The Freedom of Science Part 4

"Religion is not a science, hence it cannot be proved nor disproved." "Therefore man's view of the world does not depend on the intellect, but solely on his will.... The ultimate and highest truths, truths by which man lives and for which he dies, have not their source in scientific knowledge, but come from the heart and from the individual will." In a similar strain _R. Falkenberg_ writes: "The views of the world growing out of the chronology of the human race, as the blossoms of a general process of civilization, are not so much thoughts as rhythms of thinking, not theories but views, saturated with appreciations.... Not only optimism and pessimism, determinism and doctrine of freedom, but also pantheism and individualism, idealism and materialism, even rationalism and sensualism, have their roots ultimately in the affections, and even while working with the tools of reason remain for the most part matters of faith, sentiment, and resolve"

(Geschichte der neuen Philosophie, 5th ed., 1905, p. 3).

You may look up any books or magazines of modern philosophy or Protestant theology, and you will find in all of them "that faith is a kind of conviction for which there is no need of proof" (_H.

Luedemann_, Prot. Monatshefte IX, 1903, 367). This emotional faith has been introduced into Protestant theology especially by _Schleiermacher_. It is also this view of the more recent philosophy that the modernists have adopted. They themselves confess: "The _modernists_ in accord with modern psychology distinguish clearly between knowledge and faith. The intellectual processes which lead to them appear to the modernists altogether foreign to and independent of one another. This is one of our fundamental principles" (Programma dei Modernisti (1908), 121).

Religious instruction for children will then have to become altogether different. The demand is already made for "a recast of thought from the sphere of the intellect into the sphere of affection." Away, so they clamour, away with the dogmas of creation, of Christ as the Son of G.o.d, of His miracles, as taught in the old schools! For all these are religious ideas. Pupils of the higher grades should be told "the plain truth about the degree of historicity in elementary religious principles.... The fundamental idea of religion can neither be created nor destroyed by teaching, it has its seat in sentiment, like-excuse the term-an insane idea" (_Fr. Niebergall_, Christliche Welt, 1909, p. 43).

This dualism of "faith" and knowledge is as untenable as it is common. It is a psychological _impossibility_ as well as a sad _degradation of religion_.

How can I seriously believe, and seriously hold for true, a view of the world of which I do not know whether it be really true, when the intellect unceasingly whispers in my ear: it is all imagination! As long as faith is a conviction so long must it be an activity of the intellect. With my feeling and will I may indeed wish that something be true; but to wish simply that there be a G.o.d is not to be convinced that there actually is a G.o.d. By merely longing and desiring I can be as little convinced as I can make progress in virtue by the use of my feet, or repent of sins by a toothache. It is et?as?? e?? ???? ?????. A dualism of this kind, between head and heart, doubt and belief, between the No of the mind and the Yes of the heart, is a process incompatible with logic and psychology. How could such a dualism be maintained for any length of time? It may perhaps last longer in one in whom a vivid imagination has dimmed the clearness of intellect; but where the intellectual life is clear, reason will very soon emanc.i.p.ate itself from a deceptive imagination. One may go on dreaming of ideal images, but as soon as the intellect awakens they vanish.

Hallucinations are taken for real while the mind is affected, but they pa.s.s away the moment it sees clearly.

_Kant_ himself, the father of modern agnostic mysticism, has made it quite clear that his postulates of faith concerning the existence of G.o.d and the immortality of the soul, have never taken in him the place of earnest conviction. Thus in the first place _Kant_ holds that there are no duties towards G.o.d, since He is merely a creature of our mind. "Since this idea proceeds entirely from ourselves, and is a product of ours, we have here before us a postulated being towards whom we cannot have an obligation; for its reality would have to be proved first by experience (or revealed)"; but "to have religion is a duty man owes to himself."

Again, he dislikes an oath, he asks whether an oath be possible and binding, since we swear only on condition that there is a G.o.d (without, however, stipulating it, as did _Protagoras_). And he thinks that "in fact all oaths taken honestly and discreetly have been taken in no other sense" (Metaphysik der Sitten, II, -- 18, Beschluss).

