Religion and Science Part 3

"All bodies, the firmament, the stars, the earth and its kingdoms, are not worth the smallest mind, for a mind knows them, and itself, and bodies know nothing."

Here lies the true greatness of man. In respect of material bulk he is nothing, but his thought cannot be measured. "Man is only a reed, the feeblest reed in nature, _but he is a thinking reed_." The saying has become famous, and the words that follow are hardly less so; they remove the overpowering and crushing incubus of man's illimitable material environment, which, since Copernicus, had weighed upon thinkers like a nightmare:

"Were the universe to crush him, man would still be more n.o.ble than that which slays him, because he knows that he dies, and the advantage that the universe has over him: of this the universe knows nothing. Thus all man's dignity lies in his thought."[13]

PASCAL'S PESSIMISM.--It has been said that an unbridgeable gulf lies between those who believe and those who disbelieve in mankind. It is to the latter category that Pascal belongs. His faith in the dignity of man is paradoxically a.s.sociated with a realisation of his weakness and imbecility:

"What a chimera, then, is man! What an oddity, what a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, senseless earth-worm; depository of truth, cloaca of uncertainty and error; the glory and the refuse of the universe."

"We desire truth, and find in ourselves only uncertainty; we seek happiness, and find only misery and death. We are unable not to wish for truth and happiness, and incapable either of certainty or felicity."

In fact, we may say that Pascal was the first, in an age of exaggerated reverence for logic (the _d.a.m.nosa hereditas_ of the Scholastic theologians) to understand that the best arguments for religion are the facts of human experience, and the conditions of human life.

"In vain, O men, do ye seek within yourselves the cure for your troubles! All your knowledge can only teach you that it is not within yourselves that ye find the true or good!" Here we have the language of religious experience. The result of Augustine's meditation upon life was the same: _Inquietum cor nostrum dum requiescat in te._ It is a tongue that the "psychic man" can never understand; it seems to him affectation; such language is foreign to the easy optimism of an age of confidence. Indeed Pascal, though so intensely modern, is a stranger, and his words often enigmas to our time.

_Vanitas vanitatum_ is thus the verdict that he pa.s.ses upon human experience. "The last act is tragic, however fine the comedy of all the rest."

SIGNIFICANCE OF PASCAL.--It is not as a systematic thinker that Pascal is of importance to the historian of thought. He typifies that more or less inarticulate and unreasoned revolt which the arrogance and optimism of a new science or a new philosophy arouse against themselves. He voices the eternal protest that it is not by bread alone that men live.

As is generally the case with such protests, the pessimism of Pascal was no doubt exaggerated; but exaggeration is necessary if minds are to be impressed; and those who feel strongly see only one side of a question.

RESULTS.--Thus in the three figures that have pa.s.sed before us, we see a threefold protest against that exclusion of the spiritual from the human view of life. Spinoza, the pantheist, sees G.o.d everywhere;[14] Leibniz finds in every recess of nature the principle of personality; Pascal finds the only cure for human frailty and misery in religion.

CHAPTER V

RISE OF AN ANTI-RELIGIOUS SCIENCE

ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS.--As we have seen, a mechanical view of the universe was not felt by thinkers like Descartes or Newton, or even Hobbes, to involve any consequences that were necessarily hostile to religion. The new science sometimes might be anti-theological, because the current theology still seemed too much infected with Scholasticism, but it was not, in the hands of its most notable exponents, anti-religious. Science had no quarrel with religion as such, nor even with a rational type of theology.

Of course the new views aroused many suspicions, and did not escape criticism at the hands of Church authorities, both Protestant and Catholic. And (as we have seen) some early scientists paid very dearly for their allegiance to the spirit of scientific enquiry; but as time went on, actual persecution became impossible, morally and practically.

But theologians were never, during the seventeenth century at least, quite reconciled to a science and a philosophy which seemed to them to be leading men towards areas quite uninhabitable for religion. But in spite of suspicions on either side, and the prevalence of some measure of intolerance, it cannot be said that relations between the scientists or philosophers and the theologians were very seriously strained until well on in the eighteenth century.

