Philosophy and Religion Part 1

Philosophy and Religion.

by Hastings Rashdall.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES

Man has no deeper or wider interest than theology; none deeper, for however much he may change, he never loses his love of the many questions it covers; and none wider, for under whatever law he may live he never escapes from its s.p.a.cious shade; nor does he ever find that it speaks to him in vain or uses a voice that fails to reach him. Once the present writer was talking with a friend who has equal fame as a statesman and a man of letters, and he said, 'Every day I live, Politics, which are affairs of Man and Time, interest me less, while Theology, which is an affair of G.o.d and Eternity, interests me more.'

As with him, so with many, though the many feel that their interest is in theology and not in dogma. Dogma, they know, is but a series of resolutions framed by a council or parliament, which they do not respect any the more because the parliament was composed of ecclesiastically-minded persons; while the theology which so interests them is a discourse touching G.o.d, though the Being so named is the G.o.d man conceived as not only related to himself and his world but also as rising ever higher with the notions of the self and the world. Wise books, not in dogma but in theology, may therefore be described as the supreme {vi} need of our day, for only such can save us from much fanaticism and secure us in the full possession of a sober and sane reason.

Theology is less a single science than an encyclopaedia of sciences; indeed all the sciences which have to do with man have a better right to be called theological than anthropological, though the man it studies is not simply an individual but a race. Its way of viewing man is indeed characteristic; from this have come some of its brighter ideals and some of its darkest dreams. The ideals are all either ethical or social, and would make of earth a heaven, creating fraternity amongst men and forming all states into a goodly sisterhood; the dreams may be represented by doctrines which concern sin on the one side and the will of G.o.d on the other. But even this will cannot make sin luminous, for were it made radiant with grace, it would cease to be sin.

These books then,--which have all to be written by men who have lived in the full blaze of modern light,--though without having either their eyes burned out or their souls scorched into insensibility,--are intended to present G.o.d in relation to Man and Man in relation to G.o.d.

It is intended that they begin, not in date of publication, but in order of thought, with a Theological Encyclopaedia which shall show the circle of sciences co-ordinated under the term Theology, though all will be viewed as related to its central or main idea. This relation of G.o.d to human knowledge will then be looked at through mind as a communion of Deity with humanity, or G.o.d in fellowship {vii} with concrete man. On this basis the idea of Revelation will be dealt with.

Then, so far as history and philology are concerned, the two Sacred Books, which are here most significant, will be viewed as the scholar, who is also a divine, views them; in other words, the Old and New Testaments, regarded as human doc.u.ments, will be criticised as a literature which expresses relations to both the present and the future; that is, to the men and races who made the books, as well as to the races and men the books made. The Bible will thus be studied in the Semitic family which gave it being, and also in the Indo-European families which gave to it the quality of the life to which they have attained. But Theology has to do with more than sacred literature; it has also to do with the thoughts and life its history occasioned.

Therefore the Church has to be studied and presented as an inst.i.tution which G.o.d founded and man administers. But it is possible to know this Church only through the thoughts it thinks, the doctrines it holds, the characters and the persons it forms, the people who are its saints and embody its ideals of sanct.i.ty, the acts it does, which are its sacraments, and the laws it follows and enforces, which are its polity, and the young it educates and the nations it directs and controls.

These are the points to be presented in the volumes which follow, which are all to be occupied with theology or the knowledge of G.o.d and His ways.

A. M. F.

'O.'

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PREFACE

These Lectures were delivered in Cambridge during the Lent Term of last year, on the invitation of a Committee presided over by the Master of Magdalene, before an audience of from three hundred to four hundred University men, chiefly Under-graduates. They were not then, and they are not now, intended for philosophers or even for beginners in the systematic study of philosophy, but as aids to educated men desirous of thinking out for themselves a reasonable basis for personal Religion.