_Prayer_ he dislikes still more. "Prayer," he says, "as an internal form of cult, and therefore considered as a means of grace, is a superst.i.tious delusion (feticism).... A hearty wish to please G.o.d in all our actions, that is, a disposition present in all our actions to perform them as if in the service of G.o.d, is a spirit of prayer that can and ought to be our perpetual guide."

"By this desire, the spirit of prayer, man seeks to influence only himself; by prayer, since man expresses himself in words, hence outwardly, he seeks to influence G.o.d. In the former sense a prayer can be made with all sincerity, though man does not pretend to a.s.sert the existence of G.o.d fully established; in the latter form, as an address, he a.s.sumes this highest Being as personally present, or at least pretends that he is convinced of its presence, in the belief that even if it should not be so it can do him no harm, on the contrary it may win him favour; hence in the latter form of actual prayer we shall not find the sincerity as perfect as in the former. The truth of this last remark any one will find confirmed when he imagines to himself a pious and well-meaning man, but rather backward in regard to such advanced religious ideas, surprised by another man while, I will not say praying aloud, but only in an att.i.tude of prayer; any one will expect, without my saying so, that that man will be confused, as if he were in a condition of which he ought to be ashamed. But why this? A man caught talking aloud to himself raises at once the suspicion that his mind is slightly deranged; and not altogether wrongly, because one would seem out of mind if found all alone making gestures as though he had somebody else before him; that, however, is the case in the example given" (Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, 4. Stueck, 2, -- 4, Allgemeine Anmerkung). Thus it happens that in his opinion those who have advanced in perfection cease to pray.

Nor does it seem that _Kant_ is serious about his postulate of the _immortality_ of the soul. Asked by _Lacharpe_ what he thought of the soul, he did not answer at first, but remarked, when the question was repeated: "We must not make too much boast of it"

(_H. Hettner_, Literat. Gesch. des 18. Jahrh., III, 4. ed., 3, p.

26. From _Varnhausen's_ Denkwuerdigkeiten).

Thousands have with _Kant_ destroyed their religious conviction by a boastful scepticism, and, like him, finally given it up to replace its lack by artificial autosuggestions.

And is not the religious life of man thereby made completely valueless?

The highest truths on which the mind of man lives, and which from the first stage of his existence not only interested but deeply stirred him, become fiction, pictures of the fancy, suggestions of an effeminate mind, that cannot make a lasting impression on stronger minds. And how can the products of autosuggestion give comfort and strength in hours of need and trial? It is true they do not impose any obligations. Every one is free to form his own notions of life; they are not to be taken seriously anyway, whether they be this or that; they are all equally true and equally false.

Buddhism is just as true as Christianity, Materialism as true as Spiritualism, Mohammedanism as true as Quakerism, the wisdom of the Saints as true as the philosophy of the worldly. "The most beautiful flower is growing on the same soil (that of the emotions) with the rankest weed"

(_Hegel_). The decision rests with sentiments which admit of no arguing.

Thus all is made over to scepticism, to that constant doubting which degrades and unnerves the higher life of modern times, to that _modern agnosticism_ which, though bearing the distinction of aristocratic reserve, is in reality dulness and poverty of intellect; not a perfection of the human intellect, but a hideous disease, all the more dangerous because difficult to cure. It is the neurasthenia of the intellect of which the physical neurasthenia of our generation is the counterpart.

The distinguishing mark between man and the lower animals has ever been held to be that the former could knowingly step beyond the sphere of the senses, into that world of which his intellect is a part. The conviction has always prevailed that man by means of his own valid laws of thought, for instance, the principle of causality, could safely ascend from the visible world to an invisible one. Thus also the physician concludes the interior cause of the disease from the exterior symptoms, the physicist thus comes to the knowledge of the existence of atoms and ions which he has never seen, and the astronomer calculates with _Leverrier_ the existence and location of stars which no eye has yet detected.