ANTI-RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDA.--That this comparatively pacific state of affairs came to an end was the fault, primarily, at least, neither of the theologians nor of the scientists. A different atmosphere gradually began to envelop and to embitter the controversy. Orthodox religion, especially in Catholic countries, came to be a.s.sociated with political reaction, and the most envenomed onslaughts began to be made upon what seemed to be the chief stronghold of a discredited regime. Especially was this the case in France, where corrupt political conditions were aggravated by the intense social misery which they had created.

Thus France became the cradle of the phenomenon known as anti-clericalism, which is the product not so much of disbelief in a creed as of hatred of a system; it was the correlative of a Church in which religion was extinct, for genuine Catholicism had been rooted out of France early in the eighteenth century, just as Protestantism had been drowned in blood a century before.[15]

SCIENCE POPULARISED.--In two respects France, during the second half of the eighteenth century, was far in advance of other countries. No other literature of that age can be compared with the French for the skill and charm with which scientific views were expressed. There was no lack of first-rate propagandists. And not only in the popularisation, but in the systematic teaching of science, France for a long period led the way.[16] Whereas the history of English or German literature of the eighteenth century could be written almost without reference to science, it is with scientific problems that the names of some of the most brilliant French _litterateurs_ are a.s.sociated. And whereas in England, scientific men worked (in spite of the existence of the Royal Society) more or less in isolation, in France the savants have always been a brotherhood.[17]

VOLTAIRE.--One of the most notorious names a.s.sociated with the type of propaganda referred to is that of Voltaire (1694-1778). Voltaire's polemic cannot be described as anti-religious, for he himself was a theist. It was, rather, political in character. The object of his attack was the Catholic Church as existing in France in his day, which he regarded as the chief surviving obstacle to human progress. _ecrasez l'infame_ was his motto; and if this seems a trifle fanatical, let us not forget, as an acute critic has observed, "that what Catholicism was accomplishing in France in the first half of the eighteenth century was not anything less momentous than the slow strangling of French civilisation."[18]

Voltaire was an industrious and prolific writer (his works are numbered by scores), but he was also a master of French prose, and he was universally read. From the point of view of the history of European thought his importance lies in his popularisation in France of the Newtonian physics.[19] _Newtonisme_ was a word coined by him, and became a.s.sociated with a mechanical view of nature. He also conducted a vigorous polemic against certain religious notions, then current, but now out-of-date, and which need not here detain us. Voltaire was an anti-clerical, but he was not hostile to religion; he was chiefly regarded as an exponent of English (i.e. progressive) ideas.

LA METTRIE.--An advance in the materialistic direction was taken, however, by La Mettrie (1709-1751), who approached the problem from the side of physiology (he was a physician by profession). His two important contributions were _Histoire naturelle de l'ame_ (1745), and _L'Homme Machine_ (1748). The t.i.tles are sufficient to indicate the scope of these works. That of the latter points back to Descartes, who had applied the mechanical theory to animals only, and not to man. La Mettrie extended his application to include man. The implications of this theory did not escape La Mettrie's contemporaries.

DIDEROT AND HIS ENCYCLOPaeDIA.--A definite period in the history of thought is certainly marked by the successful attempt on the part of a group of progressive thinkers, to extend the circle open to scientific ideas by the publication of an Encyclopaedia which should contain all the latest knowledge and speculation. The credit for this notable performance was due to Diderot, who in spite of immense difficulties, which were aggravated by the ecclesiastical authorities and the supporters of reaction in general, carried the work through to a triumphant conclusion. The first volume appeared in 1751. The work was composed with an eye to current prejudices; the language was guarded, but the anti-clerical tendency of the whole was by no means obscure.

Diderot, however, did not obtrude in the Encyclopaedia the definitely anti-religious opinions which he had developed and which are revealed in his correspondence.