The Lectures--especially the first three--deal with questions on which I have already written. I am indebted to the Publisher of _Contentio Veritatis_ and the other contributors to that volume for raising no objection to my publishing Lectures which might possibly be regarded as in part a condensation, in part an expansion of my Essay on 'The ultimate basis of Theism.' I have dealt more systematically with many of the problems here discussed in an Essay upon 'Personality in G.o.d and Man' contributed to _Personal Idealism_ (edited by Henry {x} Sturt) and in my 'Theory of Good and Evil.' Some of the doctrinal questions touched on in Lecture VI. have been more fully dealt with in my volume of University Sermons, _Doctrine and Development_.

Questions which were asked at the time and communications which have since reached me have made me feel, more even than I did when I was writing the Lectures, how inadequate is the treatment here given to many great problems. On some matters much fuller explanation and discussion will naturally be required to convince persons previously unfamiliar with Metaphysic: on others it is the more advanced student of Philosophy who will complain that I have only touched upon the fringe of a vast subject. But I have felt that I could not seriously expand any part of the Lectures without changing the whole character of the book, and I have been compelled in general to meet the demand for further explanation only by the above general reference to my other books, by the addition of a few notes, and by appending to each chapter some suggestions for more extended reading. These might of course have been indefinitely enlarged, but a long list of books is apt to defeat its own purpose: people with a limited time at their disposal want to know which book to make a beginning upon.

The Lectures are therefore published for the most {xi} part just as they were delivered, in the hope that they may suggest lines of thought which may be intellectually and practically useful. I trust that any philosopher who may wish to take serious notice of my views--especially the metaphysical views expressed in the first few chapters--will be good enough to remember that the expression of them is avowedly incomplete and elementary, and cannot fairly be criticized in much detail without reference to my other writings.

I am much indebted for several useful suggestions and for valuable a.s.sistance in revising the proofs to one of the hearers of the Lectures, Mr. A. G. Widgery, Scholar of St. Catherine's College, Cambridge, now Lecturer in University College, Bristol.

H. RASHDALL.

NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD, Jan. 6, 1909.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

LECTURE I

MIND AND MATTER

I have been invited to speak to you about the relations between Religion and Philosophy. To do that in a logical and thoroughgoing way it would be necessary to discuss elaborately the meaning first of Religion and then of Philosophy. Such a discussion would occupy at least a lecture, and I am unwilling to spend one out of six scanty hours in formal preliminaries. I shall a.s.sume, therefore, that we all know in some general way the meaning of Religion. It is not necessary for our present purpose to discuss such questions as the definition of Religion for purposes of sociological investigation, or the possibility of a Religion without a belief in G.o.d, or the like. I shall a.s.sume that, whatever else may be included in the term Religion, Christianity may at least be included in it; and that what you are practically most interested in is the bearing of Philosophy upon the Christian ideas concerning the {2} being and nature of G.o.d, the hope of Immortality, the meaning and possibility of Revelation. When we turn to Philosophy, I cannot perhaps a.s.sume with equal confidence that all of you know what it is. But then learning what Philosophy is--especially that most fundamental part of Philosophy which is called Metaphysics--is like learning to swim: you never discover how to do it until you find yourself considerably out of your depth. You must strike out boldly, and at last you discover what you are after. I shall presuppose that in a general way you do all know that Philosophy is an enquiry into the ultimate nature of the Universe at large, as opposed to the discussion of those particular aspects or departments of it which are dealt with by the special Sciences. What you want to know, I take it, is--what rational enquiry, pushed as far as it will go, has to say about those ultimate problems of which the great historical Religions likewise profess to offer solutions. The nature and scope of Philosophy is best understood by examples: and therefore I hope you will excuse me if without further preface I plunge _in medias res_. I shall endeavour to presuppose no previous acquaintance with technical Philosophy, and I will ask those who have already made some serious study of Philosophy kindly to remember that I am trying to make myself intelligible to those who have not. I shall {3} not advance anything which I should not be prepared to defend even before an audience of metaphysical experts. But I cannot undertake in so short a course of lectures to meet all the objections which will, I know, be arising in the minds of any metaphysically trained hearers who may honour me with their presence, many of which may probably occur to persons not so trained.

