Thoughts on Religion Part 3

[25] _Essays_, vol. iii. p. 246 et seq. The whole pa.s.sage ought to be consulted, being too long to quote here.

[26] In an essay on Prof. Flint's _Theism_, appended to the _Candid Examination_.

[27] _A Candid Examination of Theism_, pp. 171-2.

[28] [I have, as Editor, resisted a temptation to intervene in the above argument. But I think I may intervene on a matter of fact, and point out that 'according to the theological theory of things,' i.e. according to the Trinitarian doctrine, G.o.d's Nature consists in what is strictly 'a.n.a.logous to social relations,' and He not merely exhibits in His creation, but Himself _is_ Love. See, on the subject, especially, R.H.

Hutton's essay on the Incarnation, in his _Theological Essays_ (Macmillan).--ED.]

[29] _Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution_, pp. 76-7.

[30] _Nature_, April 5, 1883.

PART II.

+Introductory Note by the Editor+.

Little more requires to be said by way of introduction to the Notes which are all that George Romanes was able to write of a work that was to have been ent.i.tled _A Candid Examination of Religion_. What little does require to be said must be by way of bridging the interval of thought which exists between the Essays which have just preceded and the Notes which represent more nearly his final phase of mind.

The most anti-theistic feature in the Essays is the stress laid in them on the evidence which Nature supplies, or is supposed to supply, antagonistic to the belief in the goodness of G.o.d.

On this mysterious and perplexing subject George Romanes appears to have had more to say but did not live to say it[31]. We may notice however that in 1889, in a paper read before the Aristotelian Society, on 'the Evidence of Design in Nature[32],' he appears to allow more weight than before to the argument that the method of physical development must be judged in the light of its result. This paper was part of a _Symposium_.

Mr. S. Alexander has argued in a previous paper against the hypothesis of 'design' in Nature on the ground that 'the fair order of Nature is only acquired by a wholesale waste and sacrifice.' This argument was developed by pointing to the obvious 'mal-adjustments,' 'aimless destructions,' &c., which characterize the processes of Nature. But these, Romanes replies, necessarily belong to the process considered as one of 'natural selection.' The question is only: Is such a process _per se_ incompatible with the hypothesis of design? And he replies in the negative.

'"The fair order of Nature is only acquired by a wholesale waste and sacrifice." Granted. But if the "wholesale waste and sacrifice," as antecedent, leads to a "fair order of Nature" as its consequent, how can it be said that the "wholesale waste and sacrifice" has been a failure?

Or how can it be said that, in point of fact, there _has_ been a waste, or _has_ been a sacrifice? Clearly such things can only be said when our point of view is restricted to the means (i.e. the wholesale destruction of the less fit); not when we extend our view to what, even within the limits of human observation, is unquestionably the _end_ (i.e. the causal result in an ever improving world of types). A candidate who is plucked in a Civil Service examination because he happens to be one of the less fitted to pa.s.s, is no doubt an instance of failure so far as his own career is concerned; but it does not therefore follow that the system of examination is a failure in its final end of securing the best men for the Civil Service. And the fact that the general outcome of all the individual failures in Nature is that of securing what Mr. Alexander calls "the fair order of Nature," is a.s.suredly evidence that the _modus operandi_ has not been a failure in relation to what, if there be any Design in Nature at all, must be regarded as the higher purpose of such Design. Therefore, cases of individual or otherwise relative failure cannot be quoted as evidence against the hypothesis of there being such Design. The fact that the general system of natural causation has for its eventual result "a fair order of Nature," cannot of itself be a fact inimical to the hypothesis of Design in Nature, even though it be true that such causation entails the continual elimination of the less efficient types.

'To the best of my judgement, then, this argument from failure, random trial, blind blundering, or in whatever other terminology the argument may be presented, is only valid as against the theory of what Mr.

Alexander alludes to as a "Carpenter-G.o.d," i.e. that if there be Design in Nature at all, it must everywhere be _special_ Design; so that the evidence of it may as well be tested by any given minute fragment of Nature--such as one individual organism or cla.s.s of organisms--as by having regard to the whole Cosmos. The evidence of Design in this sense I fully allow has been totally destroyed by the proof of natural selection. But such destruction has only brought into clearer relief the much larger question that rises behind, viz. as before phrased, Is there anything about the method of natural causation, considered as a whole, that is inimical to the theory of Design in Nature, considered as a whole?'