HOLBACH.--A disciple of the Encyclopaedist--Holbach, a young German settled in Paris--was bolder than his master, and published, under the name of a savant who had recently died, a book which became widely notorious, and has been called the Bible of materialism--the _Systeme de la Nature_ (1770). Like Voltaire's _elemens_, and La Mettrie's _L'Homme Machine_, it was published in Holland. "The book is materialism reduced to a system. It contains no really new thoughts. Its significance lies in the energy and indignation with which every spiritualistic and dualistic view was run to earth on account of its injuriousness both in practice and in theory,"[20] is the estimate of a distinguished and impartial writer.

Rumour gave the credit of its authorship to Diderot, who was so disturbed by the compliment as hastily to leave Paris for the frontier.

His admiration of it is, however, recorded. After proclaiming his disgust at the contemporary fashion of "mixing up incredulity and superst.i.tion," he observes that no such fault is to be found in the _System of Nature_. "The author is not an atheist in one page, and a deist in another. His philosophy is all of a piece."

Certainly to those with an appet.i.te for negative dogmatism the work left nothing to be desired. The following pa.s.sage indicates the att.i.tude and method of the author, who, in the matter of style, did not fall short of the French tradition:

"If we go back to the beginning, we shall always find that ignorance and fear have created G.o.ds; fancy, enthusiasm or deceit has adorned or disfigured them; weakness worships them; credulity preserves them in life; custom regards them, and tyranny supports them in order to make the blindness of men serve its own ends."

The philosophy of religion which inspired these sentences may appear to us sufficiently crude. And indeed an impartial reader will have to confess that much of this eighteenth century polemic against religion, however well-intentioned, is singularly wide of the mark. It is all characterised by an imperfect knowledge of the psychological foundations of religion, and quite devoid of what is now termed the "historic sense." The faults of Voltaire and Holbach, however, were those of their age, which was often short-sighted in its recognition of facts, and superficial in its reasoning from them. Even Dr. Johnson, who found this section of contemporary French literature so distasteful, never laid his finger upon its real weakness; the fundamental fallacies upon which it rested escaped him. He, like Voltaire and the rest, was a child of the age.

PROPAGANDA NOT SCIENCE.--It is very doubtful whether the genuine scientists, who devoted themselves not to propaganda but to research, could have been ready to sanction the uses to which their own discoveries were put. From the exhaustive references of Lange in his _History of Materialism_ (Engl. Trans., Vol. II, pp. 49-123), it is evident that "the extreme views of La Mettrie, Diderot, and Holbach cannot be fathered on any of the great scientists or philosophers, but were an attempt to supply scientific principles to the solution of philosophical, ethical, or religious questions, frequently for practical and political purposes."[21]

There are certainly risks attached to the popularisation of the results of scientific research. Theories have to be presented with an appearance of finality which does not legitimately belong to them, and sometimes in a somewhat startling aspect, otherwise the reader is left cold, for it is excitement rather than genuine information that attracts the majority. As a judicious writer has observed:

"No ideas lend themselves to such easy, but likewise to such shallow generalisations as those of science. Once let out of the hand which uses them in the strict and cautious manner by which alone they lead to valuable results, they are apt to work mischief. Because the tool is so sharp, the object to which it is applied seems to be so easily handled.

The correct use of scientific ideas is only learnt by patient training, and should be governed by the not easily acquired habit of self-restraint."[22]

SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS.--Alongside of this rigorous propaganda, which prepared the way for the upheaval of 1789, genuine scientific progress was being made, especially in the regions of Astronomy, Botany and Chemistry. The ideas of Newton were taken up and elaborated by means of more efficient mathematical processes--especially the theory of infinitesimals--by the distinguished astronomer, Laplace, in his _Systeme du Monde_ (1796), and in the successive volumes of his _Mechanique Celeste_ (1799-1825), which has been called a new _Principia_.