And I further trust the Metaphysicians among you will forgive me if, in order to be intelligible to all, I sometimes speak with a little less than the _akribeia_ at which I might feel bound to aim if I were reading a paper before an avowedly philosophical Society.

Reservations, qualifications, and elaborate distinctions must be omitted, if I am to succeed in saying anything clearly in the course of six lectures.

Moreover, I would remark that, though I do not believe that an intention to edify is any excuse for slipshod thought or intellectual dishonesty, I am speaking now mainly from the point of view of those who are enquiring into metaphysical truth for the guidance of their own religious and practical life, rather than from the point of view of pure speculation. I do not, for my own part, believe in any solution of the religious problem which evades the ultimate problems of all thought. The Philosophy of Religion is for me not so much a special and sharply distinguished branch or department of {4} Philosophy as a particular aspect of Philosophy in general. But many questions which may be of much importance from the point of view of a complete theory of the Universe can be entirely, or almost entirely, put on one side when the question is, 'What may I reasonably believe about those ultimate questions which have a direct and immediate bearing upon my religious and moral life; what may I believe about G.o.d and Duty, about the world and its ultimate meaning, about the soul and its destiny?'

For such purposes solutions stopping short of what will fully satisfy the legitimate demands of the professed Metaphysician may be all that is necessary, or at least all that is possible for those who are not intending to make a serious and elaborate study of Metaphysic. I have no sympathy with the attempt to base Religion upon anything but honest enquiry into truth: and yet the professed Philosophers are just those who will most readily recognize that there are--if not what are technically called degrees of truth--still different levels of thought, different degrees of adequacy and systematic completeness, even within the limits of thoroughly philosophical thinking. I shall a.s.sume that you are not content to remain at the level of ordinary unreflecting Common-sense or of merely traditional Religion--that you do want (so far as time and opportunity serve) to get to the bottom of things, {5} but that you will be content in such a course as the present if I can suggest to you, or help you to form for yourselves, an outline--what Plato would call the _hypotyposis_ of a theory of the Universe which may still fall very far short of a finished and fully articulated metaphysical system.

I suppose that to nearly everybody who sets himself down to think seriously about the riddle of the Universe there very soon occurs the question whether Materialism may not contain the solution of all difficulties. I think, therefore, our present investigation had better begin with an enquiry whether Materialism can possibly be true. I say 'can be true' rather than 'is true,' because, though dogmatic Materialists are rare, the typical Agnostic is one who is at least inclined to admit the possibility of Materialism, even when he does not, at the bottom of his mind, practically a.s.sume its truth. The man who is prepared to exclude even this one theory of the Universe from the category of possible but unprovable theories is not, properly speaking, an Agnostic. To know that Materialism at least is not true is to know something, and something very important, about the ultimate nature of things. I shall not attempt here any very precise definition of what is meant by Materialism. Strictly speaking, it ought to mean the view that nothing really exists but matter. But the existence, in some sense or {6} other, of our sensations and thoughts and emotions is so obvious to Common-sense that such a creed can hardly be explicitly maintained: it is a creed which is refuted in the very act of enunciating it. For practical purposes, therefore, Materialism may be said to be the view that the ultimate basis of all existence is matter; and that thought, feeling, emotion--consciousness of every kind--is merely an effect, a by-product or concomitant, of certain material processes.

Now if we are to hold that matter is the only thing which exists, or is the ultimate source of all that exists, we ought to be able to say what matter is. To the unreflecting mind matter seems to be the thing that we are most certain of, the one thing that we know all about. Thought, feeling, will, it may be suggested, are in some sense appearances which (though we can't help having them) might, from the point of view of superior insight, turn out to be mere delusions, or at best entirely unimportant and inconsiderable ent.i.ties. This att.i.tude of mind has been amusingly satirised by the t.i.tle of one of Mr. Bradley's philosophical essays--'on the supposed uselessness of the Soul.'[1] In this state of mind matter presents itself as the one solid reality--as something undeniable, something perfectly intelligible, something, too, which is pre-eminently {7} important and respectable; while thinking and feeling and willing, joy and sorrow, hope and aspiration, goodness and badness, if they cannot exactly be got rid of altogether, are, as it were, negligible quant.i.ties, which must not be allowed to disturb or interfere with the serious business of the Universe.