One thing has certainly been established: a _free sentiment_ can now a.s.sert itself with sovereignty in the most important spheres of intellectual life, without any barriers of stationary truths and immovable Christian dogmas; one is now free to fashion his religion and ideals to suit the _individuum ineffabile_. The latter asks no longer what religion demands of him, but rather how religion can serve his purposes. "For the G.o.ds," it is said, "which we now acknowledge, are those we need, which we can use, whose demands confirm and strengthen our own personal demands and those of our fellow-men.... We apply thereby only the principle of elimination of everything unsuitable to man, and of the survival of the fittest, to our own religious convictions"; "we turn to that religion which best suits our own individuality" (_W. James_). Arrogant doubt can now undermine all fundamental truths of Christian faith until they crumble to pieces; beside it rises the free genius of the new religion, on whose emblem the name of G.o.d is no longer emblazoned, but the glittering seal of an independent humanity.

Relative Truth.

Freedom of thought appears still more justified when we take a further step which brings us to the _consequence of subjectivism_; _i.e._, when we advance so far as to a.s.sert that there are no unchangeable and in this sense no absolute truths, but only temporary, changeable, relative truths.

And modern thought does profess this: there is no absolute truth, no _religio et philosophia perennis_; different principles and views are justified and even necessary for different times and even cla.s.ses. This removes another barrier to freedom of thought, viz., allegiance to generally accepted truths and to the convictions of bygone ages.

The logicalness of this further step can hardly be denied. If the human intellect, independent of the laws of objective truth, fashions its own object and truth, especially in things above the senses, why can it not form for itself, at different periods and in different stages of life, a different religion and another view of the world? Cannot the human subject pa.s.s through different phases? He indeed changes his costume and style of architecture; why not also his thoughts? Every product of thought would then be the right one for the time, but would be untenable for a further stage of his intellectual genesis and growth, and would have to be replaced by a new one. The nature of subjectivistic thought is no longer an obstacle to this. Besides, we have the modern idea of _evolution_, already predominant in all fields: the world, the species of plants and animals, man himself with his whole life, his language, right, family, all of them the products of a perpetual evolution, everything constantly changing. Why not also his religion, morality, and view of the world? They are only reflexes of a temporary state of civilization. Hence also here motion and change, evolution into new shapes!

Therefore, so it is said, we have now broken definitely with the "dogmatic method of reasoning" of the belief in revelation, and of scholastic philosophy which adhered to absolute truth. They are replaced by the historical-genetical reasoning of the _saeculum historic.u.m_ which "has discarded absolute truth: there are only relative, no eternal truths"

(_Paulsen_, Immanuel Kant, 1898, 389). We are further a.s.sured that "this treatment of the history of thought prevails in the scientific world; the Catholic Church alone has not adopted it. She still clings to dogmatic reasoning, and that is natural to her; she is sure that she is in possession of the absolute truth" (Idem, Philosophia militans, 2d ed., 1901, 5). Outside of this Church every period of time is free to construct its own theories, which will eventually go with it as they came with it.

We meet this relative truth, and all the indefinable hazy notions identified with it, _in all spheres_.

The modern history of philosophy and religion concedes to every system and religion the right to their historic position: they are necessary phases of evolution. The notion of immutable problems and truths by which any system of thought would have to be measured has been lost. "The appearance and rejection of a system," says _J. E. Erdmann_, "is a necessity of world-history.

The former was demanded by the character of the time which the system reflected, the latter again is demanded by the fact that the time has changed" (Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, 3rd, I, 1878, 4). And Professor _Eucken_ says: "Despite all its advantages, such a view and construction of life is not a definite truth, it remains an attempt, a problem that always causes new discord among minds" (Grundlinien einer neuen Lebensanschauung, 1907, 2). "Thus, if according to _Hegel_ the coming into being const.i.tutes the truth of being, the ideals and aims also must share in the mobility, and truth becomes a child of the times (_veritas temporis filia_). That apparently subjects life to a full-blown relativism, but such a relativism has lost all its terror by the deterioration of the older method of reasoning. For agreement with existing truth is no longer its chief object."