Important advances in chemistry are a.s.sociated with the name of Lavoisier (1743-1794), who introduced into that science a principle which has become axiomatic, and which to-day remains the foundation of all work in the laboratory. To Lavoisier belongs the merit of introducing what is known as the "quant.i.tative method" into chemistry, and thus establishing that science upon the exact--that is to say mathematical--basis, where it now rests and putting exact research in the place of vague reasoning. His principle was that _in all chemical combinations and reactions, the total weight of the various ingredients remains unchanged_; there is (in spite of appearances) neither loss nor gain of actual matter. "The quant.i.ty of matter is the same at the end as at the beginning of every operation." It was Lavoisier who finally established the correct theory of combustion; that it consisted in the combination of a special element called oxygen, with other bodies or elements.

THE ATOMIC THEORY.--Lavoisier had opened a door to researches which naturally led the way to the establishment of the atomic theory of matter on an experimental, and not merely a theoretical basis. That theory is indeed nothing more than the elaboration of Lavoisier's own principle. John Dalton (1766-1844), a Manchester quaker, published in 1810 his _New System of Chemical Philosophy_, where highly important conclusions are drawn both from Lavoisier's facts and from experimental results of other chemists. Of these, Dalton gave an account and an explanation which has ever since been the soul of all chemical reasoning. This explanation is known as his Atomic theory.

The two facts of which Dalton's theory is an explanation are as follows.

_First_ (Lavoisier's fact), that the total weight of substances remains always the same, be they combined in ever so many different ways.

_Second_, that all substances, be they in large or in small quant.i.ties, combine with each other, or separate from each other, in definite and fixed proportions. The theory of Dalton was that these combinations take place between independent particles of matter, which are indestructible and indivisible. These "atoms" of the various elements have definite weights which are responsible for the proportion in which they are found to combine. These facts of proportion in combination, or "chemical affinity," could not be accounted for by the theory which regards matter as "continuous," but only by the opposite theory that it is "discrete"

(i.e. divided up into particles).

PHILOSOPHICAL COROLLARIES.--These strictly scientific theories a.s.sociated with the name of Laplace, Lavoisier, and Dalton tended to strengthen in the popular estimation, the philosophical conclusions of writers like Holbach. The scientists themselves remained "agnostic" with regard to questions that lay outside their scope: they maintained here the correct att.i.tude for scientific research. The question put by Napoleon to Laplace, why he had not introduced the name of G.o.d into the _Mechanique Celeste_, was out of place, and deserved the crushing reply it received. Scientific research is not concerned with questions of philosophy.

Still, it did not escape popular attention that the old pillar of a mechanistic view of the universe now seemed to be reinforced by another.

The theory of _the conservation of energy_ was now supplemented by that of the _indestructibility of matter_ (Lavoisier). And to crown all, the old atomic theory, which Lucretius had made the foundation of his dogmatic materialism, was now re-established on an experimental basis.

So far as physical science was concerned, the situation seemed menacing to a religious view of life. Men felt that they inhabited a world of indestructible matter, moved by a certain measure of force, unchangeable and fixed. The prison of determinism and matter was closing around them.

CHAPTER VI

RISE OF GERMAN IDEALISM

AN UNSTEMMED TIDE.--In spite of those important reactions of thought which we have a.s.sociated with the name of Spinoza, Leibniz, and Pascal, the mechanical view had not ceased, as the last chapter has shown us, to extend itself during the eighteenth century, when it became highly fashionable in progressive circles.

COMMON-SENSE PHILOSOPHY.--The strength of this mechanical view lies in the fact that it stands on the shoulders of a natural science which itself has its feet firmly planted on the irrefragible rock of sense-experience. The mechanical view thus rests, in the last resort, upon the belief (which is held everywhere with confidence by plain men) that sense-experience is a sound foundation for knowledge.

The importance of this belief had been recognised by the English philosopher, Locke (1632-1704), who in his _Essay concerning Human Understanding_ (1690), lays it down that all human knowledge is based, ultimately, upon sense-experience. This highly important work had an immense influence, and, under Locke's tutelage, many thinkers regarded with suspicion any knowledge which might seem not to be derivable, in one way or another, from that source.