From this point of view matter is supposed to be the one reality with which we are in immediate contact, which we see and touch and taste and handle every hour of our lives. It may, therefore, sound a rather startling paradox to say that matter--matter in the sense of the Materialist--is something which n.o.body has ever seen, touched, or handled. Yet that is the literal and undeniable fact. n.o.body has ever seen or touched or otherwise come in contact with a piece of matter.

For in the experience which the plain man calls seeing or touching there is always present another thing. Even if we suppose that he is Justified in saying 'I touch matter,' there is always present the 'I'

as well as the matter.[2] It is always and inevitably matter + mind that he knows. n.o.body ever can get away from this 'I,' n.o.body can ever see or feel what matter is like apart from the 'I' which knows {8} it.

He may, indeed, infer that this matter exists apart from the 'I' which knows it. He may infer that it exists, and may even go as far as to a.s.sume that, apart from his seeing or touching, or anybody else's seeing or touching, matter possesses all those qualities which it possesses for his own consciousness. But this is inference, and not immediate knowledge. And the validity or reasonableness of the inference may be disputed. How far it is reasonable or legitimate to attribute to matter as it is in itself the qualities which it has for us must depend upon the nature of those qualities. Let us then go on to ask whether the qualities which const.i.tute matter as we know it are qualities which we can reasonably or even intelligibly attribute to a supposed matter-in-itself, to matter considered as something capable of existing by itself altogether apart from any kind of conscious experience.

In matter, as we know it, there are two elements. There are certain sensations, or certain qualities which we come to know by sensation, and there are certain relations. Now, with regard to the sensations, a very little reflection will, I think, show us that it is absolutely meaningless to say that matter has the qualities implied by these sensations, even when they are not felt, and would still possess them, even supposing it never had been and never would be felt by any one whatever. In a world in which {9} there were no eyes and no minds, what would be the meaning of saying that things were red or blue? In a world in which there were no ears and no minds, there would clearly be no such thing as sound. This is exactly the point at which Locke's a.n.a.lysis stopped. He admitted that the 'secondary qualities'--colours, sounds, tastes--of objects were really not in the things themselves but in the mind which perceives them. What existed in the things was merely a power of producing these sensations in us, the quality in the thing being not in the least like the sensations which it produces in us: he admitted that this power of producing a sensation was something different from, and totally unlike, the sensation itself. But when he came to the primary qualities--solidity, shape, magnitude and the like--he supposed that the qualities in the thing were exactly the same as they are for our minds. If all mind were to disappear from the Universe, there would henceforth be no red and blue, no hot and cold; but things would still be big or small, round or square, solid or fluid. Yet, even with these 'primary qualities' the reference to mind is really there just as much as in the case of the secondary qualities; only the fact is not quite so obvious. And one reason for this is that these primary qualities involve, much more glaringly and unmistakably than the secondary, something which is not _mere_ sensation--something which {10} implies thought and not mere sense. What do we mean by solidity, for instance? We mean partly that we get certain sensations from touching the object--sensations of touch and sensations of what is called the muscular sense, sensations of muscular exertion and of pressure resisted. Now, so far as that is what solidity means, it is clear that the quality in question involves as direct a reference to our subjective feelings as the secondary qualities of colour and sound.