It is true that this argument does not bear directly upon the _character_ of the G.o.d whose 'design' Nature exhibits: but indirectly it does[33]. For instance, such an argument as that found above (on p. 79: 'we see a rabbit, &c.') seems to be only valid on the postulate here described as that of the 'Carpenter-G.o.d.'

It is also probable that Romanes felt the difficulty arising from the cruelty of nature less, as he was led to dwell more on humanity as the most important part of nature, and perceived the function of suffering in the economy of human life (pp. 142, 154): and also as he became more impressed with the positive evidences for Christianity as at once the religion of sorrow and the revelation of G.o.d as Love (pp. 163, ff.). The Christian Faith supplies believers not only with an argument against pessimism from general results, but also with such an insight into the Divine character and method as enables them at least to bear hopefully the awful perplexities which arise from the spectacle of individuals suffering.

In the last year or two of his life he read very attentively a great number of books on 'Christian Evidences,' from Pascal's _Pensees_ downwards, and studied carefully the appearance of 'plan' in the Biblical Revelation considered as a whole. The _fact_ of this study appears in fragmentary remarks, indices and references, which George Romanes left behind him in note-books. The _results_ of it will not be unapparent in the following Notes, which, I need to remind my readers, are, in spite of their small bulk, the sole reason for the existence of this volume.

In reading these I can hardly conceive any one not being possessed with a profound regret that the author was not allowed to complete his work.

And it is only fair to ask every reader of the following pages to remember that he is reading, in the main, incomplete notes and not finished work. This will account for a great deal that may seem sketchy and unsatisfactory in the treatment of different points, and also for repet.i.tions and traces of inconsistency. But I can hardly think any one can read these notes to the end without agreeing with me that if I had withheld them from publication, the world would have lost the witness of a mind, both able and profoundly sincere, feeling after G.o.d and finding Him.

C.G.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] See below p. 142, and note. I find also the following note of a date subsequent to 1889. 'It is a fact that pessimism is illogical, simply because we are inadequate judges of the world, and pessimism would therefore be opposed to agnosticism. We may know that there is something out of joint between the world and ourselves; but we cannot know how far this is the fault of the world or of ourselves.'

[32] _Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society_ (Williams & Norgate), vol. i. no. 3, pp. 72, 73.

[33] I ought also to mention that Romanes on the Sunday before his death expressed to me verbally his entire agreement with the argument of Professor Knight's _Aspects of Theism_ (Macmillan, 1893); in which on this subject see pp. 184-186, 'A larger good is evolved through the winnowing process by which physical nature casts its weaker products aside,' &c.

NOTES FOR A WORK ON A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION.

BY METAPHYSICUS.

_Proposed Mottoes_.

'I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and dimmed, is by this purified and re-illumined; and is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by this alone is truth seen.

Now there are two cla.s.ses of persons, one cla.s.s who will agree with you and will take your words as a revelation; another cla.s.s who have no understanding of them and to whom they will naturally be as idle tales.

'And you had better decide at once with which of the two you are arguing; or, perhaps, you will say with neither, and that your chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improvement; at the same time not grudging to either any benefit which they may derive.'--PLATO.

'If we would reprove with success, and show another his mistake, we must see from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is generally true: and, admitting this truth, show him the side on which it is false.'--PASCAL.

-- 1. INTRODUCTORY.

Many years ago I published in Messrs. Trubner's 'Philosophical Series,'

a short treatise ent.i.tled _A Candid Examination of Theism_ by 'Physicus.' Although the book made some stir at the time, and has since exhibited a vitality never antic.i.p.ated by its author, the secret of its authorship has been well preserved[34]. This secret it is my intention, if possible, still to preserve; but as it is desirable (on several accounts which will become apparent in the following pages) to avow ident.i.ty of authorship, the present essay appears under the same pseudonym[35] as its predecessor. The reason why the first essay appeared anonymously is truthfully stated in the preface thereof, viz.

in order that the reasoning should be judged on its own merits, without the bias which is apt to arise on the part of a reader from a knowledge of the authority--or absence of authority--on the part of a writer. This reason, in my opinion, still holds good as regards _A Candid Examination of Theism_, and applies in equal measure to the present sequel in _A Candid Examination of Religion_.

