordering whereby animals devour one another we must consider what would happen if they did not. "Is it to see the world filled with drooping, superannuated, half-starved, helpless and unhelped animals, that you would alter the present system of pursuit and prey?" "A hare, notwithstanding the number of its dangers and its enemies, is as playful an animal as any other." "It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes myriads of happy beings crowd upon my {18} view. 'The insect youth are on the wing.' Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air.

Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered faculties.... The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments, and under every variety of const.i.tution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the offices which the Author of their nature has a.s.signed to them." Where it might have been imagined that there were to be seen miscarriages of the Creator's intentions, these were to be attributed to the presence and influence of mysterious forces of evil. Such attempts to hinder or frustrate the workings of good might be part of a purpose of good because they only afforded fresh opportunities for a display of the Divine wisdom, whose ordinary interventions were accepted as Providences, whilst Miracles supplied the rarer exhibitions of its power.

For the rest, it was our duty to remember that such difficulties as might still be felt must be largely the result of our ignorance. With patience we should learn to know more. A day was coming when much that is now hidden would be made clear, and when the greatness and wisdom and justice {19} of the Almighty Ruler would be wonderfully and fearfully revealed.

It is not intended to suggest that there were no dissentients ready to bring forward objections to these almost unanimously accepted doctrines. We know that there were such, if only because it was deemed worth while to argue against them. Kepler and Newton had stirred men's minds by their account of the prodigious scale upon which the mechanism of the Universe was constructed, and Laplace had already enunciated the theory according to which the cosmic bodies were originally formed in obedience to the law of gravitation by the condensation of rotating nebulous spheres. And there were those who used these discoveries of astronomy to cast doubts upon the likelihood that the Divine attention would be concentrated upon the concerns of so tiny a speck as this planet of ours. There were others who maintained that the unbroken persistency of the order of Nature was evidence enough to shew that it had no beginning and could have no end.

Against both these objectors the irony and the oratory of a Chalmers was directed with what was held to be overwhelming effect. If the telescope had shewn us wonderful things, there was another instrument, he said, which had been given to us {20} about the same time. If by the telescope we had been led to see "a system in every star," it was no less true that the microscope had disclosed "a world in every atom,"

thus proving to us that "no minuteness, however shrunk from the notice of the human eye, is beneath the notice of His regard."

So again, in an oration upon "The constancy of Nature," the thesis is most eloquently defended that "the strict order of the goodly universe which we inhabit" is nothing else than "a n.o.ble attestation to the wisdom and beneficence of its great Architect."[3]

Little did men dream at that time of the wealth of other discoveries that was soon to increase enormously the complexity of their problems; or of the inferences that would be drawn from them with an ingenuity and an a.s.surance that would task to the utmost the ability and the patience of the defenders of the old beliefs.

It is of the new facts disclosed and of the further thoughts suggested by them that we must next proceed to tell.

[1] _Summa_, I., ii. 3.

[2] Essay on "Atheism and Superst.i.tion."

[3] _Astronomical Discourses_ (1817), pp. 80, 211.

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CHAPTER II

THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY

We find it hard to realise that not so very long ago the steam-engine and the electric telegraph were unknown; and we are right when we say that life must have worn a very different aspect in those days. It is scarcely less difficult for us to realise the change that has been wrought in men's thoughts since the time when the biological cell was unrecognised, and the theory of evolution had not yet been formulated.

The rapidity with which advances of knowledge were made in the physical sphere was astonishing, and it was only to be expected that they should have seemed not a little bewildering. We must try to note the main steps of the movement, giving the names of some of the representative workers and thinkers.

It is generally agreed that the foundations of modern chemistry were laid by Dalton (1808). He it was who revived the old atomic theory, and determined the weights of the atoms and the {22} proportions in which they are combined into molecules--the smallest particles which could exist in a free condition. By so doing he prepared the way for the subsequent researches of Faraday and Clerk-Maxwell into the properties of electricity and magnetism, and for the investigations by Helmholtz and others into the connexion between electric attraction and chemical affinities.

The forerunner of the wonderful advances of modern biology was the French naturalist Lamarck (1809), who, in opposition to the accepted doctrine of separate creations, suggested that all the species of living creatures, not excepting the human, have arisen from older species in the course of long periods of time. The common parent forms he held to have been simple and lowly organisms, and he accounted for the gradual differentiation of types by the hypothesis that they were the results of the inheritance of characteristics which had been acquired by continued use--as, for example, in the case of the giraffe who was supposed to have owed the length of its neck to the efforts of its ancestors to browse upon trees that were just beyond their reach.

He maintained that the changes produced in the parents by temperature, nutrition, repeated use or disuse, were inherited so that they reappeared in their offspring. But the evidence adduced was {23} judged to be insufficient, and the balance of scientific opinion was decidedly against his views.

Lyell (1830) gave a new direction to the science of geology by acc.u.mulating evidence to prove the certainty of a natural and continuous development in the formation of the crust of the earth, thus opposing the catastrophic idea which had previously prevailed. One outcome of his researches was to make it plain that the history of this development must have extended over enormous tracts of time.