But something more than this is implied in our idea of solidity. We think of external objects as occupying s.p.a.ce. And s.p.a.ciality cannot be a.n.a.lysed away into mere feelings of ours. The feelings of touch which we derive from an object come to us one after the other. No mental reflection upon sensations which come one after the other in time could ever give us the idea of s.p.a.ce, if they were not s.p.a.cially related from the first. It is of the essence of s.p.a.ciality that the parts of the object shall be thought of as existing side by side, outside one another. But this side-by-sideness, this outsideness, is after all a way in which the things present themselves to a mind. s.p.a.ce is made up of relations; and what is the meaning of relations apart from a mind which relates, or _for_ which the things are related? If s.p.a.ciality were a quality of the thing in itself, it would exist no matter what became of other things. It would be quite possible, therefore, {11} that the top of this table should exist without the bottom: yet everybody surely would admit the meaninglessness of talking about a piece of matter (no matter how small, be it an atom or the smallest electron conceived by the most recent physical speculation) which had a top without a bottom, or a right-hand side without a left. This s.p.a.ce-occupying quality which is the most fundamental element in our ordinary conception of matter is wholly made up of the relation of one part of it to another. Now can a relation exist except for a mind? As it seems to me, the suggestion is meaningless. Relatedness only has a meaning when thought of in connection with a mind which is capable of grasping or holding together both terms of the relation. The relation between point A and point B is not _in_ point A or _in_ point B taken by themselves. It is all in the 'between': 'betweenness' from its very nature cannot exist in any one point of s.p.a.ce or in several isolated points of s.p.a.ce or things in s.p.a.ce; it must exist only in some one existent which holds together and connects those points. And nothing, as far as we can understand, can do that except a mind. Apart from mind there can be no relatedness: apart from relatedness no s.p.a.ce: apart from s.p.a.ce no matter. It follows that apart from mind there can be no matter.

It will probably be known to all of you that the {12} first person to make this momentous inference was Bishop Berkeley. There was, indeed, an obscure medieval schoolman, hardly recognized by the historians of Philosophy, one Nicholas of Autrecourt, Dean of Metz,[3] who antic.i.p.ated him in the fourteenth century, and other better-known schoolmen who approximated to the position; and there are, of course, elements in the teaching of Plato and even of Aristotle, or possible interpretations of Plato and Aristotle, which point in the same direction. But full-blown Idealism, in the sense which involves a denial of the independent existence of matter, is always a.s.sociated with the name of Bishop Berkeley.

I can best make my meaning plain to you by quoting a pa.s.sage or two from his _Principles of Human Knowledge_, in which he extends to the primary qualities of matter the a.n.a.lysis which Locke had already applied to the secondary.

'But, though it were possible that solid, figured, moveable substances may exist without the mind, corresponding to the ideas we have of bodies, yet how is it possible for us to know this? Either we must know it by Sense or by Reason.--As for our senses, by them we have the knowledge only of our sensations, ideas, or those things that are immediately perceived by sense, call them what you will; but they do not inform us that things exist {13} without the mind, or unperceived, like to those which are perceived. This the Materialists themselves acknowledge.--It remains therefore that if we have any knowledge at all of external things, it must be by Reason inferring their existence from what is immediately perceived by sense. But what reason can induce us to believe the existence of bodies without the mind, from what we perceive, since the very patrons of Matter themselves do not pretend there is any _necessary_ connexion betwixt them and our ideas? I say it is granted on all hands--and what happens in dreams, frenzies, and the like, puts it beyond dispute--that it is possible we might be affected with all the ideas we have now, though there were no bodies existing without resembling them. Hence, it is evident the supposition of external bodies is not necessary for the producing our ideas; since it is granted they are produced sometimes, and might possibly be produced always in the same order we see them in at present, without their concurrence.

'In short, if there were external bodies, it is impossible we should ever come to know it; and if there were not, we might have the very same reasons to think there were that we have now. Suppose--what no one can deny possible--an intelligence _without the help of external bodies_, to be affected with the same train of sensations or ideas that you are, imprinted in the same order and with like vividness in his mind. I ask whether that intelligence hath not all the reason to believe the existence of corporeal substances, represented by his ideas, and exciting them in his mind, that you can possibly have for believing the same thing? Of this there can be no {14} question--which one consideration were enough to make any reasonable person suspect the strength of whatever arguments he may think himself to have, for the existence of bodies without the mind.'[4]

Do you say that in that case the tables and chairs must be supposed to disappear the moment we all leave the room? It is true that we do commonly think of the tables and chairs as remaining, even when there is no one there to see or touch them. But that only means, Berkeley explains, that if we or any one else were to come back into the room, we should perceive them. Moreover, even in thinking of them as things which might be perceived under certain conditions, they have entered our minds and so proclaimed their ideal or mind-implying character. To prove that things exist without the mind we should have to conceive of things as unconceived or unthought of. And that is a feat which no one has ever yet succeeded in accomplishing.