It will be shown that in many respects the negative conclusions reached in the former essay have been greatly modified by the results of maturer thought as now presented in the second. Therefore it seems desirable to state at the outset that, as far as I am capable of judging, the modifications in question have not been due in any measure to influence from without. They appear to have been due exclusively to the results of my own further thought, as briefly set out in the following pages, with no indebtedness to private friends and but little to published utterances in the form of books, &c. Nevertheless, no very original ideas are here presented. Indeed, I suppose it would nowadays be impossible to present any idea touching religion, which has not at some time or another been presented previously. Still much may be done in the furthering of one's thought by changing points of view, selecting and arranging ideas already more or less familiar, so that they may be built into new combinations; and this, I think, I have in no small degree accomplished as regards the microcosm of my own mind. But I state this much only for the sake of adding a confession that, as far as introspection can carry one, it does not appear to me that the modifications which my views have undergone since the publication of my previous _Candid Examination_ are due so much to purely logical processes of the intellect, as to the sub-conscious (and therefore more or less una.n.a.lyzable) influences due to the ripening experience of life.

The extent to which this is true [i.e. the extent to which experience modifies logic][36] is seldom, if ever, realized, although it is practically exemplified every day by the sobering caution which advancing age exercises upon the mind. Not so much by any above-board play of syllogism as by some underhand cheating of consciousness, do the acc.u.mulating experiences of life and of thought slowly enrich the judgement. And this, one need hardly say, is especially true in such regions of thought as present the most tenuous media for the progress of thought by the comparatively clumsy means of syllogistic locomotion. For the further we ascend from the solid ground of verification, the less confidence should we place in our wings of speculation, while the more do we find the practical wisdom of such intellectual caution, or distrust of ratiocination, as can be given only by experience.

Therefore, most of all is this the case in those departments of thought which are furthest from the region of our sensuous life--viz.

metaphysics and religion. And, as a matter of fact, it is just in these departments of thought that we find the rashness of youth most amenable to the discipline in question by the experience of age.

However, in spite of this confession, I have no doubt that even in the matter of pure and conscious reason further thought has enabled me to detect serious errors, or rather oversights, in the very foundations of my _Candid Examination of Theism_. I still think, indeed, that from the premises there laid down the conclusions result in due logical sequence, so that, as a matter of mere ratiocination, I am not likely ever to detect any serious flaws, especially as this has not been done by anybody else during the many years of its existence. But I now clearly perceive two wellnigh fatal oversights which I then committed. The first was undue confidence in merely syllogistic conclusions, even when derived from sound premises, in regions of such high abstraction. The second was, in not being sufficiently careful in examining the foundations of my criticism, i.e. the validity of its premises. I will here briefly consider these two points separately.

As regards the first point, never was any one more arrogant in his claims for pure reason than I was--more arrogant in spirit though not in letter, this being due to contact with science; without ever considering how opposed to reason itself is the unexpressed a.s.sumption of my earlier argument as to G.o.d Himself, as if His existence were a merely physical problem to be solved by man's reason alone, without reference to his other and higher faculties[37].

The second point is of still more importance, because so seldom, if ever, recognized.

At the time of writing the _Candid Examination_ I perceived clearly how the whole question of Theism from the side of reason turned on the question as to the nature of natural causation. My theory of natural causation obeyed the Law of Parsimony, resolving all into Being as such; but, on the other hand, it erred in not considering whether 'higher causes' are not 'necessary' to account for spiritual facts--i.e. whether the ultimate Being must not be at least as high as the intellectual and spiritual nature of man, i.e. higher than anything merely physical or mechanical. The supposition that it must does not violate the Law of Parsimony.

Pure agnostics ought to investigate the religious consciousness of Christians as a phenomenon which may possibly be what Christians themselves believe it to be, i.e. of Divine origin. And this may be done without entering into any question as to the objective validity of Christian dogmas. The metaphysics of Christianity may be all false in fact, and yet the spirit of Christianity may be true in substance--i.e.