(Geistige Stroemungen der Gegenwart, 1904, p. 197). The new theory of knowledge a.s.sures us quite generally: "It is a vain attempt to single out certain lasting primitive forms of consciousness, acknowledged constant elements of the mind, to retain them. Every 'a-priori' principle which is thus maintained as an unalienable dowry of thought, as a necessary result of its psychological and physiological 'disposition,' will prove an obstacle of which the progress of science will steer clear sooner or later" (_E.

Ca.s.sirer_, Das Erkenntnissproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit, 1906, 6).

That this relativism is also laying hand, more and more firmly, upon modern ethics is well known. One often gets the conviction that, as _E. Westermark_ teaches, "there is no absolute standard of morality," that "there are no general truths," "that all moral values," as Prof. _R. Broda_ writes, "are relative and varying with every people, every civilization, every society, every free person" (Dok.u.mente des Fortschritts, 1908, 362).

Thus modern subjectivism has lost all sense for definite rules of thought; in its frantic rush for freedom and in its confused excitement it seeks to upset all barriers. Now, of course, we may disregard convictions thousands of years old, by simply observing that they suited former ages but not the present; that they perhaps suit the uneducated but not the educated.

Henceforth one may also reject the dogmas of _Christianity_ by merely pointing out that they were at one time of importance, but are not suited to the modern man. That is an idea readily grasped, one which has already become quite general with those who are mentally tired of Christianity.

What is demanded is a further evolution also of the Christian religion, a continuous cultivation of freer, higher forms, an undogmatic Christianity without duty to believe, without a Church: nothing else, in the end, but a veiled humanitarian religion.

"It will be difficult for coming generations to understand," says _Paulsen_, in the same sense, "how our time could cling in religious instruction with such peace of mind to a system which, having originated several centuries ago under entirely different conditions of intellectual life, stands in striking contrast to facts and ideas accepted by our time everywhere outside the schools." Hence a revision of the fundamental truths of Christianity is needed. Away with everything supernatural and miraculous, obedience to faith, original sin, redemption: all this sounds strange to the modern man. "So there remains but one way: to adapt the doctrine of the Church to the theories and views of our times" (System der Ethik, 8th ed., 1906, II, pp. 247, 250).

And _Eucken_ says similarly: "We can adopt the doctrinal system of the Church only by retiring from the present back to the past"

(Zeitschr. fuer Philosophie u. Phil. Kritik 112, 1898, 165).

Therefore we demand evolution of the Christian religion! "Let us not blindly follow antiquated doctrines disposed of by science,"

we are exhorted. "Let there be no fear lest our belief in G.o.d and true piety suffer by it! Let us remember that everything earthly is in continual motion, carried along by the rushing river of life." Onward, therefore, to advancement! ... cheerfully avowing the watchword: "evolution of religion" (_Fr. Delitzsch_, Zweiter Vortrag ueber Babel u. Bibel, 45. thousand, 1904, 42).

Modern Protestant theology has achieved a great deal in this direction; its evolution has progressed to a complete disintegration of Christianity, by adapting it to modern ideas so thoroughly that there is not a single thought left which this Christianity, reduced to meaningless words, might not accept.

This is the relativism of the present subjectivistic reasoning and its consequences.

Now, it is true that there is room for a certain relativity and evolution in the field of thought and truth. There is a relative truth in the sense that our knowledge of it is never exhaustive. Even the eternal truths of the Christian religion we always know only imperfectly, and we ought to perfect our knowledge continually; established facts of history can also be known, if studied, in greater detail. Thus there is progress and evolution. But from this we may not conclude that there can be no fixed truths at all. In the astronomy of to-day one can surely have the conviction that the fundamental truths of _Copernicus's_ System of the Universe must remain an unchangeable truth, and that the time will never come when we shall go back to the obsolete doctrines of old _Ptolemy_, who made the sun revolve around the earth. Is astronomy therefore excluded from progress and evolution? It is moreover true that the individual as well as the community pa.s.s through an intellectual evolution in the sense that they gradually increase their knowledge and correct their errors, that literature and the schools gradually enhance the energy and wealth of our ideas and thoughts.