Here is Berkeley's own answer to the objection:

'But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet, and n.o.body by to perceive them. I answer, you may so, there is no difficulty in it; but what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in your mind certain ideas which you call books and trees, and {15} at the same time omitting to frame the idea of any one that may perceive them? But do not you yourself perceive or think of them all the while? This therefore is nothing to the purpose: it only shews you have the power of imagining or forming ideas in your mind; but it does not shew that you can conceive it possible the objects of your thought may exist without the mind. To make out this, it is necessary that _you_ conceive them existing unconceived or unthought of, which is a manifest repugnancy. When we do our utmost to conceive the existence of external bodies, we are all the while only contemplating our own ideas. But the mind, _taking no notice of itself_, is deluded to think it can and does conceive bodies existing unthought of or without the mind, though at the same time they are apprehended by, or exist in, itself. A little attention will discover to any one the truth and evidence of what is here said, and make it unnecessary to insist on any other proofs against the existence of _material substance_.'[5]

Berkeley no doubt did not adequately appreciate the importance of the distinction between mere sensations and mental relations. In the paragraph which I have read to you he tends to explain s.p.a.ce away into mere subjective feelings: in this respect and in many others he has been corrected by Kant and the post-Kantian Idealists. Doubtless we cannot a.n.a.lyse away our conception of s.p.a.ce or of substance into mere feelings. But relations imply mind no less than sensations. Things are no mere {16} bundles of sensations; we do think of them as objects or substances possessing attributes. Indeed to call them (with Berkeley), 'bundles of sensations' implies that the bundle is as important an element in thinghood as the sensations themselves. The bundle implies what Kant would call the intellectual 'categories' of Substance, Quant.i.ty, Quality, and the like. We do think objects: but an object is still an object of thought. We can attach no intelligible meaning to the term 'object' which does not imply a subject.

If there is nothing in matter, as we know it, which does not obviously imply mind, if the very idea of matter is unintelligible apart from mind, it is clear that matter can never have existed without mind.

What then, it may be asked, of the things which no human eye has ever seen or even thought of? Are we to suppose that a new planet comes into existence for the first time when first it sails into the telescope of the astronomer, and that Science is wrong in inferring that it existed not only before that particular astronomer saw it, but before there were any astronomers or other human or even animal intelligences upon this planet to observe it? Did the world of Geology come into existence for the first time when some eighteenth-century geologist first suspected that the world was more than six thousand years old? Are all those ages of past {17} history, when the earth and the sun were but nebulae, a mere imagination, or did that nebulous ma.s.s come into existence thousands or millions of years afterwards when Kant or Laplace first conceived that it had existed? The supposition is clearly self-contradictory and impossible. If Science be not a ma.s.s of illusion, this planet existed millions of years before any human--or, so far as we know, any animal minds--existed to think its existence.

And yet I have endeavoured to show the absurdity of supposing that matter can exist except for a mind. It is clear, then, that it cannot be merely for such minds as ours that the world has always existed.

Our minds come and go. They have a beginning; they go to sleep; they may, for aught that we can immediately know, come to an end. At no time does any one of them, at no time do all of them together, apprehend all that there is to be known. We do not create a Universe; we discover it piece by piece, and after all very imperfectly. Matter cannot intelligibly be supposed to exist apart from Mind: and yet it clearly does not exist merely for _our_ minds. Each of us knows only one little bit of the Universe: all of us together do not know the whole. If the whole is to exist at all, there must be some one mind which knows the whole. The mind which is necessary to the very existence of the Universe is the mind that we call G.o.d.

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