But a progressive change of the laws of thought, to the effect that we must now hold to a proposition which at another time we should naturally reject as untenable, can be maintained only upon the supposition that the thought of evolution has driven all others out of the intellect. It would be absurd to hold that the same view could be true at one time and false at another, that the same views about the world and life could be right to-day and wrong to-morrow, to be accepted to-day and rejected to-morrow.

A view is either true or false. If true, it is always true and warranted.

Or was old _Thales_ right when he declared the world to consist of water; were _Plato_ and _Aristotle_ right in maintaining that it consisted of ideas, or forms, with real existences; was _Fichte_ and his time right with his Ego, and are finally _Schopenhauer_, _Wundt_, and _Paulsen_ right in claiming the world to be the work of the will? Were our heroic ancestors right, as the theories of evolution claim, in holding that trees are inhabited by ghosts; were then the Greeks right with their idea of a host of G.o.ds dwelling in the Olympus; and later on, was the civilized world right in holding that there is but one G.o.d, a personal one; and, after that, are many others of to-day right when they tell us that the world, and nature itself, is G.o.d? These are conclusions that threaten confusion to the human brain. And yet they are the logical consequences of "relative truth," and any one reluctant to accept these consequences would prove thereby that he has never realized what absurdities are marketed as relative truth.

Or shall we give it up, as entirely impossible, to judge of the truth or falseness of doctrines and views? Are we to value them only so far as they are adapted to a period, and as moulding and benefiting that period? This opinion indeed is held. "The values of science and philosophy," says _Paulsen_, "of our arts and poetry, consist in what they give us; whether a distant future will still use them is very questionable. Scholastic philosophy has pa.s.sed away; we use it no longer; that is, however, no proof against its value; if it has made the generations living in the latter half of the Middle Ages more intelligent and wise ... then it has done all that could rightfully be expected of it: having served its purpose, it may be laid with the dead: there is no philosophy of enduring value." "Whatever new ideas a people produces from its own inner nature will be beneficial to it. Nature may be confidently expected to produce here and everywhere at the right time what is proper and necessary"

(System der Ethik, 8th ed., 1906, I, 339, _seq._, II, 241).

We have here a very deplorable misconception of the real value of truth, degrading it to suit pa.s.sing interests and to promote them. This also is in conformity with subjectivism. But what could be answered to the straight question: suppose the opinions which some prefer to call "false"

are more useful and valuable than "truth"? None but _Nietzsche_ had the courage to say that "the falsity of a judgment is not yet a sufficient prejudice against it; here our new speech will perhaps sound strangest.

The question is: How far is that judgment life-promoting, life-sustaining, preservative, even creative of species, and we are inclined, on principle, to say that the falsest judgments are to us the most indispensable"

(Jenseits von Gut und Boese, I, 4, W. W. VII, 12.) The view that doctrines and opinions become especially or exclusively true and valuable by their usefulness for practical life, has become in our times the principle of pragmatism.

What others thought out only half way, _Nietzsche_ reasons out to the end.

To what lengths this contempt of objective truth may lead a man of such an honest character as _Paulsen_, is learned from his advice to the modern Protestant preacher who can no longer believe what he has to preach to his orthodox congregation: he may speak just as suits his congregation, orthodox as well as unorthodox, according to the principles of relative truth. "Let us a.s.sume," he says, "that his congregation is of a remote country village, where not the slightest report of the happenings in theology and literature has penetrated, where the names of _Strauss_ and _Renan_ are as little heard as those of _Kant_ and _Schleiermacher_. Here the Bible is still taken to be the literal Word of G.o.d, transmitted to us by holy men commissioned to do it.

In this case the preacher may speak without scruple of that book in the same way as his present hearers are used to. Would he thus be saying what is wrong? What is meant by saying the Bible is the Word of G.o.d? The same preacher, if transferred to other surroundings where he has to address readers of _Strauss_ and _Kant_, may change his manner of speaking without changing his view or without violating the truth one way or the other. He would be speaking to them from their own point of view.... Again, should the same preacher publish his philosophical scientific research, he could speak of Holy Scripture in an entirely different way...."

And he adds: "Some have taken exception to this opinion." Surely not without reason!

A justification of this counsel was attempted in these words: