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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10139-0.txt b/10139-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..16cafae --- /dev/null +++ b/10139-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7935 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10139 *** + +THE FAITH OF THE MILLIONS + +A SELECTION OF PAST ESSAYS + +SECOND SERIES + +BY + +GEORGE TYRRELL, S.J. + +1901 + + + + + + + +"AND SEEING THE MULTITUDES HE WAS MOVED WITH +COMPASSION ON THEM, FOR THEY WERE HARASSED AND +SCATTERED AS SHEEP HAVING NO SHEPHERD." +(Matthew ix. 36.) + + + + + + _Nil Obstat:_ + J. GERARD, S.J. + CENS. THEOL. DEPUTATUS. + + _Imprimatur:_ + HERBERTUS CARD. VAUGHAN, + ARCHIEP. WESTMON. + + + +CONTENTS + + + XIII.--Juliana of Norwich + XIV.--Poet and Mystic + XV.--Two Estimates of Catholic Life + XVI.--A Life of De Lamennais + XVII.--Lippo, the Man and the Artist + XVIII.--Through Art to Faith + XIX.--Tracts for the Million + XX.--An Apostle of Naturalism + XXL.--"The Making of Religion" + XXII.--Adaptability as a Proof of Religion + XXIII.--Idealism in Straits + + + +XIII. + + +JULIANA OF NORWICH. + +"One of the most remarkable books of the middle ages," writes Father +Dalgairns, [1] "is the hitherto almost unknown work, titled, _Sixteen +Revelations of Divine Love made to a Devout Servant of God, called +Mother Juliana, an Anchoress of Norwich_" How "one of the most +remarkable books" should be "hitherto almost unknown," may be explained +partly by the fact to which the same writer draws attention, namely, +that Mother Juliana lived and wrote at the time when a certain mystical +movement was about to bifurcate and pursue its course of development, +one branch within the Church on Catholic lines, the other outside the +Church along lines whose actual issue was Wycliffism and other kindred +forms of heterodoxy, and whose logical outcome was pantheism. Hence, +between the language of these pseudo-mystics and that of the recluse of +Norwich, "there is sometimes a coincidence ... which might deceive the +unwary." It is almost necessarily a feature of every heresy to begin by +using the language of orthodoxy in a strained and non-natural sense, and +only gradually to develop a distinctive terminology of its own; but, as +often as not, certain ambiguous expressions, formerly taken in an +orthodox sense, are abandoned by the faithful on account of their +ambiguity and are then appropriated to the expression of heterodoxy, so +that eventually by force of usage the heretical meaning comes to be the +principal and natural meaning, and any other interpretation to seem +violent and non-natural. "The few coincidences," continues Father +Dalgairns, "between Mother Juliana and Wycliffe are among the many +proofs that the same speculative view often means different things in +different systems. Both St. Augustine, Calvin, and Mahomet, believe in +predestination, yet an Augustinian is something utterly different from a +Scotch Cameronian or a Mahometan.... The idea which runs through the +whole of Mother Juliana is the very contradictory of Wycliffe's +Pantheistic Necessitarianism." Yet on account of the mere similarity of +expression we can well understand how in the course of time some of +Mother Juliana's utterances came to be more ill-sounding to faithful +ears in proportion as they came to be more exclusively appropriated by +the unorthodox. It is hard to be as vigilant when danger is remote as +when it is near at hand; and until heresy has actually wrested them to +its purpose it is morally impossible that the words of ecclesiastical +and religious writers should be so delicately balanced as to avoid all +ambiguities and inaccuracies. Still less have we a right to look for +such exactitude in the words of an anchoress who, if not wholly +uneducated in our sense of the word, yet on her own confession "could no +letter," i.e., as we should say, was no scholar, and certainly made no +pretence to any skill in technical theology. But however much some of +her expressions may jar with the later developments of Catholic +theology, it must be remembered, as has been said, that they were +current coin in her day, common to orthodox and unorthodox; and that +though their restoration is by no means desirable, yet they are still +susceptive of a "benignant" interpretation. "I pray Almighty God," says +Mother Juliana in concluding, "that this book come not but into the +hands of those that will be His faithful lovers, and that will submit +them to the faith of Holy Church." [2] And indeed such can receive no +possible harm from its perusal, beyond a little temporary perplexity to +be dispelled by inquiry; and this only in the case of those who are +sufficiently instructed and reflective to perceive the discord in +question. The rest are well used in their reading to take what is +familiar and to leave what is strange, so that they will find in her +pages much to ponder, and but a little to pass over. + +It is, however, not only to these occasional obscurities and ambiguities +that we are to ascribe the comparative oblivion into which so remarkable +a book has fallen; but also to the fact that its noteworthiness is +perhaps more evident and relative to us than to our forefathers. It +cannot but startle us to find doubts that we hastily look upon as +peculiarly "modern," set forth in their full strength and wrestled with +and overthrown by an unlettered recluse of the fourteenth century. In +some sense they are the doubts of all time, with perhaps just that +peculiar complexion which they assume in the light of Christianity. Yet, +owing to the modern spread of education, or rather to the indiscriminate +divulgation of ideas, these problems are now the possession of the man +in the street, whereas in former days they were exclusively the property +of minds capable--not indeed of answering the unanswerable, but at least +of knowing their own limitations and of seeing why such problems must +always exist as long as man is man. Dark as the age of Mother Juliana +was as regards the light of positive knowledge and information; yet the +light of wisdom burned at least as clearly and steadily then as now; and +it is by that light alone that the shades of unbelief can be dispelled. +Of course, wisdom without knowledge must starve or prey on its own +vitals, and this was the intellectual danger of the middle ages; but +knowledge without wisdom is so much food undigested and indigestible, +and this is the evil of our own day, when to be passably well-informed +so taxes our time and energy as to leave us no leisure for assimilating +the knowledge with which we have stuffed ourselves. + +We must not, however, think of Mother Juliana as shut up within four +walls of a cell, evolving all her ideas straight from her own inner +consciousness without any reference to experience. Such a barren +contemplation, tending to mental paralysis, belongs to Oriental +pessimism, whose aim is the extinction of life, mental and physical, and +reabsorption into that void whence, it is said, misfortune has brought +us forth to troublous consciousness. The Christian contemplative knows +no ascent to God but by the ladder of creatures; he goes to the book of +Nature and of human life, and to the book of Revelation, and turns and +ponders their pages, line by line and word by word, and so feeds and +fills the otherwise thin and shadowy conception of God in his own soul, +and ever pours new oil upon the flame of Divine love. Father Daigairns +writes: "Juliana is a recluse very different from the creatures of the +imagination of writers on comparative morals. So far from being cut off +from sympathy with her kind, her mind is tenderly and delicately alive +to every change in the spiritual atmosphere of England.... The four +walls of her narrow home seem to be rent and torn asunder, and not only +England but Christendom appears before her view;" and he is at pains to +show how both anchorites and anchoresses were much-sought after by all +in trouble, temporal or spiritual, and how abundant were their +opportunities of becoming acquainted with human life and its burdens, +and of more than compensating, through the confidences of others, +whatever defect their minds might suffer through lack of personal +experience. Even still, how many a priest or nun whose experience had +else been narrowed to the petty domestic interests of a small family, +is, in virtue of his or her vocation, put in touch with a far larger +world, or with a far more important aspect of the world, than many who +mingle with its every-day trivialities, and is thus made a partaker in +some sense of the deeper life and experience of society and of the +Universal Church! The anchoress "did a great deal more than pray. The +very dangers against which the author of her rule [3] warns her, are a +proof that she had many visitors. He warns her against becoming a +'babbling' or 'gossiping' anchoress, a variety evidently well-known; a +recluse whose cell was the depository of all the news from the +neighbourhood at a time when newspapers did not exist." Such abuses +throw light upon the legitimate use of the anchoress's position in the +mediæval community. + +And so, though Mother Juliana "could no letter," though she knew next to +nothing of the rather worthless physical science of those times, and +hardly more of philosophy or technical theology, yet she knew no little +of that busy, sad, and sinful human life going on round her, not only at +Norwich, but in England, and even in Europe; and rich with this +knowledge, to which all other lore is subordinate and for whose sake +alone it is valuable, she betook herself to prayer and meditation, and +brought all this experience into relation with God, and drew from it an +ever clearer understanding of Him and of His dealings with the souls +that His Love has created and redeemed. + +It is not then so wonderful that this wise and holy woman should have +faced the problems presented by the apparent discord between the truths +of faith and the facts of human life--a discord which is felt in every +age by the observant and thoughtful, but which in our age is a +commonplace on the lips of even the most superficial. But an age takes +its tone from the many who are the children of the past, rather than +from the few who are the parents of the future. Mother Juliana's book +could hardly have been in any sense "popular" until these days of ours, +in which the particular disease of mind to which it ministers has become +epidemic. + +If then these suggestions to some extent furnish an explanation of the +oblivion into which the revelations of Mother Juliana have fallen, they +also justify the following attempt to draw attention to them once more, +and to give some sort of analysis of their contents; more especially as +we have reason to believe that they are about to be re-edited by a +competent scholar and made accessible to the general public, which they +have not been since the comparative extinction of Richardson's edition +of 1877. Little is known of Mother Juliana's history outside what is +implied in her revelations; nor is it our purpose at present to go aside +in search of biographical details that will be of interest only after +their subject has become interesting. Suffice it here to say that she +was thirty at the time of her revelations, which she tells us was in +1373. Hence she was born in 1343, and is said to have been a +centenarian, in which case she must have died about 1443. She probably +belonged to the Benedictine nuns at Carrow, near Norwich, and being +called to a still stricter life, retired to a hermitage close by the +Church of St. Julian at Norwich. The details she gives about her own +sick-room exclude the idea of that stricter "reclusion" which is +popularly spoken of as "walling-up"--not of course in the mythical +sense. + +With these brief indications sufficient to satisfy the craving of our +imagination for particulars of time and place, let us turn to her own +account of the circumstances of her visions, as well as of their nature. +She tells us that in her life previous to 1373, she had, at some time or +other, demanded three favours from God; first, a sensible appreciation +of Christ's Passion in such sort as to share the grace of Mary Magdalene +and others who were eye-witnesses thereof: "therefore I desired a bodily +sight wherein I might have more knowledge of the bodily pain of our +Saviour." And the motive of this desire was that she might "afterwards +because of that showing have the more true mind of the Passion of +Christ." Her aim was a deeper practical intelligence, and not the +gratification of mere emotional curiosity. + +This grace she plainly recognizes as extraordinary; for she says: "Other +sight or showing of God asked I none, till when the soul was departed +from the body." Her second request was likewise for an extraordinary +grace; namely, for a bodily sickness which she and others might believe +to be mortal; in which she should receive the last sacraments, and +experience all the bodily pains, and all the spiritual temptations +incident to the separation of soul and body. And the motive of this +request was that she might be "purged by the mercy of God, and +afterwards live more to the worship of God because of that sickness." In +other words, she desired the grace of what we might call a +"trial-death," that so she might better meet the real death when it +came. Further, she adds, "this sickness I desired in my youth, that I +might have it when I was thirty years old." And "these two desires were +with a condition" (namely, if God should so will), "for methought this +was not the common use of prayer." But the third request she proffers +boldly "without any condition," since it was necessarily God's desire to +grant it and to be sued for it; namely, the grace of a three-fold wound: +the wound of true sorrow for sin; the wound of "kind compassion" with +Christ's sufferings; and the wound of "wilful belonging to God," that +is, of self-devotion. + +She is careful to tell us that while she ever continued to urge the +unconditional third request, the two first passed completely out of her +head in the course of years, until she was reminded of them by their +simultaneous and remarkable fulfilment. "For when I was thirty years old +and a half, God sent me a bodily sickness in which I lay three days and +three nights; and on the fourth night I took all my rites of Holy +Church, and weened not to have lived till day. And after this I lay two +days and two nights, and on the third night I weened oftentimes to have +passed, and so weened they that were with me.... And I understood in my +reason, and by the feeling of my pains that I should die, and I assented +fully with all the will of my heart, to be at God's will. Thus I endured +till day, and by then, was my body dead to all feeling from the midst +down." She is then raised up in a sitting position for greater ease, and +her curate is sent for, as the end is supposed to be near. On arrival, +he finds her speechless and with her eyes fixed upwards towards heaven, +"where I trusted to come by the mercy of God." He places the crucifix +before her, and bids her bend her eyes upon it. "I assented to set my +eyes in the face of the crucifix if I could; and so I did; for methought +I could endure longer to look straight in front of me than right up"--a +touch that shows the previous upturning of the eyes to have been +voluntary and not cataleptic. At this moment we seem to pass into the +region of the abnormal: "After this my sight began to fail; it waxed as +dark about me in the chamber as if it had been night, save in the image +of the cross, wherein I beheld a common light, and I wist not how. And +all that was beside the cross was ugly and fearful to me, as it had been +much occupied with fiends." Then the upper part of her body becomes +insensible, and the only pain left is that of weakness and +breathlessness. Suddenly she is totally eased and apparently quite +cured, which, however, she regards as a momentary miraculous relief, but +not as a deliverance from death. In this breathing space it suddenly +occurs to her to beg for the second of those three wounds which were the +matter of her unconditional third request; namely, for a deepened sense +and sympathetic understanding of Christ's Passion. "But in this I never +desired any bodily sight, or any manner of showing from God; but such +compassion as I thought that a kind soul might have with our Lord +Jesus." In a word, the remembrance of her two conditional and +extraordinary requests of bygone years was not in her mind at the time. +"And in this, suddenly I saw the red blood trickling down from under the +garland;"--and so she passes from objective to subjective vision;[4] and +the first fifteen revelations follow, as she tells us later, one after +another in unbroken succession, lasting in all some few hours. + +"I had no grief or no dis-ease," she tells us later, "as long as the +fifteen showings lasted in showing. And at the end all was close, and I +saw no more; and soon I felt that I should live longer." Presently all +her pains, bodily and spiritual, return in full force; and the +consolation of the visions seems to her as an idle dream and delusion; +and she answers to the inquiries of a Religious at her bedside, that she +had been raving: "And he laughed loud and drolly. And I said: 'The cross +that stood before my face, methought it bled fast.'" At which the other +looked so serious and awed that she became ashamed of her own +incredulity. "I believed Him truly for the time that I saw Him. And so +it was then my will and my meaning to do, ever without end--but, as a +fool, I let it pass out of my mind. And lo! how wretched I was," &c. +Then she falls asleep and has a terrifying dream of the Evil One, of +which she says: "This ugly showing was made sleeping and so was none +other," whence it seems that her self-consciousness was unimpaired in +the other visions; that is, she was aware at the time that they were +visions, and did not confound them with reality as dreams are +confounded. Then follows the sixteenth and last revelation; ending with +the words: "Wit well it was no raving thou sawest to-day: but take it, +and believe it, and keep thee therein, and comfort thee therewith and +trust thereto, and thou shalt not be overcome." Then during the rest of +the same night till about Prime next morning she is tempted against +faith and trust by the Evil One, of whose nearness she is conscious; but +comes out victorious after a sustained struggle. She understands from +our Lord, that the series of showings is now closed; "which blessed +showing the faith keepeth, ... for He left with me neither sign nor +token whereby I might know it." Yet for her personally the obligation +not to doubt is as of faith: "Thus am I bound to keep it in my faith; +for on the same day that it was showed, what time the sight was passed, +as a wretch I forsook it and openly said that I raved." + +Fifteen years later she gets an inward response as to the general gist +and unifying purport of the sixteen revelations. "Wit it well; love was +His meaning. Who showed it thee? Love. Wherefore showed He it thee? For +love." + +Having thus sketched the circumstances of the revelations, we may now +address ourselves to their character and substance. + +There is nothing to favour and everything to disfavour the notion that +Mother Juliana was an habitual visionary, or was the recipient of any +other visions, than those which she beheld in her thirty-first year; and +of these, she tells us herself, the whole sixteen took place within a +few hours. "Now have I told you of fifteen showings, ... of which +fifteen showings, the first began early in the morning about the hour of +four, ... each following the other till it was noon of the day or past, +... and after this the Good Lord showed me the sixteenth revelation on +the night following." Speaking of them all as one, she tells us: "And +from the time it was showed I desired oftentimes to wit what was in our +Lord's meaning; and fifteen years after and more I was answered in +ghostly understanding, saying thus: 'What! wouldst thou wit thy Lord's +meaning in this thing? Wit it well: Love was His meaning.'" But this +"ghostly understanding" can hardly be pressed into implying another +revelation of the evidently supernormal type. + +We rather insist on this point, as indicating the habitual healthiness +of Mother Juliana's soul--a quality which is also abundantly witnessed +by the unity and coherence of the doctrine of her revelations, which +bespeaks a mind well-knit together, and at harmony with itself. The +hysterical mind is one in which large tracts of consciousness seem to +get detached from the main body, and to take the control of the subject +for the time being, giving rise to the phenomena rather foolishly called +double or multiple "personality." This is a disease proper to the +passive-minded, to those who give way to a "drifting" tendency, and +habitually suffer their whole interests to be absorbed by the strongest +sensation or emotion that presents itself. Such minds are generally +chaotic and unorganized, as is revealed in the rambling, involved, +interminably parenthetical and digressive character of their +conversation. But when, as with Mother Juliana, we find unity and +coherence, we may infer that there has been a life-long habit of active +mental control, such as excludes the supposition of an hysterical +temperament. + +Perhaps the similarity of the phenomena which attend both on +extraordinary psychic weakness and passivity, and on extraordinary +energy and activity may excuse a confusion common enough, and which we +have dwelt on elsewhere. But obviously as far as the natural +consequences of a given psychic state are concerned, it is indifferent +how that state is brought about. Thus, that extreme concentration of the +attention, that perfect abstraction from outward things, which in +hysterical persons is the effect of weakness and passive-mindedness--of +the inability to resist and shake off the spell of passions and +emotions; is in others the effect of active self-control, of voluntary +concentration, of a complete mastery over passions and emotions. Yet +though the causes of the abnormal state are different, its effects may +well be the same. + +In thus maintaining the healthiness and vigour of Mother Juliana's mind, +we may seem to be implicitly treating her revelation, not as coming from +a Divine source, but simply as an expression of her own habitual line of +thought--as a sort of pouring forth of the contents of her subconscious +memory. Our direct intention, however, is to show how very unlikely it +is antecedently that one so clear-headed and intelligent should be the +victim of the common and obvious illusions of the hysterical visionary. +For her book contains not only the matter of her revelations, but also +the history of all the circumstances connected with them, as well as a +certain amount of personal comment upon them, professedly the fruit of +her normal mind; and best of all, a good deal of analytical reflection +upon the phenomena which betrays a native psychological insight not +inferior to that of St. Teresa. From these sources we could gather the +general sobriety and penetration of her judgment, without assuming the +actual teaching of the revelations to be merely the unconscious +self-projection of her own mind. But in so much as many of these +revelations were professedly Divine answers to her own questions, and +since the answer must ever be adapted not merely to the question +considered in the abstract, but as it springs from its context in the +questioner's mind; we are not wrong, on this score alone, in arguing +from the character of the revelation to the character of the mind to +which it was addressed. Fallible men may often speak and write above or +beside the intelligence of their hearers and readers; but not so He who +reads the heart He has made. Now these revelations were not addressed to +the Church through Mother Juliana; but, as she says, were addressed to +herself and were primarily for herself, though most that was said had +reference to the human soul in general. They were adapted therefore to +the character and individuality of her mind; and are an index of its +thoughts and workings. For her they were a matter of faith; but, as she +tells us, she had no token or outward proof wherewith to convince others +of their reality. Those who feel disposed, as we ourselves do, to place +much confidence in the word of one so perfectly sane and genuinely holy, +may draw profit from the message addressed to her need; but never can it +be for them a matter of faith as in a Divine message addressed directly +or indirectly to themselves. So far as these revelations are a clear and +noble expression of truths already contained implicitly in our faith and +reason, which it brings into more explicit consciousness and vitalizes +with a new power of stimulus, they may be profitable to us all; but they +must be received with due criticism and discernment as themselves +subject to a higher rule of truth--namely, the teaching of the Universal +Church. + +But to determine, with respect to these and kindred revelations, how far +they may be regarded as an expression of the recipient's own mind and +latent consciousness, will need a digression which the general interest +of the question must excuse. + +There is a tendency in the modern philosophy of religion (for example, +in Mr. Balfour's _Foundations of Belief_) to rationalize inspired +revelation and to explain it as altogether kindred to the apparently +magical intuitions of natural genius in non-religious matters; as the +result, in other words, of a rending asunder of the veil that divides +what is called "super-liminal" from "subliminal" consciousness; to find +in prophecy and secret insight the effect of a flash of unconscious +inference from a mass of data buried in the inscrutable darkness of our +forgotten self. Together with this, there is also a levelling-up +philosophy, a sort of modernized ontologism, which would attribute all +natural intuition to a more immediate self-revelation on God's part than +seems quite compatible with orthodoxy. + +But neither of these philosophies satisfy what is vulgarly understood by +"revelation," and therefore both use the word in a somewhat strained +sense. For certainly the first sense of the term implies a consciousness +on the part of the recipient of being spoken to, of being related +through such speech to another personality, whereas the flashes and +intuitions of natural genius, however they may resemble and be called +"inspirations" because of their exceeding the known resources of the +thinker's own mind, yet they are consciously autochthonous; they are +felt to spring from the mind's own soil; not to break the soul's +solitude with the sense of an alien presence. Such interior +illuminations, though doubtless in a secondary sense derived from the +"True Light which enlightens every man coming into this world," +certainly do not fulfil the traditional notion of revelation as +understood, not only in the Christian Church, but also in all ethnic +religions. For common to antiquity is the notion of some kind of +possession or seizure, some usurpation of the soul's faculties by an +external personality, divine or diabolic, for its own service and as its +instrument of expression--a phenomenon, in fact, quite analogous, if not +the same in species, with that of hypnotic control and suggestion, where +the thought and will of the subject is simply passive under the thought +and will of the agent. + +Saints and contemplatives are wont--not without justification--to speak +of their lights in prayer, and of the ordinary intuitions of their mind, +under the influence of grace, as Divine utterances in a secondary sense; +to say, "God said to me," or "seemed to say to me," or "God showed me," +and so on. But to confound these products of their own mind with +revelation is the error only of the uninstructed or the wilfully +self-deluded. Therefore, as commonly understood, "revelation" implies +the conscious control of the mind by another mind; just as its usual +correlative, "inspiration," implies the conscious control of the will by +another will. + +There can be no doubt whatever but that Mother Juliana of Norwich +considered her revelations to be of this latter description, and not to +have been merely different in degree from those flashes of spiritual +insight with which she was familiar in her daily contemplations and +prayers. How far, then, her own mind may have supplied the material from +which the tissues were woven, or lent the colours with which the +pictures were painted, or supplied the music to which the words were +set, is what we must now try to determine. + + +II. + +Taking the terms "revelation" and "inspiration" in the unsophisticated +sense which they have borne not only in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, +but in almost all the great ethnic religions as well, we may inquire +into the different sorts and degrees of the control exercised by the +presumably supernatural agents over the recipient of such influence. For +clearness' sake we may first distinguish between the control of the +cognitive, the volitional, and the executive faculties. For our present +inquiry we may leave aside those cases where the control of the +executive faculties, normally subject to the will and directed by the +mind, seem to be wrested from that control by a foreign agent possessed +of intelligence and volition, as, for example, in such a case as is +narrated of the false prophet Balaam, or of those who at the Pentecostal +outpouring spoke correctly in languages unintelligible to themselves, or +of the possessed who were constrained in spite of themselves to confess +Christ. In these and similar cases, not only is the action involuntary +or even counter to the will, but it manifests such intelligent purpose +as seemingly marks it to be the effect of an alien will and +intelligence. Of this kind of control exercised by the agent over the +outer actions of the patient, it may be doubted if it be ever effected +except through the mediation of a suggestion addressed to the mind, in +such sort that though not free, the resulting action is not wholly +involuntary. Be this as it may, our concern at present is simply with +control exercised over the will and the understanding. + +With regard to the will, it is a commonplace of mystical theology that +God, who gave it its natural and essential bent towards the good of +reason, i.e., towards righteousness and the Divine will; who created +it not merely as an irresistible tendency towards the happiness and +self-realization of the rational subject, but as a resistible tendency +towards its _true_, happiness and _true_ self-realization--that this +same God can directly modify the will without the natural mediation of +some suggested thought. We ourselves, by the laborious cultivation of +virtue, gradually modify the response of our will to certain +suggestions, making it more sensitive to right impulses, more obtuse to +evil impulses. According to mystic theology, it is the prerogative of +God to dispense with this natural method of education, and, without +violating that liberty of choice (which no inclination can prejudice), +to incline the rational appetite this way or that; not only in reference +to some suggested object, but also without reference to any distinct +object whatsoever, so that the soul should be abruptly filled with joy +or sadness, with fear or hope, with desire or aversion, and yet be at a +loss to determine the object of these spiritual passions. St. Ignatius +Loyola, in his "Rules for Discerning Spirits," borrowed no doubt from +the current mystical theology of his day, makes this absence of any +suggested object a criterion of "consolation" coming from God alone--a +criterion always difficult to apply owing to the lightning subtlety of +thoughts that flash across the soul and are forgotten even while their +emotional reverberation yet remains. Where there was a preceding thought +to account for the emotion, he held that the "consolation" might be the +work of spirits (good or evil) who could not influence the will +directly, but only indirectly through the mind; or else it might be the +work of the mind itself, whose thoughts often seem to us abrupt through +mere failure of self-observation. + +Normally what is known as an "actual grace" involves both an +illustration of the mind, and an enkindling of the will; but though +supernatural, such graces are not held to be miraculous or +preternatural, or to break the usual psychological laws of cause and +effect; like the ordinary answers to prayer, they are from God's +ordinary providence in that supernatural order which permeates but does +not of itself interfere with the natural. But over and above what, +relatively to our observation, we call the "ordinary" course, there is +the extraordinary, whose interference with it is apparent, though of +course not absolute or real--since nothing can be out of harmony with +the first and highest law, which is God Himself. And to the category of +the extraordinary must be assigned such inspirations and direct +will-movements as we here speak of. [5] + +Yet not altogether; for in the natural order, too, we have the +phenomenon of instinct to consider--both spiritual and animal. Giving +heredity all the credit we can for storing up accumulated experience in +the nervous system of each species, there remains a host of fundamental +animal instincts which that law is quite inadequate to explain; those, +for example, which govern the multiplication of the species and secure +the conditions under which alone heredity can work. Such cannot be at +once the effect and the essential condition of heredity; and yet they +are, of all instincts, the most complex and mysterious. Indeed, it seems +more scientific to ascribe other instincts to the same known and +indubitable, if mysterious, cause, than to seek explanation in causes +less known and more hypothetical. In the case of many instincts, it +would seem that the craving for the object precedes the distinct +cognition of it; that the object is only ascertained when, after various +tentative gropings, it is stumbled upon, almost, it might seem, by +chance. And this seems true, also, of some of our fundamental spiritual +instincts; for example, that craving of the mind for an unified +experience, which is at the root of all mental activity, and whose +object is ever approached yet never attained; or, again, there is the +social and political instinct, which has not yet formed a distinct and +satisfying conception of what it would be at. Or nearer still to our +theme, is the natural religious instinct which seeks interpretations and +explanatory hypotheses in the various man-made religions of the race, +and which finds itself satisfied and transcended by the Christian +revelation. + +In these and like instances, we find will-movements not caused by the +subjects' own cognitions and perceptions, but contrariwise, giving birth +to cognitions, setting the mind to work to interpret the said movements, +and to seek out their satisfying objects. + +This is quite analogous to certain phenomena of the order of grace. St. +Ignatius almost invariably speaks, not, as we should, of thoughts that +give rise to will-states of "consolation" or "desolation," but +conversely, of these will-states giving rise to congruous thoughts. +Indeed, nothing is more familiar to us than the way in which the mind is +magnetized by even our physical states of elation or depression, to +select the more cheerful or the gloomier aspects of life, according as +we are under one influence or the other; and in practice, we recognize +the effect of people's humours on their opinions and decisions, and +would neither sue mercy nor ask a favour of a man in a temper. In short, +it is hardly too much to say, that our thoughts are more dependent on +our feelings than our feelings on our thoughts. This, then, is one +possible method of supernatural guidance which we shall call "blind +inspiration"--for though the feeling or impulse is from God, the +interpretation is from the subject's own mind. It is curious how St. +Ignatius applies this method to the determining of the Divine will in +certain cases--as it were, by the inductive principle of "concomitant +variation." A suggestion that always comes and grows with a state of +"consolation," and whose negative is in like manner associated with +"desolation," is presumably the right interpretation of the blind +impulse. [6] And perhaps this is one of the commonest subjective +assurances of faith, namely, that our faith grows and declines with what +we know intuitively to be our better moods; that when lax we are +sceptical, and believing when conscientious. + +Another species of will-guidance recognized by saints, is not so much by +way of a vague feeling seeking interpretation, as by way of a sort of +enforced decision with regard to some naturally suggested course of +conduct. And this, perhaps, is what is more technically understood by an +inspiration; as, for example, when the question of writing or not +writing something publicly useful, say, the records of the Kings of +Israel, rises in the mind, and it is decided for and in the subject, but +not by him. Of course this "inspiration" is a common but not essential +accompaniment of "revelation" or "mind-control,"--in those cases, +namely, where the communicated information is for the good of others; +as, also, where it is for the guidance of the practical conduct of the +recipient. Such "inspiration" at times seems to be no more than a strong +inclination compatible with liberty; at other times it amounts to such a +"fixing" of the practical judgment as would ordinarily result from a +determination of the power of choice--if that were not a contradiction. +Better to say, it is a taking of the matter out of the jurisdiction of +choice, by the creation of an _idée fixe_ [7] in the subject's mind. + +Turning now to "revelation" in the stricter sense of a preternatural +enlightenment of the mind, it might conceivably be either by way of a +real accretion of knowledge--an addition to the contents of the mind--or +else by way of manipulating contents already there, as we ourselves do +by reminiscence, by rumination, comparison, analysis, inference. Thus we +can conceive the mind being consciously controlled in these operations, +as it were, by a foreign will; being reminded of this or that; being +shown new consequences, applications, and relations of truths already +possessed. + +When, however, there is a preternatural addition to the sum total of the +mind's knowledge, we can conceive the communication to be effected +through the outer senses, as by visions seen (real or symbolic), or +words heard; or through the imagination--pictorial, symbolic, or verbal; +visual or auditory; or, finally, in the very reason and intelligence +itself, whose ideas are embodied in these images and signs, and to whose +apprehension they are all subservient. + +Now from all this tedious division and sub-division it may perhaps be +clear in how many different senses the words of such a professed +revelation as Mother Juliana has left on record can be regarded as +preternatural utterances; or rather, in how many different ways she +herself may have considered them such, and wished them so to be +considered. Indeed, as we shall see, she has done a good deal more to +determine this, in regard to the various parts of her record, than most +have done, and it is for that reason that we have taken the opportunity +to open up the general question. Such a record might then be, either +wholly or in part: + + (a) The work of religious "inspiration" or genius, in the sense + in which rationalists use the word, levelling the idea down to the same + plane as that of artistic inspiration. + + (b) Or else it might be "inspired" as mystic philosophy or + ontologism uses the expression, when it ascribes all natural insight to + a more or less directly divine enlightenment. + + (c) Or, taking the word more strictly as implying the influence + of a distinct personal agency over the soul of the writer, it might be + that the record simply expresses an attempted interpretation, an + imaginary embodiment, of some blind preternatural stirring of the + writer's affections--analogous to the romances and dreams created in the + imagination at the first awakening of the amatory affections. + + (d) Or, the matter being in no way from preternatural sources, + the strong and perhaps irresistible impulse to record and publish it, + might be preternatural. + + (e) Or (in addition to or apart from such an impulse), it might + be a record of certain truths already contained implicitly in the + writer's mind, but brought to remembrance or into clear recognition, not + by the ordinary free activity of reason, but, as it were, by an alien + will controlling the mind. + + (f) Or, if really new truths or facts are communicated to the mind + from without, this may be effected in various ways: (i) By the way of + verbal "inspiration," as when the very words are received apparently + through the outer senses; or else put together in the imagination. + (ii) Or, the matter is presented pictorially (be it fact or symbol) + to the outer senses or to the imagination; and then described or + "word-painted" according to the writer's own ability. (iii) Or, the + truth is brought home directly to the intelligence; and gets all its + imaginative and verbal clothing from the recipient. + +Many other hypotheses are conceivable, but most will be reducible to one +or other of these. We may perhaps add that, when the revelation is given +for the sake of others, this purpose might be frustrated, were not a +substantial fidelity of expression and utterance also secured. This +would involve, at least, that negative kind of guidance of the tongue or +pen, known technically as "assistance." + +Mother Juliana gives us some clue in regard to her own revelations where +she says: [8] "All this blessed showing of our Lord God was showed in +three parts; that is to say, by bodily sight; and by words formed in my +understanding; and by ghostly sight. For the bodily sight, I have said +as I saw, as truly as I can" (that is, the appearances were, she +believed, from God, but the description of them was her own). "And for +the words I have said them right as our Lord showed them to me" (for +here nothing was her own, but bare fidelity of utterance). "And for the +ghostly sight I have said some deal, but I may never full tell it" (that +is to say, no language or imagery of her own can ever adequately express +the spiritual truths revealed to her higher reason). As a rule she makes +it quite clear throughout, which of these three kinds of showing is +being described. We have an example of bodily vision when she saw "the +red blood trickling down from under the garland," and in all else that +seemed to happen to the crucifix on which her open eyes were set. And of +all this she says: "I conceived truly and mightily that it was Himself +that showed it me, without any mean between us;" that is, she took it as +a sort of pictorial language uttered directly by Christ, even as if He +had addressed her in speech; she took it not merely as _having_ a +meaning, but as designed and uttered to _convey_ a meaning--for to speak +is more than to let one's mind appear. Or again, it is by bodily vision +she sees a little hasel-nut in her hand, symbolic of the "naughting of +all that is made." Of words formed in her imagination she tells us, for +example, "Then He (i.e., Christ as seen on the crucifix) without voice +and opening of lips formed in my soul these words: _Herewith is the +fiend overcome_." Of "ghostly sight," or spiritual intuition, we have an +instance when she says: "In the same time that I saw (i.e., visually) +this sight of the Head bleeding, our good Lord showed a ghostly sight of +His homely loving. I saw that He is to us everything that is comfortable +to our help; He is our clothing, that for love wrappeth us," &c.--where, +in her own words and imagery, she is describing a divine-given insight +into the relation of God and the soul. Or again, when she is shown our +Blessed Lady, it is no pictorial or bodily presentment, "but the virtues +of her blissful soul, her truth, her wisdom, her charity." "And Jesus +... showed me a _ghostly_ sight of her, right as I had seen her before, +little and simple and pleasing to Him above all creatures." + +Just as in the setting forth of these spiritual apprehensions, the words +and imagery are usually her own, so in the description of bodily vision +she uses her own language and comparisons. For example, the following +realism: "The great drops of blood fell down from under the garland like +pellets, seeming as it had come out of the veins; and in coming out they +were brown red, for the Blood was full thick, and in spreading abroad +they were bright red.... The plenteousness is like to drops of water +that fall off the eavings after a great shower of rain.... And for +roundness they were like to the scales of herrings in the spreading of +the forehead," &c. These similes, she tells us, "came to my mind in the +time." In other instances, the comparisons and illustrations of what she +saw with her eyes or with her understanding, were suggested to her; so +that she received the expression, as well as the matter expressed, from +without. + +But besides the records of the sights, words, and ideas revealed to her, +we have many things already known to her and understood, yet "brought to +her mind," as it were, preternaturally. Also, various paraphrases and +elaborate exegeses of the words spoken to her; a great abundance of +added commentary upon what she saw inwardly or outwardly. Now and then +it is a little difficult to decide whether she is speaking for herself, +or as the exponent of what she has received; but, on the whole, she +gives us abundant indications. Perhaps the following passage will +illustrate fairly the diverse elements of which the record is woven: + +With good cheer our Lord looked into His side and beheld with joy +[_bodily vision_]: and with His sweet looking He led forth the +understanding of His creature, by the same wound, into His side within +[_her imagination is led by gesture from one thought to another_]. [9] +And then He showed a fair and delectable place, and large enough for all +mankind that should be saved, and rest in peace and love [_a conception +of the understanding conveyed through the symbol of the open wound in +the Heart_]. And therewith He brought to my mind His dear worthy Blood +and the precious water which He let pour out for love [_a thought +already contained in the mind, but brought to remembrance by Christ_]. +And with His sweet rejoicing Pie showed His blessed Heart cloven in two +[_bodily or imaginative vision_], and with His rejoicing He showed to my +understanding, in part, the Blissful Godhead as far forth as He would at +that time strengthen the poor soul for to understand [_an enlightening +of the reason to the partial apprehension of a spiritual mystery_]. And +with this our Good Lord said full blissfully: "Lo! how I love thee!" +[_words formed in the imagination or for the outer hearing_], as if He +had said: "My darling, behold, and see thy Lord," &c. [_her own +paraphrase and interpretation of the said words_]. + +Rarely, however, are the different modes so entangled as here, and for +the most part we have little difficulty in discerning the precise origin +to which she wishes her utterances to be attributed--a fact that makes +her book an unusually interesting study in the theory of inspiration. + +Thus, in provisionally answering the problem proposed at the beginning +of this article, as to how far Mother Juliana supplied from her own mind +the canvas and the colours for this portrayal of Divine love, and as to +how far therefore it may be regarded as a product of and a key to her +inner self, we are inclined to say that, a comparison of her own style +of thought and sentiment and expression as exhibited in her paraphrases +and expositions of the things revealed to her, with the substance and +setting of the said revelations, points to the conclusion that God spoke +to her soul in its own language and habitual forms of thought; and that +if the "content" of the revelation was partly new, yet it was harmonious +with the previous "content" of her mind, being, as it were, a congruous +development of the same--not violently thrust into the soul, but set +down softly in the appointed place already hollowed for it and, so to +say, clamouring for it as for its natural fulfilment. This, of course, +is not a point for detailed and rigorous proof, but represents an +impression that gathers strength the oftener we read and re-read Mother +Juliana's "showings." + +_Jan. Mar._ 1900. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: Prefatory Essay to Walter Hilton's _Scale of Perfection._] + +[Footnote 2: The Protestant editor of the Leicester edition (of 1845), +not understanding that an appreciation of difficulties, far from being +incompatible with faith, is a condition of the higher and more +intelligent faith, would fain credit Mother Juliana with a secret +disaffection towards the Church's authority. How far he is justif may be +gathered from such passages as these: "In this way was I taught by the +grace of God that I should steadfastly hold me fast in the faith, as I +had before understood." "It was not my meaning to take proof of anything +that belongeth to our faith, for I believed truly that Hell and +Purgatory is for the same end that Holy Church teacheth." "And I was +strengthened and learned generally to keep me in the faith in every +point ... that I might continue therein to my life's end." "God showed +full great pleasaunce that He hath in all men and women, that mightily +and wisely take the preaching and teaching of Holy Church; for it is His +Holy Church; He is the ground; He is the substance; He is the teaching; +He is the teacher," &c.] + +[Footnote 3: _Ancren Riwle_.] + +[Footnote 4: It is clear from many little touches and allusions that +throughout the "showings" Mother Juliana considers herself to be gazing, +not on a vision of Calvary, but on the illuminated crucifix hung before +her by her attendants, in which crucifix these appearances of bleeding, +suffering, movement, and speech take place. All else is shrouded in +darkness. Yet she never loses the consciousness that she is in her bed +and surrounded by others. Notice, for instance: "After this, I saw with +bodily sight in the face _of the crucifix that hung before me_," &c. +"The cross that stood before my face, methought it bled fast." "This +[bleeding] was so plenteous, to my sight, that methought if it had been +so in nature and substance" (i.e., in reality and not merely in +appearance), "it should have made the bed all a-blood, and have passed +over all about." "For this sight I laughed mightily, and made them to +laugh that were about me." Evidently she is quite awake, is well +conscious of her state and surroundings, and distinguishes appearance +from reality, shadow from substance. There is no dream-like illusion in +all this. Appearances presented to the outer senses are commonly spoken +of as "hallucinations;" but it seems to me that this word were better +reserved for those cases where appearance is mistaken for reality; and +where consequently there is illusion and deception. Mother Juliana is +aware that the crucifix is not really bleeding, as it seems to do, and +she explicitly distinguishes such a vision from her later illusory +dream-presentment of the Evil One. This dream while it lasted was, like +all dreams, confounded with reality; whereas the other phenomena, even +if made of "dream-stuff," were rated at their true value. Hence it seems +to me that if such things have any outward independent reality, to see +them is no more an hallucination than to see a rainbow. Even if they are +projected from the beholder's brain, there is no hallucination if they +are known for such; but only when they are confounded with reality, as +it were, in a waking-dream. As we are here using the word, an experience +is "real" which fits in with, and does not contradict the totality of +our experiences; which does not falsify our calculation or betray our +expectancy. If I look at a fly through a magnifying medium of whose +presence I am unconscious, its size is apparent, or illusory, and not +real; for being unaware of the unusual condition of my vision, I shall +be thrown out in my calculations, and the harmony of my experiences will +be upset by seeming contradictions. If, however, I am aware of the +medium and its nature, then I am not deceived, and what I see is +"reality," since it is as natural and real for the fly to look larger +through the optician's lense, as to look smaller through the optic +lense. I cannot call one aspect more "real" than the other, for both are +equally right and true under the given conditions. For these reasons I +should object to consider Mother Juliana's "bodily showings" as +hallucinations, so far as the term seems to imply illusion.] + +[Footnote 5: For those therefore who make an act of faith in the +absolute universality and supremacy of the laws of physics and +chemistry, and find in them the last reason of all things, these +phenomena are interesting only as studies in the mechanics of illusion.] + +[Footnote 6: It was largely by this method, supplemented no doubt by +that of reasoned discussion, that St. Ignatius guided himself in +determining points connected with the constitution of his Order, +according to the journal he has left us of his "experiences," which is +simply a record of "consolations" and "desolations."] + +[Footnote 7: i.e., A kinæsthetic idea, as it is called, an idea of +something to be done in the given conditions.] + +[Footnote 8: P. 272 in Richardson's Edit., from which I usually quote as +being the readiest available.] + +[Footnote 9: On another occasion, by looking down to the right of His +Cross, He brought to her mind, "where our Lady stood in the time of His +Passion and said: 'Wilt Thou see her?'" leading her by gesture from the +seen to the not seen.] + + + +XIV. + + +POET AND MYSTIC. + +A biographer who has any other end in view, however secondary and +incidental, than faithfully to reproduce in the mind of his readers his +own apprehension of the personality of his subject, will be so far +biassed in his task of selection; and, without any conscious deviation +from truth, will give that undue prominence to certain features and +aspects which in extreme cases may result in caricature. A Catholic +biographer of Coventry Patmore would have been tempted to gratify the +wish of a recent critic of Mr. Champneys' very efficient work, [1] and +to devote ten times as much space as has been given to the account of +his conversion, and a good deal, no doubt, to the discussion and +correction of his eccentric views in certain ecclesiastical matters; +thus giving us the history of an illustrious convert, and not that of a +poet and seer whose conversion, however intimately connected with his +poetical and intellectual life, was but an incident thereof. On the +other hand, one less intelligently sympathetic with the more spiritual +side of Catholicism than Mr. Champneys, would have lacked the principal +key to the interpretation of Patmore's highest aims and ideals, towards +which the whole growth and movement of his mind was ever tending, and by +which its successive stages of evolution are to be explained. Again, +with all possible respect for the feelings of the living, the biographer +has wisely suppressed nothing needed to bring out truthfully the +ruggednesses and irregularities that characterize the strong and +somewhat one-sided development of genius as contrasted with the regular +features and insipid perfectness of things wrought on a small scale. If +idealizing means the filing-away of jagged edges--and surely it does +not--Mr. Champneys has left us to do our own idealizing. The faults that +marred Purcell's _Life of Manning_ are here avoided, and yet truth is no +whit the sufferer in consequence. + +In speaking of Patmore as a thinker and a poet, we do not mean to +dissociate these two functions in his case, but only to classify him +(according to his own category) with those "masculine" poets whose power +lies in a beautiful utterance of the truth, rather than in a truthful +utterance of the beautiful. + +We propose, however, to occupy ourselves with the matter rather than the +mode of Patmore's utterance; with that truth which he conceived himself +to have apprehended in a newer and clearer light than others before him; +and this, because he does not stand alone, but is the representative and +exponent of a certain school of ascetic thought whose tendency is +diametrically contrary to that pseudo-mysticism which we have dealt with +elsewhere, and have ascribed to a confusion of neo-platonic and +Christian principles. This counter-tendency misses the Catholic mean in +other respects and owes its faultiness, as we shall see, to some very +analogous fallacies. If in our chapter on "The True and the False +Mysticism," it was needful to show that the principles of Christian +monasticism and contemplative life, far from in any way necessarily +retarding, rather favour and demand the highest natural development of +heart and mind; it is no less needful to assign to this thought its true +limits, and to show that the noblest expansion of our natural faculties +does not conflict with or exclude the principles of monasticism. I think +it is R.H. Hutton who remarks that it is not "easy to give us a firm +grasp of any great class of truths without loosening our grasp on some +other class of truths perhaps nobler and more vital;" and undoubtedly +Patmore and his school in emphasizing the fallacies of neo-platonic +asceticism are in danger of precipitating us into fallacies every whit +as uncatholic. It is therefore as professedly formulating the principles +of a certain school that we are interested in the doctrine of which +Patmore constitutes himself the apostle. + + Lights are constantly breaking in upon me [he + writes] and convincing me more and more that the + singular luck has fallen to me of having to write, for + the first time that any one even attempted to do so + with any fulness, on simply the greatest and most + exquisite subject that ever poet touched since the + beginning of the world. + + The more I consider the subject of the marriage of + the Blessed Virgin, the more clearly I see that it is the + _one_ absolutely lovely and perfect subject for poetry. + Perfect humanity, verging upon, but never entering the + breathless region of the Divinity, is the real subject of + _all_ true love-poetry; but in all love-poetry hitherto, an + "ideal" and not a reality has been the subject, more + or less. + +Taking the "Angel of the House" as representing the earlier, and the +"Odes" the later stage of the development which this theme received +under his hands, it seems as though he passes from the idealization and +apotheosis of married love to the conception of it as being in its +highest form, not merely the richest symbol, but even the most +efficacious sacrament of the mystical union between God and the soul. He +is well aware--though not fully at first--that these conceptions were +familiar to St. Bernard and many a Catholic mystic; it was for the +poetic apprehension and expression of them that he claimed originality; +or, at least, for their unification and systematic development. "That +his apprehensions were based generally--almost exclusively, on the +fundamental idea of nuptial love must," as Mr. Champneys says, "be +admitted." This was the governing category of his mind; the mould into +which all dualities naturally fell; it was to his philosophy what love +and hate, light and dark, form and matter, motion and atoms, have been +to others. + + It was, at all events, the predominance of this conception + which bound together his whole life's work, + rendering coherent and individualizing all which he + thought, wrote, or uttered, and those who study + Patmore without this key are little likely to understand + him. + +And it is the persistent and not always sufficiently restrained use of +this category that made much of his writing just a trifle shocking to +sensitive minds. + +These latter will have "closed his works far too promptly to discover +that far from gainsaying the Catholic instinct which prefers virginity +to marriage" (not a strictly accurate statement) he makes virginity a +condition of the idealized marriage-relation, and finds its realization +in her who was at once matron and virgin. Following the fragmentary +hints to be found here and there in patristic and mystical theology, he +assumes that virgin-spousals and virgin-birth were to have been the law +in that Paradise from which man lapsed back into natural conditions +through sin; that in the case of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph the +paradisaic law was but resumed in this respect. Accordingly, he writes +of Adam and Eve in "The Contract," + + Thus the first Eve + With much enamoured Adam did enact + Their mutual free contract + Of virgin spousals, blissful beyond flight + Of modern thought, with great intention staunch, + Though unobliged until that binding pact. + +To their infidelity to this contract he ascribes the subsequent +degradation of human love through sensuality; and all the sin and +selfishness thence deriving to our fallen race: + + Whom nothing succour can + Until a heaven-caress'd and happier Eve + Be joined with some glad Saint + In like espousals, blessed upon Earth, + And she her fruit forth bring; + + No numb chill-hearted shaken-witted thing, + 'Plaining his little span. + But of proud virgin joy the appropriate birth, + The Son of God and Man. + +The rationalistic objection to this suppression of what seems to be of +the essence or integrity of matrimony is obvious enough, and yet finds +many a retort even in the realm of nature, where the passage to a higher +grade of life so often means the stultifying of functions proper to the +lower. As to the pre-eminence of that state in which the spiritual +excellencies of marriage and virginity are combined, Catholic teaching +is quite clear and decided; in this, as in other points, Patmore's +untaught intuitions, and instincts--his _mens naturaliter +catholica_--had led him, whither the esoteric teaching of the Church had +led only the more appreciatively sympathetic of her disciples, from time +to time, as it were, up into that mountain of which St. Ambrose says: +"See, how He goes up with the Apostles and comes down to the crowds. For +how could the crowds see Christ save in a lowly spot? They do not follow +Him to the heights, nor rise to sublimities"--a notion altogether +congenial to Patmore's aristocratic bias in religion as in everything +else. Undoubtedly it was this mystical aspect of Catholic doctrine that +appealed to his whole personality, offering as it did an authoritative +approval, and suggesting an infinite realization, of those dreams that +were so sacred to him. As far as the logic of the affections goes, it +was for the sake of this that he held to all the rest; for indeed the +deeper Catholic truths are so internetted that he who seizes one, drags +all the rest along with it under pain of self-contradiction. + +No one knew better than Patmore the infinite insufficiency of the +highest created symbols to equal the eternal realities which it is their +whole purpose to set forth; he fully realized that as the lowliest +beginnings of created love seem to mock, rather than to foreshadow, the +higher forms of which they are but the failure and botched essay, so the +very highest conceivable, taken as more than a metaphor, were an +irreverent parody of the Divine love for the human soul. It is not the +_same_ relationship on an indefinitely extended scale, but only a +somewhat _similar_ relationship, the limits of whose similarity are +hidden in mystery. But when a man is so thoroughly in love with his +metaphor as Patmore was, he is tempted at times to press it in every +detail, and to forget that it is "but one acre in the infinite field of +spiritual suggestion;" that, less full and perfect metaphors of the same +reality, may supply some of its defects and correct some of its +redundancies. We should do unwisely to think of the Kingdom of Heaven +only as a kingdom, and not also as a marriage-feast, a net, a treasure, +a mustard-seed, a field, and so forth, since each figure supplies some +element lost in the others, and all together are nearer to the truth +than any one: and so, although the married love of Mary and Joseph is +one of the fullest revealed images of God's relation to the soul, we +should narrow the range of our spiritual vision, were we to neglect +those supplementary glimpses at the mystery afforded by other figures +and shadowings. + +And this leads us to the consideration of a difficulty connected with +another point of Patmore's doctrine of divine love. He held that the +idealized marriage relationship was not merely the symbol, but the most +effectual sacrament and instrument of that love; "yet the world," he +complains, "goes on talking, writing, and preaching as if there were +some essential contrariety between the two," the disproof of which "was +the inspiring idea at the heart of my long poem (the 'Angel')." Now, +although in asserting that the most absorbing and exclusive form of +human affection is not only compatible with, but even instrumental to +the highest kind of sanctity and divine love, Patmore claimed to be at +one, at least in principle, with some of the deeper utterances of the +Saints and Fathers of the Christian Church; it cannot be denied that the +assertion is _prima facie_ opposed to the common tradition of Catholic +asceticism; and to the apparent _raison d'être_ of every sort of +monastic institution. + +It must be confessed that, in regard to the reconciliation of the claims +of intense human affection with those of intense sanctity, there have +been among all religious teachers two distinct conceptions struggling +for birth, often in one and the same mind, either of which taken as +adequate must exclude the other. It would not be hard to quote the +utterances of saints and ascetics for either view; or to convict +individual authorities of seeming self-contradiction in the matter. The +reason of this is apparently that neither view is or can be adequate; +that one is weak where the other is strong; that they are both imperfect +analogies of a relationship that is unique and _sui generis_--the +relationship between God and the soul. Hence neither hits the centre of +truth, but glances aside, one at the right hand, the other at the left. +Briefly, it is a question of the precise sense in which God is "a +jealous God" and demands to be loved alone. The first and easier mode of +conception is that which is implied in the commoner language of saints +and ascetics--language perhaps consciously symbolic and defective in its +first usage, but which has been inevitably literalised and hardened when +taken upon the lips of the multitude. God is necessarily spoken of and +imagined in terms of the creature, and when the analogical character of +such expression slips from consciousness, as it does almost instantly, +He is spoken of, and therefore thought of, as the First of Creatures +competing with the rest for the love of man's heart. He is placed +alongside of them in our imagination, not behind them or in them. Hence +comes the inference that whatever love they win from us in their own +right, by reason of their inherent goodness, is taken from Him. Even +though He be loved better than all of them put together, yet He is not +loved perfectly till He be loved alone. Their function is to raise and +disappoint our desire time after time, till we be starved back to Him as +to the sole-satisfying--everything else having proved _vanitas +vanitatum_. Then indeed we go back to them, not for their own sakes, but +for His; not attracted by our love of them, but impelled by our love of +Him. + +This mode of imagining the truth, so as to explain the divine jealousy +implied in the precept of loving God exclusively and supremely, is, for +all its patent limitations, the most generally serviceable. Treated as a +strict equation of thought to fact, and pushed accordingly to its utmost +logical consequences, it becomes a source of danger; but in fact it is +not and will not be so treated by the majority of good Christians who +serve God faithfully but without enthusiasm; whose devotion is mainly +rational and but slightly affective; who do not conceive themselves +called to the way of the saints, or to offer God that all-absorbing +affection which would necessitate the weakening or severing of natural +ties. In the event, however, of such a call to perfect love, the logical +and practical outcome of this mode of imagining the relation of God to +creatures is a steady subtraction of the natural love bestowed upon +friends and relations, that the energy thus economized may be +transferred to God. This concentration may indeed be justified on other +and independent grounds; but the implied supposition that, the highest +sanctity is incompatible with any pure and well-ordered natural +affection, however intense, is certainly ill-sounding, and hardly +reconcilable with the divinest examples and precepts. + +The limitations of this simpler and more practical mode of imagining the +matter are to some extent supplemented by that other mode for which +Patmore found so much authority in St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Teresa, +and many another, and which he perhaps too readily regarded as +exhaustively satisfactory. + +In this conception, God is placed, not alongside of creatures, but +behind them, as the light which shines through a crystal and lends it +whatever it has of lustre. In recognizing whatever true brilliancy or +beauty creatures possess as due to His inbiding presence, the love which +they excite in us passes on to Him, through them. As He is the primary +Agent and Mover in all our action and movement, the primary Lover in all +our pure and well-ordered love; and we, but instruments of His action, +movement, and love; so, in whatever we love rightly and divinely for its +true merit and divinity, it is He who is ultimately loved. Thus in all +pure and well-ordered affection it is, ultimately, God who loves and God +who is loved; it is God returning to Himself, the One to the One. +According to this imagery, God is viewed as the First Efficient and the +ultimate Final Cause in a circular chain of causes and effects of which +He is at once the first link and the last--a conception which, in so far +as it brings God inside the system of nature as part thereof, is, like +the last, only analogously true, and may not be pressed too far in its +consequences. + +In this view, to love God supremely and exclusively means practically, +to love only the best things in the best way, recognizing God both in +the affection and in its object. God is not loved apart from creatures, +or beside them; but through them and in them. Hence if only the +affection be of the right kind as to mode and object, the more the +better; nor can there be any question of crowding other affections into +a corner in order to make more room for the love of God in our hearts. +The love of Him is the "form," the principle of order and harmony; our +natural affections are the "matter," harmonized and set in order; it is +the soul, they are the body, of that one Divine Love whose adequate +object is God in, and not apart from, His creatures. + +It would not perhaps be hard to reconcile this view with some utterances +in the Gospel of seemingly opposite import; or to find it often implied +in the words and actions of Catholic Saints; but to square it with the +general ascetic traditions of the faithful at large is exceedingly +difficult. Patmore would no doubt have allowed the expediency of +celibacy in the case of men and women devoted to the direct ministry of +good works, spiritual and corporal: a devotion incompatible with +domestic cares; he could and did allow the superiority of voluntary +virginity and absolute chastity over the contrary state of lawful use; +but he could hardly have justified--hardly not have condemned those who +leave father, friend, or spouse, not merely externally in order to be +free for good works, but internally in order that their hearts may be +free for the contemplation and love of God viewed apart from creatures +and not merely in them. He might perhaps say that, as we cannot go to +God through all creatures, but only through some (since we are not each +in contact with all), we must select according to our circumstances +those which will give the greatest expansion and elevation to our +natural affections; and that for some, the home is wisely sacrificed for +the community or the church. Yet this hardly consists with the +pre-eminence he gives to married love as the nearest symbol and +sacrament of divine. + +Both these modes of imagining the truth, whatever their inconveniences, +are helpful as imperfect formulations of Catholic instinct; both +mischievous, if viewed as adequate and close-fitting explanations. +Patmore was characteristically enthusiastic for his own aspect of the +truth; and characteristically impatient of the other. Thus, of à Kempis +he says: + +There is much that is quite unfit for, and untrue of, people who live in +the ordinary relations of life. I don't think I like the book quite so +much as I did. There is a hot-house, egotistical air about much of its +piety. Other persons are, ordinarily, the appointed means of learning +the love of God; and to stifle human affections must be very often to +render the love of God impossible. + +In other words, the further he pushed the one conception the further he +diverged from à Kempis, whose asceticism was built almost purely on the +other. + +Most probably a reconciliation of these two conceptions will be found in +a clear recognition of the two modes in which God is apprehended and +consequently loved by the human mind and heart; the one concrete and +experimental, accessible to the simplest and least cultured, and of +necessity for all; the other, abstract in a sense--a knowledge through +the ideas and representations of the mind, demanding a certain degree of +intelligence and studious contemplation, and therefore not necessary, at +least in any high degree, for all. The difference is like that between +the knowledge of salt as tasted in solution and the knowledge of it as +seen apart in its crystallized state; or between the knowledge and love +of a musical composer as known in his compositions, and as known in +himself, from his compositions. The latter needs a not universal power +of inference which the most sympathetic musical expert may entirely +lack. + +Of these two approaches to Divine love and union, the former is +certainly compatible with, and conducive to, the unlimited fulness of +every well-ordered natural affection; but the latter--a life of more +conscious, reflex, and actual attention to God--undoubtedly does require +a certain abstraction and concentration of our limited spiritual +energies, and can only be trodden at the cost of a certain inward +seclusion of which outward seclusion is normally a condition. +Instinctively, Catholic tradition has regarded it as a vocation +apart--as, like the life of continence, a call to something more than +human, and demanding a sacrifice or atrophy of functions proper to +another grade of spirituality. Even what is called a "life of thought" +makes a similar demand to a great extent; it involves a narrowing of +other interests; a departure from the conditions of ordinary practical +life. The "contemplative life" is inclusively all this and more; it is a +sort of anticipation of the future life of vision. Still, though for a +few it may be the surest or the only approach to sanctity, yet there is +no degree of Divine love that may not be reached by the commoner and +normal path; there have been saints outside the cloister as well as +inside. One could hardly offend the first principles of the Gospel more +grievously than by making intelligence, culture, and contemplative +capacity conditions of a nearer approach to Christ. + +It seems to us then that Patmore failed to get at the root of the +neglected truth after which he was groping, and thereby fell into a +one-sidedness just as real as that against which his chief work was a +revolt and protest. + +As a convert, Patmore is most uninteresting to the controversialist. His +mind was altogether concrete, affirmative, and synthetic, with a +profound distrust of abstract and analytical reasoning. As we have said, +Christianity and, later, Catholicism appealed profoundly to his +intellectual imagination in virtue of some of their deeper tenets, for +whose sake he took over all the rest _per modum unius_. + +The idea [of the Incarnation] no sooner flashed upon me as a possible +reality than it became, what it has ever since remained, ... the only +reality worth seriously caring for; a reality so clearly seen and +possessed that the most irrefragable logic of disproof has always +affected me as something trifling and irrelevant. + +Again: "Christianity is not an 'historical religion,' but a revelation +which is renewed in every receiver of it." "My heart loves that of whose +existence my intellect allows the probability, and my will puts the seal +to the blessed compact which produces faith"--an ingenious application +of his favourite category. + +Of the efforts of Manning and de Vere to proselytize him, he says: + +Their position seemed to me to be so logically perfect that I was long +repelled by its perfection. I felt, half unconsciously, that a living +thing ought not to be so spick and span in its external evidence for +itself, and that what I wanted for conviction was not the sight of a +faultless intellectual superficies, but the touch and pressure of a +moral solid. + +Whatever some may think or have thought of his theology, none who knew +him could have any doubt as to the robust and uncompromising character +of his faith. It was because he felt so sure of his footing that he +allowed himself a liberty of movement perplexing to those whose position +was one of more delicate balance. He had a ruthlessness in tossing aside +what might be called "non-essentials," that was dictated not so much by +an under-estimate of their due importance, as by an impatience with +those who over-estimated them, confounding the vessel with its contained +treasure. + +When he says: "I believe in Christianity as it will be ten thousand +years hence," it would be a grave misinterpretation to suppose that he +implied any lack of belief in the Christianity of to-day. It is but +another assertion of his claim to be in sympathy with the esoteric +rather than the exoteric teaching of the present; to be on the mount +with the few and not on the plain with the many. For as the glacier +formed on the mountain slips slowly down to the plain, so, he held, the +esoteric teaching of to-day will be the popular teaching of future ages. +However little we may relish this distinction between "aristocratic" and +vulgar belief; however strongly we may hold that best knowledge of +God--that, namely, which is experimental and tactual rather than +intellectual or imaginative--is equally accessible to all; yet just so +far as there is question of the intellectual and imaginative forms in +which the faith is apprehended, the distinction does and must exist, not +only in religion but in every department of belief, as long as there are +different levels of culture in the same body of believers. It is, after +all, a much more superficial difference than it sounds--a difference of +language and symbolism for the same realities. Where language fits +close, as it does to things measurable by our senses, divergency makes +the difference between truth and error; but where it is question of the +substitution of one analogy or symbol for another, the more elegant is +not necessarily the more truthful; nor when we consider the infinite +inadequacy of even the noblest conceivable finite symbolism to bring God +down to our level, need we pride ourselves much for being on a mountain +whose height is perceptible from the plain but imperceptible from the +heavens. + +Hence to say that the distinction between esoteric and exoteric teaching +means that the Church has two creeds, one for the simple, another for +the educated, is a thoughtless criticism which overlooks the necessarily +symbolic nature of all language concerning the "eternities," and +confounds a different mode of expression with a difference of the facts +and realities expressed. + +Matthew Arnold, too, believed in the Catholicism of the future; but in +how different a sense! What he hoped for was, roughly speaking, the +preservation of the ancient and beautiful husk after the kernel had been +withered up and discarded; what Patmore looked forward to was the +expansion of the kernel bursting one involucre after another, and ever +clamouring for fairer and more adequate covering. With one, the language +of religion was all too wide; with the other, all too narrow, for its +real signification. Arnold belongs to the first, Patmore to the last of +those three stages of religious thought of which Mr. Champneys writes: + +The first is represented by those whose creed is so simple as to afford +little or no ground for contention; the second by such as in their +search for greater precision enlarge the domain of dogma, but fail to +pass beyond its mere technical aspect; the third consists of those who +rise from the technical to the spiritual, and without repudiating or +disparaging dogma, use it mainly as a guide and support to thought which +transcends mere definition. + + +_Dec._ 1900. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: _Coventry Patmore_. By Basil Champneys. Geo. Bell and Sons, +1900.] + + + +XV. + + +TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE. + +Dealing as both do so largely with the inner life of English Catholic +society, it is hardly possible to avoid comparing and contrasting _One +Poor Scruple_ [1] with _Helbeck of Bannisdale_,--one the work of a +Catholic who knows the matter she is handling, almost experimentally; +the other the work of a gifted outsider whose singular talent, careful +observation, and studious endeavour to be fair-minded, fail to save her +altogether from that unreality and _à priori_ extravagance which +experience alone can correct. To the non-Catholic, Mrs. Humphrey Ward's +book will appear a marvel of insight and acute analysis; for it will fit +in with, and explain his outside observation of those Catholics with +whom he has actually come in contact, far better than the preposterous +notions that were in vogue fifty years ago. It represents them not as +monstrously wicked and childishly idolatrous; but as narrow, +extravagant, out-of-date, albeit, well-meaning folk--more pitiable than +dangerous. + +Formerly when they lived secret and unknown, anything might safely be +asserted about them; nothing was too wild or improbable. In those days +"Father Clement" was the issue of a superhuman effort at charity and +fairness; and the author almost seemed to think an apology was needed +for such temerarious liberalism. But when Catholics began to breathe a +little more freely and to creep out of their burrows somewhat less +nervously; when, in fact, they were seen to be, at least in outward +semblance, much as other men; some regard had to be paid to statements +that could be checked by observation; and the Papist's disappointing +ordinariness had to be attributed to dissimulation or to be otherwise +interpreted into accord with the preposterous principles by which their +lives were thought to be governed. + +Mrs. Humphrey Ward represents the furthest advance of this reform. She +at least has spared no pains to acquaint herself with facts, to gather +information, to verify statements. She is never guilty of the grotesque +blunders that other high-class novelists fall into about Catholic +beliefs, practices, and habits, simply because they are dealing with +what is to their readers a _terra incognita,_ and can, therefore, afford +to be loose and inaccurate. An artistic conscientiousness which values +truth and honesty in every detail, saves her from this too common snare. +But it does not and cannot save her in the work of selection, synthesis, +and interpretation of instances, which has to be guided, not by +objective facts, but by subjective opinions and impressions. History +written in a purely positivist spirit, _ad narrandum_, and in no sense +_ad docendum_, is a chimerical notion by which Renan beguiled himself +into thinking that his _Vie de Jesus_ was a bundle of facts and nothing +more. And Mrs. Humphrey Ward is no less beguiled, if she is unaware that +in threading together, classifying and explaining the results of her +conscientious observation and inquiry, she is governed by an _a priori_ +conception of Catholicism hardly different from that which inspired the +author of "Father Clement." Hence, to us Catholics, though her evident +desire to be critical and impartial is gratifying, yet her failure is +none the less conspicuous. Dr. Johnson once observed, that what might be +wonderful dancing for a dog would be a very poor performance for a +Christian; and so, to us, "Helbeck" as a presentment of Catholic life is +wonderful as coming from an outsider, and, perhaps, especially from Mrs. +Humphrey Ward, but in itself it is grotesque enough--not through any +culpable infidelity to facts, but through lack of the visual power, the +guiding idea, whereby to read them aright. + +In _One Poor Scruple_, Mrs. Wilfrid Ward brings to bear upon a somewhat +similar task, an equal fidelity of observation supplemented by a +first-hand, far wider, and more intimate experience of Catholics and +their ways, and, above all, by that key which a share in their faith and +beliefs alone furnishes to the right understanding of their conduct. +Here too, no doubt, a contrary bias is to be suspected, nor is a purely, +"positive" treatment of the subject conceivable or desirable. The view +of an insider is as partial as the view of an outsider, though less +viciously so; nor can we get at truth by the simple expedient of fitting +the two together. The best witness is the rare individual who to an +inside and experimental knowledge, adds the faculty of going outside and +taking an objective and disinterested view. In truth this needs an +amount of intellectual self-denial seldom realized to any great degree; +but we venture to say that Mrs. Wilfrid Ward proves herself very worthy +of confidence in this respect. There is certainly no artistic idealizing +of Catholics, such as we are accustomed to in books written for the +edification of the faithful. There is the same almost merciless realism +which we find in "Helbeck" in dealing with certain trivialities and +narrownesses of piety--defects common to all whom circumstances confine +to a little world, but more incongruous and conspicuous as contrasted +with the dignity of Catholic ideals. Without conscious departure from +truth, Mrs. Humphrey Ward is evidently influenced in her selection and +manipulation of facts by the impression of Catholicism she already +possesses and wants to illustrate and convey; but Mrs. Wilfrid Ward has, +we think, risen above this weakness very notably, and should accordingly +merit greater attention. + +It may well be that this judicial impartiality may meet with its usual +reward of pleasing neither side altogether. Some will complain that she +brings no idealizing love to her subject, and does little to bring out +the greatness and glory of her religion. Yet this would be a hasty and +ill-judging criticism; for our faith is no less to be commended for the +restraint it exercises over the multitude of ordinary men and women, +than for the effect it produces in souls of a naturally heroic type. +That it should bring a certain largeness into the smallest life, that it +should impart a strange stability to a naturally unstable and frivolous +character; that it should check the worldly-minded with a sense of the +superior claims of the other world--all this impresses us, if not with +the sublimity or mystic beauty, at least with the solid reality and +penetrating power of the Catholic faith. + +The most loyal and deep-seated love needs not to shut its eyes to all +defects and limitations, but can face them unchilled; and similarly +there is often more faith and reverence and quiet enthusiasm in this +seemingly cold and critical attitude towards the cause or party we love, +than in the extravagant idealism that depends for its maintenance on an +ignoring of things as they are. + +Nothing perhaps is more unintelligible to the Protestant critic of +Catholicism, nothing more needs to be brought out prominently, than the +firm hold our religion can exercise over souls that are naturally +irreligious. + +This very phrase "naturally irreligious" will fall with a shock on +sensitive Protestant ears; yet we use it advisedly. While all men are +capable of faith and of substantial fidelity to the law of God, it is +undeniable that but few are by natural inclination "religious" in the +common acceptation of the term. As there is a poetic or mystical +temperament, so also there is a religious temperament--not quite so +rare, but still something exceptional. + +We find it so in all ages, ancient and modern; in all religions, +Christian and non-Christian--nay, even amid agnostics and unbelievers we +often detect the now aimless, unused faculty. But most men have, +naturally, no ardent spiritual sympathy with holiness, or mysticism, or +heroism; their interests are elsewhere; and even where there are latent +capacities of that kind, they are not usually developed until life's +severest lessons have been learnt. Thus the young, who have just left +the negative faith and innocence of the nursery behind them and stand +inexperienced on the threshold of life, are not normally religious; +whereas we naturally expect those who have passed through the ordeal, +and been disillusioned, to begin to think about their souls, since there +is nothing else left to think about. + +Now, the Catholic religion clearly recognizes these facts of human +nature, and accommodates herself to them. However frankly it may be +acknowledged that a religious temperament--a certain complexus of +mental, moral, and even physical dispositions--is a condition favourable +to heroic sanctity, it must be emphatically denied that to be +"religious," in the Protestant sense of the word, is requisite for +salvation. And this denial the Church enforces by her recognition of the +"religious state" [2] as an extraordinary vocation. The purpose of +"orders" and "congregations" is to provide a suitable environment for +people of a religious temperament whose circumstances permit them to +attend to its development in a more exclusive and, as it were, +professional way. Not, indeed, that all religious-minded persons do, or +ought to, enter into that external state of life; nor that all who so +enter are by temperament and sympathy fitted for it, but that the +institution points to the Church's recognition of what is technically +called the "way of perfection" as something exceptional and +super-normal. + +But the Church has a wider vocation than to provide hot-houses for the +forcing of these rare exotics, whom the rough climate of a worldly life +would either stunt or kill. Her first thought is for the multitudes of +average humanity, who are not, and cannot be, in intelligent sympathy +with many of the commands she lays upon them. They are but as children +in religious matters--however cultivated they may chance to be in other +concerns. From such souls God requires faith, and obedience to the +commandments--a due, which, in certain rare crises, may mean heroism and +martyrdom; but He does not expect of them that refinement of sanctity, +that sustained attention to divine things, which depends so largely on +one's natural cast of mind and disposition; and may even be found where +the martyr's temper is altogether wanting. We recognize that there is +certain serviceable, fustian, every-day piety, where, together with a +great deal of spiritual coarseness, insensibility to venial sin and +imperfection, there exists a firm faith that would go cheerfully to the +stake rather than deny God, or offend Him in any grave point that might +be considered a _casus belli_. And on the other hand a certain nicety of +ethical discernment and delicacy of devotion, an anxiety about points of +perfection, is a guarantee rather of the quality of one's piety than of +its depth or strength. The saint is usually one whose piety excels both +in quality and strength; the martyr is often enough a man of many +imperfections and sins, veiling an unsuspected, deep-reaching faith. The +day of persecution has ever been a day of revelation in this respect--a +day when the seemingly perfect have been scattered like chaff before the +wind, while the once thoughtless and careless have stood stubborn before +the blast. + +Protestantism of the Calvinistic or Puritan type shows little +consciousness of the distinction we are insisting upon. It is disposed +to draw a hard-and-fast line between the "converted" and the reprobate. +Those who are not religious-minded, or who do not take a serious turn, +are scarcely recognized as "saved" although they may not be convicted of +any very flagrant or definite breach of the divine law. Their morality +or their "good works" go for little if they do not experience that sense +of goodness, or of being saved, which is called faith. Much stress is +laid on "feeling good" and little value allowed to what we might call an +unsympathetic and grudging keeping of God's law--however much more it +may cost, from the very fact that it is in some way unsympathetic, and +against the grain. The service of fear and reverence, which Catholicism +regards as the basis and back-bone of love, is held to be abject and +unworthy--almost sinful. + +Hence it befalls that no place is found in the Protestant heaven for the +great majority of ordinary people who do not feel a bit good or +religious, who rather dislike going to church and keeping the +commandments, and yet who keep them all the same, because they believe +in God and fear His judgments and honour His law, and even love Him in +the solid, undemonstrative way in which a naughty and troublesome child +loves its parents. + +That such a character as Madge Riversdale's should cover a small, firm +core of faith and fear under a cortex of worldliness and frivolity; that +religion should have such a hold on one so entirely irreligious by +nature, is something quite inconceivable to a mind like, let us say, +Mrs. Humphrey Ward's; and yet absolutely intelligible to the ordinary +Catholic. + +The Church to us, is not what it is to the Protestant--a sort of pasture +land in which we are at liberty to browse if we are piously disposed. It +is not merely a convenient environment for the development of the +religious faculty. She stands to us in the relation of shepherd, with a +more than parental authority to feed and train our souls through infancy +to maturity; that is, from the time when we do not know or like what is +good for us, to the time when we begin to appreciate and spontaneously +follow her directions. Just then as a child, however naturally +recalcitrant and ill-disposed, retains a certain fundamental goodness +and root of recovery so long as it acknowledges and obeys the authority +of its father and mother; so the ordinary unreligious Catholic, who has +been brought up to believe in the divine authority of the Church, finds +therein all the protection that obedience offers to those who are +incapable of self-government. "In Madge's eyes the woman who married an +innocent divorcee was no more than his mistress." Had Madge been a pious +Protestant she naturally might have examined the question of divorce on +its own merits; she might have weighed the pros and cons of the problem; +she might have consulted God in prayer, and have listened to this +clergyman on one side; and to that, on the other: but eventually she +would have been thrown upon herself; she would have had no one whose +decision she was bound to obey. But wild and lawless as she is, yet +being a Catholic there is one voice on earth which she fears to +disbelieve or disobey. Looked at even from a human standpoint, the +consensus of a world-wide, ancient, organized society like the Roman +Church cannot but exert a powerful pressure on the minds of its +individual members. It would need no ordinary rebellion of the will for +a thoughtless girl to shake her mind so free of that influence as to +live happily in the state of revolt. But where in addition to this the +Church is viewed as speaking in the name of God, and as so representing +Him on earth that her ban or blessing is inseparable from His, it is +obvious that such a belief in her claims will give her a power for good +over the unreligious majority analogous to that possessed by a parent +over an untrained child--a power, that is, of discipline and external +motive which serves to supplement or supply for the present defect of +internal motive. + +Thus it is that the Church reckons among her obedient children thousands +of very imperfect and non-religious people for whom Protestantism can +find no place among the elect. + +Again, the solid faith of men with so little intellectual or emotional +interest in religion as Squire Riversdale or Marmaduke Lemarchant is +something very puzzling to the Protestant critic who, for the reasons +just insisted on, can have nothing corresponding to it in his own +experience. It is a psychological state of which his own religious +system takes no account. Where there is no intermediating Church, the +soul is either in direct and mystical union with God or else wholly +estranged and indifferent. A man is either serious and religious-minded, +or he is nothing. Like an untutored child, if he is not naturally good, +there is no one to make him so. But when the Church is acknowledged as +our tutor under God, as empowered by Him to lead us to Him; a middle +condition is found of those who are not naturally disposed to religion, +and yet who are submissive to that divine authority whose office it is +to shape their souls to better sympathies. Riversdale is a far truer +type of the Catholic country squire of the old school than the somewhat +morbid and impossible Helbeck of Bannisdale. With her preconceived +notions, Mrs. Humphrey Ward could not imagine any alternative between +'religious' and 'irreligious' in the Puritan sense. If Helbeck was to be +a good Catholic at all he must of necessity be fanatically devoted to +the propagation of the faith and offer his fortune and energies to the +service of an unscrupulous clergy only too ready to play upon his +credulous enthusiasm. His is represented as being naturally a religious +and mystical soul, but blighted and narrowed through the influence of +Catholicism. We are made to feel that the only thing the matter with him +is his creed--"all those stifling notions of sin, penance, absolution, +direction, as they were conventionalized in Catholic practice and +chattered about by stupid and mindless people." + +On the other hand, in Squire Riversdale and Marmaduke Lemarchant there +is by nature nothing but healthy humanity, no mystic or religious strain +whatever; they are not semi-ecclesiastics like Helbeck; and yet we feel +that their prosaic lives are governed, restrained, and rectified by a +deep-rooted faith in the authority of the Catholic Church. "The +qualities most obvious are not those of the mystic, but of the manly +out-of-door sportsman who may seem to be nothing more than a bluff +Englishman who rides to the hounds and does his ordinary duties. Yet one +of these red-coated cavaliers would, I have not the least doubt, if +occasion called for it, show himself capable of the very highest +heroism. Men of action, I should say, and not of reflection--a race of +few words but of brave deeds." + +It was just men of this unromantic type, men of solid but unostentatious +faith, given wholly to the business of this life save for one sovereign +secret reserve, who in time of persecution stood fast "ready any day to +be martyred for the faith and to regard it as the performance of a +simple duty and nothing to boast of." And if there is in the type a +certain narrowness of sympathy and lack of intelligent interest which +offends us, we may ask whether, with our human limitations, narrowness +is not to some extent the price we pay for strength; whether where +decision of judgment and energy of action is demanded, as in times of +persecution, width of view and multiplicity of sympathies may not be a +source of weakness. Contrast, for example, the character of Mark Fieldes +with that of Marmaduke Lemarchant, and it will be clear that the +strength and straightness of the latter is closely associated with the +absence of that versatility of intellect and affection which make the +former a more interesting but far less lovable and estimable +personality. To see all sides and issues of a question, is a +speculative, but not always a practical advantage; to have many +diversified tastes and affections helps to enlarge our sympathies, but +not to concentrate our energies. + +Of course great minds and strong hearts can afford to be comprehensive +without loss of depth and intensity; but our present interest is with +ordinary mortals and average powers. A man who has all his life +unreflectingly adopted the traditional principle that death is +preferable to dishonour, that a lie is essentially dishonourable, will +be far more likely to die for the truth, than one who has philosophized +much about honour and veracity, and whose resolution is enfeebled by the +consciousness of the weak and flimsy support which theory lends to these +healthy and universally received maxims. And similarly those who have +received the faith by tradition, who for years have assumed it in their +daily conduct as a matter of course, in whom therefore it has become an +ingrained psychological habit, who hold it, in what might be condemned +as a narrow, unintellectual fashion, are just the very people who will +fight and die for it, when its more cultivated and reflective professors +waver, temporize, and fall away. Taking human nature as it is, who can +doubt but that this is the way in which the majority are intended to +hold their religious, moral, philosophical, and political convictions; +that reflex thought is, must, and ought to be confined to a small +minority whose function is slowly to shape and correct that great body +of public doctrine by which the beliefs of the multitude are ruled? We +do not mean to say that such prosaic "narrowness" as we speak of, is +essential to strength; but only that a habit of theoretical speculation +and a continual cultivation of delicate sensibility is a source of +enervation which needs some compensating corrective. This corrective is +found in the exalted idealism which characterizes the great saints and +reformers, such as Augustine, or Francis, or Teresa, or Ignatius--souls +at once mystical and energetically practical to the highest degree. It +is something of this temper which is parodied in Alan Helbeck. But the +Church's mission is not merely to those rare souls whose sympathy with +her own mind and will is intelligent and spontaneous; but at least as +much to the multitudes who have to be guided more or less blindly by +obedience to tradition and authority, or else let wander as sheep having +no shepherd. These considerations explain why _One Poor Scruple_ seems +to us so far truer a presentment of Catholic life than _Helbeck of +Bannisdale_--the difference lying in the incommunicable advantage which +an insider possesses over an outsider in understanding the spirit and +principles by which the members of any social body are governed. Of all +religions, Catholicism which represents the accumulated results of two +thousand years' worldwide experience of human nature applied to the +principles of the Gospel, is least likely to be comprehended by an +outsider, however observant and fair-minded. + +To those for whom the lawfulness of re-marriage for an innocent divorcee +is, like the rest of their religious beliefs, a matter of opinion, the +scruple of a character like Madge Riversdale is unthinkable and +incredible. Such women do not trouble their heads about theological +points; still less, make heroic sacrifices for their private and +peculiar convictions. But those for whom the Church is a definite +concrete reality--almost a person--governing and teaching with divine +authority, will easily understand the firm grip she can and does exert +on those who have no other internal principle of restraint; who would +shake themselves free if they dared. Let those who despise the results +of such a constraint be consistent and abolish all parental and tutorial +control; all educative government of whatsoever description; nay, the +imperious restraint of conscience itself, which is often obeyed but +grudgingly. + +While some features of this portrait of Catholic life are common to all +its phases, others are peculiar to the aspect it presents in England, +where Catholics being a small and weak minority are, so to say, +self-conscious in their faith--continually aware that they are not as +the rest of men; disposed therefore to be apologetic or aggressive or +defensive. Again, the circumstance of their long exclusion from the +social and intellectual life of their country is accountable for other +undesirable peculiarities which Mrs. Wilfrid Ward sees no reason to +spare. + +We have not, however, attempted anything like a literary estimate of +this interesting, altogether readable work, but have only endeavoured to +draw attention to an important point, which, whether intentionally or +unintentionally, it illustrates very admirably. + +_May_, 1899. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: _One Poor Scruple._ By Mrs. Wilfrid Ward. London: Longmans, +1899.] + +[Footnote 2: We do not mean to imply that there is any close +etymological relation between these two uses of the term.] + + + +XVI. + + +A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS. + +The appearance of a work by the Hon. W. Gibson on _The Abbé de +Lamennais, and the Catholic Liberal Movement in France_, invites us to a +new attempt to grapple with a problem which has so far met with no +satisfactory solution, and probably never will. Up to a certain point we +seem to follow more or less intelligently the working of the restless +soul of De Lamennais; but at the last and great crisis of his life we +find all our calculations at fault; "we try to understand him; we wish +that penetrating into the inmost recesses of his wounded soul, we could +force it to yield up its secret, and once more sympathize with him, +perhaps console him; but we cannot. He is an enigma, as impenetrable as +the rocks on his native shore." + +From whatever point of view the story of his life is regarded, it +presents itself as a tragedy. The believing Catholic sees there the ruin +of a vocation to such a work as only a few souls in the history of the +Church are called to accomplish--a ruin desperate and deplorable in +proportion to the force of the talents and energies diverted from the +right path. The non-Catholic or unbeliever cannot fail to be moved by +contemplating the fruitless struggles of a mind so keen, a heart so +enthusiastic in the cause of light and liberty--struggles ending in +failure, perplexity, confusion, and misery. But while we allow a large +element of mystery in his character which will never be eliminated, yet +as we return time after time to gaze upon the picture of his life, as a +whole, and in its details, the seemingly discordant items begin quietly +to drop into their places one after another, and to exhibit unnoticed +connections; and the idea of his distinctive personality begins to shape +itself into a coherent unity. + +It is not our purpose here to summarize Mr. Gibson's admirable work, or +to give even an outline of so well-known a history; but rather to +attempt some brief criticism of the man himself, and incidentally of his +views. + +Temperament and early education are among the principal determinants of +character; and certainly when we contrast Féli with his brother Jean, +who presumably received the same home-training, we see how largely he +was the creature of temperament. Jean was by nature the "good boy," +tractable and docile; Féli, the unmanageable, the lawless, the violent. +While Jean was dutifully learning his lessons to order, Féli, the +obstreperous, imprisoned in the library, was feeding his tender mind +with Diderot, Montaigne, Pascal, Voltaire, Rousseau, and similar diet, +and at twelve exhibited such infidel tendencies as made it prudent to +defer his first Communion for some ten years. + +From first to last, whether we consider his childish waywardness and +outbreaks of violent passion, which persevered in a less childish form +through manhood; or the fits of intense depression and melancholy, +alternating with spells of high nerve-tension and feverish excitement; +or the restlessness and impatient energy which showed themselves always +and everywhere, and at times drove him like a wild man into the woods, +"seeking rest and finding none;" or the prophetic, not to say, the +fanatical strain which breaks out in so much of his writing, especially +in the _Paroles d'un Croyant_,--in all alike there is evident that +predominance of the imaginative and emotional elements which, combined +with intellectual gifts, constitute genius as commonly understood. For +such a character the training which would suffice for half a dozen good +little Jeans would be wholly inadequate. So much fire and feeling ill +submits to the yoke of self-restraint in matters moral or intellectual. +The mind is apt to be fascinated by the brilliant pictures of the +imagination and to become a slave to the tyranny of a fixed idea; while +the strength of passionate desire paralyzes the power of free +deliberation. It is precisely this self-restraint, the fruit of a +careful education given and responded to, that we miss in De Lammenais +both in his moral character and in his mind. Peace and tranquillity of +soul are essential to successful thinking, more especially in +philosophy; and in proportion as a brilliant imagination is a help, it +is also a danger if let run riot. At times, wearied out with himself, he +seems to have felt the need of retreat and quiet; but he was almost as +constitutionally incapable of keeping still, as certain modern statesmen +in their retirement from public life. We smile when we hear him in the +violent first fervour of his conversion, talking about becoming a +Trappist, and, later, a Jesuit. He knew himself better when he shrank so +long and persistently from the yoke of priesthood, and when, having +yielded against his truer instincts to the indiscreet zeal of pious +friends, he experienced an agony of repugnance at his first Mass. With +different antecedents he might have profited by the yoke, but as things +stood it could but gall him. + +In spite of Mr. Gibson's contention to the contrary, it can hardly be +maintained that De Lamennais was well educated in the strict sense of +the expression. The evidence he adduces points to a marvellous diversity +of interests, and even to close and careful reading. But on the whole he +was self-taught, and a self-taught man is never educated. Without +intercourse with other living minds, education is impossible. This is +indeed hoisting De Lammenais with his own petard. For, according to +"Traditionalism," the mind is paralyzed by isolation, and can be duly +developed only in society. An overweening self-confidence and slight +regard for the labours of other thinkers usually characterizes +self-taught genius. This it was that led him to cut all connection with +the philosophy of the past, and to attempt to build up, single-handed, a +new system to supplant that which had been the fruit of the collective +mind-labour of centuries. "I shall work out," he writes calmly to the +Abbé Brute, "a new system for the defence of Christianity against +infidels and heretics, a very simple system, in which the proofs will be +so rigorous that unless one is prepared to give up the right of saying +_I am_, it will be necessary to say _Credo_ to the very end." Only a man +with a very slight and superficial acquaintance with the endeavours of +previous apologists, and the extreme difficulty of the problem, could +speak with such portentous self-confidence. And the result bears out +this remark. For grand and imposing as is the structure of the _Essai +sur l'Indifférence,_ it rests on fallacies so patent that none but a man +of no philosophical training could have failed to perceive them. Here it +is that the self-taught man comes to grief and often misses the mere +truisms of traditional teaching. + +Doubtless ecclesiastical philosophy and theology was then more than ever +painfully fossilized, and altogether lifeless and out of sympathy with +the spirit of the age. It needed to be quickened, adapted and applied to +modern exigencies. The undue intrusion of metaphysics into the domain of +positive knowledge needed checking; the value of _consensus communis_ as +a criterion required to be insisted on, defended, and exactly defined. +With characteristic impetuosity, De Lamennais, like Comte, must bundle +metaphysics out of doors altogether as a merely provisional but illusory +synthesis, necessary for the human intellect in its adolescence, but to +be discarded in its maturity; and thereupon he proceeds to erect his +system of Traditionalism mid-air, quite unconscious that in clearing +away metaphysics he has deprived the structure of its only possible +foundation. But this is the man all over. Because there is a truth in +Traditionalism, therefore, it is the whole and only truth; because +metaphysics alone can do little, it is therefore unnecessary and +worthless. Had he spent but a fraction of the time and trouble he gave +to the elaboration of his own system, in a liberal and critical study of +that which he desired to supersede, his genius might have accomplished a +work for the Church which is still halting badly on its way to +perfection. One feels something like anger in contemplating such +hot-headed zeal standing continually in its own light, and frustrating +with perverse ingenuity the very end which it was most desirous to +realize. For no one can deny that from his first conversion to his +unhappy death De Lamennais was dominated by the highest and noblest and +most unselfish motives; that he was a man of absolute sincerity of +purpose. + +His earliest enthusiasm was for the defence and exaltation of the +Catholic Faith, for the liberation of the Church from the bonds of +nationalism and Erastianism. Even those who repudiate altogether the +extreme Ultramontanism of De Maistre and De Lamennais must allow their +conception to be one of the boldest and grandest which has inspired the +mind of man. He realized more vividly than many that the cause of the +Church and of society, of Catholicism and humanity, were one and the +same. It was the very intensity and depth of his convictions that made +him so importunate in pressing them on others, so intolerant of delay, +so infuriated by opposition. For indeed nothing is more common than to +find a thousand selfishnesses co-existing and interfering with a +dominant unselfishness, lessening or totally destroying its fruitfulness +for good. A man who is unselfish enough to devote his fortune to charity +will not necessarily be free from faults which may more than undo the +good he proposes. + +The same hastiness of thought which moved him to a wholesale, +indiscriminate condemnation of metaphysics, led him to conclude that +because hitherto no happy adjustment of the relations between Church and +State had been devised, there could be no remedy save in their total +severance. Doubtless such a severance would be better, if Gallicanism +were the only alternative; or if the Church's liberty and efficiency +were to be seriously curtailed. A superficial glance might fancy a +fundamental discrepancy in this matter, as well as in the questions of +toleration, and of the freedom of the press, between the official +teaching of Gregory XVI. and Pius IX., and that of Leo XIII. But a +closer inspection shows no alteration of principle, and only a +recognition of altered circumstances, either necessitating a connivance +at inevitable evils, or totally changing the aspect of the question. But +De Lamennais should have learnt from his own teaching that liberty does +not mean the independence of isolation, but the full enjoyment of all +the means necessary for perfect self-development; that it does not mean +the weakness of dissociation, but the strength of a perfectly organized +association for mutual help and protection. And this holds good, not for +individuals alone, but for societies, and for Church and State. Aiming +at one common end, the perfection of humanity, they cannot but gain by +association and lose by dissociation. Each is weaker even, in its own +sphere, apart from the other. It is an unreal abstraction that splits +man into two beings--a body and a soul; that draws a clean, +hard-and-fast line between his temporal and eternal welfare; that +commits the former interest to one society, the latter to another, +absolutely distinct and unconnected. But all this holds true only in the +hypothesis of a nation of Christians or Theists. + +When a large fraction of the community has ceased to believe in +Christianity and the Church, the demands of justice and reason are +different. It may well be allowed that, to determine the exact relation +of the Catholic Church and Christian State, and the law of their +organization into one complex society, is a problem for whose perfect +solution we must wait the further development of the ideas of +ecclesiastical and civil society. But to wait for growth of subjective +truth was just what De Lamennais could not do. He saw that past +solutions of the problem had been unsuccessful; that in most cases the +Church was eventually drawn into bondage under the State as its creature +and instrument in the cause of tyranny and oppression; that it was +insensibly permeated with the local and national spirit, differentiated +from Catholic Christendom, and severed from the full influence of its +head, the Vicar of Christ. The independence of the Church he rightly +judged to be the great safeguard of the people against the tyranny of +their temporal rulers. In the face of that world-wide spiritual society, +whose voice was at once the voice of humanity and the voice of God, he +felt that "iniquity would stop its mouth," and injustice be put to +shame. Yet all this seemed to him impossible so long as the Church +depended on the State for temporalities, and because he could devise no +form of association that would be guarantee against all abuses, he +therefore insisted on total, severance, not merely as expedient for the +present pressure, but as a divine and eternal principle. + +When, therefore, it seemed to him that Gregory XVI. had condemned +Ultramontanism, it was, to De Lamennais, as though he had condemned the +cause of the Church and of humanity, and thrown the weight of his +authority into that of Gallicanism. Here again we see how his mental +intensity and impatience reduced him to the dilemma which found solution +in his apostasy. Holding as he did to the Papal infallibility in a form +far more extreme than that subsequently approved by the Vatican Council, +he was bound in consistency to accept the Pope's decision as infallible +in respect to its expediency and in all its detail. Thus it seemed to +him that the ideal for which he had lived was shattered by a +self-inflicted blow. The infallible voice of humanity had declared +against the cause of humanity. He found himself compelled, in virtue of +his principles, to choose between two alternatives. Either the cause of +humanity, as he conceived it, was not the cause of God; or else the Pope +was not the Vicar of Christ and the divinely-appointed guardian of that +cause. But of the two denials the former was now to him the least +tolerable. "Catholicism," he said, "was my life, because it was that of +humanity." _Sacramenta, propter homines_; the Church was made for man, +and not man for the Church. Given the dilemma, who shall blame his +choice? But the dilemma was purely subjective and imaginary. Though +truths are never irreconcilable, the exaggerations of truth may well +be so. + +Had he possessed that intellectual patience in perplexity, without which +not only faith, but true science, is impossible, he would have been +driven not to apostasy, but to a careful re-sifting of his views, +issuing, perhaps, in a reconciliation of apparently adverse positions, +or at all events in a confession of subjective, uncertainty and +confusion. Faith, in the wider sense of the word, would have bid him to +believe, without seeing, what we have lived to see under Leo XIII. + +This seems to be the intellectual aspect of his defection, though of +course there were many accelerating causes at work. Perhaps if Gregory +XVI. had met his appeal with a few words of simple explanation and +advice, instead of with that mysterious reticence which is falsely +supposed to be the soul of diplomacy, the issue might have been as happy +as it was miserable. De Lamennais himself, in his _Affaires de Rome_, +makes the same remark in so many words. Again, the illiberal and +ungenerous persecution of his triumphant adversaries, who endeavoured to +goad him into some open act of rebellion in order to bring him under +still heavier condemnation, can scarcely have failed to embitter and +harden a soul naturally disposed to pessimism and melancholy. Nor can we +omit from the influences at work upon him, that dramatic instinct which +makes a mediocre and colourless attitude impossible for those who are +strongly under its influence. Perhaps no nation is more governed by it +than the French, with their partiality for _tableaux_ and _sensation_; +and in De Lamennais its presence was most marked, as the pages of his +_Paroles_ will witness. In the _Too Late_ with which he received the +overtures of Pius IX.; in the studied sensationalism of his funeral +arrangements, and in many other minute points, we are made sensible that +if his life culminated in a tragedy, the tragic aspect of it was not +altogether displeasing to him. Still it would be a grievous slur on so +great a character to suppose that such a weakness could have had any +considerable part in his steady and deliberate refusal to see a priest +at the last. This is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that he +believed he could not be absolved without accepting the condemnation of +his own views, and so abandoning the cause of humanity. While under the +spell of his imaginary dilemma, he was constrained to follow the rule +for a perplexed conscience, and to choose what seemed to him the less of +two evils. + +After his ideal had been destroyed, and the Church could no longer be +for him the Saviour of the Nations, he threw himself without reserve +into the cause of humanity and liberty. But his aims were now almost +entirely destructive and revolutionary. His enthusiasm was rather a +hatred of the things that were, than an ardent zeal for the things that +ought to be; and the bitter elements in his character become more and +more accentuated as he finds himself gradually thrust aside and +forgotten--cast off by the Church, ignored by the revolution. Even his +friends, with one or two exceptions, dropped off one by one; some +fleeing like rats from a sinking ship, others perplexed at his obstinacy +or offended by his violence; others removed by death or distance; and we +see him in his old age poor and lonely, and intensely unhappy. + +When dangerously ill in 1827, he exclaimed, on being told that it was a +fine night, "For my peace, God grant that it may be my last." The prayer +was not heard, for, as he felt on his recovery, God had a great work for +him to do. How that work was done we have just seen. Féli de Lamennais, +who would have been buried as a Christian in 1827, was buried as an +infidel in 1854. + +It is vain to contend that he was not a man of prayer. That he had a +keen discernment in spiritual things is evident from his _Commentary on +the Imitation_ and his other spiritual writings, as well as from the +testimony of his young disciples at La Chênaie, to whom he was not +merely a brilliant teacher, a most affectionate friend and father, but +also a trusted guide in the things of God. Yet this would be little had +we not also assurance of his personal and private devoutness. + +All this would make his unfortunate ending a stumbling-block to those +who cannot acquiesce in the fact that in every soul tares and wheat in +various proportions grow side by side, and that which growth is to be +victorious is not possible to predict with certainty; who deem it +impossible that one who ends ill could ever have lived well; or that one +who loses his faith, or any other virtue, could ever at any time have +really possessed it. There is indeed some kind of double personality in +us all which is perhaps more observable in strongly-marked characters +like De Lamennais, where, so to say, the bifurcating lines are produced +further. Proud men have occasional moods of genuine humility; and +habitual bitterness is allayed by intervals of sweetness; and +conversely, there are ugly streaks in the fairest marble. + +And as to the fate of that restless soul, who shall dare to speak +dogmatically? We cling gladly to the story of the tear that stole down +his face in death, and would fain see in it some confirmation of the +view according to which the soul receives in that crucial hour a final +choice based on the collective experience of its mortal life. We would +hope that as there is a baptism of blood or of charity, so there may +perhaps be some uncovenanted absolution for one who so earnestly loved +mankind at large, and especially the poor and the oppressed; who in his +old age and misery was found by their sick-bed; who willed to be with +them in his death and burial. And yet we feel something of that +agonizing uncertainty which forced from the aged Abbe Jean the bitter +cry, "Féli, Féli, my brother!" + +_Jan._ 1897. + + + +XVII. + + +LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST. + +"What pains me most," writes the late Sir Joseph Crowe in the +_Nineteenth Century_ for October, 1896, "is to think that the art of Fra +Filippo, the loose fish, and seducer of holy women, looks almost as +pure, and is often quite as lovely as that of Fra Giovanni Angelico of +Fiesole." And indeed, if the fact be admitted, it cannot but be a shock +to all those high-minded thinkers who have committed themselves +unreservedly to the view that personal sanctity and elevation of +character in the artist is an essential condition for the production of +any great work of art, and especially of religious art. As regards the +fact, we need not concern ourselves very long. If Rio and others, +presumably biassed by the same theory, are inclined to see Lippi's moral +depravity betrayed in every stroke of his brush, yet the more general +and truer verdict accords him a place among the great masters of his +age, albeit beneath Angelico and some others. Beyond all doubt it must +be allowed that even in point of spirituality and heavenliness of +expression, he stands high above numbers of artists of pure life and +blameless reputation; and this fact leaves us face to face with the +problem already suggested as to the precise connection between high +morality and high art--if any. + +Plainly a good man need not be a good artist. Must a good artist be a +good man? I suppose from a vague feeling in certain minds that it ought +to be so, there rises a belief that it must be so, and that it is so; +and from this belief a disposition to see that it is so, and to read +facts accordingly. Prominent among the advocates of this view is Mr. +Ruskin in his treatment of the relation of morality to art. He holds +"that the basis of art is moral; that art cannot be merely pleasant or +unpleasant, but must be lawful or unlawful, that every legitimate +artistic enjoyment is due to the perception of moral propriety, that +every artistic excellence is a moral virtue, every artistic fault is a +moral vice; that noble art can spring only from noble feeling, that the +whole system of the beautiful is a system of moral emotions, moral +selections, and moral appreciation; and that the aim and end of art is +the expression of man's obedience to God's will, and of his recognition +of God's goodness." [1] + +But a man who can characterize a vulgar pattern as immoral, plainly uses +the term "morality" in some transcendental, non-natural sense, and +therefore cannot be regarded as an exponent of the precise theory +referred to. Still, as this larger idea of morality includes the lesser +and more restricted, we may consider Mr. Ruskin and his disciples among +those to whom the case of Lippo Lippi and many another presents a +distinct difficulty. "Many another," for the principle ought to extend +to every branch of fine art; and we should be prepared to maintain that +there never has been, or could have been, a truly great musician, or +sculptor, or poet, who was not also a truly good man. In a way the +position is defensible enough; for one can, in every contrary instance, +patch up the artist's character or else pick holes in his work. Who is +to settle what is a truly great work or a truly good man. But a position +may be quite defensible, yet obviously untrue. Again, if by great art we +mean that which is subordinated to some great and good purpose, we are +characterizing it by a goodness which is extrinsic to it, and is not the +goodness of art itself, as such. If the end of fine art is to teach, +then its goodness must be estimated by the matter and manner of its +teaching, and a "moral pocket-handkerchief" must take precedence of many +a Turner. Yet it would even then remain questionable whether a good and +great moral teacher is necessarily a good man. In truth, a good man is +one who obeys his conscience, and whose conscience guides him right. If, +in defect of the latter condition, we allow that a man is good or +well-meaning, it is because we suppose that his conscience is erroneous +inculpably, and that he is faithful to right order as far as he +understands it. But one who sees right and wills wrong is in no sense +good, but altogether bad. Allowing that for the solution of some +delicate moral problems a certain height of tone and keenness of insight +inseparable from habitual conscientiousness is necessary, yet mere +intellectual acumen, in the absence of any notably biassing influence, +suffices to give us as great a teacher as Aristotle, who, if exonerated +from graver charges, offers no example of astonishing elevation of heart +at all proportioned to the profundity of his genius. We do not deny that +in the case of free assent to beliefs fraught with grave practical +consequences, the moral condition of the subject has much to do with the +judgments of the intellect. But first principles and their logical +issues belong to the domain of necessary truth; while in other matters a +teacher may accept current maxims and sentiments with which he has no +personal sympathy, and weave from all these a whole system of excellent +and orthodox moral teaching. And if one may be a good moralist and a bad +man, why _à fortiori_ may one not be a good artist and a bad man? If +vice does not necessarily dim the eye to ethical beauty, why should it +blind it to aesthetic beauty? In order to get at a solution we must fix +somewhat more definitely the notion of fine art and its scope. + +I think it is in a child's book called _The Back of the North Wind_, +that a poet is somewhat happily and simply defined as a person who is +glad about something and wants to make other people glad about it too. +Yet mature reflection shows two flaws in this definition. First of all, +the theme of poetry, or any other fine art, need not always be gladsome, +but can appeal to some other strong emotion, provided it be high and +noble. The tragedian is one who is thrilled with awe and sorrow, and +strives to excite a like thrill in others. Again, though the craving for +sympathy hardly ever fails to follow close on the experience of deep +feeling; and though, as we shall presently see, fine art is but an +extension of language whose chief end is intercommunion of ideas, yet +this altruist end of fine art is not of its essence, but of its +superabundance and overflow. Expression for expression's sake is a +necessity of man's spiritual nature, in solitude no less than in +society. To speak, to give utterance to the truth that he sees, and to +the strong emotions that stir within his heart, is that highest +energizing in which man finds his natural perfection and his rest. His +soul is burdened and in labour until it has brought forth and expressed +to its complete satisfaction the word conceived within it. Nor is it +only within the mind that he so utters himself in secret self-communing; +for he is not a disembodied intelligence, but one clothed with body and +senses and imagination. His medium of expression is not merely the +spiritual substance of the mind, but his whole complex being. Nor has he +uttered his "word" to his full satisfaction till it has passed from his +intellect into his imagination, and thence to his lips, his voice, his +features, his gesture. And when the mind is more vigorous and the +passion for utterance more intense, he will not be at rest while there +is any other medium in which he can embody his conception, be it stone, +or metal, or line, or colour, or sound, or measure, or imagery, which +under his skilled hand can be made to shadow out his hidden thought and +emotion. We cannot hold with Max Müller and others, who make thought +dependent and consequent on language. + +For it is evident, on a moment's introspection, that thought makes +language for itself to live in, just as a snail makes its own shell or a +soul makes its own body. Who has not felt the anguish of not being able +to find a word to hit off his thought exactly?--which surely means that +the thought was already there unclothed, awaiting its embodiment. As the +soul disembodied is not man, so thought not clothed in language is not +perfect human thought. Its essence is saved, but not its substantial, or +at least its desirable, completeness. A man thinks more fully, more +humanly, who thinks not with his mind alone, but with his imagination, +his voice, his tongue, his pen, his pencil. If, therefore, solitary +contemplative thought is a legitimate end in itself; if it is that +_ludus_, or play of the soul, which is the highest occupation of man, a +share in the same honour must be allowed to its accompanying embodiment; +to the music which delights no ear but the performer's; to poetry, to +painting, to sculpture done for the joy of doing, and without reference +to the good of others communicating in that joy. And if the Divine +Artist, whose lavish hand fills everything with goodness; who pours out +the treasures of His love and wisdom in every corner of our universe; of +whose greatness man knows not an appreciable fraction; who "does all +things well" for the very love of doing and of doing well; who utters +Himself for the sake of uttering, not only in His eternal, co-equal, +all-expressive Word, but also in the broken, stammering accents of a +myriad finite words or manifestations--if this Divine Artist teaches us +anything, it is that man, singly or collectively, is divinest when he +finds rest and joy in utterance for its own sake, in "telling the glory +of God and showing forth His handiwork," or, as Catholic doctrine puts +it, in praise; for praise is the utterance of love, and love is joy in +the truth. + +As most of the useful arts perfect man's executive faculties, and thus +are said to improve upon, while in a certain sense they imitate nature; +so the fine arts extend and exalt man's faculty of expression, or +self-utterance, regarded not precisely as useful and _propter aliud_; +but as pleasurable and _propter se_. Even the most uncultivated savage +finds pleasure in some discordant utterance of his subjective frame of +mind; and it is really hard to find any tribe so degraded as to show no +rudiment of fine art, no sign of reflex pleasure in expression, and of +inventiveness in extending the resources nature has provided us with for +that end. + +The artist as such aims at self-expression for its own sake. It is a +necessity of his nature, an outpouring of pent-up feeling, as much as is +the song of the lark. Of course we are speaking of the true creative +artist, and not of the laborious copyist. If he subordinates his work as +a means to some further end; if his aim is morality or immorality, truth +or error, pleasure or pain; if it is anything else than the embodiment +or utterance of his own soul, so far he is acting riot as an artist, but +as a minister of morality, or truth, or pleasure, or their contraries. +If we keep this idea steadily in view, we can see how much truth, or how +little, is contained in the various theories of fine art which have been +advanced from the earliest times. We can see how truly art is a [Greek: +mimaesis] an imitating of realities; not that art-objects are, as Plato +supposes, faint and defective representations, vicegerent species of the +external world, whose beauty is but the transfer and dim reflection of +the beauty of nature. Were it so, then the mirror, or the camera, were +the best of all artists. As expression, fine art is the imitation of the +soul within; of outward realities as received into the mind and heart of +the artist, in their ideal and emotional setting. The artist gives word +or expression to what he sees; but what he sees is within him. His work +is self-expression. We can from this infer where to look for a solution +of the controversy between idealism and realism. We can also see how, +owing to the essential disproportion between the material and sensible +media of expression which art uses, and the immaterial and spiritual +realities it would body forth, its utterances must always be symbolic, +never literal. We can see how needlessly they embarrass themselves who +deny the name of fine art to any work whose theme is not beautiful, or +which is not morally didactic. Finally, we can see that if fine art be +but an extension of language, there can be no immediate connection +between art as art, and general moral character; no more reason for +supposing that skilful and beautiful self-utterance is incompatible with +immorality, than that its absence is incompatible with sanctity. + +Yet, as a matter of fact, and rightly, we judge of art not merely as +art, or as expression; but we look to that which is expressed, to the +inner soul which is revealed to us, to the "matter" as well as to the +"form." And it maybe questioned whether our estimate of a work is not +rather determined in most cases by this non-artistic consideration. +Obviously it is possible in our estimate of a landscape, to be drawn +away from the artistic to the real beauty; from its merits as a "word," +or expression, to the merits of the thing signified. And still more +naturally is our admiration drawn from the artist's self-utterance, to +the self which he endeavours to utter, and we are brought into sympathy +with his thought and feeling. Much of the fascination exercised over us +by art, which precisely as art is rude and imperfect in many ways, is to +be ascribed to this source. Though here we must remember that the soul +is often more truly and artistically betrayed by the simple lispings of +childhood than by the ornate and finished eloquence of a rhetorician. + +It is in regard to the matter expressed, rather than to the mode of +expression, that we have a right to look for a difference between such +men as Lippo Lippi and Fra Angelico. According to a man's inner tone and +temperament and character, will be the impression produced upon him by +the objects of his contemplation. These will determine him largely in +the choice of his themes, and in the aspect under which he will treat +them. Obviously in many cases there are noble themes of art for whose +appreciation no particular delicacy of moral or religious taste is +required. There is no reason why such a subject as the Laocoon should +make a different impression on a saint and on a profligate. It appeals +to the tragic sense, which may be as highly developed in one as in the +other. But if the Annunciation be the theme, we can well understand how +differently it will impress a man of lively and cultured faith, a +contemplative and mystic, with an appreciative and effective love of +reverence and purity; and another whose faith is a formula, whose life +is impure, frivolous, worldly. Why then is there not a more distinctly +marked inferiority in the religious art of Lippi to that of Angelico? +Why does it look "almost as pure," and "often quite as lovely"? Two very +clear reasons offer themselves in reply. First of all, the art of such a +man as Angelico falls far more hopelessly short of his ideal. Most of +the beauties which such a soul would find in the contemplation of Mary, +or of Gabriel, are spiritual, moral, non-æsthetic, and can embody +themselves in form and feature only most imperfectly. Given equal skill +in expression, equal command of words, one man can say all that he +feels, and more, while another is tortured with a sense of much more to +be uttered, were it not unutterable. Perhaps it is in some hint of this +hidden wealth of unuttered meaning that skilled eyes find in Angelico +what they can never find in Lippi. A second reason might be found in the +external influence exerted on the artist by society, its requirements, +fashions, and conventions. It is plain that Lippi, left to himself, +would never have chosen religious themes as such: it is equally plain, +that having chosen them, he would naturally try to emulate and eclipse +what was most admired in the great works of his predecessors and +contemporaries. It would need little more than a familiar acquaintance +with the great models, together with the artist's discriminating +observance, for a man of Lippi's talent to catch those lines and shades +of form and feature which hint at, rather than express, the inward +purity, the reverence, the gentleness, with which he himself was so +little in sympathy. + +No doubt, were two such men equally skilled in all the arts of +expression, in language, in verse, in song and music, in sculpture and +painting, and acting, their general treatment of religious themes would +be more glaringly different; but within the comparatively narrow limits +of painting, we cannot reasonably expect more than we actually find. + +The saint, as such, and the artist, as such, are occupied with different +facets of the world; the former with its moral, the latter with its +æsthetic beauty. Even were the artist formally to recognize that all the +beauty in nature is but the created utterance of the Divine thought and +love, and that the real, though unknown, term of his abstraction is not +the impersonal symbol, but the person symbolized; yet it is not enough +for sanctity or morality to be attracted to God viewed simply as the +archetype of æsthetic beauty. On the other hand, one may be drawn, +through the love of moral beauty in creatures, of justice, and mercy, +and liberality, and truthfulness, to the love of God as their archetype, +and yet be perfectly obtuse to æsthetic beauty; and thus again we see +that high æstheticism is compatible with low morality, and conversely. +Doubtless when produced to infinity, all perfections are seen to +converge and unite in God, but short of this, they retain their +distinctness and opposition. At the same time, it cannot for a moment be +denied that keenness of moral, and of æsthetic perception, act and react +upon one another. He gains much morally whose eyes are opened to the +innumerable traces of the Divine beauty with which he is surrounded, and +there are æsthetic joys which are necessarily unknown to a soul which is +selfish and gross--still more to a soul from which the glories of +revealed religion are hidden, either through unbelief or sluggish +indifference. Yet, on the whole, it may be said that sanctity is +benefited by art more than art is by sanctity, especially where we deal +with so limited a medium of expression as painting. And so it seems to +us that, after all, there is nothing to surprise or pain us in the fact +that "the art of a Fra Filippo, the loose fish, looks almost as pure, +and is often quite as lovely as that of Fra Giovanni Angelico of +Fiesoli." + +_Dec._ 1896. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: Vernon Lee, _Belcaro_.] + + + +XVIII. + + +THROUGH ART TO FAITH. + +There are few books more difficult to estimate than those in which M. +Huysman sets forth the story of a conversion generally supposed to bear +no very distant resemblance to his own. It would be easy to find +excellent reasons for a somewhat sweeping condemnation of his work, and +others as excellent for a most cordial approval; and, indeed, we find +critics more than usually at variance with one another in its regard. To +be judged justly, these books must be judged slowly. The source of +perplexity is to be found in the fact that the author, who has recently +passed from negation to Catholicism, carries with him the language, the +modes of thought, the taste and temper of the literary school of which +he was, and, in so many of his sympathies, is still a pupil, a school +which regards M. Zola as one of its leading lights. _En Route_, and its +sequels, portray in the colours of realism, in the language of +decadence, the conversion of a realist, nay, of a decadent, to mysticism +and faith. "The voice indeed is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are +the hands of Esau," and according as the critic centres his attention +too exclusively on one or the other, such will his judgment be. + +That his works have commanded attention, and awakened keen interest +among members of the most varying and opposite schools of thought, is an +undeniable fact which at all events proves them to be worth careful +consideration. + +The story of a soul's passage from darkness to light, of its wanderings, +vacillations, doubts, and temptations, must necessarily exercise a +strong fascination over all minds of a reflective cast: "The development +of a soul!" says Browning, "little else is worth study. I always thought +so; you, with many known and unknown to me, think so; others may one day +think so." [1] It is from this attraction of soul to soul that the +_Pilgrim's Progress_, together with many kindred works, derives its +spell; and indeed it is to this that all that is best and greatest in +art owes its power and immortal interest. Here, however, is one reason +why _The Cathedral_ [2] can never be so attractive as _En Route_, +ministering as it does but little to that deepest and most insatiable +curiosity concerning the soul and its sorrows. It portrays but little +perceptible movement, little in the way of violent revulsion and +conflict; the spiritual growth which it registers is mostly underground, +a strengthening and spreading of the roots. It deals with a period of +quiet healing and convalescence after a severe surgical operation; with +the "illuminative" stage of conversion--for there is scarcely any doubt +that the three volumes correspond to the "purgative," "illuminative," +and "unitive" ways respectively. + +Between pulling down and building up--both sensational processes, +especially the former--there intervenes a sober time of planning and +surveying, a quiet taking of information before entering on a new +campaign of action. When the affections have been painfully and +violently uprooted from earth, then first is the mind sufficiently free +from the bias of passion and base attachments to be instructed and +illuminated with profit in the things concerning its peace, and to be +prepared for the replanting of the affections in the soil of Heaven. The +arid desert, with its seemingly aimless wanderings, intervenes between +the exodus from Egypt and the entrance into the Land of Promise. + +Dealing with this stage of the process of conversion, _The Cathedral_ is +comparatively monotonous and barren of spiritual incident. What removes +it still further from all chances of anything like popularity in this +country is the extent to which it is occupied with matters of purely +archæological and artistic interest, and more especially with the +mystical symbolism of the middle ages as chronicled in every detail of +the great Cathedral of Chartres. Little as may be the enthusiasm for +such lore in France, it is far less in England, where the people have +for three centuries been out of all touch with the Catholic Church, and +therefore with whatever modicum of mediævalism she still preserves as +part of her heritage from the past. Architecturally we appreciate our +dismantled cathedrals to some extent, but their symbolism is far less +understood than even the language and theology of the schools, while the +study of it meets as much sympathy as would the study of heraldry in a +modern democracy. Yet we may say that the bulk of the book consists of +an inventory of every symbolic detail in architecture, in sculpture, in +painting, in glass-colouring, to be found at Chartres; to which is added +a careful elaboration of the symbolism of beasts, flowers, colours, +perfumes, all very dreary reading for the uninitiated, and to be +criticized only by the expert. + +Little scope as the plan of the book offers for any variety or display +of character, being mainly occupied with erudite monologue, put +sometimes into the mouth of Durtal, sometimes into that of the Abbé +Plomb, yet the personalities of these two, as well as those of Géversin, +Madame Bavoil, and Madame Mesurat, stand out very vividly, and make us +wish for that fuller acquaintance with them which a little more movement +and incident would have afforded. + +But what will give most offence, and tend to alienate a certain amount +of intelligent and valuable sympathy, is the violence, and even the +coarseness, with which the author, or at least his hero, handles, not +only the opinions, but the very persons of those from whom he differs; +the intemperance of his invective, the narrow intolerance and absolute +self-confidence with which he sits in judgment on men and things. + +As a matter of fact, this is rather a defect of style and expression +than of the inner sentiment. It is part and parcel of the realist temper +to blurt out the thought in all the clothing or nakedness with which it +first surges up into consciousness, before it has been submitted to the +censorship of reason; in a word, to do its thinking aloud, or on paper; +to give utterance not to the tempered and mature judgment--the last +result of refinement and correction, but to display the whole process +and working by which it was reached. As it is part of M. Zola's art to +linger lovingly over each little horror of some slaughter-house scene, +until the whole lives for us again as in a cinematograph, so M. Huysman, +engaged in the portrayal of a spiritual conflict, spares us no link in +the chain of causes by which the final result is produced; he bares the +brain, and exposes its workings with all the scientific calmness of the +vivisector. + +Whether we like or dislike this realism, we must allow for it in forming +our judgment on these volumes, nor must we treat as final and approved +opinions what are often the mere spontaneous suggestions and first +thoughts of the mind, the oscillations through which it settles down to +rest. Over and over again we shall find that Durtal subsequently raises +the very objection to his own view that was on our lips at the first +reading of it. + +But even making such allowance, it none the less remains a matter of +regret that one who, with perhaps some justice, considers that in point +of art-appreciation "the Catholic public is still a hundred feet beneath +the profane public," and chides them for "their incurable lack of +artistic sense," who speaks of "the frightful appetite for the hideous +which disgraces the Church of our day," who himself in many ways, in a +hundred passages of sublime thought, of tender piety, of lyrical poesy, +has proved beyond all cavil his delicacy of sentiment, his exquisite +niceness in matters of taste, his reverence for what is chaste and +beautiful, should at times be so deplorably unfaithful to his better +instincts, so forgetful of the close and inseparable alliance between +restraint and elegance. What can be weaker or uglier, more unbecoming an +artist, more becoming a fish-wife, than his description of Lochner's +picture of the Virgin: "The neck of a heifer, and flesh like cream or +hasty-pudding, that quivers when it is touched;" or of the picture of +St. Ursula's companions, by the same hand: "Their squab noses poking out +of bladders of lard that did duty for their faces;" not to speak of the +characterization of a "Sacred Heart" too revolting to reproduce? Surely +when, after having reviled M. Tissot almost personally, he describes his +works as painted with "muck, wine-sauce, and mud," it is difficult not +to answer with a _tu quoque_ as far as this word-painting is +concerned--difficult not to see here some morbid and "frightful appetite +for the hideous" struggling with the healthy appetite for better things. + +However lame and ridiculous an artist's utterance may be, yet there is a +certain reverence sometimes due to what he is endeavouring to say, and +even to his desire to say it. We do not think it very witty or tasteful +or charitable to laugh at a man because he stammers; still less do we +overwhelm him with the coarsest abuse. One may well shudder at most +presentments of the Sacred Heart, but even apart from all consideration +for the artist, a certain reverence for the idea there travestied and +unintentionally dishonoured, should forbid our insulting what after all +is so nearly related to that idea, and in the eyes of the untaught very +closely identified with it. + +But an occasional trespass of this kind, however offensive, is not +enough to detract materially from the value of so much that is +meritorious; nor again will that outspoken treatment of delicate topics +(less observable in _The Cathedral_ than in _En Route_), which makes the +book undesirable for many classes of readers, prevent its due +appreciation on the part of others--unless we are going to put the +Sacred Scriptures on the Index. In this vexed question, M. Huysman takes +what seems the more robust and healthy view, but he appears to be quite +unaware how many difficulties it involves; and consequently lashes out +with his usual intemperance against the contrary tradition, which is +undeniably well represented. It is not as though the advocates of the +"flight" policy in regard to temptations against this particular virtue +were ignorant of the general principle which undoubtedly holds as +regards all other temptations, and bids us turn and face the dog that +barks at our heels. This counsel is as old as the world. But from the +earliest time a special exception has been made to it in the one case of +impurity by those who have professedly spoken in the light of experience +rather than of _à priori_ inference. Both views are encompassed with +difficulty, nor does any compromise suggest itself. + +What seems to us one of the most interesting points raised by the story +of Durtal's spiritual re-birth and development is the precise relation +between the Catholic religion and fine art. + +God has not chosen to save men by logic; so neither has He chosen to +save them by fine art. If the "election" of the Apostolic Church counted +but few scribes or philosophers among its members--and those few +admitted almost on sufferance--we may also be sure that the followers of +the Galilean fishermen were not as a body distinguished by a fastidious +criticism in matters of fine art. In after ages, when the Church +asserted herself and moulded a civilization more or less in accordance +with her own exigencies and ideals, it is notorious how she made +philosophy and art her own, and subjected them to her service; but +whether in so doing she in any way departed from the principles of +Apostolic times is what interests us to understand. + +There is certainty no more unpardonable fallacy than that of "Bible +Christians," who assume that the Church in the Apostolic age had reached +its full expansion and expression, and therefore in respect of polity, +liturgy, doctrinal statement and discipline must be regarded as an +immutable type for all ages and countries; from which all departure is +necessarily a corruption. They take the flexible sapling and compare it +with aged knotty oak, and shake their heads over the lamentable +unlikeness: "That this should be the natural outgrowth of that! _O +tempora, O mores!_" + +Like every organism, in its beginning, the Church was soft-bodied and +formless in all these respects; but she had within her the power of +fashioning to herself a framework suited to her needs, of assuming +consistency and definite shape in due time. The old bottles would not +serve to hold the new wine, but this did not mean that new bottles were +not to be sought. Because the philosophy, the art, the polity of the age +in which she was born were already enlisted in the service of other +ideas and inextricably associated with error in the minds of men, it was +needful for her at first to dissociate herself absolutely from the use +of instruments otherwise adaptable in many respects to her own ends, and +to wait till she was strong enough to alter them and use them without +fear of scandal and misinterpretation. + +The Church is many-tongued; but though she can deliver her message in +any language, yet she is not for that reason independent of language in +general. There is no way to the human ear and heart but through language +of some kind or another. It is not her mission to teach languages, but +to use the languages she finds to hand for the expression of the truths, +the facts, the concrete realities to which her dogmas point. This does +not deny that one language may not be more flexible, more graphic than +any other, more apt to express the facts of Heaven as well as those of +earth. It only denies that any one is absolutely and exclusively the +best. + +It is no very great violence to include rhetoric, music, painting, +sculpture, architecture, ritual, and every form of decorative art in the +category of language and to bring them under the same general laws, +since even philosophy may to a large extent be treated in the same way. +Christ has not commissioned His Church to teach science or philosophy, +nor has He given her an infallible _magisterium_ in matters of fine art. +She uses what she finds in use and endeavours with the imperfect +implements, the limited colours, the coarse materials at her disposal to +make the picture of Christ and His truth stand out as faithful to +reality as possible; and--to press the illustration somewhat crudely--as +what is rightly black, in a study in black and white, may be quite +wrongly black in polychrome; so what the Church approves according to +one convention, she may condemn according to another. May we not apply +to her what Durtal says of our Lady: "She seems to have come under the +semblance of every race known to the middle ages; black as an African, +tawny as a Mongolian;"--"she unveils herself to the children of the soil +... these beings with their rough-hewn feelings, their shapeless ideas, +hardly able to express themselves"? The more we study the visions and +apparitions with which saints have been favoured and the revelations +which have been vouchsafed to them, the more evident is it that they are +spoken to in their own language, appealed to through their own imagery. +Indeed, were it not so, how could they understand? Our Lady is the +all-beautiful for every nation, but the type of human beauty is not the +same for all. The Madonna of the Ethiopian might be a rather terrifying +apparition in France or Italy. + +There is no art too rough or primitive, or even too vulgar, for the +Church to disdain, if it offers the only medium of conveying her truth +to certain minds. Though custom has made it classical, her liturgical +language, whether Latin or Greek, when first assumed, was that of the +mob--about as elegant as we consider the dialects of the peasantry. She +did not use plain-chaunt for any of those reasons which antiquarians and +ecclesiologists urge in its favour now-a-days, but because it was the +only music then in vogue. Even to-day the breeziest popular melodies in +the East are suggestive of the _Oratio Jeremiæ_. Her vestments (even +Gothic vestments!) were once simply the "Sunday best" of the fashion of +those days. If to-day these things have a different value and +excellence, it is in obedience to the law by which what is "romantic" in +one age becomes "classical" in the next, or what is at first useful and +commonplace becomes at last ceremonial and symbolic; and by which the +common tongue of the vulgar comes by mere process of time to be archaic +and stately. To "create" ancient custom and ritual on a sudden, or to +resuscitate abruptly that which has lapsed into oblivion, is, to say the +least, a very Western idea, akin to the pedantry of trying to restore +Chaucer's English to common use. _Nascitur non fit_, is the law in all +such matters. + +While we assert the Church's independence of any one in particular of +these means of self-expression, her indifference to style and mode of +speech so long as substantial fidelity is secured, we must not deny that +some of them are, of their own nature, more apt to her purpose than +others and allow a fuller revelation of her sense; and that in +proportion as her influence is strong in the world she tends to modify +human thought and language, to leaven philosophy and fine art, so as to +form by a process of selection and refusal, and in some measure even to +create, an ever richer and more flexible medium of utterance. + +In this sense we can with some caution speak of "Catholic art" in music, +architecture, and painting, so far, that is, as we can determine the +extent and nature of the Church's action, and therefore the tendency of +her influence in the way of stimulus and restraint with regard to +subject and treatment. We do not unjustly discern an author's style as a +personal element distinct from the language and phraseology of which no +item is his own. The manner in which he uses that language, his +selections and refusals make, in union with the borrowed elements, a +tongue that may be called his, in an exclusive sense. The Church, too, +has her style, which, though difficult to discern amid her use of a +Pentecostal variety of languages, is no doubt always the same--at least +in tendency. + +Salvation-Army worship is certainly not of the Church's style, but I do +not think, were there no absolute irreverence and scandal to be feared, +that she would hesitate to use such a language, were it the only one +understood by such a people. St. Francis Xavier's "catechisms" were +often hardly less uncouth. Still, her whole tendency would be towards +restraint, order, and exterior reverence. Again, the stoical coldness +and formalism of a liturgical worship, centered round no soul-stirring +mystery of Divine love where there can be feeling so strong as to need +the restraint of liturgy and ritual, has still less of the Church's +style about it. For she is human, not merely in her reason and +self-restraint, but in the fulness of her passion and enthusiasm; and +restraint is only beautiful and needful where there is something to +restrain. + +We are now in a position to consider the surface objection that will +present itself to many a reader concerning Durtal's conversion. "He has +been converted," it will be said, "by a fallacy. He has identified the +Catholic religion with the cause of plain-chaunt and Gothic +architecture, and of all that is, or that he considers to be, best in +art. He has laid hold not of Catholicism, but of its merest accessories, +which it might shake off any day, and him along with them. Indeed, he +scarcely makes any pretence at being in sympathy with the Catholicism of +to-day, which he regards as almost entirely philistine and degenerate, +if we except La Trappe and Solesmes and a few other corners where the +old observances linger on. 'It was so ugly, so painfully adorned with +images, that only by shutting his eyes could Durtal endure to remain in +Notre Dame de la Brèche.' Yes, but what sort of convert is this who is +so insensible to substantials, so morbidly sensitive about mere +accidentals? We come to the Church for the true faith and the +sacraments, not for 'sensations.' In fine, Durtal has not observed the +route prescribed by the apologetics for reaching the door of the +sheep-fold, but has climbed over in his own way, like a thief and a +robber; he has not (as a recent critic says of him) _tombé entre les +bras maternals de l'Eglise selon toutes les régles_." + +Without for a moment denying one of the legitimate claims of scientific +apologetic, we may at once dismiss the idea that it pretends to +represent a process through which the mind of the convert to +Christianity either does or ought necessarily to pass. Its sole purport +is to show that if it is not always possible to synthetize Christianity +with the current philosophy, science, and history of the day, at least +no want of harmony can be positively demonstrated. As secular beliefs +and opinions are continually shifting, so too apologetic needs continual +adjustment: and as that of a century back is useless to us now, so will +ours be in many ways inadequate a century hence. It is fitting for the +Church at large that she should in each age and country have a suitable +apologetic, taking cognizance of the latest developments of profane +knowledge. It is needful for her public honour in the eyes of the world +that she should not seem to be in contradiction with truth, but that +either the apparent truth should be proved questionable, or else that +her own teaching should be shown to be compatible with it. But in no +sense is such apologetic always a necessity for the individual, still +less a safe or adequate basis for a solid conversion, which in that case +would be shaken by every new difficulty unthought of before. + +Our subjective faith in the Church must be like the faith of the +disciples of Christ, an entirely personal relation; an act of implicit +trust based on no lean argument or chain of reasoning, but on the +irresistible spell, the overmastering impression created upon us by a +character manifested in life, action, speech, even in manner; as +impossible to state in its entirety and as impossible to doubt as are +our reasons for loving or loathing, for trusting or fearing. + +No doubt we hear of men of intellect and learning "reading" or +"reasoning" themselves into the Church; but others as able have read and +reasoned along the same line, and yet have not come; for in truth, +reason at the most can set free a force of attraction created by motives +other than reason. + +What this attraction is in each case is impossible to specify +accurately--"Ask me and I know not," one might say, "do not ask me and I +know." Each soul is hooked with its own bait, called by its own name, +drawn in its own way; and as the attractiveness of Christ is virtually +infinite in its multiformity, so is that of His Church, nor is there a +more unpardonable narrowness than that of insisting that others shall be +drawn in the same way as we ourselves, or not at all. + +Let it also be noticed that a very prolonged and minute intimacy is not +always necessary in order that we should feel the spell of personality. +Much depends on our own gifts of sympathy, insight and apprehension, on +the simplicity and strength of the personality in question, on the +nature of the incidents by which it is disclosed to us. We know one man +in a moment, another only after years of intimacy, while others in +regard to the same individuals might experience the converse. We must +not then suppose that because in one case the impression is the result +of slowly-accumulated observations, and in another the work of an +instant, it is less trustworthy in the latter instance than in the +former. It may be, or it may not be. St. Augustine needed years to feel +the spell that one word, nay, one glance from Christ cast upon St. +Peter. Nor again is it always in some striking and notable crisis that a +character reveals itself abruptly, but often in the merest nuance--a +manner, an intonation, something quite unintentional, unpremeditated. We +know well, if we know ourselves at all, how irresistible is the +impression created on us at times by such trifles, and yet how more than +reasonable it often is. + +Who shall say, then, that to an eye and heart attuned to quick sympathy, +any indication is too small to betray the inward spirit and character of +the Catholic Church, or to magnetize a soul and render it restless, +until it obeys her attraction and rests in union with her? + +To a sensitively artistic temperament such as Durtal's, the indications +of the Church's "style," revealed in her influence upon art, in her +creations, in her selections and refusals, would be eloquent of her +whole character and ethos; it would be to him what the very tone of +Christ's voice was to the Baptist, or what His glance was to Peter, or +what His silence was to Pilate. We have known too many instances of +deep-seated and entire conviction, based on seemingly as little or less, +to wish for one moment to indulge in any foolish rationalizing or to +question the possibility or probability of God's drawing souls to +Himself by such methods. + +We must, however, remember that it is not merely by the Church's +mediæval art that Durtal is attracted, but still more by that mysticism +which created it, and by which it was served and fostered in return. +Mysticism must necessarily excite the sympathy of one who is in devout +pursuit of the highest and most spiritual forms of æsthetic beauty. +Whatever be the long-sought and never-to-be-forgotten definition of the +Beautiful, of this much at least a mere process of induction will assure +us, that men count things beautiful in the measure that they are +released from the grossness, formlessness, and heaviness of matter, and +by their delicacy, shapeliness, and unearthliness, betray the influence +of that principle which is everywhere in conflict with matter and is +called spirit. Man at his best is most at home, where at his worst he is +least at home, namely, in the world of those super-realities which are +touched and felt by the soul, but refuse to be pictured or spoken in the +language of the five senses. A hard, "common-sense," labour-and-wages +religion, such as is consonant with the utilitarianism of a commercial +civilization, could never appeal to a temperament like Durtal's. + +Doubtless Catholic Christianity admits of being apprehended under the +narrower and grosser aspect, which however inadequate and unworthy, is +not absolutely false. The Jews were suffered to believe not merely that +God rewards the just and punishes the wicked--which is eternally +true--but that He does so in this life, which is true only with +qualification; and that He rewards them with temporal prosperity and +adversity--which is hardly true at all. Catholic truth, in itself the +same, can only be received according to the recipient's capacity and +sensitiveness. What one age or country is alive to, another may be dead +to; nor can we pretend that here all is progress and no regress, unless +we are prepared to say that in no respect have we anything to learn from +the past. The Ignatian meditation on the "Kingdom of Christ" evoked +heroic response in an age impregnated with the sentiments of chivalry, +but to-day it needs to be adapted to a great extent, and some have +vainly hoped to gather grapes from a thistle by substituting a parable +drawn from some soul-stirring commercial enterprise--a colossal +speculation in cheese. + +Whatever signs there may be of a reaction, yet the whole temper and +spirit of our age is unfavourable to that mysticism which is the very +choicest flower of the Catholic religion. The blame is not with the +seed, but with the soil. Even where least of all we should look for such +indifference, among those who have built up the sepulchres and shrines +of the great masters of mysticism, we sometimes observe a profound +distrust for what is esteemed an unpractical, unhealthy kind of piety, +while every preference is given to what is definite and tangible in the +way of little methods and industries, multitudinous practices, lucrative +prayers, in a word, to what a critic already quoted describes as _les +petitesses des cerveaux étroits et les anguleuses routines_. [3] + +It is one of the narrownesses of Durtal himself to ascribe all this to +the wilful perversity of a person or persons unknown, and not to see in +it the inevitable result of the vulgarizing tendency of modern life upon +the masses. Things being as they are, surely it is better that the +Church should do the little she can than do nothing at all. The +"meditative mind" is incompatible with the rush and worry of a busy +life, especially where educational methods substitute information for +reflection, and so kill the habit, and eventually the faculty, of +thought in so many cases. But if the higher prayer is impossible, the +lower is possible and profitable. Again, if the liturgical sense has in +a great measure become extinct among the faithful owing to the +unavoidable disuse of the public celebration of the Church's worship, it +is well that they should be allowed devotions accommodated to their +limited capacity. As the Church would never dream of expecting a keen +sympathy with her higher dogmas, her mystical piety, her artistic +symbolism, her transcendent liturgy, on the part of a newly-converted +tribe of savages, so neither is she impatient with the civilized +Philistine, but is willing to speak to him in a language all his own, +hoping indeed to tune his tongue one day to something less uncouth. None +can sympathize more cordially than the writer does with Durtal in his +horror of unauthorized devotions, of insufferable vernacular litanies, +of nerveless and sickly hymns, of interminable "acts of consecration" +void of a single definite idea, more especially when these things are +brought into the very sanctuary itself, with stole and cope and every +apparent endeavour to fix the responsibility on the Universal Church. +But if the Church is willing to go in rags to save those who are in +rags, she is only using her invariable economy. We know well the sort of +robe that befits her dignity, and no doubt it is this contrast that +makes the trial of her present humiliation more difficult for us to +bear. + +We do not for a moment allow that the difference between bad taste and +good is merely relative, or that a language or art which is externally +vulgar can ever be the adequate and appropriate expression of the +Catholic religion, whose tendency when unimpeded is ever to refine and +purify. But it is perhaps another narrowness to suppose that a reform +can only be effected by a return to the past, to mediæval symbolism and +music and architecture. No effort of the kind has ever met with more +than seeming success. What is consciously imitated from the past is not +the same as that natural growth which it imitates, and which was as +congenial to those days as it is uncongenial to ours. It is all the +difference between the Mass ceremonial in a Ritualist church and in a +Catholic church--the historical sense is violated in one case and +satisfied in the other. + +What is once really dead can never revive in the same form--at best we +get a cast from the dead face. No doubt the old music and the old +symbolism always will have a beauty of antiquity that can never belong +to the new; but it was not this beauty--the beauty of death, of autumn +leaves, that made them once popular, but the beauty of fresh green life +and flexibility. The effort to make antiquity popular is almost a +contradiction in terms. What we may hope for at most is an improvement +in the æsthetic tastes of the Catholic public which comes from freer and +healthier surroundings, from saner ideas and wider opportunities of +education and liberal culture. When they begin to speak a richer +language, the Church will take that language and find in it a fuller +expression of her mind than she can in the present _patois_; she will be +able again to say to them in other words, as yet unknown, what she said +to the middle ages in Gregorian chaunt and Gothic cathedral. She, who in +virtue of her Pentecostal gift of tongues, speaks in sundry times and +divers manners, may in due season find words as eloquent of her heart +and mind as those which she spoke to Durtal in the aisles of Chartres +and in the cadences of Solesmes. + +_July_, 1898. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: Introduction to Sordello.] + +[Footnote 2: _The Cathedral_. By M.T.K. Huysman. Translated by +Clare Bell.] + +[Footnote 3: R. P. Pacher, S.J., _De Dante à Verlaine_.] + + + +XIX. + + +TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. + +The paradoxes of one generation are the common-places of the next; what +the savants of to-day whisper in the ear, the Hyde Park orators of +to-morrow will bawl from their platforms. Moreover, it is just when its +limits begin to be felt by the critical, when its pretended +all-sufficingness can no longer be maintained, that a theory or +hypothesis begins to be popular with the uncritical and to work its +irrevocable ill-effects on the general mind. In this, as in many other +matters, the lower orders adopt the abandoned fashions of their betters, +though with less of the well-bred taste which sometimes in the latter +makes even absurdity graceful. In this way it has come to pass that at +the very moment in which a reaction against the irreligious or +anti-religious philosophy of a couple of generations ago is making +itself felt in the study, the spreading pestilence of negation and +unbelief has gained and continues to gain possession of the street. Some +fifty years ago religion and even Christianity, seemed to the sanguine +eyes of Catholics so firmly rooted in England that the recovery of the +country to their faith depended almost entirely on the settlement of the +Anglo-Roman controversy; to which controversy they accordingly devoted, +and, in virtue of the still unexhausted impetus of that effort, do still +devote their energies, almost exclusively. But together with a dawning +consciousness that times and conditions have considerably changed, there +is growing up in certain quarters a feeling that we too shall have to +make some modifications in order to adapt ourselves to the altered +circumstances. It is becoming increasingly evident that even could the +said Anglo-Roman controversy be settled by some argument so irresistibly +evident as to leave no _locus standi_ to the opponents of the Petrine +claims, yet the number of those Anglicans who admit the historical, +critical, philosophical, and theological assumptions upon which the +controversy is based and which are presumed as common ground, is so +small and dwindling that, were they all gained to the Church, we should +be still a "feeble folk" in the face of that tidal wave of unbelief +whose gathering force bids fair to sweep everything before it. Also the +lingering impression left from "Tractarian" days as to the intellectual +pre-eminence of the Catholicizing party in the Anglican Church, which +pre-eminence might make amends for their numerical insignificance, is +gradually giving way to the recognition of the sobering fact that at +present that party in no exclusive sense represents the cultivated +intellect of the country. It is no disrespect to that party to say that +while scholarship and intelligence are therein well represented by +scattered individuals, yet it is cumbered, like most religious movements +after they have streamed some distance from their source, with a +majority of those whose adhesion has little or no pretence to an +intellectual basis; and whose occasional accession to the Catholic +Church is almost entirely their own gain. + +To give the last decisive push to those who are already toppling over +the border-line that divides England from Rome, to reap and gather-in +the harvest already ripe for the sickle, is a useful, a necessary, and a +charitable work; one that calls for a certain kind of patient skill not +to be underestimated; but there is a wider and perhaps more fruitful +field whose soil is as yet scarcely broken. It may even be asserted with +only seeming paradox that the best religious intelligence of the country +is to be found in the camp of negation rather than in that of +affirmation; among Broad Churchmen, Nonconformists, Unitarians, and +Positivists, rather than among those who seek rest in the unstable +position of a modified Catholicism. The very instability and difficulty +of that position elicits much ingenuity from its theological defenders, +though it also divides their counsels not a little; nor do we quarrel +with them for affirming instead of denying, but for not affirming +enough. But this attempt at compromise, this midway abortion of the +natural growth of an idea, even were it justifiable as sometimes happens +when legitimate issues are obscured through failure of evidence, repels +the great multitude of religious thinkers who are not otherwise +sufficiently drawn towards Catholicism to care to examine these claims. +To say that there is no logical alternative between Rome and Agnosticism +is a sufficiently shallow though popular sophism. At most it means that +from certain given premisses one or other of those conclusions must +follow syllogistically--a statement that would be more interesting were +the said premisses indisputable and admitted by all the world. Still it +may be allowed that a criticism of these premisses, which is a third +alternative, opens up to religious thought a number of roads, all of +which lead away from, rather than towards the extreme Anglican position, +and hence that the more searching religious intelligence of the country +is as adverse to that position--and for the same reasons--as it is to +our own. And by the "religious intelligence" I mean all that +intelligence that is interested in the religious problem; be that +interest hostile or friendly; be it, in its issue, negative or +constructive. For it must not be forgotten that the enemies of a truth +are as interested in it as its friends; or that the friendliest +interest, the strongest "wish to believe," may at times issue in +reluctant negation. So far then as the great mass of religious +intelligence in this country is not "Anglo-Catholic" in its sympathies; +and so far as it is chiefly on the "Anglo-Catholic" section that we make +any perceptible impression, the conversion of England, for what depends +on our own efforts, does not seem to be as imminent a contingency as it +would appear to be in the eyes of those foreign critics for whom Lord +Halifax is the type of every English Churchman and the English Church +co-extensive with the nation--save for a small irreclaimable residue of +Liberals and Freemasons. + +Those who, influenced by such considerations, would have us extend our +efforts from the narrowing circle of Anglo-Catholicism to the +ever-widening circle of doubt and negation, are not always clear about +the practically important distinction to be drawn between the active +leaders of doubt, and those who are passively led; the more or less +independent few, and the more or less dependent many; between the man of +the study and the man of the street--a distinction analogous to that +between the _Ecclesia docens_ and _Ecclesia discens_, and which +permeates every well-established school of belief, whether historical, +ethical, political, or religious. + +Dealing first with the latter, that is, with those who are led; we are +becoming more explicitly conscious of the fact that in all departments +of knowledge and opinion the beliefs of the many are not determined by +reasoning from premisses, but by the authority of reputed specialists in +the particular matter, or else by the force of the general consent of +those with whom they dwell. There may be other non-rational causes of +belief, but these are the principal and more universal. And when we say +they are non-rational causes, we do not mean that they are +non-reasonable or unreasonable. They provide such a generally +trustworthy, though occasionally fallible, method of getting at truth, +as is sufficient and possible for the practical needs of life--social, +moral, and religious. There is an inborn instinct to think as the crowd +does and to be swayed by the confident voice of authority. If at times +it fail of its end, as do other instincts, yet it is so trustworthy in +the main that to resist it in ordinary conditions is always imprudent. +That our eyes sometimes deceive us would not justify us in always +distrusting their evidence. If a child is deceived through instinctively +trusting the word of its parents, the blame of its error rests with +them, not with it. And so, whatever error the many are led into by +obeying the instinct of submission to authority or to general consent, +is their misfortune, not their fault. Of course there are higher +criteria by which the general consent and the opinion of experts can be +criticized and modified; but such criticism is not obligatory on the +many who have neither leisure nor competence for the task. For here, as +elsewhere, a certain diversity of gifts results in a natural division of +labour in human society; those who have, giving to those who have not; +some ministering spiritual, others temporal benefits to their +neighbours. Not that a man can save another's soul for him any more than +he can eat his dinner for him, but he can minister to him better food or +worse. + +The Mussulman child, then, may be bound, during his intellectual +minority, to accept the religious teaching of its parents, just as is +the Christian child. That one, in obeying this natural but fallible +rule, is led into error, the other into, truth, only verifies the +principle that right faith is a gift of God,--a grace, a bit of good +fortune. None of those who are not professedly teachers of religion and +experts, can be morally bound to a criticism above their competence, or +to more than an obedience to those ordinary causes of assent to whose +influence they are subjected by their circumstances. The ideal of a +Catholic religion is to provide, by means of a divinely guided body of +authorities and experts, an universal, international, inter-racial +consensus regarding truths that are as obscure as they are vital to +individual and social happiness; and thus to afford a means of sure and +easy guidance to those uncritical multitudes whose necessary +preoccupations forbid their engaging in theology and controversy. This +ideal was sufficiently realized for practical purposes in the "ages of +faith," when the whole public opinion of Europe, then believed to be +coterminous with civilization, was Catholic; when dissent needed as much +independence of character, as in so many places, profession does now. +And surely it is a narrow-hearted criticism to prefer the primitive +conditions in which none but those strong enough to face persecution +could reap the benefits of Christianity. The weak and dependent are ever +the majority, and if Christianity had been intended to pass them by or +sift them out, "its province were not large," nor could it claim to be +the religion of humanity. The Christian leaven was never meant to be +kept apart, but to be hidden and lost in that unleavened mass which it +seeks slowly to transform into its own nature. The majority, in respect +to religion and civilization, are like unwilling school-boys who need to +be coerced for their own benefit, to be kept to their work till they +learn (if they ever do) to like it, and to need no more coercion. The +support that Catholic surroundings give to numbers, who else were too +weak to stand alone, cannot be overvalued, although it may weaken a few +who else had exerted themselves more strenuously, or may foster +hypocrisy in secret unbelievers who would like to, but dare not +withstand public opinion. + +Now it is the gradual decay of this support--of this non-rational yet +most reasonable cause of belief, that is rendering the religious +condition of the man in the street so increasingly unsatisfactory. Not +only is there no longer an agreement of experts, and a consequent +consensus of nations, touching the broad and fundamental truths of +Christianity, but what is far more to the point, the knowledge of this +Babylonian confusion has become a commonplace with the multitudes. No +doubt there are yet some shaded patches where the dew still struggles +with the desiccating sun--old-world sanctuaries of Catholicism whose +dwellers hardly realize the existence of unbelief or heresy, or who give +at best a lazy, notional assent to the fact. But there are few regions +in so-called Christendom where the least educated are not now quite +aware that Christianity is but one of many religions in a much larger +world than their forefathers were aware of; that the intellect of +modern, unlike that of mediæval Europe, is largely hostile to its +claims; that its defenders are infinitely at variance with one another; +that there is no longer any social disgrace connected with a +non-profession of Christianity; in a word, that the public opinion of +the modern world has ceased to be Christian, and that the once +all-dominating religion which blocked out the serious consideration of +any other claimant, bids fair to be speedily reduced to its primitive +helplessness and insignificance. The disintegrating effect of such +knowledge on the faith of the masses must be, and manifestly is, simply +enormous. Not that there is any rival consensus and authority to take +the place of dethroned Catholicism. Even scepticism is too little +organized and embodied, too chaotic in its infinite variety of +contradictory positions, to create an influential consensus of any +positive kind against faith. Its effect, as far as the unthinking masses +are concerned, is simply to destroy the chief extrinsic support of their +faith and to throw them back on the less regular, less reliable causes +of belief. If in addition it teaches them a few catchwords of +free-thought, a few smart blasphemies and syllogistic impertinences, +this is of less consequence than at first sight appears, since these are +attempted after-justifications, and no real causes of their unbelief. +For they love the parade of formal reason, as they love big words or +technical terms, or a smattering of French or Latin, with all the +delight of a child in the mysterious and unfamiliar; but their pretence +to be ruled by it is mere affectation, and the tenacity with which they +cling to their arguments is rather the tenacity of blind faith in a +dogma, than of clear insight into principles. + +And this brings us to the problem which gave birth to the present essay. + +The growing infection of the uneducated or slightly educated masses of +the Catholic laity with the virus of prevalent unbelief is arousing the +attention of a few of our clergy to the need of coping with what is to +them a new kind of difficulty. Amongst other kindred suggestions, is +that of providing tracts for the million dealing not as heretofore with +the Protestant, but with the infidel controversy. While the danger was +more limited and remote it was felt that, more harm than good would come +of giving prominence in the popular mind to the fact and existence of so +much unbelief; that in many minds doubts unfelt before would be +awakened; that difficulties lay on the surface and were the progeny of +shallow-mindedness, whereas the solutions lay deeper down than the +vulgar mind could reasonably be expected to go; that on the whole it was +better that the few should suffer, than that the many should be +disturbed. The docile and obedient could be kept away from contagion, or +if infected, could be easily cured by an act of blind confidence in the +Church; while the disobedient would go their own way in any case. Hence +the idea of entering into controversy with those incompetent to deal +with such matters was wisely set aside. But now that the prevalence and +growth of unbelief is as evident as the sun at noon--now that it is no +longer only the recalcitrant and irreligious, but even the religious and +docile-minded who are disturbed by the fact, it seems to some that, a +policy of silence and inactivity may be far more fruitful in evil than +in good, that reverent reserve must be laid aside and the pearls of +truth cast into the trough of popular controversy. + +But to this course an almost insuperable objection presents itself at +first seeming. Seeing that, the true cause of doubt and unbelief in the +uncritical, is to be sought for proximately in the decay of a popular +consensus in favour of belief, and ultimately in the disagreements and +negations of those who lead and form public opinion, and in no wise in +the reasons which they allege when they attempt a criticism that is +beyond them; what will it profit to deal with the apparent cause if we +cannot strike at the real cause? In practical matters, the reasons men +give for their conduct, to themselves as well as to others, are often +untrue, never exhaustive. Hence to refute their reasons will not alter +their intentions. To dispel the sophisms assigned by the uneducated as +the basis of their unbelief, is not really to strike at the root of the +matter at all. Besides which, the work is endless; for if they are +released from one snare they will be as easily re-entangled in the next; +and indeed what can such controversy do but foster in them the false +notion that, belief in possession may be dispossessed by every passing +difficulty, and that their faith is to be dependent on an intellectual +completeness of which they are for ever incapable. Indeed the +unavoidable amount of controversy of all kinds, dinned into the ears of +the faithful in a country like this, favours a fallacy of +intellectualism very prejudicial to the repose of a living faith founded +on concrete reasons, more or less experimental. + +As far as the many are concerned, much the same difficulty attends the +preservation of their faith in these days, as attended its creation in +the beginnings of Christianity, before the little flock had grown into a +kingdom, when the intellect and power of the world was arrayed against +it, when it had neither the force of a world-wide consensus nor the +voice of public authority in its favour. In those days it was not by the +"persuasive words of human wisdom" that the crowds were gained over to +Christ, but by a certain _ostensio virtutis_, by an experimental and not +merely by a rational proof of the Gospel--a proof which, if it admitted +of any kind of formulation, did not compel them in virtue of the +logicality of its form. Further, when the conditions and helps needed by +the Church in her infancy, gave way to those belonging to her +established strength, it was by her ascendency over the strong, the +wealthy, and the learned, that she secured for the crowd,--for the weak +and the poor and the ignorant,--the most necessary support of a +Christianized, international public opinion, and thereby extended the +benefit of her educative influence to those millions whom disinclination +or weakness would otherwise have deterred from the profession and +practice of the faith. + +If the Church of to-day is to retain her hold of the crowd in modernized +or modernizing countries, it must either be by renewing her ascendency +over those who form and modify public opinion, who even in the purest +democracy are ever the few and not the many; or else by a reversion to +the methods of primitive times, by some palpable argument that speaks as +clearly to the simplest as to the subtlest, if only the heart be right. +An outburst of miracle-working and prophecy is hardly to be looked for; +while the argument from the tree's fruits, or from the moral miracle, is +at present weakened by the extent to which non-Christians put in +practice the morality they have learnt from Christ. Other non-rational +causes of belief draw individuals, but they do not draw crowds. + +If we cannot see very clearly what is to supply for the support once +given to the faith of the millions by public opinion, still their +incapacity for dealing with the question on rational grounds will not +justify us altogether in silence. For in the first place it is an +incapacity of which they are not aware, or which at least they are very +unwilling to admit. A candidate at the hustings would run a poor chance +of a hearing who, instead of seeming to appeal to the reason of the mob +should, in the truthfulness of his soul, try to convince them of their +utter incompetence to judge the simplest political point. Again, though +unable to decide between cause and cause, yet the rudest can often see +that there is much to be said on both sides--though what, he does not +understand; and if this fact weakens his confidence in the right, it +also weakens it in the wrong; whereas had the right been silent, the +wrong, in his judgment, would thereby have been proved victorious. This +will justify us at times in talking over the heads of our readers and +hearers, and in not sparing sonorous polysyllables, abstruse +technicalities, or even the pompous parade of syllogistic arguments with +all their unsightly joints sticking out for public admiration. Some +hands may be too delicate for this coarse work; but there will always be +those to whom it is easy and congenial; and its utility is too evident +to allow a mere question of taste to stand in the way. + +Moreover, it must be remembered that while many of the class referred to +are glad to be free from the pressure of a Christianized public opinion, +and are only too willing to grasp at any semblance of a reason for +unbelief; others, more religiously disposed, are really troubled by +these popular, anti-Christian difficulties, the more so as they are +often infected with the fallacy, fostered by ceaseless controversy, +which makes one's faith dependent on the formal reason one can give for +it. + +Though this is not so, yet moral truthfulness forbids us to assent to +what we, however falsely, believe to be untrue. Hence while the virtue +of faith remains untouched, its exercise with regard to particular +points may be inculpably suspended through ignorance, stupidity, +misinformation, and other causes. + +In the interest of these well-disposed but easily puzzled believers of +the ill-instructed and uncritical sort, a series of anti-agnostic tracts +for the million would really seem to be called for. Yet never has the +present writer felt more abjectly crushed with a sense of incompetence +than when posed by the difficulties of a "hagnostic" greengrocer, or of +a dressmaker fresh from the perusal of "Erbert" Spencer. Face to face +with chaos, one knows not where to begin the work of building up an +orderly mind; nor will the self-taught genius brook a hint of possible +ignorance, or endure the discussion of dull presuppositions, without +much pawing of the ground and champing on the bit: "What I want," he +says, "is a plain answer to a plain question." And when you explain to +him that for an answer he must go back very far and become a little +child again, and must unravel his mind to the very beginning like an +ill-knit stocking, he looks at once incredulous and triumphant as who +should say: "There, I told you so!" Yet the same critical incompetence +that makes these simple folk quite obtuse to the true and adequate +solution of their problems (I am speaking of cases where such solutions +are possible), makes them perfectly ready to accept any sort of +counter-sophistry or paralogism. A most excellent and genuine "convert" +of that class told me that he had stood out for years against the +worship of the Blessed Virgin, till one day it had occurred to him that, +as a cause equals or exceeds its effect, so the Mother must equal the +Son. Another, equally genuine, professed to have been conquered by the +reflection that he had all his life been saying: "I believe in the Holy +Catholic Church," and he could not see the use of believing in it if he +didn't belong to it. If their faith in Catholicism or in any other +religion depended on their logic, men of this widespread class were in a +sorry plight. Like many of their betters, these two men probably +imagined the assigned reasons to be the entire cause of their +conversion, making no account of the many reasonable though non-logical +motives by which the change was really brought about. Hence to have +abruptly and incautiously corrected them, would perhaps but have been to +reduce them to confusion and perplexity, and to "destroy with one's +logic those for whom Christ died." + +That we do not sufficiently realize the dialectical incompetence of the +uneducated is partly to be explained by the fact that they often get +bits of reasoning by rote, much as young boys learn their Euclid; and +that they frequently seem to understand principles because they apply +them in the right cases, just as we often quote a proverb appropriately +without the slightest idea of its origin or meaning beyond that it is +the right thing to say in a certain connection. As we ascend in the +scale of education, there is more and more of this reasoning by rote, so +that critical incompetence is more easily concealed and may lurk +unsuspected even in the pulpit and the professorial chair, where logic +alone seems paramount. The "hagnostic" greengrocer, in all the +self-confidence of his ignorance, is but the lower extreme of a class +that runs up much higher in the social scale and spreads out much wider +in every direction. + +But when we have realized more adequately how hopelessly incompetent the +multitude must necessarily be in the problems of specialists, we shall +also see that it is only by inadequate and even sophistical reasoning +that most of their intellectual difficulties can be allayed; that the +full truth (and the half-truth is mostly a lie) would be Greek to them. +If, then, _Tracts for the Million_ seem a necessity, they also seem an +impossibility; for what self-respecting man will sit down to weave that +tissue of sophistry, special-pleading, violence, and vulgarity, which +alone will serve the practical purpose with those to whom trenchency is +everything and subtlety nothing? Even though the means involve a +violation of taste rather than of morals, yet can they be justified by +the goodness of the end? Fortunately, however, the difficulty is met by +a particular application of God's universal method in the education of +mankind. In every grade of enlightenment there are found some who are +sufficiently in advance of the rest to be able to help them, and not so +far in advance as practically to speak a different language. What is a +dazzling light for those just emerging from darkness, is darkness for +those in a yet stronger light. A statement may be so much less false +than another, as to be relatively true; so much less true than a third, +as to be relatively false. For a mind wholly unprepared, the full truth +is often a light that blinds and darkness; whereas the tempered +half-truth prepares the way for a fuller disclosure in due time, even as +the law and the prophets prepared the way for the Gospel and Christ, or +as the enigmas of faith school us to bear that light which now no man +can gaze on and live. Thus, though we may never use a lie in the +interest of truth, or bring men from error by arguments we know to be +sophistical, yet we have the warrant of Divine example, both in the +natural and supernatural education of mankind, for the passive +permission of error in the interest of truth, as also of evil in the +interest of good. Since then there will ever be found those who in all +good faith and sincerity can adapt themselves to the popular need and +supply each level of intelligence with the medicine most suited to its +digestion, all we ask is that a variety of standards in controversial +writings be freely recognized; that each who feels called to such +efforts should put forth his very best with a view to helping those +minds which are likest his own; that none should deliberately condescend +to the use of what from his point of view would be sophistries and +vulgarities, remembering at the same time that the superiority of his +own taste and judgment is more relative than absolute, and that in the +eyes of those who come after, he himself may be but a Philistine. + +We conclude then that all that can be done in the way of _Tracts for the +Million_ should be done; that seed of every kind should be scattered to +the four winds, hoping that each may find some congenial soil. + +But even when all that can be done in this way to save the masses from +the contagion of unbelief has been done, we shall be as far as ever from +having found a substitute for the support which formerly was lent to +their faith by a Christianized public opinion. Can we hope for anything +more than thus to retard the leakage? The answer to this would take us +to the second of our proposed considerations, namely, our attitude +towards those who form and modify that public opinion by which the +masses are influenced for good or for evil. But it is an answer which +for the present must be deferred. [1] + +_Nov._ 1900. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: The Introduction to the First Series of these essays +attempts to deal with this further question.] + + + +XX. + + +AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. + + + "A man that could look no way but downwards, with a + muck-rake in his hand" and "did neither look up nor regard, + but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and the dust + of the floor.... Then said Christiana, 'Oh, deliver me + from this muck-rake.'"--Bunyan. + + +Naturalism includes various schools which agree in the first principle +that nothing is true but what can be justified by those axiomatic truths +which every-day experience forces upon our acceptance, not indeed as +self-evident, but as inevitable, unless we are to be incapacitated for +practical life. It is essentially the philosophy of the unphilosophical, +that is, of those who believe what they are accustomed to believe, and +because they are so accustomed; who are incapable of distinguishing +between the subjective necessity imposed by habits and the objective +necessity founded in the nature of things. It is no new philosophy, but +as old as the first dawn of philosophic thought, for it is the form +towards which the materialistic mind naturally gravitates. Given a +population sufficiently educated to philosophize in any fashion, and of +necessity the bent of the majority will be in the direction of some form +of Naturalism. Hence we find that the "Agnosticism" of Professor Huxley +is eminently suited to the capacity and taste of the semi-educated +majorities in our large centres of civilization. Still it must not be +supposed that the majority really philosophizes at all even to this +extent. The pressure of life renders it morally impossible. But they +like to think that they do so. The whole temper of mind, begotten and +matured by the rationalistic school, is self-sufficient: every man his +own prophet, priest, and king; every man his own philosopher. Hence, he +who poses as a teacher of the people will not be tolerated. The theorist +must come forward with an affectation of modesty, as into the presence +of competent critics; he must only expose his wares, win for himself a +hearing, and then humbly wait for the _placet_ of the sovereign people. +But plainly this is merely a conventional homage to a theory that no +serious mind really believes in. We know well enough, that the opinions +and beliefs of the multitude are formed almost entirely by tradition, +imitation, interest, by in fact any influence rather than that of pure +reason. Taught they are, and taught they must be, however they repudiate +it. But the most successful teachers and leaders are those who contrive +to wound their sense of intellectual self-sufficiency least, and to +offer them the strong food of dogmatic assertion sugared over and +sparkling with the show of wit and reason. + +Philosophy for the million may be studied profitably in one of its +popular exponents whose works have gained wide currency among the class +referred to. Mr. S. Laing is a very fair type of the average +mind-leader, owing his great success to his singular appreciation of the +kind of treatment needed to secure a favourable hearing. We do not +pretend to review Mr. Laing's writings for their own sake, but simply as +good specimens of a class which is historically rather than +philosophically interesting. + +We have before us three of his most popular books: _Modern Science and +Modern Thought_ (nineteenth thousand), _Problems of the Future_ +(thirteenth thousand), _Human Origins_ (twelfth thousand), to which we +shall refer as M.S., P.F., H.O., in this essay; taking the +responsibility of all italics on ourselves, unless otherwise notified. + +Mr. Laing is not regretfully forced into materialism by some mental +confusion or obscurity, but he revels in it, and invites all to taste +and see how gracious a philosophy it is. There is an ill-concealed +levity and coarseness in his handling of religious subjects which +breaks, + + At seasons, through the gilded pale, + +and which warns us from casting reasons before those who would but +trample them under foot. It is rather for the sake of those who read +such literature, imprudently perhaps, but with no sympathy, and yet find +their imagination perplexed and puzzled with a swarm of minute +sophistries and difficulties, collectively bewildering, though +contemptible singly, that we think it well to form some estimate of the +philosophical value of such works. + +Nothing in our study of Mr. Laing surprised us more than to discover [1] +that he had lived for more than the Scriptural span of three-score and +ten years, a life of varied fortunes and many experiences. It seems to +us incredible that any man of even average thoughtfulness could, after +so many years, find life without God, without immortality, without +definite meaning or assignable goal, "worth living," and that "to be +born in a civilized country in the nineteenth century is a boon for +which a man can never be sufficiently thankful." [2] [Thankful to whom? +one might ask parenthetically.] In other words, he is a bland optimist, +and has nothing but vials of contempt to pour upon the pessimists, from +Ecclesiastes down to Carlyle. Pessimism, we are told confidentially, is +not an outcome of just reasoning on the miserable residue of hope which +materialism leaves to us, but of the indisposition "of those digestive +organs upon which the sensation of health and well-being so mainly +depends." "It is among such men, with cultivated intellects, sensitive +nerves, and bad digestion, that we find the prophets and disciples of +pessimism." [3] The inference is, that men of uncultivated intellects, +coarse nerves, and ostrich livers will coincide with Mr. Laing in his +sanguine view of the ruins of religion. The sorrowing dyspeptic asks in +despair: "Son of man, thinkest thou that these dry bones will live +again?" "I'm cock-sure of it," answers Mr. Laing, and the ground of his +assurance is the healthiness of his liver. + +Carlyle, who in other matters is, according to Mr. Laing, a great +genius, a more than prophet of the new religion, on this point suddenly +collapses into "a dreadful croaker," styling his own age "barren, +brainless, soulless, faithless." [4] But the reason is, of course, that +"he suffered from chronic dyspepsia" and was unable "to eat his three +square meals a day." A very consistent explanation for an avowed +materialist, but slightly destructive to the value of his own +conclusions, being a two-edged sword. Indeed he almost allows as much. +"For such dyspeptic patients there is an excuse. Pessimism is probably +as inevitably their creed, as optimism is for the more fortunate mortals +who enjoy the _mens sana in corpore sano_." [5] However, there are some +pessimists for whom indigestion can plead no excuse, [6] but for whose +intellectual perversity some other cosmic influence must be sought +"behind the veil, behind the veil,"--to borrow Mr. Laing's favourite +line from his favourite poem. These are not only "social swells, +would-be superior persons and orthodox theologians, but even a man of +light and learning like Mr. F. Harrison." "Religion, they say, is +becoming extinct.... Without a lively faith in such a personal, +ever-present deity who listens to our prayers, ... there can be, they +say, no religion; and they hold, and I think rightly hold, that the only +support for such a religion is to be found in the assumed inspiration of +the Bible and the Divinity of Christ." "Destroy these and they think the +world will become vulgar and materialized, losing not only the surest +sanction of morals, but ... the spiritual aspiration and tendencies," &c. +[7] "To these gloomy forebodings I venture to return a positive and +categorical denial ... Scepticism has been the great sweetener of modern +life." [8] How he justifies his denial by maintaining that morality can +hold its own when reduced to a physical science; that the "result of +advancing civilization" and of the materialistic psychology is "a +clearer recognition of the intrinsic sacredness and dignity of every +human soul;" [9] that Christianity without dogma, without miracles [or, +as he calls it, "Christian agnosticism"], shall retain the essential +spirit, the pure morality, the consoling beliefs, and as far as possible +even the venerable form and sacred associations of the old faith, may +appear later. At present we are concerned directly with pointing out how +Mr. Laing's optimism at once marks him off from those men who, whether +believing or misbelieving or unbelieving, have thought deeply and felt +deeply, who have seen clearly that materialism leaves nothing for man's +soul but the husks of swine; who have therefore boldly faced the +inevitable alternative between spiritualistic philosophy and hope, and +materialism with its pessimistic corollary. That a man may be a +materialist or atheist and enjoy life thoroughly, who does not know? but +then it is just at the expense of his manhood, because he lives without +thought, reflection, or aspiration, _i.e.,_ materialistically. Mr. Laing +no doubt, as he confesses, has lived pleasantly enough. He has found in +what he calls science an endless source of diversion, he betrays himself +everywhere as a man of intense intellectual curiosity in every +direction, and yet withal so little concerned with the roots of things, +so easily satisfied with a little plausible coherence in a theory, as +not to have found truth an apparently stern or exacting mistress, not to +have felt the anguish of any deep mental conflict. His intellectual +labours have been pleasurable because easy, and, in his own eyes, +eminently fruitful and satisfactory. He has adopted an established +cause, thrown himself into it heart and soul; others indeed had gone +before him and laboured, and he has entered into their labours. Indeed, +he is frank in disclaiming all originality of discovery or theory; [10] +he has not risked the disappointment and anxiety of improving on the +Evolution Gospel, but he has collected and sorted and arranged and +published the evidence obtained by others. This has always furnished him +with an interest in life; [11] but whether it be a rational interest or +not depends entirely on the usefulness or hurtfulness of his work. He +admits, however, that though life for him has been worth living, "some +may find it otherwise from no fault of their own, more by their own +fate." [12] But all can lead fairly happy lives by following his +large-type platitudinous maxim, "Fear nothing, make the best of +everything." [13] In other words, the large majority, who are not and +never can be so easily and pleasantly circumstanced as Mr. Laing, are +told calmly to make the best of it and to rejoice in the thought that +their misery is a necessary factor in the evolution of their happier +posterity. This is the new gospel: _Pauperes evangelizantur_--"Good +news for the poor." [14] "Progress and not happiness" is the end we are +told to make for, over and over again; but, progress towards what, is +never explained, nor is any basis for this duty assigned. Indeed, duty +means nothing for Mr. Laing but an inherited instinct, which if we +choose to disobey or if we happen not to possess, who shall blame us or +talk to us of "oughts"? + +And now to consider more closely the grounds of Mr. Laing's very +cheerful view of a world in which, for all we know, there is no soul, no +God, and certainly no faith. Since of the two former we know and can +know nothing, we must build our happiness, our morality, our "religion," +on a basis whereof they form no part. He believes that morality will be +able to hold its own distinct, not only from all belief in revelation, +in a personal God, and in a spiritual soul, but in spite of a philosophy +which by tracing the origin of moral judgments to mere physical laws of +hereditary transmission of experienced utilities, robs them of all +authority other than prudential, and convicts them of being illusory so +far as they seem to be of higher than human origin. + +Herein, as usual, he treads in the steps of Professor Huxley, "the +greatest living master of English prose" (though why his mastery of +prose should add to his weight as a philosopher, we fail to see). "Such +ideas _evidently_ come from education, and are not the results either of +inherited instinct [15] or of supernatural gift.... Given a being with +man's brain, man's hands, and erect stature, _it is easy to see_ how ... +rules of conduct ... must have been formed and fixed by successive +generations, according to the Darwinian laws." [16] + +He tells us: "We may read the Athanasian Creed less, but we practise +Christian charity more in the present than in any former age." [17] +"Faith has diminished, charity increased." [18] + +Of moral principles, he says: "Why do we say that ... they carry +conviction with them and prove themselves?... Still, there they are, and +being what they are ... it requires no train of reasoning or laboured +reflection to make us _feel_ that 'right is right,' and that it is +_better_ for ourselves and others to act on such precepts ... rather +than to reverse these rules and obey the selfish promptings of animal +nature." [19] "It is _clearly_ our highest wisdom to follow right, not +from selfish calculation, ... but because 'right is right.' ... For +practical purposes it is comparatively unimportant how this standard got +there ... as an absolute imperative rule." [20] As to the apprehended +ill effect of agnosticism on morals, he says: "The foundations of +morals [21] are fortunately built on solid rock and not on shifting sand. +It may truly be said in a great many cases that, as individuals and +nations become more sceptical, they become more moral." [22] "_If there +is one thing more certain than another_ in the history of evolution, it +is that morals have been evolved by the same laws as regulate the +development of species." [23] + +These citations embody Mr. Laing's opinions on this point, and show very +clearly his utter incapacity for elementary philosophic thought. Here, +as elsewhere, as soon as he leaves the bare record of facts and embarks +in any kind of speculation, he shows himself helpless; however, he tries +to fortify his own courage and that of his readers, with "it is clear," +"it is evident," "it is certain." + +To say that "right is right," sounds very oracular; but it either means +that "right" is an ultimate spring of action, inexplicable on +evolutionist principles, or that right is the will of the strongest, or +an illusory inherited foreboding of pain, or a calculation of future +pleasure and pain, or something which, in no sense, is a true account of +what men _do_ mean by right. To say that moral principles "carry +conviction with them, and prove themselves" _(i.e._, are self-evident), +unless, as we suspect, it is mere verbiage conveying nothing particular +to Mr. Laing's brain, is to deny that right has reference to the +consequences of action as bearing on human progress and evolution, which +is to deny the very theory he wishes to uphold. No intuitionist could +have spoken more strongly. Then we are assured that we "feel" rightness, +or that "right is right"--apparently as a simple irresoluble quality of +certain actions--and with same breath, that "it is _better_ for +ourselves and others to act on these rules," where he jumps off to +utilitarianism again; and then we are forbidden to "obey the selfish +impulses of our animal nature"--a strange prohibition for one who sees +in us nothing but animal nature, who denies us any free power to +withstand its impulses. Then it is "clearly our highest wisdom to follow +right"--an appeal to prudential motives--"not from any selfish +calculations"--a repudiation of prudential motives--"but because 'right +is right'"--an appeal to a blind unreasoning instinct, and a prohibition +to question its authority. We are told that for practical purposes it +matters little whence this absolute imperative rule originates. Was +there ever a more unpractical and short-sighted assertion! Convince men +that the dictates of conscience are those of fear or selfishness, that +they are all mere animal instincts, that they are anything less than +divine, and who will care for Mr. Laing's appeal to blind faith in the +"rightness of right"? + +As long as Christian tradition lives on, as it will for years among the +masses, the effects of materialist ethics will not be felt; but as these +new theories filter down from the few to the many, they will inevitably +produce their logical consequences in practical matters. No one with +open eyes can fail to see how the leaven is spreading already. Still the +majority act and speak to a great extent under the influence of the old +belief, which they have repudiated, in the freedom of man's will and the +Divine origin of right. It is quite plain that Mr. Laing has either +never had patience to think the matter out, or has found it beyond his +compass. Having thus established morality on a foundation independent of +religion and of everything else, making "right" rest on "right," he +assumes the prophetic robe, and on the strength of his seventy years of +experience and philosophy poses as a _Cato Major_ for the edification of +the semi-scientific millions of young persons to whom he addresses his +volumes. We have a whole chapter on Practical Life, [24] on +self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, full of portentous +platitudes and ancient saws; St. Paul's doctrine of charity, and all +that is best in the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, is liberated +from its degrading association with the belief in a God who rewards and +punishes.[25] We are "to act strenuously in that direction which, after +_conscientious_ inquiry, seems the best, ... and trust to what religious +men call Providence, and scientific men Evolution, for the result," and +all this simply on the bold assertion of this sage whose sole aim is "to +leave the world a little better rather than a little worse for my +individual unit of existence." [26] + +And here we may inquire parenthetically as to the motive which urges Mr. +Laing to throw himself into the labours of the apostolate and to become +such an active propagandist of agnosticism. We are told[27] that the +enlightened should be "liberal and tolerant towards traditional opinions +and traditional practices, and trust with cheerful faith to evolution to +bring about _gradually_ changes of form," &c.; that the influence of the +clergy is "on the whole exerted for good," and it is frankly +acknowledged that Christianity has been a potent factor in the evolution +of modern civilization. It has, however, nearly run its course, and the +old order must give place to the new, _i.e._, to agnosticism. But even +allowing, what we dare say Mr. Laing would not ask, that the speculative +side of the new religion is fully defined and worked out, and ready to +displace the old dogmatic creeds, yet its practical aspect is so vague +that he writes: "I think the time is come when the intellectual victory +of agnosticism is so far assured, that it behoves thinking men to _begin +to consider_ what practical results are likely to follow from it." [28] +In the face of this confession we find Mr. Laing industriously +addressing himself to "those who lack time and opportunity for +studying," [29] to the "minds of my younger readers, and of the working +classes who are striving after culture," [30] "to what may be called the +semi-scientific readers, ... who have already acquired some elementary +ideas about science," "to the millions;" [31] and endeavouring by all +means in his power to destroy the last vestige of their faith in that +religion which alone provides for them a definite code of morality +strengthened by apparent sanctions of the highest order, and venerable +at least by its antiquity and universality. [32] And while he is thus +busily pulling down the old scaffolding, he is calmly _beginning_ to +consider the practical results. This is his method of "leaving the world +a little better than he found it." He professes to understand and +appreciate "In Memoriam." Has he ever reflected on the lines: "O thou +that after toil and storm," [33] when the practical conclusion is-- + + Leave thou thy sister, when she prays, + Her early Heaven, her happy views; + Nor thou with shadowed hint infuse + A life that leads melodious days. + Her faith through form is pure as thine, + Her hands are quicker unto good; + O sacred be the flesh and blood, + To which she links a truth divine. + +On his own principles he is convicted of being a lover of mischief. No, +one is sorely tempted to think that these men are well aware that the +moral sense which sound philosophy and Christian faith have developed, +is still strong in the minds and deeper conscience of the +English-speaking races, and that were they to present materialism in all +its loathsome nudity to the public gaze, they would be hissed off the +stage. And so they dress it up in the clothes of the old religion just +for the present, with many a quiet wink between themselves at the +expense of the "semi-scientific" reader. + +We have already adverted to Mr. Laing's utter incapacity for anything +like philosophy, except so far as that term can be applied to a power of +raking together, selecting, and piling up into "a popular shape" the +scraps of information which favour the view whose correctness he was +convinced of ere he began. A few further remarks may justify this +somewhat severe estimate. After stating that in the solution of life and +soul problems, science stops short at germs and nucleated cells, he +proceeds with the usual tirade against metaphysics: "Take Descartes' +fundamental axiom: _Cogito ergo sum_.... Is it really an axiom?... If +the fact that I am conscious of thinking proves the fact that I exist, +is the converse true that whatever does not think does not exist?... +Does a child only begin to exist when it begins to think? If _Cogito +ergo sum_ is an institution to which we can trust, why is not _Non +cogito ergo non sum?_" [34] Here is a man posing before the gaping +millions as a philosopher and a severe logician, who thinks that the +proposition, "every cow is a quadruped," is disproved by the evident +falsehood of, "what is not a cow is not a quadruped," which he calls +"the converse." He sums up magnificently by saying: "These are questions +to which no metaphysical system that I have ever seen, can return the +semblance of an answer;" giving the impression of a life devoted to a +deep and exhaustive study of all schools of philosophy. Mr. Laing here +surely is addressing his "younger readers." + +He tells us elsewhere [35] that, "when analyzed by science, spiritualism +leads straight to materialism;" free-will "can be annihilated by the +simple mechanical expedient of looking at a black wafer stuck on a white +wall;" that if "Smith falls into a trance and believes himself to be +Jones, he really is Jones, and Smith has become a stranger to him while +the trance lasts.... I often ask myself the question, If he died during +one of these trances, which would he be, Smith or Jones? and I confess +it takes some one wiser than I am to answer it." Without pretending to +be wiser than Mr. Laing, we hope it will not be too presumptuous for us +to suggest that if Smith dies in a trance _believing_ himself to be +Jones, he is under a delusion, and that he really is Smith. Else it +would be very awkward for poor Jones, who in nowise believes himself to +be Smith. Mr. Laing would have to break it gently to Jones, that, "in +fact, my dear sir, Smith borrowed your personality, and unfortunately +died before returning it; and as to whether you are yourself or Smith, +as to whether you are alive or dead, 'I confess it takes some one wiser +than I am to decide.'" That a man's own name, own surroundings, own +antecedents, are all objects of his thought, and distinguished from the +_self, ego,_ or _subject_ which contemplates them, has never suggested +itself to Mr. Laing. That though Smith may mistake every one of these, +yet the term "I" necessarily and invariably means the same for him, the +one central, constant unity to which every _non-ego_ is opposed. And +this from a man who elsewhere claims an easy familiarity with Kant. +"Again what can be said of love and hate if under given circumstances +they can be transformed into one another by a magnet?" What indeed? And +how is it that the gold-fish make no difference in the weight of the +globe of water? + +His conclusion to these inquiries is: "When Shakespeare said, 'We are +such stuff as dreams are made of,' he enumerates what has become a +scientific fact. The 'stuff' is in all cases the same--vibratory motions +of nerve particles." [36] Thus knowledge, self-consciousness, +free-choice, is as much a function of matter as fermentation, or +crystallisation--a mode of motion, not dissimilar from heat, perhaps +transformable therewith. + +Recapitulating this farrago of nonsense on p. 188, he adds a new +difficulty which ought to make him pause in his wild career. "What is +the value of the evidence of the senses if a suggestion can make us see +the hat, but not the man who wears it; or dance half the night with an +imaginary partner? Am I 'I myself, I,' or am I a barrel-organ playing +'God save the Queen,' if the stops are set in the normal fashion, but +the 'Marseillaise' if some cunning hand has altered them without my +knowledge? These are questions which I cannot answer." He cannot answer +a question on which the value of his whole system of physical philosophy +depends; uncertain about his own identity, about the evidence of his +senses, he would make the latter the sole rule and measure of certitude, +and deny to man any higher faculty by which alone he can justify his +trust in his cognitive faculties. Another instance of his absolute +ignorance of common philosophic terminology is when he asserts that +according to theology we know the dogmas of religion by "intuition." [37] + +This doctrine rests on Cardinal Newman's celebrated theory of the +"Illative Sense." Surely a moment's reflection on the meaning of words, +not to speak of a slight acquaintance with the book referred to, would +have saved him from confounding two notions so sharply distinguished as +"intuition" and "inference." Again, "There can be no doubt there are men +often of great piety and excellence who have, or fancy they have, a sort +of sixth sense, or, as Cardinal Newman calls it, an 'illative sense,' by +which they see by intuition ... things unprovable or disprovable by +ordinary reason." [38] Can a man who makes such reckless travesties of a +view which he manifestly has never studied, be credited with +intellectual honesty? + +Doubtless, the semi-scientific millions will be much impressed by the +wideness of Mr. Laing's reading and his profound grasp of all that he +has read, when they are told casually that "space and time are, ... to +use the phraseology of Kant, 'imperative categories;'" [39] but perhaps +to other readers it may convey nothing more than that he has heard a dim +something somewhere about Kant, about the categories, about space and +time being schemata of sense, and about the _categorical imperative._ +It is only one instance of the unscrupulous recklessness which shows +itself everywhere. Akin to this is his absolute misapprehension of the +Christian religion which he labours to refute. He never for a moment +questions his perfect understanding of it, and of all it has got to say +for itself. Brought up apparently among Protestants, who hold to a +verbal inspiration [40] and literal interpretation of the Scriptures, +who have no traditional or authoritative interpretation of it, he +concludes at once that his own crude, boyish conception of Christianity +is the genuine one, and that every deviation therefrom is a "climbing +down," or a minimizing. He has no suspicion that the wider views of +interpretation are as old as Christianity itself, and have always +co-existed with the narrower. + +He regards the Christian idea of God as essentially anthropomorphic. +Indeed, whether in good faith or for the sake of effect, he brings +forward the old difficulties which have been answered _ad nauseam_ with +an air of freshness, as though unearthed for the first time, and +therefore as setting religion in new and unheard-of straits. So, at all +events, it will seem to the millions of his young readers and to the +working classes. + +Let us follow him in some of his destructive criticism, or rather +denunciations, in order to observe his mode of procedure. "The +discoveries of science ... make it impossible for _sincere_ men to +retain the faith," &c., [41] therefore all who differ from Mr. Laing are +insincere. "It is _absolutely certain_ that portions of the Bible are +not true; and those, important portions." [42] This is based on two +premisses which are therefore absolutely certain, (i) Mr. Laing's +conclusions about the antiquity of man--of which more anon; (43) his +baldly literal interpretation of the Bible as delivered to him in his +early "infancy. On p. 253, we have the ancient difficulty from the New +Testament prophecy of the proximate end of the world, without the +faintest indication that it was felt 1800 years ago, and has been dealt +with over and over again. Papias [44] is lionized [45] in order to upset +the antiquity of the four Gospels--which upsetting, however, depends on +a dogmatic interpretation of an ambiguous phrase, and the absence of +positive testimony. Here again there is no evidence that Mr. Laing has +read any elementary text-book on the authenticity of the Gospels. He is +"perfectly clear" as to the fourth Gospel being a forgery; again for +reasons which he alone has discovered. [46] Paul is the first inventor +of Christian dogma, without any doubt or hesitation. But the undoubted +results of modern science ... shatter to pieces the whole fabric. _It is +as certain as that_ 2 + 2 = 4 that the world was not created in the +manner described in Genesis." + +As regards harmonistic difficulties of the Old and New Testaments, he +assumes the same confident tone of bold assertion without feeling any +obligation to notice the solutions that have been suggested. It makes +for his purpose to represent the orthodox as suddenly struck dumb and +confounded by these amazing discoveries of his. He sees discrepancies +everywhere in the Gospel narrative, e.g.: [47] + + "Judas' death is _differently_ described." "Herod is introduced by + Luke and not mentioned by the others." "Jesus carried His own Cross in + one account, while Simon of Cyrene bore it in another. Jesus gave no + answer to Pilate, says Matthew; He explains that His Kingdom was not + of the world, says John. Mary His Mother sat _(sic)_ at the foot of + the Cross, according to St. John; it was not His Mother, but Mary the + mother of Salome _(sic)_ 'who beheld Him from afar,' according to Mark + and Matthew. There was a guard set to watch the tomb, says Matthew; + there is no mention of one by the others." + +At first we thought Mr. Laing must have meant _differences_ and not +discrepancies; but the following paragraph forbade so lenient an +interpretation. "The only other mention of Mary by St. John, who +describes her as sitting _(sic)_ by the foot of the Cross, is +apocryphal, being directly contradicted by the very precise statement [48] +in the three other Gospels, that the Mary who was present on that +occasion was a different woman, the mother of Salome." Even his youngest +readers ought to open their eyes at this. Similarly he thinks the +omission of the Lord's Prayer by St. Mark tells strongly against its +authenticity. [49] + + +II. + +We must now say something about the great facts of evolutionary +philosophy which have shattered dogmatic Christianity to pieces, and +have made it impossible for any sincere man to remain a Christian. To +say that Mr. Laing is absolutely certain of the all-sufficiency of +evolutionism to explain everything that is knowable to the human mind, +that he does not hint for a moment that this philosophy is found by the +"bell-wethers" of science to be every day less satisfactory as a +complete _rationale_ of the physical cosmos; is really to understate the +case for sheer lack of words to express the intensity of his conviction. +His fundamental fact is that, however theologians may shuffle out of the +first chapter of Genesis by converting days into periods, when we come +to the story of the Noachean Deluge, we are confronted with such a +glaring absurdity that we must at once allow that the Bible is full of +myths. For history and science show that man existed probably two +hundred thousand years ago, at all events not less than twenty thousand; +also that five thousand B.C., a highly organized civilization existed in +Egypt, whose monuments of that date give evidence to the full +development of racial and linguistic differences as now existing among +men; that this plants the common stem from which these have branched +off, in an indefinitely remote pre-historic period; that to suppose that +the present races and tongues are all derived from one man (Noe), who +lived only two thousand B.C., is a monstrous impossibility; still more +so, to believe that the countless thousands of species of animals which +populate the world were collected from the four quarters of the globe, +were housed and fed in the Ark, landed on Mount Ararat, and thence +spread themselves out over the world again regardless of interjacent +seas. Hence the Bible story of human origins is a mere myth; man has not +fallen, but has risen by slow evolution from some ancestor common to him +and apes, at a remote period, long sons prior even to the miocene +period, which shows man to have been then as obstinately differentiated +from the apes as ever. Therefore "all did not die in Adam," and seeing +this is the foundation of the dogmatic Christianity invented by Paul, +the whole thing collapses like a house of cards. [45] + +And indeed, given that the Bible means what Mr. Laing says it means, and +that science has proved what he says it has proved, that the two results +are incompatible, few would care to deny. As regards the latter +condition, let us see some of his reasonings. We are told that "modern +science shows that uninterrupted historical records, confirmed by +contemporary monuments, carry history back at least one thousand years +before the supposed creation of man ... and show then no trace of a +commencement, but populous cities, celebrated temples, great engineering +works, and a high state of the arts and of civilization already +existing." [46] Strange to say, Mr. Laing developes a sudden reverence +for the testimony of _priests_ at the outset of his historical +inquiries, and finds that history begins with "priestly organizations;" +[47] that the royal records are "made and preserved by special castes of +priestly colleges and learned scribes, and that they are to a great +extent precise in date and accurate in fact." Of course this does not +include Christian priests, but the priests of barbarous cults of many +thousand years ago, who, as well as their royal masters, are at once +credited with all the delicacy of the accurate criticism which we boast +of in these days--how vainly, God knows. We are told one moment that +Herodotus "was credulous, and not very critical in distinguishing +between fact and fable," that his "sources of information were often not +much better than vague popular traditions, or the tales told by guides;" +[48] and yet we are to lay great stress on his assertion that the +Egyptian priests told him "that during the long succession of ages of +the three hundred and forty-five high priests of Heliopolis, whose +statues they showed him in the Temple of the Sun, there had been no +change in the length of human life or the course of nature." [49] A +valuable piece of evidence _if_ Herodotus reports rightly, and _if_ the +priest was not like the average guide, and _if_ the statues answered to +real existences, and _if_ each of the three hundred and forty-five high +priests made a truthful assertion of the above to his successor for the +benefit of posterity. + +Manetho's History is, however, the chief source of our information as to +the antiquity of Egyptian civilization. He was commissioned to compile +this History by Ptolemy Philadelphus, "from the most authentic temple +records and other sources of information," [50] whose infallibility is +taken for granted. He was "eminently qualified for such a task, being," +as Mr. Laing will vouch, [51] "a learned and judicious man, and a priest +of Sebbenytus, one of the oldest and most famous temples." Let us by all +means read Manetho's History; but where is it? It is "unfortunately +lost, ... but fragments of it have been preserved in the works of +Josephus, Eusebius, Julius Africanus, and Syncellus.... With the curious +want of critical faculty of almost all the Christian Fathers" [52] (so +different from the learned, judicious, upright priests of the sun), +"these extracts, though professing to be quotations from the same book, +contain many inconsistencies and in several instances they have been +obviously tampered with, especially by Eusebius, in order to bring their +chronology more in accordance with that of the Old Testament, ... but +there can be _no doubt_ that his original work assigned an antiquity to +Menes of over 5500 B.C." [53] "On the whole, we have to fall back on +Manetho as the only authority for anything like precise dates and +connected history." + +Manetho, however, needed confirmation against the aspersions of the +orthodox, who thought he might be deficient in critical delicacy, and +prone to exaggerate as even later historians had done. Their casuistic +minds also suggested that his list comprised Kings who had ruled +different provinces simultaneously. But this "effugium" was cut off by +the witness of contemporary monuments and manuscripts. "This has now +been done to such an extent that it may be fairly said that Manetho is +confirmed, and it is fully established, as a fact acquired by science, +that nearly all his Kings and dynasties are proved by monuments to have +existed, and that, successively." [54] + +What is needed for the validity of this argument is a concurrence, which +could not possibly be fortuitous, between the clear and undoubted +testimony of Manetho and of the monuments. But first of all, what sort +of probability is there left of our possessing anything approximately +like the results of Manetho: and if we had them, of their historical +accuracy? Secondly, is it at all credible that so fragmentary and +fortuitous a record as survives in monuments (allowing again their very +dubious historical worth) should just happen to coincide with the +surviving fragments of our patch-work Manetho, king for king and dynasty +for dynasty, as Mr. Laing would have us believe? On the contrary, +nothing would throw more suspicion on the interpretation of these +monuments than the assertion of such an improbable coincidence. What, +then, is the force of this argument from Egyptology? _If_ the records +from which Manetho compiled were historically accurate; _if_ he was +perfectly competent to understand them; _if_ he was scrupulously honest +and critical; _if_ from the tampered-with fragments in the Christian +Fathers we can arrive at a reliable and accurate knowledge of his +results; and _if_ the Bible in the original text--whatever that may +be--undoubtedly asserts that man was not created till 4000 B.C., then +according to certain Egyptologists (Boeck), Menes reigned fifteen +hundred years previously, and according to others (Wilkinson), one +thousand years subsequently. Similarly as to the argument from +coincidence: _if_, as before, we possess Manetho's genuine list intact, +and _if_ we have the clear testimony of the monuments giving a precisely +similar record, this coincidence, apart from all independent value to be +given to Manetho or to the monuments, is an effect demanding a cause, +for which the most probable is the objective truth from which both these +veracious records have been copied. But the monuments are not written in +plain English, and need a key; and we must be first assured that +Manetho's list has not been used for this purpose. We are told; for +example, [55] that the name "Snefura," deciphered on a tablet found at +the copper-mines of Wady Magerah, is the name of a King of the third +dynasty, who reigned about 4000 B.C. Now _if_ there were no doubt about +the reading of this name on the tablet, and _if_ his date and dynasty +were as plainly there recorded, and _if_ all this tallies exactly with +equally precise particulars in Manetho's list, it would indeed be a +remarkable coincidence and would imply some common source, whether +record or fact. But if having credited Manetho with the record of such a +name and date, one tortures a hieroglyph into a faintly similar name, +and concludes at once that the same name must be the same person, and +that therefore this is the oldest record in the world, the confirmation +is not so striking. That it is so in this instance we do not affirm; but +we should need the assertion of a man of more intellectual sobriety than +Mr. Laing to make it worth the trouble of investigating. + +Passing over the confirmation which he draws from the "known rate of the +deposit of Nile mud of about three inches a century," which would give a +mild antiquity of twenty-six thousand years to pottery fished up from +borings in the mud, since he admits that "borings are not _very_ +conclusive," we may notice how he deals with evidence from Chaldea on +much the same principles. Here, again, the source had been till lately +only "fragments quoted by later writers from the lost work of Berosus. +Berosus was a _learned priest_ of Babylon, who ... wrote in Greek a +history of the country from the most ancient times, compiled from the +annals preserved in the temples and from the oldest traditions." [56] +Still this "learned priest," though antecedently as competent a critic +as Manetho, is so portentously mythical in his accounts, that "no +historical value can be attached to them," which must be regretted, +since he pushes history back a quarter of a million years prior to the +Deluge, and the Deluge itself to about half a million years ago. Here, +therefore, we are thrown solely upon the independent value of the +monumental evidence, and must drop the argument from coincidence. This +evidence, we are told, "is not so conclusive as in the case of Egypt, +where the lists of Manetho, &c.... The date of Sargon I. [57] (3800 B.C.) +rests mainly on the authority of Nabonidus, who lived more than three +thousand years later, and may have been mistaken." "The probability of +such a remote date is enhanced _by the certainty_ that a high +civilization existed in Egypt as long ago as 5000 B.C." If the evidence +for the antiquity of Chaldee civilization is "less conclusive" than that +for Egyptian, and rests on it for an argument _à pari_, it cannot be +said in any way to strengthen Mr. Laing's position. + +These strictures are directed chiefly to showing Mr. Laing's incapacity +for anything like coherent reasoning in historical matters. Subsequently +he uses these most lame and impotent conclusions as demonstrated +certainties, without the faintest qualification, and builds up on them +his refutation of dogmatic Christianity. + +However, it is only in his more recent work on _Human Origins_ that he +thus comes forward as an historian, in preparation for which he seems to +have devoted himself to the study of cuneiform and hieroglyphs and +mastered the subject thoroughly and exhaustively, before bursting forth +from behind the clouds to flood the world with new-born light. + +It is deep down in the bowels of the earth, at the bottom of a +geological well, that he has found not only truth but, also man--among +the monsters, + + Dragons of the prime + Who tare each other in their slime, + +and has hauled him up for our inspection. Mr. Laing is before all else +an evolutionist, with an unshaken belief in spontaneous generation. He +is quite confident that force and atoms will explain everything. He +seems to mean force, pure and simple, without any intelligent direction; +atoms, ultimate, homogeneous, undifferentiated. No doubt, if the +subsequent evolution depends on the _kind_ and _direction_ of force, or +on the _nature_ of the atoms; then there is a remoter question for +physics to determine; but if, as he implies, force and atoms are simple +and ultimate, then evolution is as fortuitous as a sand-storm, or more +so. All prior to force and atoms is "behind the veil." "The material +universe is composed of ether, matter, and energy." [58] Ether is a +billion times more elastic than air, "almost infinitely rare," [59] its +oscillations must be at least seven hundred billions per second, "it +exerts no gravitating or retarding force;" in short, Mr. Laing has to +confess some uncertainty about his original dogma as to the triple +constituents of the universe, and say "that it may be _almost doubted_ +whether such an ether has any real material existence, and is anything +more than a sort of mathematical [why 'mathematical'?] entity." [60] "It +is clear that matter really does consist of minute particles which do +not touch," and even these we must conceive of as "corks as it were +floating in an ocean of ether, causing waves in it by their own proper +movement," [61]--an explanation which loses some of its helpfulness when +we remember that the ethereal ocean is only a mathematical entity. "A +cubic centimetre contains 21,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules," +"the number of impacts received by each molecule of air during one +second will be 4,700 millions. The distance traversed between each +impact averages 95/1000000 of a millimetre," and so on with lines of +ciphers to overawe the gaping millions with Mr. Laing's minute certainty +as to the ultimate constitution of matter. [62] + +As to _how_ atoms came into existence, he can only reply, "Behind the +veil, behind the veil;" for it is at this point at last that he becomes +agnostic.[63] The notion of creation is rejected (after Spencer) as +inconceivable, because unimaginable, as though the origination of every +change in the phenomenal world were not just as unimaginable; we see +movement _in process_, and we see its results, but its inception is +unimaginable, and its efficient cause still more so. + +The evolution of man is practically taken for granted, the only question +being the _when_. + +We have the old argument from embryonic transformism brought forward +without any hint that later investigation tends to show differentiation +further and further back, prior to segmentation and, according to some, +in the very protoplasm itself. Nothing could be more inaccurate than to +say "every human being passes through the stage of fish and reptile +before arriving at that of a mammal and finally of man." [64] All that +can be truly said is that the embryonic man is at certain stages not +superficially distinguishable from the embryonic fish--quite a different +thing, and no more significant than that the adult man possesses organs +and functions in common with other species of the animal genus. + +Mr. Laing's own conclusions from skulls and human remains which he takes +to be those of tertiary man, show man to be as obstinately unlike the +"dryopithecus" as ever, in fact, the reputedly oldest skulls [65] are a +decided improvement on the Carnstadt and Neanderthal type. Even then man +seems to have been the same flint-chipping, tool-making, speaking animal +as now. So convinced is he of this essential and ineradicable difference +in his heart, that seeing traces of design in palaeolithic flint flakes, +and so forth, he has "not the remotest doubt as to their being the work +of human hands,"--"as impossible to doubt as it would be if we had found +clasp-knives and carpenters adzes." [66] Perhaps Professor Boyd-Dawkins, +who credits the "dryopithecus" with these productions, is a more +consistent evolutionist; but at present Mr. Laing is defending a thesis +as to _man's_ antiquity. Yet he has just said that these flint +instruments are "_only one step_ in advance of the rude, natural stone +which an _intelligent_ orang or chimpanzee might pick up to crack a +cocoa-nut with." Truly a very significant step, though it be only one. +How hard this is to reconcile with what Mr. Laing ascribes to dogs and +ants elsewhere, or with what he says on page 173, "These higher apes +remain creatures of very considerable intelligence.... There is a +chimpanzee now in the Zoological Gardens ... which can do _all but_ +speak" [either it speaks, or it does not. It is precisely a case of the +"only one step" quoted above. Here if anywhere a "miss is as good as a +mile"], "which understands almost every word the keeper says to it, and +when told to sing will purse out its lips and try to utter connected +notes." [How on earth do we know what it is trying to do?] "In their +native state they (apes) form societies and obey a chief." [The old +fallacy of metaphors adverted to in relation to ants and dogs.] Yet "no +animal has ever learned to speak," "no chimpanzee or gorilla has ever +been known to fashion any implement." [67] Their nearest approach to +invention is in the building of huts or nests, in which they "are very +inferior to most species of birds, to say nothing of insects." On the +other hand, "as regards tool-making, no human race is known which has +not shown some faculty in this direction." [68] "The difference is a very +fundamental one," and "may be summed up in the words 'arrested +development.'" Words, indeed! but what do they mean? They mean that +these animals have not developed the faculties of speech and +tool-making, which would have been most useful to them in the struggle +for existence, the reason being _that they did not_; and this reason is +exalted into a cause or law of "arrested development." Who or what +arrested it? The advantage of the term is that it implies that they were +on the point of developing, that they could "all but speak," were +"trying to utter connected notes," were "but one step" behind flint +axes, when some cosmic power said, "Hitherto shalt thou come and no +further." + +If the dog had organs of speech or an instrument like the hand by which +to place himself in closer relation to the outer world, he would +doubtless be on a footing of mental equality with man, according to Mr. +Laing. [69] The elephant's trunk accounts for his superior sagacity, and +the horse suffers by his hoof-enclosed forefoot. [70] "Given a being +with man's brain, man's hand, and erect stature, _it is easy to see_ how +intelligence _must_ have been gradually evolved." [71] Now honestly it +seems to us that many animals are as well provided as man is with a +variety of flexible organs of communication with the outward world (for +example, the antennae of insects, the prehensile tails of some monkeys, +whose hands are as lithe as man's and articulated bone for bone and +joint for joint). But letting this pass, we thought evolutionists +allowed that structure is determined by function, rather than the +converse; and so the confession that "it is not so easy to see how this +difference of the structure arose," [72] surprises us, coming from Mr. +Laing; though why this difference should exist at all, on evolution +principles, is a far greater difficulty. Yet he confesses that "the +difference in structure between the lowest existing race of man and the +highest existing ape, [73] is too great to admit of one being possibly +the direct descendant of the other." The ape, then, is not a man whose +development is arrested. "The negro in some respects makes a slight +approximation, ... still he is essentially a man, and separated by a wide +gulf from the chimpanzee or gorilla. Even the idiot is ... an arrested +man and, not an ape." [74] + +Nearly all these (higher intellectual and moral) faculties appear in a +rudimentary state in animals.... Still there is this wide distinction +that even in the highest animals these faculties remain rudimentary and +seem incapable of progress, while even in the lowest races of man they +have reached a much higher level [75] and seem capable of almost +unlimited development. [76] Why does he not seek out the reason of this, +or is he satisfied with the _words_ "arrested development"? If I find a +child who can repeat a poem of Tennyson's, am I to be puzzled because it +cannot originate one as good, or go on even to something better? Am I to +ascribe to it a rudimentary but arrested poetic faculty? Surely the same +poem proceeding from the lips of the poet and of the child he has +taught, are essentially different effects, though outwardly the same. If +there were a true living germ, it would most certainly develope. If the +savage developes through contact with the civilized man after centuries +of degradation, why have not domesticated dogs, who are, according to +Laing, their intellectual and moral equals, developed long ago? + +However, as "evolution has become the axiom of science and is admitted +by every one who has the slightest pretensions to be considered a +competent authority," [77] it is preposterous to suppose man an +exception, whatever be the difficulties. [78] And so Mr. Laing, assuming +axiomatically that man and the ape have a common ancestor, is interested +to make the differences between them deeply marked, and that, as far +back as he can, for thereby "Human Origins" are pushed back by hundreds +of thousands of years. If miocene man is as distinct from the ape as +recent man, the inference is that we are then as far from the source as +ever. Hence it is to geology he looks for the strongest basis of his +position. One thought till lately that geology was a tentative science, +hardly credited with the name of science, but Mr. Laing wisely and +boldly classes it among the "exact sciences," whose subject-matter is +"flint instruments, incised bones, and a few rare specimens of human +skulls and skeletons, the meaning of which has to be deciphered by +skilled experts." [79] "The conclusions of geology," up to the Silurian +period, "are approximate facts, not theories." [80] + +If he means that the only legitimate data of geologists are facts of +observation, classified and recorded, well and good; but to deny that +they deal largely in hypotheses, and use them constantly as the +premisses for inferences which are equally hypothetical, is palpably +absurd. First of all we are to "assume the principle of uniformity" +which Lyell is said to have established on an unassailable basis and to +have made the fundamental axiom of geological science. He "has shown +conclusively that while causes identical with ... existing causes will, +_if given sufficient time_, account for all the facts hitherto observed, +there is not a single fact which _proves_ the occurrence of a totally +different order of causes." [81] This, however, is (1) limited to the +period of geology which gives record of organic life, and not to the +earlier astronomical period; nor (2) does it exclude changes in +temperature, climate, distribution of seas and lands; nor (3) does it +"_affirm positively_ that there may not have been in past ages +explosions more violent than that of Krakatoa; lava-streams more +extensive than that of Skaptar-Jokul, and earthquakes more powerful than +that which uplifted five or six hundred miles of the Pacific coast of +South America six or seven feet." [82] Now, seeing that all these +cataclysms have occurred within the brief limits of most recent time, +compared with which the period of pretended uniformity is almost an +eternity, what sort of presumption or probability is there that such +occurrences should have been confined to historical times; and is not +the presumption all the other way? Again, it is largely on the +supposition of this antecedently unlikely uniformity, that Mr. Laing +argues to the antiquity of life on earth; whereas Lyell's conclusion +warrants nothing of the kind, being simply: that present causes, "_given +sufficient time_," would produce the observed effects. [83] + +Our tests of geologic time are denudation and deposition. We are told +"the present rate of denudation of a continent is known with +_considerable accuracy_ from careful measurements of the quantity of +solid matter carried down by rivers." [84] Now it is a considerable tax +on our faith in science to believe that the _débris_ of the Mississippi +can be so accurately gauged as to give anything like approximate value +to the result of one foot of continental denudation in 6,000 years. We +cannot of course suppose this to be the result of 6,000 years registered +observations, but an inference from the observations of some +comparatively insignificant period; and we have also to suppose that the +very few rivers which have been observed form a sufficient basis for a +conclusion as to all rivers. In fact, a more feebly supported +generalization from more insufficient data it is hard to conceive. To +speak of it as "an _approximation_ based on our knowledge of the time in +which similar results on a smaller scale have been produced by existing +natural laws within the historical period," [85] is a very inadequate +qualification, especially when we have just been told that "here, at any +rate, we are on comparatively certain ground, ... these are measurable +facts which have been ascertained by competent observers." [86] + +Assuming this rate of denudation as certain, and also the estimate of +the known sedimentary strata as 177,000 feet in depth, we are to +conclude that the formation took 56,000,000 years. A mountain mass which +ought to answer to certain fault 15,000 high, and therefore is presumed +to have vanished by denudation, points to a term of 90,000,000 years as +required for the process. [87] + +"Reasoning from these _facts_, assuming the rate of change in the forms +of life to have been the same formerly, Lyell concludes that geological +phenomena postulate 200,000,000 years at least," [88] "to account for +the undoubted facts of geology since life began." [89] On the other +hand, mathematical astronomy, [90] on theories which Mr. Laing complains +of as wanting the solidity of geological calculations (yet which do not +involve more, but fewer assumptions), cannot allow the sun a past +existence of more than 15,000,000 years. [91] "It is evident that there +must be some fundamental error on one side or the other," [92] "for the +laws of nature are uniform, and there cannot be one code for +astronomers, and one for geologists." But while modestly relegating this +slight divergency among the "bell-wethers of science" (bell-wethers, I +presume, because the crowd follow them like sheep), to the "problems of +the future," Mr. Laing is quite confident that we should "distrust these +mathematical calculations," and rely on conclusions based on +_ascertained facts_ and undoubted deductions from them, rather than on +abstract and doubtful theories, "which would so reduce geological time +as to negative the idea of uniformity of law and evolution, and +introduce once more the chaos of catastrophes and supernatural +interferences."[93] As regards the ice-age, Mr. Laing is professedly +interested in putting it as far back as possible, since "a short date +for that period shortens that for which we have positive proof of the +existence of man, and ... a very short date ... brings us back to the +old theories of repeated and recent acts of supernatural interference." +[94] Strange, that in the same page he should refer to Sir J. Dawson as +an "extreme instance" of one who approaches the question with +"theological prepossessions;" and of course in complete ignorance of Mr. +Laing's indubitable conclusions about the antiquity of Egyptian +civilization. Unfortunately, even the best scientists have not that +perfect freedom from bias, which gives Mr. Laing such a towering +advantage over them all. "An authority like Prestwich," who "cannot be +accused of theological bias," influenced, however, by a servile +astronomical bias, "reduces to 20,000 years a period to which Lyell and +modern geologists assign a duration of more than 200,000 years;" [95] +which "shows in what a state of uncertainty we are as to this vitally +important problem;" for this time assigned by Prestwich "would be +clearly insufficient to allow for the development of Egyptian +civilization, as it existed 5,000 years ago, from savage and semi-animal +ancestors; as is _proved_ to be the case with the horse, stag, elephant, +ape," and so on. [96] Now Prestwich, we are told elsewhere, is "the +first living authority on the tertiary and quaternary strata." [97] If, +then, astronomical prepossession can reduce 200,000 to 20,000 years, the +sin of theology, which reduces 20,000 to 7,000 is comparatively venial. +Prestwich's two objections are (1) the data of astronomy, and (2) "the +difficulty of conceiving that man could have existed for 80,000 or +100,000 years without change and without progress." The former is "only +one degree less mischievous than the theological prepossession." +However, Prestwich has some "facts" as well as prepossessions, such as +"the rapid advance of the glaciers of Greenland,"[98] which does not +accord with the generalization from the Swiss glaciers;[99] and the +quicker erosion of river valleys, due to a greater rainfall; facts +which, however, are met by "a _minute description_ of the successive +changes by which in post-glacial time the Mersey valley and estuary were +brought into their present condition, with an estimate of the time they +may have required;" which is "in round numbers 60,000 years," as opposed +to Prestwich's 10,000 or 8,000. [100] The 200,000 years for the ice-age +depends chiefly on Croll's theory of secular variation of the earth's +orbitular eccentricity; but we are told it is open to the "objection +that it requires us to assume a periodical succession of glacial epochs" +of which two or three "must have occurred during each of the great +geological epochs. [101] This is opposed to geological evidence." "'Not +proven' is the verdict which most geologists would return." "The +confidence with which Croll's theory was first received has been a good +deal shaken." "We have to fall back, therefore, on the geological +evidence of deposition and denudation ... in any attempt to decide +between the 200,000 years of Lyell and the 20,000 years of +Prestwich." [102] + +As to his arguments based on ancient human remains, their value depends +first on the accuracy of his geological conclusions, and then on +preclusion of all possibility of the conveyance of the remains from +upper strata to lower; on the certainty, moreover, of traces of design +in many of the would-be miocene or tertiary flint instruments (which +Prestwich is doubtful about).[103] He takes care not to tell us that the +Carstadt skull which gives name to a race, is a very doubtfully genuine +relic of one hundred and thirty years old, whose history is most +dubious. His evidence for the absence of the slightest approximation to +the simian type even in the oldest relics is cheering to the theologian, +though it loses its value when we know it is in the interests of his +foregone conclusions as to the unspeakable antiquity of man. The Nampe +image, the oldest relic yet discovered, "revolutionizes our conception +of this early palaeolithic age," being a "more artistic and better +representation of the human form than the little idols of many +comparatively modern and civilized people," very like those in Mexico, +"believed to be not much older than the date of the Spanish +conquest"--"and in truth, I believe, contemporaneous." [104] + +As to his treatment of the Bible, it evinces everywhere the crudest +anthropomorphic method of interpretation such as we should expect to +find in a child or very ignorant person. In truth, Mr. Laing is in a +perfectly childish state of mind both as regards the Christian religion +and as regards philosophy, sciences, and all the subjects he dabbles +with. + +For our own part we have at most a general idea as to what exactly the +Church does teach or may teach with regard to the interpretation of the +Scripture. That she has so far acquiesced in the larger interpretation +of Genesiacal cosmogony, that now the literal six-day theory would be +very unsafe, forbids us to judge any present interpretation of other +parts by the number, noise, or notoriety of its adherents. The +universality of the Deluge is by no means the only tolerable +interpretation now; though the doctrine of a partial deluge would have +been most unsafe a century ago. All this does not mean giving up the +inspiration of the record, but determining gradually what is meant by +inspiration and the record. What could be less important to Christian +dogma than the date of the Deluge or of Adam's creation? If it were +proved that the original text _in this point_ had been hopelessly +corrupted, as the discrepancies between the LXX. numbers and the Hebrew +hint to be true to some extent, it would not touch the guaranteed +integrity of Christian dogma. If Christ is the "son" of David, and +Zachæus is "son" of Abraham, what period may not an apparent single +generation stand for, especially in regard to the earlier Patriarchs? As +far as the prophetic import of the Deluge is concerned, a very small +local affair might be mystically large with foreshadowings, as we see +with regard to the enacted prophecies of the later prophets. For the +rest, we are quite weary of Mr. Laing, and are content to have shown +that everywhere he is the same biassed, inconsequent, untrustworthy +writer. His only power is a certain superficial clearness of diction and +brilliancy of style, and this is brought to bear on a mass of +information drawn confessedly from the labours of others, and selected +in the interest of a foregone conclusion, without a single attempt at a +fair presentment of the other side. + +Here, then, we have a very fair specimen of the pseudo-philosophy which +is so admirably adapted to captivate the half-informed, wholly unformed +minds of the undiscriminating multitudes who have been taught little or +nothing well except to believe in their right, duty, and ability to +judge for themselves in matters for which a life-time of specialization +were barely sufficient. A congeries of dogmatic assertions and negations +raked together from the chief writers of a decadent school, discredited +twenty years ago by all men of thought, Christian or otherwise; a show +of logical order and reasoning which evades our grasp the instant we try +to lay critical hands on it; a profuse expression of disinterested +devotion to abstract truth, an occasional bow to conventional morality, +a racy, irreverent style, an elaborate display of miscellaneous +information; good paper, large type, cheap wood-cuts, and the work is +done. + +_Oct. Nov._ 1895. + + + +[Footnote 1: M.S. 319.] + +[Footnote 2: Ibid. 319.] + +[Footnote 3: M.S. 229, 230.] + +[Footnote 4: P.F. 279.] + +[Footnote 5: P.F. 280] + +[Footnote 6: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 7: P.F. 281, 282.] + +[Footnote 8: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 9: Ibid. 210.] + +[Footnote: 10 M.S. Preface] + +[Footnote 11: "These subjects ... have been to me the solace of a long +life, the delight of _many quiet days_, and the soother of many troubled +ones ... a source of enjoyment. + + "'The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, + The guardian of my heart, and soul + Of all my moral being.'" (H.O. 3.)] + +[Footnote: 12 M.S. 319.] + +[Footnote: 13 Ibid. 320.] + +[Footnote: 14 Cf. Ibid. 104, 282.] + +[Footnote 15: This expression seems inconsistent with his here and +elsewhere explicit maintenance of the hereditary transmission of +gathered moral experiences. He means here to exclude innate ideas of +morality as explained by Kant and by other intuitionists.] + +[Footnote 16: M.S. 180.] + +[Footnote 17: M.S. 285.] + +[Footnote 18: M.S. 216.] + +[Footnote 19: M.S. 294.] + +[Footnote 20: M.S. 298, 299.] + +[Footnote 21: P.F. 297. "The truth is that morals are built on a far +surer foundation than that of creeds, which are here to-day and gone +to-morrow. They are built on the solid rock of experiences, and of the +'survival of the fittest,' which in the long evolution of the human race +from primeval savages, have by 'natural selection' and 'heredity' become +almost instinctive." (How careless is this terminology. In the previous +page he denies morality to be a matter of hereditary instinct.)] + +[Footnote 22: P.F. 206.] + +[Footnote 23: Ibid. 207.] + +[Footnote 24: P.P. 204.] + +[Footnote 25: M.S. Preface.] + +[Footnote 26: H.O. 3.] + +[Footnote 27: P.P. 3.] + +[Footnote 28: "The simple undoubting faith which for ages has been the +support and consolation of a large portion of mankind, especially of the +weak, the humble, the unlearned, who form an immense majority, cannot +disappear without a painful wrench, and leaving for a time a great blank +behind." (M.S. 284.)] + +[Footnote 29: xxxiii.] + +[Footnote 30: M.S. 261.] + +[Footnote 31: P.F. 176.] + +[Footnote 32: P. 177.] + +[Footnote 33: P.F. 192.] + +[Footnote 34: P. 245.] + +[Footnote 35: P.F. 222.] + +[Footnote 36: Thus he assumes Mr. Spurgeon's definition of inspiration +as the basis of operations (See H.O. 189), and says, "It is perfectly +obvious that for those who accept these confessions of faith ... all the +discoveries of modern science, from Galileo and Newton down to Lyall and +Darwin, are simple delusions."] + +[Footnote 37: M.S. 215.] + +[Footnote 38: Ibid. 251.] + +[Footnote 39: "The _simplest straightforward evidence_ of the _earliest_ +Christian writer who gives any account of their origin, viz., Papias." +(P.F. 236.) "What does Papias say? Practically this: that he preferred +oral tradition to written documents.... This is a _perfectly clear_ and +_intelligible_ statement made apparently in good faith without any +dogmatic or other prepossession.... It has always seemed to me that all +theories ... were comparatively worthless which did not take into +account _the fundamental fact_ of this statement of Papias." (238.) "The +_clear_ and _explicit_ statement of Papias." (250.)] + +[Footnote 40: PP. 258--260.] + +[Footnote 41: P. 262.] + +[Footnote 42: P.F. 266.] + +[Footnote 43: With regard to this "very precise statement," it is +noticeable that Matthew speaks of "Mary the mother of James and Joses;" +Mark, of "Mary the mother of James the less and of Joseph and Salome," +but not "of Salome." If Mr. Laing's precise mind had looked for a moment +at the text he was criticizing he would have seen that Salome is a +common name in the nominative case. St. Luke does not give the names of +the women at all. These points are trifling in themselves, but important +as evidencing Mr. Laing's standard of intellectual conscientiousness.] + +[Footnote 44: P.F. 235] + +[Footnote 45: M.S. 332 ff.] + +[Footnote 46: H.O. 2.] + +[Footnote 47: H.O. 8.] + +[Footnote 48: H.O. II] + +[Footnote 49: H.O. 9 and 199.] + +[Footnote 50: H.O. 10.] + +[Footnote 51: This seems, later, to be an inference, not an assertion. +"Manetho was a learned priest of a celebrated temple, who _must have +had_ access to all the temples and royal records and other literature of +Egypt, and who _must have been_ also conversant with foreign literature +to have been selected as the best man to write a complete history of his +native country." (H.O. 22.)] + +[Footnote 52: He seems to think that Josephus was a Christian, and +Syncellus a "Father." We might mention that from the fragments of +Africanus' _Pentabiblion Chronicon_, preserved in Eusebius, the author +places the Creation at 5499 B.C., which is certainly hardly compatible +with his giving such fragments of Manetho as would place Menes one year +before that date. If we know nothing of Manetho's results except through +these "orthodox" sources, it is inconceivable that Mr. Laing's version +of them should have any historical basis whatever. It comes in fine to +this, that because their report of Manetho does not give Mr. Laing what +he wants, they have been tampered with.] + +[Footnote 53: H.O. 11.] + +[Footnote 54: H.O. 22.] + +[Footnote 55: H.O. 17.] + +[Footnote 56: H.O. 42.] + +[Footnote 57: "There can be no doubt, moreover, that this Sargon I. is a +perfectly historical personage. _A statue of him has been found at +Agade."_ (H.O. 55.)] + +[Footnote 58: M.S. 50.] + +[Footnote 59: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 60: P.F. 28.] + +[Footnote 61: M.S. 61.] + +[Footnote 62: "Matter is made of molecules; molecules are made of atoms; +atoms are little magnets which link themselves together and form all the +complex creations of an ordered cosmos [an ordered order] by virtue of +the attractive and repulsive forces which are the result of polarity." +(P.F, 223.)] + +[Footnote 63: We suppose he has a right to call himself _agnostic_ as +being a disciple of Professor Huxley, who, we believe, started or +revived the term in our own times. Of course he is also a dogmatic +materialist, and by no means an "agnostic" in the wider sense of general +scepticism.] + +[Footnote 64: M.S. 171.] + +[Footnote 65: "Not only have no missing links been discovered, but the +oldest known human skulls and skeletons, which date from the glacial +period and are probably at least one hundred thousand years old, show no +very decided approximation towards any such pre-human type. On the +contrary," &c. (M.S. 181.) He replies (H.O. 373) that "five hundred +thousand years prior to these men of Spy and Neanderthal, the human race +has existed in higher physical perfection, nearer to the existing type +of modern man," (Cf. P.F. 158.)] + +[Footnote 66: M.S. 112, 114.] + +[Footnote 67: P.F. 154.] + +[Footnote 68: P.F. 154.] + +[Footnote 69: M.S. 175.] + +[Footnote 70: The horse "may be taken as the typical instance of descent +by progressive specialization. What is a horse? It is essentially an +animal specialized for ... the rapid progression of a bulky body over +plains or deserts" [a definition which applies equally to the camel, +&c.]. It commenced existence as a "pentadactyle plantigrade bunodont." +For some indefined reason "the first step was to walking on the toes +instead of on the flat of the foot, ... which became general in most +lines of their descendants. For galloping on hard ground _it is evident_ +that one strong and long toe, protected by a solid hoof, was more +serviceable than four short and weak toes." [But why should it gallop +more than other animals; or why on the _hard_ ground in the deserts and +plains; or would not _four_ strong and long toes have been better than +one?] "The coalescence of the toes is the fundamental fact in the +progress ... by which the primitive bunodont was converted into the +modern horse." But we thought evolution was a change from the +homogeneous, incoherent to the heterogeneous and coherent: surely the +change from five toes to one must have been a misfortune on the whole, +if the flexibility of the human hand accounts for man's intellect. The +advantages of a convenient gallop over occasional oases of hard ground +in the desert would hardly balance that of being able to climb trees. +(P.F. 143.)] + +[Footnote 71: Cf. P.F. 151.] + +[Footnote 72: M.S. 180.] + +[Footnote 73: "A wide gap which has never been bridged over." (Huxley, +P.F. 150.)] + +[Footnote 74: But cf. M.S. 181. "Attempt after attempt has been made to +find some fundamental characters in the human brain, on which to base a +generic distinction between man and the brute creation." (P.F. 149.)] + +[Footnote 75: Cf. "It is probable, therefore, that this (drill-friction) +was the original mode of obtaining fire, but if so it must have required +a good deal of intelligence and observation, for the discovery is by no +means an obvious one." (M.S. 204.)] + +[Footnote 76: P.F. 153.] + +[Footnote 77: P.F. 135.] + +[Footnote 78: "The inference, therefore, to be drawn alike from the +physical development of the individual man and from the origin and +growth" [as though he had explained their origin] "of all the faculties +which specially distinguish him from the brute creation, ... all point to +the conclusion that he is the product of evolution." (M.S. 210.) "Man +... whose higher faculties of intelligence and morality are _so clearly_ +... the products of evolution and education." (M.S. 182.)] + +[Footnote 79: H.O. 260.] + +[Footnote 80: M.S. 48.] + +[Footnote 81: P.F. 17.] + +[Footnote 82: P.F. 17, 18. "The conclusion is therefore certain that the +land at this particular spot must have sunk twenty feet, and again risen +as much so as to bring the floor of the temple to its present position, +&c. Similar proofs may be multiplied to any extent.... In fact the more +we study geology the more we are impressed with the fact that the normal +states of the earth is and always has been one of incessant changes." +(M.S. 35--9.)] + +[Footnote 83: i.e., Lyell says: Present causes could give these effects, +given the time. Laing says: Therefore, since they have given these +effects, we must suppose the time.] + +[Footnote 84: P.F. 18] + +[Footnote 85: P.F. 74.] + +[Footnote 86: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 87: P.F. 20.] + +[Footnote 88: M.S. 34, 41.] + +[Footnote 89: P.F. 6.] + +[Footnote 90: P.F. 23.] + +[Footnote 91: M.S. 46.] + +[Footnote 92: P.F. 24.] + +[Footnote 93: P.F. 32.] + +[Footnote 94: P.F. 66.] + +[Footnote 95: "Thus giving to palæolithic man no greater antiquity than +perhaps about 20,000 to 30,000 years, while, should he be restricted to +the so-called post-glacial period, the antiquity need not go back +further than from 10,000 to 15,000 years before the time of neolithic +man." (57.)] + +[Footnote 96: P.F. 67.] + +[Footnote 97: M.S. 109.] + +[Footnote 98: Prestwich evinces the same recalcitrance according to the +_Nineteenth Century_, December 4, 1894, p. 961, being one of the +geologists of high standing "who have lately come to believe in some +sudden and extensive submergence of continental dimensions in very +recent times."] + +[Footnote 99: 74.] + +[Footnote 100: P.F. 84.] + +[Footnote 101: P.F. 69, 70.] + +[Footnote 102: P.F. 70.] + +[Footnote 103: H.O. 364.] + +[Footnote 104: H.O. 388.] + + + +XXI. + + +"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." + +Some twelve years since we read Mr. Tylor's well-known and able work on +_Primitive Culture_, and were much impressed with the evident +fair-mindedness and courageous impartiality which distinguished the +author so notably from the Clodds, the Allens, the Laings, and other +popularizers of the uncertain results of evolution-philosophy. For this +very reason we made a careful analysis of the whole work, and more +particularly of his "animistic" hypothesis, and laid it aside, waiting, +according to our wont, for further light bearing upon a difficulty +wherewith we felt ourselves then incompetent to deal. This further light +has been to some extent supplied to us by Mr. Andrew Lang's _Making of +Religion_, which deals mainly with that theory of animism which is +propounded by Mr. Tylor, and unhesitatingly accepted, dogmatically +preached, and universally assumed, by the crowd of sciolists who follow +like jackals in the lion's wake. Without denying the value of our +conceptions of God and of the human soul, Mr. Tylor believes that these +conceptions, however true in themselves, originated on the part of +primitive man in fallacious reasoning from the data of dreams and of +like states of illusory vision. He assumes, perhaps with some truth, +that the distinction between dream and reality is more faintly marked in +the less developed mind; in the child than in the adult, in the savage +than in the civilized man. Hence a belief arises in a filmy phantasmal +self that wanders abroad in sleep and leaves the body untenanted, and +meets and converses with other phantasmal selves. Nor is it hard to see +how death, being viewed as a permanent sleep, should be ascribed to the +final abandonment of the body by its "dream-stuff" occupant. Whether as +dreaded or loved or both, this ever-gathering crowd of disembodied +spirits wins for itself a certain _cultus_ of praise and propitiation, +and reverence, and is humoured with food-offerings and similar +sacrifices. Nor is it long before the form of an earthly polity is +transferred to that unearthly city of the dead, till for one reason or +another some jealous ghost gains a monarchic supremacy over his +brethren, and thus polytheism gives place to monotheism. It need not be +that this supreme deity is always conceived as a defunct ancestor, once +embodied, but no longer in the body. Rather it would seem that the +primitive savage, having once arrived at the conception of a ghost, +passes by generalization to that of incorporeal beings unborn and +undying, of spirits whose presence and power is revealed in stocks and +stones, or in idols shaped humanwise--spirits who preside over trees, +rivers, and elements, over species and classes and departments of +Nature, over tribes and peoples and nations; until, as before, the +struggle for existence or some other cause gives supremacy to some one +god fittest to survive either through being more conceivable, or more +powerful, or in some other way more popular than the rest of the +pantheon. + +Again, it is assumed that the gods of primitive man are non-ethical, +that they do not "make for righteousness;" that they are at most jealous +powers to be feared and propitiated. When the savage speaks of a god as +good, he only means "favourable to me," "on my side;" he does not mean +"good to me if I am good." God is conceived first as power and force; +then as non-moral wisdom, or cunning, and only in the very latest +developments as holy and just and loving. + +Starting with the assumptions of evolutionists, the theory is plausible +enough. Nor is it inconceivable that God, without using error and evil +directly as a means to truth and good, should passively permit error for +the sake of the truth that He foresees will come out of it. Astrology +was not incipient astronomy; nor was alchemy primitive chemistry; the +end and aim in each case was wholly different. Yet the pseudo-science +gave birth to the true; as false premisses often lead by bad logic to +sound conclusions. Totemism, "a perfectly crazy and degrading belief," +says Mr. Lang, "rendered possible--nay, inevitable--the union of hostile +groups into large and relatively peaceful tribal societies.... We should +never have educated the world thus; and we do not see why it should have +been thus done. But we are very anthropomorphic, and totally ignorant of +the conditions of the problem." In like manner it might have been, that +God willed to let men wander through the slums and backways of animism +into the open road of theism. + +But our concern is not with what might have been, but with what was. + +Mr. Lang contends, first, that belief in spirits and in a circumambient +spiritual world, more probably originated in certain real or imaginary +experiences of supernormal phenomena, than in a fallacious explanation +of dreams; then, that belief in a supreme god is most probably not +derived from or dependent upon belief in ghosts. + +Consistently with the whole trend of his thought in his recent work +connected with psychical research, in _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, in +_Cock-Lane and Common-Sense_, Mr. Lang begins by entering a protest +against the attitude observed towards the subject by contemporary +science, especially by anthropology, which, as having been so lately "in +the same condemnation," might be expected to show itself superior to +that injustice which it had itself so much reason to complain of. Yet +anthropology, abandoning the first principles of modern science, still +refuses to listen to the facts alleged by psychical research, and +justifies its refusal on Hume's oft-exploded fallacy, namely, on an _à +priori_ conviction of their impossibility and therefore of their +non-occurrence. + +However wide the range of experience upon which physical generalizations +are based, it can never be so wide as on this score alone to prove the +inherent possibility of exceptions; more especially when we consider the +confinement of the human race to what is relatively a momentary +existence on a whirling particle of dust in a sandstorm. There may +indeed be abundant evidence of a certain impetus or tendency enduring +from a comparatively distant and indefinite past and making for an +equally indefinite future; but there is not, cannot be evidence against +the possibility of interference from other laws whose paths, at points +unknown and incalculable, intersect those followed by the (to us) +ordinary course of events. + +And in this wholesome agnosticism we are confirmed when we see that +while some animals are deprived of certain senses which we possess, and +all of them of the gift of reason, others are apparently endowed with +senses unknown to us, and are taught by seeming instincts which surpass +what reason could effect; whence we may infer that the likelihood of our +being _en rapport_ with the greater part of the _possible_ phenomena +amidst which we live, or of our possessing all possible senses or the +best of those possible, is infinitely small. What a magician a man with +eyes would be among a race of sightless men; or a man with ears among a +deaf population! How studiously would the scientists explain the effects +of sight as produced by subtilty of hearing; and those of hearing as due +to abnormal sensitiveness in some other respect! + +But though there be no _à priori_ impossibility in deviations from the +beaten track, yet there is a certain _à priori_ improbability which may +seem to justify those who refuse to go into alleged instances of the +supernormal. There is a story against Thomas Aquinas, that on being +invited by a frisky brother-monk to come and see a cow flying, or some +such marvel, he gravely came and saw not, but expressed himself far more +astounded at the miracle that a religious man should say "the thing +which was not." This is certainly a glorious antithesis to Hume's +position. Whether we take it to illustrate the Saint's extreme lack of +humour, or a subtler depth of humour veiled under stolidity, or his +rigorous veracity, or his guileless confidence in the veracity of +others, we certainly cannot approve it as an example of the attitude we +ought to observe with regard to every newly recounted marvel. Truly +there might be more liberality, more enlightenment, more imagination in +such a ready credulity, than in the wall-eyed, ear-stopping scepticism +of popular science; but the mere inner possibility of a recounted marvel +does not oblige us to search into the matter unless the evidence offered +bear some reasonable proportion to the burden it has to support. That +this is the case as regards crystal-gazing, telepathy, possession, and +kindred manifestation, is what Mr. Lang contends; nor would he have any +quarrel with the anthropologists were they not fully impressed with the +importance of similar or even weaker cumulative evidence for conclusions +which happen to be in harmony with their preconceived hypotheses. Where +such evidence exists it must be faced, and at least its existence must +be explained. + +True criticism should either account for the seeming breach of +uniformity, by reducing it to law; or else should show how the assertion +if false ever gained credence; but in no case is it scientific to put +aside, on an _à priori_ assumption, evidence that is offered from all +sides in great abundance. Psychic research is daily applying to that +tangled mass of world-wide evidence ancient and modern for the existence +of an X-region of experience, those same critical and historical +principles which created modern science. Men who, as often as not, have +no religion or no superstition themselves, see that both religion and +superstition are universal phenomena, and cannot be neglected by those +who would study humanity historically and scientifically. Even if there +be nothing in hallucinations, apparitions, scrying, second-sight, +poltergeists, and the rest, there is a great deal in the fact that +belief in these things is as wide and as old as the world; it is a fact +to be explained. "Each man," says Meister, "commonly defends himself as +long as possible from casting out the idols which he worships in his +soul; from acknowledging a master-error, and admitting any truth that +brings him to despair;" and indeed a system as complete and compact as +that of Mr. Spencer or Mr. Tylor is apt to become an intellectual idol +forbidding under pain of infidelity all inquiries that might cause it to +totter on its throne, or which might unravel in an instant what has been +woven by years of hard and honest thought. Few of us are in a position +to cast stones on this score; still, recognizing the weakness more +clearly in others than in ourselves, we are justified in reckoning with +it, and in discounting for the unwillingness of men of science to listen +to facts inconsistent with long-cherished theories, and for their +tendency to accumulate and magnify evidence on the other side. "If the +facts not fitting their theories are little observed by authorities so +popular as Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer; if _instantiae contradictoriae_ +are ignored by them, or left vague; if these things are done in the +green tree, we may easily imagine what shall be done in the dry. But we +need not war with hasty _vulgarisateurs_ and headlong theorists." + +We cannot for a moment question the sincerity of purpose and honesty of +intention of many of the leaders of modern scientific enlightenment, +whatever we may think of the said crowd of _vulgarisateurs_--those +camp-followers who bring disgrace on every respectable cause. But beside +wilful bias and unfairness, there is unconscious bias from which none of +us are free, but from which we need to be delivered by mutual criticism; +for, however much a man can see of himself, he can never get behind his +own back. Of such unwitting dishonesty men of thought are abundantly +guilty, when deeming themselves to be governed only by reason, they are +in fact slaves to some intellectual fashion of the day. Not one of them +in a thousand would dare to appear in public with the clothes of last +century, or to face the laughter of a crowd of his compeers. Hence a +certain indocility and rigidness of mind which they only escape who live +out of the fashion or have strength to lead it or to live above it. +Simple, whether from greatness or littleness, they escape the narrowing +influence inseparable from being identified, even in their own mind, +with a school or coterie; and can afford to say things as they see them. + +Contemporary fashion says at present that there are to be no miracles, +nothing supernormal; whatever cannot be reduced in any way to known laws +and causes can be flatly denied, for the supposition of unknown causes +and laws is rank heresy. Until more recent years, it was not permitted +to listen to or show any disposition to investigate the narratives of +phenomena which have since been "explained" and reduced to such +legalized causes as hysteria or hypnotism, and even (of late) to +thought-transference. But since this happy reconciliation has been +effected, such stories are allowed to be believed on ordinary evidence, +although the accounts of other "unclassed" supernormal marvels coming +from the same lips with the same attestation are still brushed aside as +traveller's tales, or as the puerilities of hagiography--not worth a +thought. One would think that some kind of apology or reparation were +due to ecclesiastical tradition, which was credited with wholesale lying +so long as its recorded wonders were classed among impossibilities by +the intellectual fashion-mongers, but it seems we have only partly +escaped the reproach of knavery to incur that of wholesale folly for not +having seen that these apparent miracles were but forms of hysteria or +hypnotism. + +Yet what is hysteria and what does it really explain? [1] Surely the +etymology throws no light on the subject! Is it then merely a name for +the unknown cause of phenomena every whit as strange as those which were +held incredible till their like had been actually witnessed and forced +upon the unwilling eyes of science beyond all possibility of denial? Is +it that science blindly refused even to weigh the evidence for abnormal +facts till the same or similar had become matters of personal +observation? Is it that every reported breach of her assumed +uniformities is incredible, because impossible, until the possibility +has been proved by some fact which is then named, erected into a class, +a cause, a law, and used to explain away similar facts formerly denied, +and is thus taken into that bundle of generalizations called the "laws +of nature"? The ancients assumed all heavenly motion to be circular of +necessity, and where facts gave against them, they patched the matter up +with an epicycle or two. Are not hysteria, hypnotism, and +thought-transference of the nature of epicycles? It is now confessed +that the mind can so affect and dominate the body as to produce blisters +and wounds by mere force of suggestion and expectancy; that a like +"faith" can cure, not only such ailments as are clearly connected with +the nerves, but others where such connection is not yet traceable. And +this is supposed to tell in some way against like marvels reported by +hagiology, as though they were explained by being observed and named. +Yet what did that supposed marvellousness consist in, except in a +seeming revelation of the power and superiority of mind over matter, and +of things unseen over things seen and palpable; and in proving that +there were more wonders in heaven and earth than were dreamt of by a +crude and self-satisfied materialism? They were taken as evidence of a +circumambient X-region where the laws of mechanics were set at defiance +and where the fetters of time and place were loosened or cast aside. +Such an X-region being supposed by every supernatural religion and +denied by most of those who deny religion, and on the same grounds, its +establishment by any kind of experiment is rightly considered in some +sort to make for religion. Indeed, it is just on this account that the +evidence for it is so opposed by those who are pre-occupied by the +anti-religious bias of contemporary science. But unless hysterical +effects can be shown to be ultimately due, not to mind, but to matter +acting on matter, according to methods approved by materialism, hysteria +remains a word-cause and no more, like the meat-cooking quality of the +roasting-jack. + +Hypnotism is a kindred cause in every way. It means sleep-ism; yet +manifestly it deals with characteristics which are utterly unlike those +of sleep; and it is precisely these that need to be explained away in +conformity with received laws, unless we are to find in these phenomena +evidence of such modes of being and operation as every kind of religion +postulates. "Possession" is of course a fable; the superabundant +world-wide, world-old evidence for the phenomenon was thrust aside +without a glance, till hypnotic experiments brought to light what is +called "alternating personality." As though this name had explained +everything in accordance with materialism, forthwith it was permitted to +believe the aforesaid evidence, provided one laughed loudly enough at +the theory of "possession." It is allowed that the hypnotic patient may +in some sense be said to be "possessed" by the hypnotiser for the time +being; nay, even a certain chronic possession of this kind is +observable. But an invisible hypnotiser and possession by a disembodied +spirit is still out of fashion, notwithstanding all Mrs. Piper's efforts +and Dr. Hodgson's audacious declaration of his not very willing belief +that those who speak through her "are veritably the personalities they +claim to be, and that they have survived the change we call death." + +Thought-transference, however, promises to be a potent and popular +solvent of psychic problems. Thought-transference was a supremely +ludicrous supposition till comparatively recently; nor could there be +any credible testimony for what was known antecedently to be quite +impossible. But some way or other, facts which demanded a name were +forced upon the direct observation of science, and so Mr. F. Podmore has +written a book in which, assuming thought-transference to be a +scientifically recognized possibility, he proceeds to reduce many of the +marvels collected by the S.P.R. to that simple and obvious cause, and to +reject the residue on the sound old principle that what is known to be +impossible cannot be true. Hallucinations, solitary and collective, and +other perplexing instances are tortured into cases of thought-transfer +with an ingenuity which we should smile at in a mediaeval scholastic +explaining the universe by the four elements and the four temperaments. +But is not thought-transference itself lamentably unscientific? No; +because we see that unconnected magnets affect one another +sympathetically; and the brain being a sort of magnet may well affect +distant brains. Thought is a kind of electricity, and electricity, if +not exactly a fluid, yet may some day be liquefied and bottled. At all +events, science has seen something very remotely analogous to +thought-transference and every whit as unintelligible and antecedently +incredible till observed; and therefore it is permissible to listen to +the evidence for it, and forced thereto, to accept the fact. + +But have we really disposed of ghosts if we prove the appearance to be +caused by a subjective modification of the perceiver's sensorium and not +by a modification of the external medium--the air or the ether? Since it +is a question of a spiritual substance independent of spatial dimensions +and relations, said to be present only so far and where its effects and +manifestations are present, what does it matter whether it reports +itself by an effect outside or inside the percipient--whether it be a +"vision sensible to feeling, as to sight," or but "a false creation +proceeding from a heat-oppressed brain"? Is not this very distinction of +outside and inside in the matter of perceptions open to no slight +ambiguity? The savage, familiar with the electric sparks caused by the +friction of deer-skins, ascribes the _aurora borealis_ to the friction +of a jostling herd of celestial deer. "Nonsense," says science, after +centuries of false hypotheses, "it is nothing more nor less than +electricity." This is very much the way she is dealing with the +supernormal at present; brushing aside as wholly nonsensical, beliefs +that envelope a core of useful fact in a wrapping of crude explanation, +and then receiving the same facts as new discoveries, because she has +fitted them into an involucre more to her own liking, though perhaps but +little less crude. "Not deer-skin," says science, "but amber; not +miracle, but faith-cure; not prophetic insight, but thought-transference; +not apparition, but hallucination." And so with the rest. + +Considering then the bias of the dominant scientific school, which makes +it refuse even to examine the carefully gathered evidence of the S.P.R.; +we need not wonder if the reports of travellers concerning the existence +of like phenomena among savages and barbarians all over the world are +dismissed with a certain _à priori_ superciliousness. Yet surely, on +evolutionist principles, the only possible clue to the mode in which +belief in spirits and in God may have originated with "primitive man," +is the mode in which those beliefs are actually now sustained, and, so +to say, "proved" by the most primitive specimens of existing humanity; +by, for example, those bushmen of Australia whose facial angle and +cerebral capacity is supposed to leave no room for much difference +between their mind and that of the higher anthropoids. Doubtless it is +hard to get anything like scientific evidence out of people so +uncultivated, whose language and modes of conception are so alien to our +own. Individual travellers, moreover, have been the victims of their own +credulity, stupidity, self-conceit, and prejudice. "But the best +testimony of the truth of the reports as to the actual belief in the +facts, is the undesigned coincidence of the evidence from all quarters. +When the stories brought by travellers, ancient and modern, learned and +unlearned, pious or sceptical, agree in the main, we have all the +certainty that anthropology can offer." + +From this ever-growing mass of evidence, it would appear that the +universal belief among savages in a spirit-world is mainly strengthened +and sustained, not by the phenomena of dreaming but by what Mr. Spencer +would call "alleged" supernormal manifestations, such as those of +clairvoyance, crystal-gazing, apparitions, miracles, prophecies, +possession, and the like. For belief in such marvels exists beyond +doubt, and furnishes a very obvious and logical basis for the further +belief in the invisible causes of these visible effects; nor should we +have recourse to an hypothetical and more indirect explanation of belief +in a spirit-world when an actual and direct explanation is at hand. If +we see the branch growing out of the tree, we need not inquire what +trunk it sprang from, unless we have strong evidence that it is only a +graft. All investigation tends to show that savages believe in spirits +and in the spirit-world because they witness, or firmly believe they +witness, supernormal phenomena. + +Besides this, it must be allowed that together with the _normal_ +phenomena of dreaming, there are abnormal dreams which even to +cultivated minds seem at times as supernormal as second-sight or +prophecy. But it is not on supernormal, but on normal dreams that +animists base their explanation. We need not deny that dreams and +delirium may have given palpable shape to the conception of a ghost, and +may also have helped forward the notion of a spirit by furnishing +something intermediary between the grossness of our waking +sense-experiences, and the altogether elusive and difficult thought of +unembodied will and intelligence independent of space and time. + +In the main then it seems more plausible to maintain that the idea of +unembodied or disembodied spirits was shaped by that instinctive law of +our mind which makes us argue from the nature of effects to the nature +of the agency. The first impulse would be to ascribe every intelligent +effect to some human agency, but other circumstances would subsequently +incline the savage reluctantly to divest the agent of one or more of the +limitations of humanity, and to clothe him with preter-human attributes. +Nearly all the supernormal phenomena believed in by primitive man--so +far as we can judge of him from contemporary savagery--would suggest the +agency of an invisible man; clairvoyance, and other manifestations of +preternatural knowledge, would suggest independence of the senses in the +acquisition of knowledge; every kind of "miracle" would bespeak an +extension of power over physical nature beyond human wont; while all +these together would point to that freedom from the trammels of space +and time, which is of the very essence of immaterial or spiritual +subsistence. Thus, by a gradual process of dehumanization, the mind +would be instinctively led from the notion of a man magnified in all +excellences and refined from all limitations, to the conception of +spirit. But coexistently with this progress of the reason, the +imagination would ever strain to clothe the thought in bodily form as +far as possible, and would cling to the notions suggested by dreams and +waking hallucinations, while language, after its wont, would speak of +the spirit as the _umbra_, the _imago_, the shadow, the breath, the +attenuated replica of the body. Thus we find among all men, savage and +civilized, a certain unsteadiness in their notion of spirit, whether +created or divine--a continual tendency to corruption and +anthropomorphism, due to the conflict between reason and imagination, +resulting so often in the domination of the latter. + +For this view of the subject it is not necessary that we should admit +the preternatural character of the phenomena which form the +subject-matter of psychical research, but only that we should +acknowledge the hardly disputable fact that belief in such marvels is +universal and persistent among savages--a fact which science is bound by +its own principles to explain, and not to ignore. Whether, as Mr. Lang +seems inclined to think, among much illusion, chicanery, and ignorance, +there may not be truth enough to make the inference of an X-world +legitimate, whether the said universality, persistence, and +recrudescence of this seeming credulity can be accounted for in any +other satisfactory way, is a further consideration. If in some dim +fashion the Northern Indians anticipated modern science in their +explanation of the _aurora borealis_, connecting it with familiar +electric manifestations, may it not be, asks Mr. Lang, that in their +inference from supernormal facts which experimental science refuses to +hear of or to examine, they have again been sagaciously beforehand? +Doubtless their explanation is crude and inadequate in both cases; but +is it much more so than that offered by supposing electricity to be a +fluid subject to currents; or by assigning many inexplicable psychic +phenomena to "hysteria"--a mere word-cause? + +The supposition is somewhat favoured if we give ear to that crowd of +witnesses whose combined evidence, duly discounted and tested, makes it +clear that even among those who ought to have been civilized out of all +belief in aught behind the veil, the very same superstitions break out, +or creep in, time after time, with new names perhaps, new clothes, new +faces, but in substance identical with those held by what we esteem the +most benighted races. + +Further, it is evident that savages pay attention--over-attention, no +doubt--to these supernormal phenomena, being free from hostile +philosophic bias in the matter, and bent the other way; and that in +consequence they have everywhere observed, classified, and systematized +them in their own rude, simple way, and have thus forestalled what the +S.P.R., in the teeth of science, is now endeavouring to do +scientifically. With us, moreover, it is mere chance that reveals a +"medium," or hypnotic subject here and there: but with savages they are +sought out diligently, and all who have any latent aptitude that way are +detected and utilized; and thus the field of their experience is +considerably widened. + +But besides all this, it seems more than plausible to suppose that among +primitive and undeveloped races such preternatural phenomena either +occur, or seem to occur, much more frequently and extensively; and that +apparently supernormal faculties are more often developed. + +Nor can this be explained solely on the score of their readier credulity +and their lack of criticism; for there is good evidence to show that the +development of the rational and self-directive faculties is at the +sacrifice of those instinctive and intuitional modes of operation which +do duty for them while man is yet in a state of pupilage. Memory, for +example, is fresher and more assimilative in childhood, but deteriorates +very often as the higher faculties come into use; and indeed we cannot +fail to see how the introduction of printing, writing, and mnemonic arts +and artifices of all kinds, has lowered the average power of civilized +memory, and made the ordinary feats of more primitive times seem to us +magical and incredible. We also notice the high development of hearing, +sight, and other forms of perception among savages who live by their +five senses rather than by their wits. When we descend to the +animal-world we are confronted by cognitive faculties whose effects we +see, but of whose precise nature we can form no conjecture whatever. +That which guides the migratory birds in their wanderings, and simulates +polity in the bee-hive and ant-hill, is not reason, but is something for +practical purposes far better than reason. Putting a number of these and +of similar considerations together seems to suggest that development in +the direction of self-instruction (which is reason) and self-management +and independence, is loss as well as gain. + +What we gain is no doubt our own in a truer sense than that we had when +we hung upon Nature's breast, and were guided passively by instincts and +intuitions to purposes that reason can never reach to. + +By far the most wonderful and seemingly intelligent work of the soul is +that by which it builds up, nourishes, repairs, developes, and finally +reproduces the body it dwells in. Yet in all this it is almost as +passive and unconscious as a vegetable. The effect is (as far as our +comprehension of it goes) altogether preternatural and inexplicable; yet +it is far less _our_ effect than what we do by reason and by taking +thought. What we pay for in dignity we lose in efficiency. While Nature +carries us in her arms we move swiftly enough, but when she sets us on +our feet to learn independence and self-rule, we cut a sorry figure. In +our helplessness she does all for us as though we were yet part of her; +but in the measure that we are weaned and begin to fend for ourselves as +responsible agents, we are deprived of the aids and easements befitting +the childhood of our race. + +If this be true, if man in his primitive state possessed intuitive +powers which have sunk into abeyance, either through the diversion of +psychic energy to the development of other powers, or through desuetude, +or as the instincts of the new-born babe are lost when their brief +purpose is fulfilled; if the occasional recrudescence of these powers +among civilized peoples is really a survival of an earlier state; then +indeed we can understand that the evidence, or apparent evidence, for +the existence of an X-region, or spirit-world, may have been +immeasurably more abundant in the infancy of the human race, than it is +now even among contemporary savages. + +Put it how we will, it cannot be denied that belief in divination, in +diabolic possession, and in magic, has largely contributed to belief in +spirits; and that to ignore this contribution by throwing the whole +burden on ordinary dreams is unscientific. During sleep Mr. Tylor +himself is as much a prey to delusion as the most primitive savage; but +the criteria by which on waking we condemn _most_ of our dreams as +illusions, seem really as accessible and obvious to the child or savage +as to the philosopher; though the former through carelessness or poverty +of language will perhaps say: "I saw," instead of: "I dreamt I saw." +Children will speak as it were historically of even their day-dreams +and imaginings, not from any untruthfulness or wish to deceive, but from +that romancing tendency rightly reprehended in their elders, who should +be alive to the conventional value of language. But the first and most +natural use of speech is simply to express and embody the thought that +is in us, not to assert, or affirm, or to instruct others. The child's +romancing is not intended as assertion, although so taken by prosaic +adults. It is from the same instinct which lies at the back of his +eternal monologue, of the "Let's pretend" by which he is for the moment +transformed into a soldier, or a steam-engine, or a horse. Eye-reading +without articulation is impossible for the beginner, and thought that is +not talked and acted is impossible for the child. Yet deeply as the +child is wrapped up in his dreams, there is nothing more certain than +that he is as clear as any adult as to the difference between romance +and fact; and so it is no doubt with the savage, who can hardly be +denied to have at least as much reason as an average child. + +Closer study of the savage points to the conclusion that the civilized +man falls into the same error in his regard as many adults do with +respect to children, whom they fail hopelessly to interpret through lack +of imagination, and to whom they are but tedious and ridiculous when +they would fain be instructive and amusing; forgetting that the +difference between the two stages of life is rather in the size of the +toys played with, than in the way they are regarded. So too we are apt +to look on foreign, and still more on savage language, symbolism, ways, +and customs, as indicative of a far more radical difference and greater +inferiority of mental constitution and ethical instincts than really +exists. Mr. Kidd, in his book on Social Evolution, has contended with +some plausibility that the brain-power of the Bushman and of the Cockney +is much on a par at starting, and that the subsequent divergence is due +chiefly to education and moral training; and certainly much of the +evidence brought forward in Mr. Lang's volume seems to look that way. If +the aboriginal Australian has a faith in the immortality of the soul and +in a supreme God, the rewarder of righteousness, if he summarizes the +laws of God under the precept of unselfishness; if in all this he is but +a type of the universal savage, surely it were well if some of the +missionary zeal which is devoted to supplying the heathen with Bibles +which they cannot understand, were turned to the work of bringing our +own godless millions up to their religious level. + +But this takes us to the second and still more interesting part of _The +Making of Religion_, which we shall have to discuss in the next section. +At present we only wish to insist that it is a mistake to assume that +because savages and children are, when compared with ourselves, so +little, therefore their thoughts and ideas can be understood with little +difficulty. Contrariwise, as the apparent difference in life and +language is greater, the deeper and more patient investigation will it +need to detect that radical sameness of mental and moral constitution +which binds men together far more than diversity of education and +environment can ever separate them. It is, therefore, exceedingly +unlikely that either the child or the savage should, by failing to +distinguish between dream and reality, introduce into his whole life +that incoherence which is just the distinguishing characteristic of +dreaming and lunacy. And, as a fact, do we really find the savage as +depressed, on waking, by a dreamt-of calamity as by a real one; or as +elated after a visionary scalping of foes as after a real victory? Does +he on waking look for the said scalps among his collection of trophies, +and is he perplexed and incensed at not finding them? Even if, like +ourselves, he has occasionally a very vivid and coherent dream +reconcilable with his waking circumstances, will he not judge of it by +the vast majority of his dreams which are palpable illusions, and not by +the few exceptional cases? If at times we ourselves doubt whether we +witnessed something or dreamt it, yet we do so not because the seeming +fact is one which makes for the existence of another world of a +different order to this, but for the very contrary reason. If the savage +only dreamt of the dead, he might find in this an evidence of their +survival, but he dreams far more often of the living, and that, with +circumstances which make the illusion manifest on waking. Seeing the awe +and terror which all men have of the supernatural region, we ought, on +the animistic hypothesis, to find among savages a great reluctance to go +to bed--"to sleep! Perchance to dream--aye, there's the rub!" But we do +not. Finally, just as the Chinese, who are supposed to mistake epilepsy +for possession, have, unfortunately for the supposition, got two +distinct words for the two phenomena, so it will doubtless be found that +there is no savage who has not some word to express illusion; or whose +language does not prove that he knows dreams are but dreams. We may well +doubt if even animals on waking are affected by their dreams as by +realities, or if a dog ever bit a man for a kick received in a dream. In +short the dream-theory of souls is plausible only in the gross, but +melts away under closer examination bit by bit. + +Whether the S.P.R. will ever succeed in bottling a ghost, and in +submitting it to the tests necessary to convince science, matters +little. The real fruit of its labours will be to "convince men of sin," +to convict science of being unscientific, and criticism of being +uncritical--of being biassed by fashion to the extent of refusing to +examine evidence which must be either admitted or explained away. +Scepticism and credulity alike are hostile both to science and religion, +and it is the common interest of these latter to secure a full +recognition, on the one side of the principle of faith, that with God +all things are possible; and on the other, of the principle of science +which is: to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. +Credulity tends to make the actual co-extensive with the possible; while +scepticism would limit the possible to the known actual. The true mind +would be one in which faith and criticism were so tempered as to secure +width without slovenliness, and exactitude without narrowness. + +II. + +How, apart from the imperfect lingering tradition of some primitive +revelation, the belief in a surviving soul originates with contemporary +savages, or might have originated among still ruder past races, is a +question of some interest, not only for its own sake, but for the sake +of whatever little light it may throw upon the more vital question as to +the value of that belief. Had the doctrine of souls no other origin than +a false inference from the ordinary phenomena of sleeping and dreaming; +were it in no sense an instinctive belief, suggested perhaps and +confirmed by supernormal facts, it would still have interest for the +anthropologist as one of those almost necessary and universal errors +through which the human mind struggles to the truth, such as the errors +of astrology or alchemy; but it would in no way contribute to the +argument for immortality _ex consensu hominum_--an argument of much +avail when it is a case of man's instinctive judgments and primary +intuitions, which are God-given, but of ever less value in proportion as +there is a question of deductions, inferences, and self-formed +judgments. Even if we discard the dream-theory altogether, we get no +support from the consensus of savages as to the soul's survival, unless +we have reason to think that the facts on which their inference rests +are truly, and not only apparently, supernormal, and are, moreover, such +as leave no other inference possible. + +We know only too well that there are universal fallacies as well as +universal truths of the human mind. For the practical necessities of +life the imagination stands to man in good stead, but as the inadequate +instrument of speculative thought its fertile deceitfulness is betrayed +in his very earliest attempts at philosophy; nor are his subsequent +efforts directed to anything else than the endeavour to correct and +allow for its refractions and distortions, to transcend its narrow +limitations, to force it to express, meanly and clumsily, truths which +otherwise it would entirely obscure and deny. There might well be facts, +nay, there are undoubtedly facts, which to the untutored mind +necessarily and always seem altogether supernormal, but which science +rightly explains to be, however unusual, yet natural, and in no way +outside the ordinary laws. So far as the marvels of sorcerers and +medicine-men are the work of chicanery, they will lack that persistence +and ubiquity which justifies the investigation of other marvels for +whose universality some basis must be sought in the uniform nature of +things. Cheats will not always and everywhere hit on the same plan, nor +will the independent testimony of false witnesses be found agreeing. + +But if besides facts and appearances that science can really explain +away, there be a residue which takes us into a region wherein science as +yet has set no foot, then we may indeed be on our way to a confirmation +of the usually accepted arguments for immortality by which the +positivist may be met upon his own ground. In truth, metaphysical, +moral, and religious arguments, however much they may avail with +individuals who are subjectively disposed to receive them, cannot in +these days influence the crowd of men who need some sort of violence +offered to their intellect if they are to accept truths against which +they are biassed. The temper of the majority is positivist; it will +believe what it can see, touch, and handle, and no more. If then the +natural truth of the independent existence of spirits can be inade +experimentally evident--and _à priori_, why should it not?--men may not +like it, but they will have either to accept it, or to deny all that +they accept on like evidence. Such unwilling concession would of itself +make little for personal religion in the individual; but its widespread +acceptance could not fail to counteract the ethics of materialism, and +so prepare the way for perhaps a fuller return to religion on the part +of the many. + +It is the belief, and perhaps the hope, of not a few men of light and +learning that a comparison of the results of the S.P.R. investigations +with those of anthropology touching the beliefs and superstitions of +savages and ruder races, may point to an order of facts which, with +reference to the admissions of existing science, are rightly called +supernormal, and yet which are in another sense strictly normal, namely, +with reference to that science of experimental psychology which, amid +the usual storm of ridicule and jealousy, is slowly struggling into +existence--ridicule from all devout slaves of the intellectual fashion +of the times; jealousy from the neighbour sciences of mental physiology +and neurology, which it declares bankrupt in the face of +newly-discovered liabilities. + +So far this gathered evidence seems, in the eyes of some of its +interpreters, to point to a close connection, if not of being, at least +of influence, between soul and soul, such as binds each atom of matter +to every other; a connection which increases as we descend from the +above-ground level of full consciousness, through ever lower strata of +subconsciousness, to those hidden depths of unconscious operation from +which the most unintelligibly intelligent effects of the soul +proceed--as though, in the darkness, it were taught by God, and guided +blindfold by the hand of its Maker. In other words, the individuation of +souls is conceived to be somewhat like that of the separate branches of +the same tree which, traced downwards, run into a common root, from +whence they are differenced by every hour of their growth, yet not +disconnected, as though each several consciousness sprang from some +unconscious psychic basis common to all, wherein, like forgotten +memories, the experiences of all are buried, at a depth far beyond the +reach of all normal powers of reminiscence, yet through which terminus +of converging souls thoughts can, in our intenser moments, pass from +mind to mind,--reverberated as it were from the base, and thence caught +by the one consciousness altogether resonant to that particular +vibration. How far such an interpretation may favour pantheism, or +imperil personality, or involve a doctrine of "pre-existence," or of +innate ideas, is not for us here to discuss. If we are to judge it +fairly, it must be simply as a provisional working-hypothesis +explanatory of certain observations, and apart from all other +psychological theories with which it may seem in conflict. Truth will in +the end adjust itself with truth, but nothing is to be hoped from forced +and premature adjustments. + +Mr. Lang's second and principal contention is that even if we allow the +animistic account of the belief in spirits, in no sense can we admit +that process by which belief in God is supposed to be a later +development of the belief in spirits, as though inequality among spirits +had given rise to aristocracy, and aristocracy to monarchy. + +By God here we understand: "a primal eternal Being, author of all +things, the father and the friend of man, the invisible omniscient +guardian of morality," a definition which, while it fixes the high-water +mark of monotheism, yet only states with formidable distinctness what, +according to Mr. Lang, is found confusedly in the apprehension of the +rudest savages. There are two senses in which we can understand an +evolution of this idea of God; first, as Mr. Tylor understands it, in +the sense of a development by accretion from a simple germ, from the +idea of a phantasm nowise a god, to that of a spirit still lacking +divinity, thence to that of a Supreme Spirit in whom first the essential +definition of God is somewhat fulfilled. Secondly, it can be understood +strictly as a mere unfolding of the contents of a confused apprehension; +so that there is an advance only in point of coherence and distinctness. +Thus understood, the entire religious history of the race, as also of +the individual, viewed from its mental side, consists in an evolution of +the idea of God and culminates in a face-to-face seeing of God. + +From the evidence amassed, or perhaps rather, sampled, by Mr. Lang it +would seem that, what we account the lowest races are in possession of a +confused idea of God, whencesoever derived, which is in substantial +agreement with the reflex conception contained in the above definition; +and that there is no existing series of intellectual stages whereby this +can be seen, as it were, in the act of growing out of previous simpler +ideas. Evolution in the direction of greater clearness and distinctness +is to be observed, as well as a downward process of obscuration and +confusion: but for a substantial development of the idea of God from an +idea of "not God" there is no proof forthcoming so far. + +On the animistic hypothesis we should be prepared to find the notion of +God, as above stated, to be of very late development and accepted only +by races fairly advanced in culture. We should, _à priori_, deem it +impossible to discover more among the lower savages than a rude religion +of ghost-worship, without any consciousness of a moral Supreme Being, +the father and friend of man. Whatever might seem to suggest the +contrary, would be explainable by some infiltration of more civilized +beliefs. + +Armed with this hypothesis the eye is quick "to see that it brings with +it the power of seeing," and to impose its own forms and schemata on the +phenomena offered to its observation. The "animist" ill-acquainted with +the savage's language and modes of thought; excluded from those inner +"mysteries" which figure in nearly every savage religion; confounding +the symbolism, the popular mythology, and also the corruptions, +distortions, and abuses which are the parasites of all religion, with +the religion itself, can easily come away with the impression that there +is nothing but ghost-worship, priestcraft, and superstition, no +conception whatever of a personal "Power that makes for Righteousness." +If Protestants have almost as crude an idea of the religion of their +Catholic fellow-Christians with whom they live side by side, and +converse in the same language, if they are so absolutely dominated by +their own form of religious thought, as to be as helpless as idiots in +the presence of any other, can we expect that the ordinary British +traveller, "brandishing his Bible and his bath," strong in the smug +conviction of his mental, moral, and religious preeminence, will be a +very sympathetic, conscientious, and reliable interpreter of the +religion of the Zulu or the Andamanese? + +The fact is that without a preliminary hypothesis he would see nothing +at all except dire confusion. But an assumption such as that of +"animism," has the selective power of a magnet, drawing to itself all +congruous facts and little filings of probability, until it so bristles +over with evidence that a hedge-hog is easier to handle. + +But before discussing the relation of this assumption to existing facts +and so bringing it to an _à posteriori_ test, let us examine its _à +priori_ supports. + +First of all, as Mr. Lang points out, it takes for granted that the +savage can have no idea of the Creator until he conceive Him as a +spirit. "God is a spirit," has been dinned into our ears from childhood; +and hence we conclude that he who has no notion of a spirit can have no +notion of God; and that the idea of God is of later growth than that of +a ghost. In truth, he who ascribes to God a body does not know _all_ +about Him; but which of us knows _all_ about God? The point is, not +whether the savage can know the metaphysics of divinity, but whether he +can conceive a primal eternal moral being, author of all things, man's +father and judge--a conception which abstracts entirely from the +question of matter and spirit. We ourselves, like the savage, +necessarily speak of God and imagine Him humanwise,--although our +instructed reason, at times, corrects the error of our fancy,--and +perhaps only "at times,"--only when we leave the ground of spontaneous +thought, to walk on metaphysical stilts--nor while that childish image +remains uncorrected and we neither affirm nor deny to Him a body, can +our notion be called false, however obscure it be and inadequate. If the +savage has no notion of spirit, yet he may have, and often seems to have +a very true, though of course infinitely imperfect, notion of God; nay, +perhaps a truer notion than those who affirm, without any sense of using +analogy, that God is a spirit. For if His spirituality is insisted on, +it is rather to exclude from Him the grossness and limitation of matter, +and to ascribe to Him a transcendental degree of whatever perfection our +notion of spirit may involve, than to classify Him, or to predicate of +Him that finite nature which we call a spirit. God is neither a spirit +nor a body; but rather like Ndengei of the Fijians: "an impersonation of +the abstract idea of eternal existence;" one who is to be "regarded as a +deathless _Being_, no question of 'spirit' being raised;" so that the +first intuition of the unsophisticated mind is found to be in more +substantial agreement with the last results of reflex philosophical +thought, than those early philosophizings which halt between the +affirmation and denial of bodily attributes, unable to prescind from the +difficulty and unable to solve it. The history of the Jews, nay, the +history of our own mind proves to demonstration that the thought of God +is a far easier thought and a far earlier, than that of a spirit. Our +mind, oar heart, our conscience, affirm the former instinctively, while +the latter does continual violence to our imagination, except so far as +spirit is misconceived to be an attenuated phantasmal body. Not only, +therefore, does the savage imagine God and speak of Him humanwise, as we +all do; but if he does not actually believe Him to be material, he at +least will be slow in mastering the thought of His spirituality. + +Another assumption underlying the animistic hypothesis, and also +borrowed from Christian teaching, is that the savage regards the soul or +ghost as the liberated and consummated man, and that therefore he will +place God rather in the category of disembodied than of embodied men. +Yet not only the Greek and Roman, but even the Jew, looked on the shade +of the departed as a mere fraction of humanity, as a miserable residue +of man, helpless and hopeless, and withal disposed to be mischievous and +exacting, and therefore needing to be humoured in various ways. Nay, +even Christianity with its dogma of the bodily resurrection, denies that +Platonic doctrine which views the body as the prison rather than as the +complement and consort of the soul; although it holds the soul to be of +an altogether higher, because spiritual, order. But to the primitive +savage, who everywhere regards death as non-natural, as accidental and +violent, the surviving spirit, however uncertain-tempered and +incalculable in its movements, however much to be feared and +propitiated, does not command reverence as a being of a superior order. +At best it is: "Alas! poor ghost!" Better a live dog than a dead lion; +better the meanest slave that draws breath, than the monarch of Orcus. +Surely it is not in the region of shadows that the savage will look for +the great "all-father;" but in the world of solid, tangible realities. + +Again, it is assumed that progress in one point is progress in all; that +because we surpass all other races and generations in physical science +and useful arts, we surpass them in every other way; and that they must +be far behind us in ethical and religious conceptions, as they are in +inventions and the production of comforts. To find our own theism and +morality among savages is therefore impossible; for as the crooked stick +is unto the steam-plough, so is the god of the savage unto the God of +Great Britain. Yet when we consider how closely religious and ethical +principles are intertwined, and how glaringly untrue it is to say that +industrial civilization makes for morality,--for purity or self-denial, +or justice, or truth, or honour: how manifestly it is accompanied with a +deterioration of the higher perceptions and tastes, we must surely pause +before taking it for granted that the course of true religion has been +running smoothly parallel to that of commerce. + +In a thoughtful essay, entitled _The Disenchantment of France_, Mr. F.W. +Myers points out the goal towards which "progress" is leading us, +through the destruction of those four "illusions" which formerly gave +life all its value and dignity,--namely, belief in religion; devotion to +the State--whether to the prince or to the people; belief in the +eternity and spirituality of human love; belief in man's freedom and +imperishable personal unity. "I cannot avoid the conclusion," he says, +"that we are bound to be prepared for the worst. Yet by the worst I do +not mean any catastrophe of despair, any cosmic suicide, any world-wide +unchaining of the brute that lies pent in man. I mean merely the +peaceful, progressive, orderly triumph of _l'homme sensuel moyen_; the +gradual adaptation of hopes and occupations to a purely terrestrial +standard; the calculated pleasures of the cynic who is resolved to be a +dupe no more." + +In other words, if we accept this very temperate and reluctant +conclusion, we must confess that the one-sided progress, with whose +all-sufficiency we are so thoroughly satisfied, is making straight for +the extermination, not only of religion, but of morality in any received +sense of the term. + +But when Mr. Lang, who has no hypothesis of his own as to the origin of +belief in God, brings the animistic theory to an _à posteriori_ test, he +finds it encumbered with still greater difficulties; for nothing is as, +_à priori_, it ought to be. + +While Mr. Tylor asserts "that no savage tribe of monotheists has ever +been known," but that all ascribe the attributes of deity to other +beings than the Almighty Creator, it appears in fact that many of the +rudest savages "are as monotheistic as some Christians. They have a +Supreme Being, and the 'distinctive attributes of deity' are not by them +assigned to other beings further than as Christianity assigns them to +angels, saints, the devil," &c. Catholics at least will readily +understand how hastily and unjustly the charge of polytheism is made by +the protestantized mind against any religion which believes in a +Heavenly Court as well as in a Heavenly Monarch. "Of the existence of a +belief in a Supreme Being" amongst the lowest savages, "there is as good +evidence as we possess for any fact in the ethnographic region. It is +certain that savages, when first approached by curious travellers and +missionaries, have again and again recognized our God in theirs." + +If, therefore, belief in God grew out of belief in ghosts, it must have +been in some stage of culture lower than any of which we have experience +so far; and at some period which belongs to the region of hypothesis and +conjecture. There are no known tribes where ghosts are worshipped and +God is not known, or where the supposed process of development can be +watched in action. Nor is it only that links are missing, but one of the +very terms to be connected, namely, a godless race, is conjectural. +Still more unfortunate is it for the animists that evidence points to +the fact that advance in civilization often means the decay of +monotheism, and that the ruder races are the purer in their religious +and ethical conceptions. Once more, all facts are against the theory +that tribes transfer their earthly polity to the heavenly city; for +monotheism is found where monarchy is unknown. "God cannot be a +reflection from human kings where there are no kings; nor a president +elected out of a polytheistic society of gods, where there is as yet no +polytheism; nor an ideal first ancestor where men do not worship their +ancestors." To the substantiating of these facts Mr. Lang then applies +himself, and shows us how among the Australians, Red Indians, Figians, +Andamanese, Dinkas, Yao, Zulus, and all known savages there lives the +conception of a Supreme Being (not necessarily spirit) who is variously +styled Father, Master, Our Father, The Ancient One in the skyland, The +Great Father. He shows us, moreover, that this deity is the God of +conscience, a power making for goodness, a guardian and enforcer of the +interests of justice and truth and purity; good to the good, and froward +with the froward. + +But surely, it will be said, all this is too paradoxical, too violently +in conflict with what is notorious concerning the religion and morality +of savages. + +The reason of this seeming contradiction is, however, not altogether +difficult. It is to be found partly in the fact that religion, like +morality, being counter to those laws which govern the physical world +and the animal man,--to the law of egoism and competition and struggle +for existence; to the law that "might is right,"--tends from the very +nature of the case towards decay and disintegration. The movement of +material progress is in some sense a downhill movement. No doubt it +evokes much seeming virtue, such as is necessary to secure the end; but +the motive force is one with regard to which man is passive rather than +active, a slave rather than a master, as a miser is in respect to that +passion which stimulates him to struggle for gain. Religion and morality +are uphill work, needing continual strain and attention if the motive +force is to be maintained at all. Huxley, in one of his later +utterances, allowed this with regard to morality; and it is not less but +more true with regard to faith in the value of unseen realities. Even if +belief in a moral God be as natural to man as are the promptings of +conscience, it ought not to surprise us that it should be as universally +stifled, neglected, seemingly denied, as conscience is. It is not +usually in old age and after years of conflict with the world that +conscience is most sensitive and faithful to light, but rather in early +childhood. And similarly the sense of God and of His will is apparently +more strong and lively in the childhood of races than after it has been +stifled by the struggle for wealth and pre-eminence-- + + When yet I had not walked above + A mile or two from my first love: + But felt through all this fleshly dress + Bright shoots of everlastingness. [2] + +Degradation may almost be considered a law of religion and morality +which needs some kind of violent counteraction, some continual +intervention and providence, if it is to be kept in check. After all, +this is only a dressing-up of the old platitude that a holy life means +continual warfare and straining of the spirit against the flesh, of the +moral order against the physical order, of altruism or the true egoism +against selfishness or the false egoism. Of course an ideal civilization +would help and not hinder religion; but the chances against civilization +being ideal are so large as to make it historically true that, advance +in civilization does not always mean advance in religion and morality, +and often means decay. + +Far from animism being the root of theism, more often it is rather the +ivy that grows up about it, hides it and chokes it. Just because the +demands of religion and morality are so burdensome to men, they will +ever seek short-cuts to salvation; and the intercession of presumably +corruptible courtiers will be secured to win the favour, or avert the +displeasure, of the rigorously incorruptible and inexorable King, who is +"no respecter of persons." Except among Jews and Christians, the Supreme +Being is nowhere worshipped with sacrifice--that service of +food-offering being reserved for subordinate deities susceptible to +gentle bribery. The great God of conscience is naturally the least +popular object of cultus; though, were the animists right, He should be +the most popular, seeing He would be the latest development demanded and +created by the popular mind. But contrariwise, He tends to recede more +and more into the background, behind the ever-multiplying crowd of +patron-spirits, guardians, family-gods; till, as in Greece and Rome, He +is almost entirely obscured, "an unknown God ignorantly worshipped"--the +End, as usual, being forgotten and buried in the means. All this process +of degradation will be hastened by the corruption of priests whose +avarice or ambition, as Mr. Lang says, will tempt them to exploit the +lucrative elements in religion at the expense of the ethical; to +whittle-away the decrees of God and conscience to suit the wealthy and +easy-going; to substitute purchasable sacrifice, for obedience; and the +fat of rams, for charity. We need only look to the history of Israel and +of the Christian Church to see all these tendencies continually at work, +and only held in check by innumerable interventions of Divine +Providence, and of that Spirit which is always striving with man. + +Scant, however, as may be the amount of direct worship accorded to the +Supreme God, compared with that received by subordinate spiritual +powers, yet it is _sui generis_, and of an infinitely higher order. The +familiar distinction of _latria_ and _dulia_ seems to obtain everywhere; +as also that between _Elohim_ and _Javeh_, that is, between supernal +beings in general, and the Supreme Being who is also supernal. Yet so +excessive in quantity is the secondary cultus compared with the primary, +that an outsider may well be pardoned for thinking that there is nothing +beyond what meets the eye on every side. As has been said, the Supreme +Being alone is usually considered above the weakness of caring for +sacrifice, or for external worship in "temples made with hands." His +name is commonly tabooed, only to be whispered in those mysteries of +initiation which are met with so universally. Outside these mysteries He +may only be spoken of in parables and myths, grotesque, irreverent, +designed to conceal rather than to reveal. But rarely is there an image +or an altar to this unknown God. + +It is easy for those who recognize no other religion among savages +behind the popular observances and cults which are so much to the front, +to believe that early religion is non-ethical. For indeed, for the most +part, all this secondary cultus is directed to the mitigation of the +moral code and the substitution of exterior for interior sacrifice. It +is the result of an endeavour to compound with conscience; and to hide +away sins from the all-seeing eye. Again it is chiefly in the secrecy of +the mysteries that the higher ethical doctrine is propounded--a doctrine +usually covering all the substantials of the decalogue; and in some +cases, approaching the Christian summary of the same under the one +heading of love and unselfishness. As for the corrupt lives of savages, +if it proves their religion to be non-ethical, what should we have to +think of Christianity? We cry out in horror against cannibalism as the +_ne plus ultra_ of wickedness., but except so far as it involves murder, +it is hard to find in it more than a violation of our own convention, +while a mystical mind might find more to say for it than for cremation. +Certainly it is not so bad as slander and backbiting. Human sacrifice +offered to the Lord of life and death at His own behest, is something +that did not seem wicked and inconceivable to Abraham. Head-hunting is +not a pretty game; nor is scalping and mutilation the most generous +treatment of a fallen foe; yet war has seen worse things done by those +who professed an ethical religion. + +But, chief among the causes why savage religion has been so +misrepresented, is the almost universal co-existence of a popularized +form of religion addressed to the imagination, with that which speaks to +the understanding alone. As has already been said, man's imagination is +at war with his intelligence when supersensible realities, such as God +and the soul, are in question. Without figures we cannot think; yet the +timeless and spaceless world can ill be figured after the likeness of +things limited by time and space. This mental law is the secret of the +invariable association of mythology with religion. Setting aside the +problem as to how the truths of natural religion (_sc._ that there is a +God the rewarder of them that seek Him) are first brought home to man, +it is certain that if he does not receive them embedded in history or +parable, in spoken or enacted symbolism, he will soon fix and record +them in some such language for himself. Christ recognized the necessity +of speaking to the multitude in parables, not attempting to precise or +define the indefinable; but contenting Himself with: "The Kingdom of +Heaven is _like_," &c. "I am content," says Sir Thomas Browne, "to +understand a mystery without a rigid definition, in an easie and +Platonick description," and it is only through such easie and Platonick +descriptions that spiritual truth can slowly be filtered into the +popular mind. Still when we consider how prone all metaphors are to be +pressed inexactly, either too far, or else not far enough, how abundant +a source they are of misapprehension, owing to the curiosity that will +not be content to have the gold in the ore, but must needs vainly strive +to refine it out, we can well understand how mythology tends to corrupt +and debase religion if it be not continually watched and weeded; and +how, being, from the nature of the case, ever to the front, ever on +men's lips and mingling with their lives, it should seem to the outsider +to be not the imperfect garment of religion, but a substitute for it. +Yet in some sense these mythologies are a safeguard of reverence in that +they provide a theme for humour and profanity and rough handling, which +is thus expended, not on the sacred realities themselves, but on their +shadows and images. Among certain savages God's personal name is too +holy to be breathed but in mysteries; yet His mythological substitute is +represented to be as grotesque, freakish, and immoral as the Zeus of the +populace. We can hardly enter into such a frame of mind, though possibly +the irreverences and buffooneries of some of the miracle-plays of the +middle ages are similarly to be explained as the rebound from the strain +incident to a continual sense of the nearness of the supernatural; and +perhaps the _Messer Domeniddio_ of the Florentines stood rather for a +mental effigy that might be played with, than for the reasoned +conception of the dread Deity. If we possessed a minutely elaborated +history of the Good Shepherd and His adventures, or of the Prodigal's +father, or of the Good Samaritan, interspersed with all manner of +ludicrous and profane incidents, and losing sight of the original +purport of the figure, we should have something like a mythology. Were +it not stereotyped as part of an inspired record, the mere romancing +tendency of the imagination would easily have added continually to the +original parable, wholly forgetful of its spiritual significance. + +It is part of the very economy of the Incarnation to meet this weakness, +to provide for this want of the human mind; to satisfy the imagination +as well as the intelligence. Here Divine truth has received a Divine +embodiment, has been set forth in the language of deeds, in a real and +not in a fictitious history. Sacrifice and sacrament, and every kind of +natural religious symbolism, has been appropriated and consecrated to +the service of truth and to the fullest utterance of God that such weak +accents will stretch to. Here the channel of communication between +Heaven and earth is not of man's creation but of God's; or at least is +of God's composition. This is the great difference between the ethnic +religions and a religion that professes to be revealed--that is, spoken +by God and put into language by Him. The latter is, so to say, cased in +an incorruptible body, its very expression being chosen and sealed for +ever with Divine approval, and rescued from the fluent and unstable +condition of religions whose clothes are the works of men's hands. Here +it is that Catholic Christianity stands out as altogether catholic and +human, adapted as it is to the world-wide cravings of the religious +instinct; satisfying the imagination and the emotions, no less than the +intellect and the will; and yet saving us from the perils of the +myth-making tendency of our mind. + +The same thought is pressed upon us when we view the collective evidence +as to the universal demand for a mediatorial system--for intercessors, +and patrons, for a heavenly court surrounding the Heavenly Monarch; a +demand often created by and tending to a degradation of purer religion, +yet most surely embodying and expressing a spiritual instinct which is +only fully explained and satisfied by the Catholic doctrine of the +communion of saints and souls in one great society, labouring for a +conjoint salvation and beatitude. We Catholics know well enough that the +degraded and superstitious will pervert saint-worship as they pervert +other good things to their own hurt and to God's dishonour, but we also +know that of itself the doctrine of the Heavenly Court is altogether in +the interests of the very highest and purest religion. In all this +matter, needless to say, Mr. Lang is not with us; but the affinities of +Catholicism with universal religion, which he marks to our prejudice, +are really in some sort proof of our contention that the Church is the +divinely conceived fulfilment of all man's natural religious instincts, +providing harmless and healthy outlets for humours otherwise dangerous +and morbid; never forgetful of man's double nature and its claims, +neither wearying him with an impossible intellectualism--a religion of +pure philosophy--not suffering him to be the prey of mere imagination +and sentiment, but tempering the divine and human, the thought and the +word, so as to bring all his faculties under the yoke of Christ. + +Mr. Lang's concern is with the universality of belief in God the +Rewarder, not with its origin nor even its value; though he seems at +times to imply that the solution may be found in a primitive revelation +of some sort. For ourselves, accordant as such a notion would be with +popular Christian tradition, we do not think that the adduced evidence +needs that hypothesis; but is explained sufficiently by "the hypothesis +of St. Paul," which, as Mr. Lang admits, "seem not the most +unsatisfactory." The mere verbal tradition of a primitive "deposit" not +committed to any authorized guardians would, to say the least, be a +hazardous and conjectural way of accounting for the facts; nor is there +any evidence offered to show that such religious beliefs are held, as +the Catholic religion is, on the authority of antiquity, interpreted by +a living voice. The substance of this elementary religion--the existence +of God the Rewarder of them that seek Him--is naturally suggested to the +simple-minded by the data of unspoilt conscience, confirmed and +supplemented by the spectacle of Nature. That the truth would be +borne-in on a solitary and isolated soul we need not maintain; for in +solitude and isolation man is not man, and neither reason nor language +can develop aright. Further we may allow that as Nature or God provides +for society, and therefore for individuals, by an equal distribution of +gifts and talents, giving some to be politicians, others poets, others +philosophers, others inventors, so He gives to some what might be called +natural religious genius or talent or spiritual insight, for the benefit +of the community. Thus whatever be true of the individual savage, we +cannot well suppose that any tribe or people, taken collectively, should +fail to draw the fundamental truths of religion from the data of +conscience and nature. In this sense no doubt they would become +traditional--the common property of all--so that the innate facility of +each individual mind in regard to them would be stimulated and +supplemented by suggestion from without. + +How far God can be said actually to "speak" to the soul through +conscience or through Nature so as to make faith, in the strict sense of +reliance on the word of another, possible, is for theologians to +discuss. If besides expressing these truths in creation or in +conscience, He also expresses in some way His intention to reveal them +to the particular soul, we have all that is requisite. In what way, or +innumerable ways He makes His voice heard in every human heart day by +day, and causes general truths to be brought near and recognized and +received as a particular message, each can answer best for himself. + +But undoubtedly the results of comparative religion are, so far, almost +entirely favourable to the doctrine of God's all-saving will; and in +many other points confirmatory of received beliefs. Even where, for +example, in the question of the origin and meaning of sacrifice, they +seem to necessitate a modification of the somewhat elaborate _à priori_ +definition, popular in some modern schools (though not in them all), yet +that modification is altogether favourable to the sounder conception of +the Eucharistic Sacrifice as a food-offering complementary to the +Sacrifice of the Cross. Above all it is in bringing out the unity of +type between natural ethnic religions, and that revealed Catholic +religion which is their correction and fulfilment, that the studies of +Mr. Lang and Mr. Jevons are of such service. The militant Protestant +delights to dwell on the analogies between Romanism and Paganism; we too +may dwell on them with delight, as evidence of that substantial unity of +the human mind which underlies all surface diversities of mode and +language, and binds together, as children of one family, all who believe +in God the Rewarder of them that seek Him, who is no respecter of +persons. What man in his darkness and sinfulness has feebly been trying +to utter in every nation from the beginning, that God has formulated and +written down for him in the great Catholic religion of the Word made +Flesh-- + + Which he may read that binds the sheaf + Or builds the house, or digs the grave, + And those wild eyes that watch the wave + In roarings round the coral reef. + +True, even could it be established beyond all doubt that belief in the +one God were universal among rude and uncultivated races, this would not +add any new proof to the truth of religion, unless it could be shown +that it was really an instinctive, inwritten judgment, and not one of +those many natural fallacies into which all men fall until they are +educated out of them. Still, for those who do not need conviction on +this point, it is no slight consolation to be assured that simplicity +and savagery do not shut men out from the truths best worth knowing; +that even where the earthen vessel is most corrupted, the heavenly +treasure is not altogether lost; that it is only those who deliberately +go in search of obscurities who need stumble. It was not the crowds of +pagandom that St. Paul censured, but the philosophers. God made man's +feet for the earth, and not for the tight-rope. Whatever be the truth +about Idealism, man is by nature a Realist; and similarly he is by +nature a theist, until he has studiously learnt to balance himself in +the non-natural pose. + +Will a man be excused for deliberately dashing his foot against a stone +because forsooth he has persuaded himself with Zeno, that there is no +such thing as motion; or with Berkeley, that the externality of the +world is a delusion; or will he be pardoned in his unbelief because he +could not justify by philosophy the truth which conscience and nature +are dinning into his ears: that there is a God the Rewarder of them that +seek Him? + +_Sept. Oct._ 1898. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: "A hysterical fit indicates a lamentable instability of the +nervous system. But it is by no means certain _à priori_ that every +symptom of that instability, without exception, will be of a +degenerative kind. The nerve-storm, with its unwonted agitations, may +possibly lay bare some deep-lying capacity in us which could scarcely +otherwise have come to light. Recent experiments on both sensation and +memory in certain abnormal states have added plausibility to this view, +and justify us in holding that in spite of its frequent association with +hysteria, ecstasy is not necessarily in itself a morbid symptom." +(F.W.H. Myers, _Tennyson as a Prophet_.)] + +[Footnote 2: _The Retreat_. By Henry Vaughan.] + + + +XXII. + + +ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. + +Much as we may think of the abstract and objective value of the treatise +_De vera religione_, which forms the usual introduction to those _cursus +theologici_ whose multiplication of late has been so remarkable, it can +hardly be denied that its cogency is much diminished for the large +number of those thinkers who repudiate the philosophical presuppositions +upon which that treatise rests. As long as negation halted before that +minimum of religious truth which is in some way accessible to +reason,--before belief in God and in immortality; as long as the +principles and methods of proof by which "natural theology" reached its +conclusion were admitted even by those who denied those conclusions, an +apologetic such as we are speaking of had an undoubted practical +value--not indeed as sufficing to bring conviction to the unwilling or +ill-disposed, not as a cause of faith, but as removing an obstacle which +existed in the supposed incompatibility of revealed truth with these +same rational principles and processes. + +Apart from this preparation of the intellect, to which perhaps the name +"apologetic" should be more strictly reserved, a prior and more +important need was the disposing of the will and affections to the +acceptance of the truth. For, in a very real sense, love is the root of +faith; and the wish that a thing should be true, not only stimulates the +mind to inquire and investigate, but also creates a fear of +self-deception and a spirit of incredulity which is the fruitful parent +of intellectual difficulties. + +Such an appeal to the affections is really outside the province of +theological science and belongs rather to the rhetorician, the poet, or +the prophet. Yet it was a work at all times needful for the extension +and maintenance of the faith, in even a greater degree than the more +dispensable preparation of the intellect. For the great multitude of men +who are innocent of any really independent thought, who professedly or +unconsciously take all their beliefs from some individual or society, +there is really no need of scientific apologetic--the sole need being to +win or maintain their confidence, their loyalty, their reverence, in +regard to some teacher or leader, to Christ or the Church. + +It was only towards the close of last century when scepticism was +beginning to reach the very root from which the Christian apologetic +sprang, and the former philosophic methods had themselves fallen in +disrepute, that the necessity of accommodating the remedy to the disease +began to be recognized here and there, and of framing an argument that +would appeal to the perverse and erratic mind of the day, rather than to +an abstract and perfectly normal mind, which, if it existed, would "need +no repentance." That a given medicine is the best, avails nothing if it +be not also one which the patient is willing to take. If a man has +closed his teeth against everything that savours of scholasticism, we +must either abandon him or else see if there be any among the methods he +will submit to, which may in any wise serve our purpose. And, indeed, +among the jangle of philosophies there is surely in all something that +is a common heritage of the human mind, a unity which a little skill can +detect lurking under that diversity of form which unfortunately it is +the delight of most men to emphasize. To suppose that Christianity is +pledged to more than this common substratum which none deny, except +through verbal confusion, that there is no road to faith but through +what is peculiar to scholasticism, or that my first step in converting a +man to Christ must be to convert him to Aristotle, is about as +intelligent as to suppose that because the Church has adopted Latin as +her official language she means to discredit every other. + +It was then with a view of meeting the exigencies of the world as it is, +not as it might or ought to have been, that such a work as the _Génie du +Christianisme_ strove to find an apologetic in what previously had been +regarded as outside the domain of theology and more properly the concern +of the preacher. The beauty, the solace, the adaptation to our higher +needs of Christian teaching had been one thing; its truth, quite +another. By dilating eloquently on the first, men might be won to the +love of such an ideal, to wish that it might be true; and then disposed +to profit by the distinct and independent labours of the apologist whose +theme was, not the utility or beauty of the Catholic religion, but +solely its truth. + +But now that the "scholastic" [1] apologetic was in disgrace with all +but those who stood least in need of it, some more acceptable method had +to be sought out, and amongst many others there was that of +Chateaubriand, which strove to find an argument for the intellect in the +very appeal which Christianity made to the will and affections. Because +a religion is fair and much to be desired, because, if true, it would +give unity and meaning to man's higher cravings, and turn human life +from a senseless chaos into an intelligible whole, therefore, and for +this reason, it _is_ true. + +It is hardly wonderful that such a method should incur the charge of +sentimentalism. "It would be so nice to believe it, therefore it must be +true," sounds like a shameless abandonment of reasonableness. The fact +that a belief is "consoling," quite independently of its truth or +falsehood, creates a bias towards its acceptance. That it is pleasant to +believe oneself very clever and competent will incline one to that +belief until something important depends, not on our thinking ourselves +so, but on our being so. Before an examination, the wish to succeed will +make me sceptical about my prospects, much as I should like to think +them the brightest; afterwards, when self-deception can only console and +can do no harm, I shall be credulous of any flattery that is offered me. +In one case, my interest depends upon the facts, and therefore the wish +to believe makes me critical and even sceptical; in the other, on my +belief concerning the facts, and the wish to believe, makes me +uncritical and credulous. + +It was seemingly a bold and hazardous venture to justify this same +credulity, and to affirm that an argument could be drawn from the wish +to believe in just those cases where its influence would seem most +suspicious; yet this was practically what the new apologetic amounted +to. It was an argument from the utility of beliefs to their truth; from +the fact that certain subjective convictions produced good results, to +the correspondence of such convictions with objective reality. The +advantages to the individual and to society of a firm belief in God the +righteous Judge, in the sanction of eternal reward and penalty, in the +eventual adjustment of all inequalities, in the reversible character of +sin through repentance, in the divine authority of conscience, of +Christianity, of the Catholic Church, are to a great extent independent +of the truth of those beliefs. No amount of hypnotic suggestion will +enable a man to subsist upon cinders, under the belief that they are a +very nutritious diet; for the effect depends upon their actual nature, +and not wholly upon his belief concerning their nature; but the salutary +fear of Hell or hope of Heaven, depends not on the existence of either +state, but on our belief in its existence. The fact that the denial of +these and many similar beliefs would bring chaos into our spiritual and +moral life, that it would extinguish hopes which often alone make life +bearable, that it would issue for society at large in such a grey, +meaningless, uninspired existence as Mr. F. W. Myers prognosticates in +his admirable essay on "The Disillusionment of France," [2] all this and +much more makes it our interest, if not our duty, to cling to such +convictions at all costs. "If these things are not true, it might be +said, then life is chaos; and if life be chaos, what does truth matter? +Why may not such useful illusions and self-deceptions be fostered? If we +are dreaming, let our dreams be the pleasantest possible!" + +Nor can it be urged that though some part of our interest thus depends +on the beliefs, rather than on their being true, yet the consequences of +self-deception are so momentous, as to create a spirit of criticism to +balance or over-balance the said bias of credulity. For though the +consequences of denial are disastrous if the beliefs are true, yet if +they are false, the ill-consequences of belief are almost insignificant. +It is sometimes said too hastily that if religion be an illusion, then +religious people lose both this life and the next; and it is assumed +that an unrestrained devotion to pleasure would secure a happiness which +faith requires us to forego. But unless we take a gross, and really +unthinkable view of the homogeneity of all happiness, and reduce its +differences to degree and quantity, the shallowness of the preceding +objection will be apparent. It is only through restraint that the higher +kinds of temporal happiness are reached, and as confusions are cleared +away in process of discussion, it becomes patent that such restraint +finds its motive directly or indirectly in religion. When the religious +influence with which irreligious society is saturated, has exhausted +itself, and idealism is no more, the unrestrained egoistic pursuit of +enjoyment must tend to its steady diminution in quantity, and its +depreciation in kind. The sorrow and pain entailed by fidelity to the +Christian ideal is, on the whole, immeasurably less in the vast majority +of cases than that attendant on the struggles of unqualified +selfishness, while the capacities for the higher happiness are steadily +raised and largely satisfied by hope and even by some degree of present +fruition. Even vice would be in many ways sauceless and insipid in the +absence of faith. Who does not remember the old cynic's testimony (in +the "New Republic") to the piquancy lent by Christianity to many a sin, +otherwise pointless. If the moralist distinguishes between actions that +are evil because they are forbidden, and those that are forbidden +because they are evil, the libertine has a counter-distinction between +those that are forbidden because they are pleasant, and those that are +pleasant because they are forbidden. St. Paul himself is explicit enough +as to this effect of the law. + +Look at it how we will, even were religion unfounded our life would on +the whole gain in fulness far more than it would lose, by our believing +in religion. Hence some of our more thoughtful agnostics, however unable +themselves to find support in what they deem an illusion, are quite +willing to acknowledge the part religion has played in the past in the +evolution of rational life, and to look upon it as a necessary factor in +the earlier stages of that process whose place is to be taken hereafter +by some as yet undefined substitute. If indeed Nature thus works by +illusions and justifies the lying means by the benevolent end, it is +hard to believe in a moral government of the universe, or to hope that +an "absolute morality"--righteousness for its own sake--will be the +outcome of such disreputable methods. But till the illusion of "absolute +morality" is strong enough to take care of itself, and has passed from +the professors to the populace, it is plainly for the interest and +happiness of individuals and of society to hold fast to religion. + +Undoubtedly then the advantages resulting from a belief in religion, +whether valid or illusory, are such as to incline not only the higher +and more unselfish minds, but even those which are more prudential and +self-regarding, to wish to hold that belief--to be unwilling to hear +arguments against it. But among the former class will be found many +intellectually conscientious and even scrupulous persons, whom the +recognition of this inevitable bias will drive to an extreme of caution. +Not so much because the facts believed-in are of such intense moment, +but rather because the belief itself, whether true or false, is so +consoling and helpful, that there seems to them a danger of +self-deception just proportioned to their wish to believe. + +It were then no small rest and relief to such, could it be shown that +what they deem a reason for doubt, is really a reason for belief; that +the welcome which all that is best in them gives to a belief, affords +some sort of philosophical justification thereof. + +This particular argument had undoubtedly a more favourable hearing in +the age of Chateaubriand, when unbelief stopped short at the threshold +of what was called "Natural Religion," and the apologist's task was +confined to the establishment of revelation. "It is now pretty generally +admitted," says the author of _Contemporary Evolution_, "with regard to +Christianity and theism that the arguments really telling against the +first, are in their logical consequences fatal also to the second, and +that a _Deus Unus, Remunerator_ once admitted, an antecedent probability +for a revelation must be conceded." + +Given an intelligent and benevolent author of the universe, it is not +perhaps very difficult to show that any further religious belief +approximates to the truth in the measure that it satisfies the more +highly developed rational needs of mankind. It is not seriously denied +any longer that religion is an instinct with man, however it may be +lacking in some individuals or dormant in others. We have savages at +both ends of the scale of civilization, but man is none the less a +political creature; nor does the existence of idiots and deaf mutes and +criminals at all affect the fact that he is a reasoning and speaking and +ethical animal. As soon as he wakes to consciousness, he feels that he +is part of a whole, one of a multitude; and that as he is related to his +fellow-parts--equals or inferiors--so also is he related to the Whole +which is above him and greater than all put together. Religion, taken +subjectively, in its loosest sense, is a man's mental and moral attitude +in regard to real or imaginary superhuman beings--a definition which +includes pantheism, polytheism, monotheism; moral, non-moral, and +immoral religions; which prescinds from materialist or spiritualist +conceptions of the universe. And by a religion in the objective sense, +so far as true or false can be predicated of it, we mean a body of +beliefs intended to regulate and correct man's subjective religion. It +is to such systems and their parts that we think the above test of +"adaptability" maybe applied as we have stated it. + +We must of course assume that our distinction of higher from lower +states of rational development is valid; that we can really attach some +absolute meaning to the terms "progress" and "decline;" that there is +some vaguely conceived standard of human excellence which such terms +refer to. Else we are flung into the very whirlpool of scepticism. +Measured back from infinity it may be infinitesimal, but measured +forward from zero, the difference of mental and, partly, of moral +culture between ourselves and the aborigines of Australia is +considerable, and is really to our advantage. Now if a given religion or +religious belief suggests itself more readily, or when suggested +commends itself more cordially in the measure that men's spiritual needs +are more highly developed; if, furthermore, it tends to make men still +better and to raise their desires still higher so as to prepare the way +for a yet fuller conception of religious truth, it may be said to be +adapted to human needs; and it is from such adaptability that we argue +its approach to the truth. We say "its approach," for all our ideas of +the Whole, of the superhuman, of those beings with which religion deals, +are necessarily analogous and imperfect. What is admitted by all with +regard to the strict mysteries of the Christian faith is in a great +measure to be extended to the central or fundamental ideas of all +religion. They are at best woefully inadequate, and if the unity between +the parts of an idea be organic and not merely mechanical, they must be +regarded as containing false mingled with true.[3] Still some analogies +are less imperfect, less mingled with fallacy than others, and there is +room for indefinite approximation towards an unattainable exactitude. +For example, assuming theism, as we do in the argument under +consideration, it is evident that man conceives the superhuman object of +his fear and worship more truly as personal than as impersonal; as +spiritual than as embodied; as one or few than as many; as infinite than +as finite; as creator than as maker; as moral than as non-moral or +immoral; as both transcendent and immanent than as either alone. If then +it appears that as man's intelligence and morality develop in due +proportion, he advances from a material polytheistic immoral conception +of the All, to a spiritual and moral monotheism, it may be claimed that +the latter is a less inadequate conception. And similarly with regard to +other dependent religious beliefs which usually radiate from the central +notion. It will be seen that we do not argue from the self-determined +wishes or desires of any individual or class of individuals to their +possible fulfilment,--to the existence in Nature of some supply +answering to that demand; we do not argue that because many men or all +men desire to fly, flying must for that reason alone be possible. We +speak of the needs of man's nature, not of this individual's nature; of +needs consequent on what man is made, and not on what he has made +himself; of those wants and exigencies which if unsatisfied or +insatiable must leave his nature not merely negatively imperfect and +finite, but positively defective and as inexplicable as a lock without a +key--not necessarily, of needs felt at all times by every man, but of +those which manifest themselves naturally and regularly at certain +stages of moral and social development; just as the bodily appetites +assert themselves under certain conditions not always given. + +Now there is one form in which this argument from adaptability is +somewhat too hastily applied and which it is well to guard against. Were +we to find a key accommodated to the wards of a most complicated lock, +we should be justified in concluding, with a certainty proportioned to +the complexity of the lock, that both originated with one and the same +mind; and so, it is urged, if a religion, say Christianity, answers to +the needs of human nature, we may conclude that it is from the Author of +human nature with a certainty increasing as it is seen to answer to the +higher and more complex developments of the soul. + +Now if, like the key in our illustration, the religion in question were +something given _in rerum natura_ independent of human origination in +any form, this argument would be practically irresistible. That besides +those beliefs which lead man on to an ever fuller understanding of his +better self, and stimulate and direct his moral progress, Christianity +imposes others more principal, of which man as yet has no exigency, and +which hint at some future order of existence that new faculties will +disclose--all this, in no wise makes the argument inapplicable. The +whole system of beliefs is accepted for the sake, and on the credit, of +that part which so admirably unlocks the soul to her own gaze. "Now are +we the sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what we shall be;" if +besides satisfying our present ideal of religion, Christianity hints at +and prepares us for such a transition as that from merely organic to +sensitive life, or from this, to rational life, it rather adds to than +detracts from the force of the argument. + +Yet all this supposes that Christianity is something found by man +outside himself, with whose origination he had nothing to do; but, if +this be established, its supernatural origin, and therefore, supposing +theism, its truth, is already proved, and can only receive confirmation +from the argument of adaptability. If the Book of Mormon really came +down from Heaven, my conviction that polygamy is not for the best, would +seem a feeble objection against its claims. That the Judaeo-Christian +religion is supernatural and is from without, not only with respect to +the individual but to the race; that it is an external, God-given rule, +awakening, explaining, developing man's natural religious instinct, +correcting his own clumsy interpretations thereof, is just what gives it +its claim to pre-eminence over all, even the most highly conceived, +man-made interpretations of the same instinct. + +Yet though claiming to be a God-made interpretation, it is confessedly +through human agency, through the human mind and lips of the prophets +and of Christ that this revelation has come to us. Moreover, it +involves, though it transcends, all those religious beliefs of which +human nature seems exigent and which are, absolutely speaking, +attainable by what might be called the "natural inspiration" of +religious genius. Viewing the whole revelation in itself, its +adaptability is evident only in respect to that part which might have +originated with those minds through which it was delivered to us. If the +beliefs proposed seem to have anticipated moral and intellectual needs +not felt in the prophet's own age or society, this might be paralleled +from the inspiration of genius in other departments, and could not of +itself be regarded as establishing the _ab extra_ character of the +revelation. + +Plainly, then, so far as a religion claims to be from outside, its +adaptability to our religious and moral instincts may confirm but cannot +establish its Divine origin, which, given theism, is equivalent to its +truth. For to show that it is from outside, is to show that it is from +God. + +It is only therefore with regard to man-made interpretations of our +spiritual instincts, to the natural inspirations of religious genius, to +the intuitions and even the reasoned inferences of the conscientious and +clean-hearted, that the argument from adaptability can have any +independent value. It is now no longer as one who argues from a +comparison of lock and key to their common authorship; but rather we +have a self-conscious lock, pining to be opened, and from a more or less +imperfect self-knowledge dreaming of some sort of key and arguing that +in the measure that its dream is based on true self-knowledge there must +be a reality corresponding to it--a valid argument enough, supposing the +locksmith to act on the usual lines and not to be indulging in a freak. + +Such, in substance, is the argument from adaptability founded on the +assumption of theism and applied to the criticism or establishment of +further religious beliefs. It is indeed somewhat stronger when we +remember that the self-consciousness, with which we fictitiously endowed +the lock, plays chief part in the very design and structure of man; that +his self-knowledge, his moral and religious instincts, his desire and +power of interpreting them, are all from the Author of his nature. + +Of this difference Tennyson takes note in applying the argument from +adaptability to the immortality of the soul: + + Thou wilt not leave us in the dust; + Thou madest man, he knows not why; + He thinks he was not made to die, + And Thou hast made him, Thou art just. + +But so far as the argument presupposes theism it cannot be made to +support or even confirm theism. If, then, we want to make the argument +absolutely universal with regard to religious beliefs--theism included +and not presupposed--and so to make it available for apologetic purposes +in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, we must inquire +whether any basis can be found for it in non-theistic philosophy; +whether, prescinding from Divine governance and from an intelligent +purpose running through nature, the adaptability of a belief to the +higher needs of mankind can be considered in any way to prove its truth. +So far we have only shown that such a conclusion results from a clearer +insight into the theistic conception. Can we show that it springs, +co-ordinately with theism, from some conception prior to both? + + +II. + +If what is usually understood by "theism" be once granted as a +foundation, it is easy to raise thereon a superstructure of further +religious beliefs by means of the argument drawn from their adaptability +to the higher needs of mankind. However individuals may fail, yet it +must be allowed that on the whole the human mind progresses, or tends to +progress, from a less to a more perfect self-knowledge, to a fuller +understanding of its own origin, its end and destiny, and of the kind of +life by which that end is to be reached,--that is, if once we admit that +man is a self-interpreting creature, and the work of an intelligent +Creator. So far however as the Christian creed exceeds man's natural +exigencies and aspirations, it plainly cannot be subjected to this +criterion; and so far as it includes (while it transcends) the highest +form of "natural religion," the argument from adaptability holds of it +only if we suppose Christianity to be a natural product of the human +mind, thus destroying its claim to be from without and from above. But +if from other reasons we know Christianity to be a God-made and not a +man-made religion, then, though its divinity and truth is already +proved, yet it is in some sort confirmed and verified by its +adaptability to the demands of our higher nature. In a word, this +particular argument holds strictly only for man's own guesses at +religious truth,--for "natural" religions; but for Christianity, only so +far as we deny it to be supernatural as to its content and mode of +origination. + +But so far as this argument presupposes theism, it cannot be made to +support or even confirm theism; if then we wish to make it available for +apologetic purposes in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, +we must now inquire whether, prescinding from divine governance and from +finality in nature, the adaptability of a belief (say, in God, or in +future retribution) to the needs of mankind, can be considered in any +way as a proof of its truth; whether that argument can find any deeper +mental basis than theism; whether it can be rested on anything which in +the order of our thought is prior to theism so as to support or at least +to confirm theism itself. + +Our present endeavour is to show that though this argument rests more +easily and securely on theism, yet it need not rest upon it; but +springs, co-ordinately with theism, from _any_ conception of the world +that saves us from mental and moral chaos. Hence it confirms theism and +is confirmed by theism; but each is strictly independent of the other +and rests on a conception prior to both; they diverge from one and the +same root and then intertwine and support one another. + +By prescinding from theism I do not mean to exclude or deny it; for it +is, as I have just said, bound up with the same conception from which +the "argument from adaptability" is drawn. I only mean that I do not +need to build upon it as on a prior conception; that I can put it aside. +Indeed, of these two off-shoots, theism is less near to the common root, +as will appear later. + +Our limited mind cannot take in at once all the consequences or +presuppositions of a thought; for this would be to know everything; but +as with our outward eye we take in the circle of the horizon bit by bit, +so with our mind when we turn to one aspect of an idea we lose sight of +another. Hence in studying some complex organism or mechanism I may be +clear about the bearing of any part on its immediately neighbouring +parts, and yet may have no present notion of the whole; or may prescind +entirely from the question of its origin or its purpose. Thus our +thoughts are always unfinished and frayed round the edges, and we do not +know how much they involve and drag along with them. We can think of the +mechanism, and the organism, and the design, without thinking of the +mechanist, or the organizer, or the designer; and so in all cases where +two ideas are connected without being actually correlative. What is +commonly called a philosophical proof consists simply in showing us the +implications of some part of the general conception of things that we +already hold. It is to force us either to loosen our hold on that part +or else to admit all that it entails by way of consequences or +presuppositions; and so to bring our thoughts into consistency one way +or the other. But until something sets our mind in motion it can rest +very comfortably in partial conceptions, without following them out to +their results. + +Now as we can understand a mechanism to the extent of seeing the bearing +of part upon part, and even of all the parts upon the work it does, +without going on to think about the designer or his design; and without +explicitly considering it as designed; so we can and do think of the +world and recognize order in it, and see the bearing of part upon part +without going back to God or forward to God's purposes. Indeed, so far +as we use the argument from design to prove the existence of God, it +means that we first apprehend this order and regular sequence of events, +and then, as a second and distinct step, put it down to design. For +although God is the prior cause of design and of all creation, yet +design and creation is the prior cause of our knowing God, The +conception of a rational and moral world leads us to the conception of a +rational and moral origin, i.e., to theism. Further, it is plain that +this same order and regularity is recognized by many who refuse to see +design in it, and who invent other hypotheses to account for it; and of +one of these hypotheses we shall presently speak at length. + +Now, if I take any single organism and study it carefully, simply as a +biologist or physiologist, I shall recognize in it certain regularities +of structure and function and development, upon which I can found +various arguments and predictions. I can argue from its general +characteristics, to the nature of its environment and habits and modes +of life; or from its earlier stages, to what it will be when more fully +developed; and these arguments will be quite unaffected by any theory I +may hold as to the origin of these changes, and as to the causes of +these adaptations. The order and regularity on which my predictions are +based is an admitted fact. Theism or materialism are only theories by +which that fact is explained. Now, for mind in the abstract, theism is +really as much a presupposition of that fact, as the predicted truth is +a consequence of it. Both are logically connected with it, and yet +neither is derived from it through the other. + +If, however, we cannot thus observe and calculate on certain +regularities and tendencies in the world as we know it, then, not only +is the appearance of design and finality an illusion, not only is that +particular argument for theism cut away, but with it goes all scientific +certainty, all that stands between us and the most hopeless mental and +moral scepticism. + +It is not our immediate concern to prove the value of the "argument from +adaptability," but simply to show that it is logically (though not +really) unaffected by the question of theism and finality and design. As +long as we admit those same effects and consequences of which design is +one explanation, but of which others are _prima facie_ conceivable; as +long as we hold that the world works on the whole as though it were +designed; that the present anticipates and prepares for the future; that +the future and absent can be predicted from the present, so long do we +hold all upon which the "argument of adaptability" is strictly based. +And indeed, as has been said, if once it be admitted that the general +progressive tendency on the part of living things is towards a greater +harmony and correspondence with surrounding reality, then that argument +is a more immediate inference from the existence of an orderly world, +than is theism. + +Though both are strictly independent deductions from the same principle +(i.e., from an orderly world), yet theism and the argument from +adaptability when once deduced, confirm one another. For it is not hard +to show that theism is better adapted to man's higher needs, than +atheism or polytheism or pantheism; while if theism be once granted, +then, as we said in the last section, the argument from adaptability is +much more easily established. + +There have been at various times several philosophies or attempted +explanations of the world, which have either denied or prescinded from +theism and finality. These two conceptions may be considered as one; for +by finality we mean the intelligent direction of means towards a +preconceived end; and therefore to admit a pervading finality, is to +imply a theistic origin and government of the universe. + +Perhaps, the best and most finished attempt to explain the world +independently of finality is the philosophy of Evolution, so widely +popularized in our own day; and since it is in the region of organic +existence, that finalism looks for its chief basis, it is especially by +Darwinistic Evolution that its force is supposed to be destroyed. + +Any form of "monism" gets rid of finality more easily than does any form +of dualism; and again, any form of materialism, more easily than +idealism; and therefore as monistic and materialistic (at least in some +sense of the term), popular Evolutionism is the best plea for +non-finalist philosophy. We propose therefore briefly to examine this +philosophy, so far as it claims to be such, and to see whether it in any +way touches the validity of the argument from adaptability. + +Evolution may be considered both as an empirical fact and as an +aetiological theory or philosophy. Considered as a fact, it is the +statement of observed processes, and belongs to positive science like +the observed courses of the planets, or any other observed regularities +and uniformities. Science professes to have found everywhere as far as +its experience has extended--in astronomy, geology, physiology, biology, +psychology, ethics, sociology--a uniform process of change from the +simple to the complex, from the indefinite and unstable to the stable +and definite; and with this statement, so far as it can be verified, the +positivist should rest content, seeking no theory, and drawing no +generalization. But, the mind cannot hold together such collected facts +without some binding theory, nor even observe a single fact without some +preconception to give meaning to its suggested outlines: for what we +really get from our senses bears but a slight ratio to what we fill in +with our mind. Hence, answering to this supposed, but far from proven, +universality of Evolution as a fact,[4] we have a certain philosophy of +Evolution which takes us out of the sphere of facts into that of +hypotheses and generalizations, and tries to give meaning and unity to +the positive information that physical science has collected and +classified; to finish, as it were, the suggested curves; to fill up the +lacunae of observation; to extend to the whole world what is known of +the part; and perhaps to erect into a cause what is only an orderly +statement of facts. Undoubtedly it is this last fallacy that makes it +more easy for evolutionists to dispense with or ignore finality. Law in +its first sense is an expression of effectual human will. Call Evolution +a law and the popular mind will soon vaguely conceive it as a rule or +uniformity resulting from some kind of unconscious will-power at the +back of everything; and this Will-Power stops the gap created in our +thought by the exclusion of theism and finality. This confusion is +furthered still more by not distinguishing between the cause of a fact +and the cause of our knowledge of the fact. If I act in willing +conformity with the civil law, I also act in obedience to it, in some +way coerced by its authority and its sanctions. The law is really a +cause of my action; because it represents the fixed will and effectual +power of the ruler. But when this conception and name is transferred by +analogy to physical uniformities of action, an event which conforms to +the observed law or regularity of sequence, is not really caused by the +law unless we suppose that law to be representative of something +equivalent to a fixed will from which it originates. Yet we say loosely, +such an event happens _in consequence of_ the law of attraction; meaning +only, _in conformity with_ the law, so as to verify the law, to follow +from it logically. Thus again the law comes to be mistaken for an +effectual power of some kind, whereas it is merely a sort of regularity +that might result either from an intelligent will or from something +equivalent. But in thus adroitly slipping-in the conception of a +governing force or tendency, or even in openly asserting it, with +Schopenhauer or Hartmann, and in explaining the graduated resemblances +of species by the origin of one from the other, and in extending this +mode of Evolution in all directions from the known to the unknown so as +to make it pervade the universe, we at once cease to be faithful +positivists and, becoming philosophers, must submit to philosophic +criticism, since these problems cannot be settled merely by an appeal to +facts. Thus when Professor Mivart speaks of Evolution as "the continuous +progress of the material universe by the unfolding of latent +potentialities in harmony with a preordained end," the latent +potentialities, the preordained end, the procession of one species from +another, the extension of this law to every difference of time and +place--all are matters of hypothesis or intuition; but by no means of +exterior observation. + +The most that observation gives us is the very imperfect suggestion of +the track that such a movement would have left behind it, not unlike the +scraps that boys litter along the road in a paper-chase. Similarly, if +in the case of organic Evolution we deny all latent potentialities and +preordained ends and throw the whole burden on accidental variations and +natural selection; if we regard the whole process as no more intelligent +or designed than that by which water seeks and finds its own level; yet +as in the case of water we must perforce introduce "a gravitating +tendency," so in the case of living organisms a "persisting" or +"struggling tendency," as an hypothesis to give unity to our facts or to +account for their uniformity. But these tendencies are as little matter +of observation as the aforesaid latent potentialities or preordained +ends. In fine, Evolution, whatever form it take, gets rid of theism and +finality only by slipping into their place some tendency or indefinable +power which it considers adequate to account for the facts to be +explained. + +Let us now see if there be room in this philosophy for our argument from +adaptability, and whether it will allow us to infer that because belief +in theism and in future retribution are beliefs postulated by our higher +moral aspirations, therefore they answer to reality more or less +approximately; whether, in short, under certain conditions (specified in +our last essay) the wish to believe may be a valid reason for believing. + +Now Evolution as a philosophy or explanatory hypothesis owes its +popularity to its apparent simplicity. Wrapped in its wordy envelope, +the notion as formulated by Spencer needs no subtilty of apprehension, +but only a dictionary. Nor is the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection +more difficult. + +Other things equal, the simpler hypothesis is to be preferred to the +less simple where no proof can be had of either. But none the less, the +simpler may be false and the other true. Cheapness is no proof of +goodness. We are naturally impatient of troublesome and complex +theories; but what we gain in the simplicity of an hypothesis, we +commonly lose in the difficulty of getting the facts to square with it. +It is a simple theory that circular motion is the most perfect, and that +the planets being the most perfect bodies must move with the most +perfect motion; but so many epicycles must be introduced to explain +apparent exceptions that the modern astronomical hypothesis, however +more complex in statement, is on the whole welcomed as a simplification. +So we are disposed to think it is with regard to the popular form of +Evolutionism. Its simplicity in statement is more than cancelled by its +difficulty in application; and at last we are driven to conceive it in a +form which at once deprives it of its title to popularity. So far as it +is simple it is fallacious and proves incoherent on closer inspection, +when we try to translate its terms into clear and distinct ideas; but +when we get it into intelligible form it is no simpler than the theistic +hypothesis which it wants to displace, except inasmuch as it prescinds +from the question of origin and last end. But in this, its only +intelligible form, it leaves the argument from adaptability intact, and +even requires theism as its rational complement. + +This is what we must now endeavour to show. We cannot illustrate our +contention better than from the popular simplification of Ethics +introduced by Bentham. Taking pleasure as a simple and ultimate notion +he affirms that our conduct is always determined by a balance of +pleasure on one side or the other. The problem of practical ethics is to +construct a calculus of pleasures, a sort of ready-reckoner whereby men +may be able to invest in the most profitable course of action. "When we +have a hedonistic calculus with its senior wranglers," says Mr. Bain, +"we shall begin to know whether society admits of being properly +reconstructed." [5] It is assumed that pleasures differ only in quantity, +i.e., in intensity, extent, and duration, just as warmth does, which may +be of high or low temperature; diffused over a greater or less extent of +body; and that, for a shorter or a longer time. On this assumption +pleasure is every bit as mathematically measurable as is warmth, the +whole difficulty being due to its subjective and therefore inaccessible +nature. Simple in statement, this theory proves in application +infinitely complex, and indeed on closer inspection breaks up into a +mere verbal fallacy--as Dr. Martineau, amongst others, has shown in his +_Types of Ethical Theory_. For "pleasure," though one simple word, has +an endless variety of meanings, not indeed wholly disconnected, but +bound together only by a certain kind of analogy. The eye, the ear, the +palate, the mind, the heart, have each their proper pleasure; which is +nothing else than the resultant of their perfect operation in response +to the stimulus of some all-satisfying object--a fact which may be +expressed differently by different philosophies, but with substantial +identity of meaning. But not till we find some common measure for sound +and colour and flavour and thought and affection, will it be possible to +compare in any hedonistic scales the pleasures they produce. Yet colour +is to the eye what music is to the ear; and therefore the one word +pleasure is used not unreasonably of both. + +Quite similar seems to us the fallacy to which Evolution owes its +seeming simplicity and its popularity. The word "existence" or "life" +(which is the existence of organic beings, about which we are chiefly +concerned), is taken as having one homogeneous meaning, like "heat" or +"warmth;" the only difference being quantitative--a difference of +intensity, of breadth, of duration; not a difference of kind such as +would destroy all common measure. Life is something which we predicate +of the most diversely organized beings, and therefore would seem to be +something the same in all, which they secure in a diversity of ways. + +Thus Darwin defines the general good or welfare which should be the aim +of our conduct as "the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in +full health and vigour with all their faculties perfect;" upon which Mr. +Sidgwick remarks[6] with justice: "Such a reduction of the notion of +'well-being' to 'being' (actual and potential) would be a most important +contribution from the doctrine of Evolution to ethical science. But it +at least conflicts in a very startling manner with those ordinary +notions of progress and development" in which "it is always implied that +certain forms of life are qualitatively superior to others, +independently of the number of individuals, present or future, in which +each form is realized.... And if we confine ourselves to human beings, +to whom alone the practical side of the doctrine applies, is it not too +paradoxical to assert that 'rising in the scale of existence' means no +more than 'developing the capacity to exist'? A greater degree of +fertility would thus become an excellence outweighing the finest moral +and intellectual endowments; and some semi-barbarous races must be held +to have attained the end of human existence more than some of the +pioneers and patterns of civilization." Nor is it only in the region of +ethics but in every region that this false simplification is fertile in +paradoxes; and yet if it be disowned, the charm to which Evolution owes +its popularity is gone. + +It would be indeed a short cut to knowledge if we might believe life to +be, as this theory imagines it, a simple, self-diffusing force with an +irrepressible tendency to spread itself in all directions, like fire in +a prairie. True we should not have altogether got rid of innate +tendencies, but we should have reduced them to one, namely, to the +struggling, or persisting, or self-asserting tendency; a simplification +like that offered by the matter-and-force theory of Buchner. + +This flame of life once kindled (we are told) endeavours to subdue all +things to itself, and all that we find in the way of variety of organic +structure and function has been shaped and determined by its +struggle--much as a river channels a way for its waters in virtue of its +own onward force, checked and determined by the nature of the obstacles +it has to encounter. Every organism is related to life as the +candlestick to the candle; it is simply a device for supporting and +spreading as much life as is possible with the surrounding conditions. +Often, when conditions are favourable, the simplest contrivance will be +more effectual, more life-producing than the most complex in less +favourable conditions. Where food is not present the animal that can +move about in search of it will survive, and the stationary animal +perish; and likewise those that can escape their foes will live down +those rooted in one spot. And if to motion we add perception and +intelligence, and associative instincts and the rest, we increase the +appliances for dealing with difficulties; and therewith the means of +survival when such difficulties exist. Still, in the hypothesis we are +dealing with, all these contrivances--movement, consciousness, +intelligence, will, society--are distinct from life and ministerial to +it; they are instruments by which it is preserved, increased, and +multiplied--like those contrivances by which heat or electricity is +generated, sustained, and transmitted; with this difference, that no one +has designed these life-machines, but they are simply the result of +life's innate tendency to struggle and spread. A great deal of the form +and movement of the inorganic world is due simply to the stress of +gravitation and not to design, and so we are asked to believe that the +human and every other organism has been shaped and quickened by the +action of as blind a power; that it is in some sense a casual result. + +Now if seeing and hearing and thinking do not constitute life, but are +only chance discoveries helpful to life; if we do not live in order to +eat and to see and to think, but only think, see, and eat in order to +live, we ask ourselves, what then is this life which is none of these +things and to which they are all subordinate? And when once we begin +subtracting those functions which minister to life and which life has +selected for its own service, we find there is absolutely nothing left +to serve. Taking the very earliest forms, if we subtract movement, +nutrition, growth, generation, we find there is nothing over called +"life" distinct from these. This is the first and fundamental +incoherence of the theory; life has simply no meaning apart from those +functions which we speak of as ministering to life; unless we mean by +life the mere cohering together of the bodily organism--an end more +effectually secured without any such complex apparatus, by a stone or by +an elementary atom. + +If existence in that sense, be the force or principle whose persistence +and self-assertion is the cause of all evolution, it is impossible to +conceive how primordial atoms, which are assumed to be indestructible +and constant in quantity, should trouble themselves to struggle at all; +since the amount of that kind of existence can neither be lessened nor +increased. And as motion is also assumed to be a constant quantity, it +is plain that what struggles to be and to multiply, must be some special +collocation and grouping of atoms with some correspondingly particular +determination of motion, called "life;" but what "life" is, apart from +the means it is supposed to have selected for itself, does not appear. + +Another difficulty attendant on this false simplification is the +complete subversion of that scale of dignity or excellence upon which we +range the various kinds of living creatures, putting ourselves at the +top--not merely in obedience to a pardonable vanity, but, as has +hitherto been supposed, in obedience to a trustworthy intuition which, +without attempting to apply a common measure to things incommensurable, +judges life to be higher than death; consciousness than unconsciousness; +mind than mere sensation; and in general, what includes and surpasses, +than what is included and surpassed. We see that the organic world +presupposes the ministry of the inorganic; and the animal world, that of +the plant world; and that the human world depends on the ministry of all +three; and our whole conception of this world as "cosmos" is simply the +filling in of this hierarchic framework. Yet this old structure falls to +pieces under the new simplification. If "life" (as vaguely conceived) be +the first beginning and the last end (or rather result) of the whole +process of evolution, if it be the _summum bonum_, then the "highest" +creature means, the most life-producing. + +Now if we put "money" instead of "life," and begin to classify men by +this standard, we see how it inverts the old-world ideas of social +hierarchy. True it is, the man of letters or of high artistic gifts +can produce a certain amount of money, but has little chance against +the inventor of a new soap or a patent pill. Honesty at once becomes +the worst policy, and a thousand other maxims have to be reformed. Yet +this is a trifling _boule-versement_ compared with that which would +have to be introduced into our scientific classification were +"life-productivity" (in the vague) taken as the criterion of excellence. + +For we cannot any longer determine the rank of an animal by its organic +complexity, since, _ceteris paribus_, this is a defect rather than +otherwise. + +To secure life more simply is better than to secure the same amount by +means of complex apparatus. Of course when the favouring conditions are +altered, then any apparatus that makes life still possible is an +advantage; but till that crisis arises it is only an encumbrance. When +life can be secured only at the cost of greater labour and exertion and +cunning, it is well to be capable of these things, but surely those +animals are more to be envied that have no need of these things. It is +only on the hypothesis of an unkindly environment that complexity of +organization is an excellence. + +Furthermore, although these accidental variations allow certain +creatures to survive in crises of difficulty, yet they also make the +conditions of their survival more complicated and hard to secure. All +that differentiates man from an amoeba has enabled him to get safe +through certain straits where the lower forms of life were left behind +to perish; but it has also made it impossible for him to live in the +simpler conditions he has escaped from; like a parvenu whose luxurious +habits have gradually created a number of new necessities for him, which +make a return to his original poverty and hardships quite impracticable. +If the development of lungs has allowed animals to come out of the water +into the air, it has also prevented their going back again. Furthermore, +a considerable amount of vital energy is consumed in the production, +support, and repair of all this supplementary, life-preserving +apparatus; just as, much of the national wealth for whose protection +they exist is absorbed by a standing army and other military +preparations. And in fact of two countries otherwise equal in wealth, +that is surely the better off which has no need of being thus armed up +to the teeth. Thus man's superior organization may be compared to the +overcoat and umbrella with which one sets out on a threatening morning; +very desirable should it rain, but a great nuisance should it clear up. + +It seems, then, that the highest organism is that which produces or +secures the greatest quantity of life in the simplest manner, and at the +cost of the least complexity of structure and function; while the lowest +is that which yields the least quantity at the greatest cost; and +between these two extremes organisms will be ranked by the ratio of +their complexity to their life-productivity--life being measured +mathematically (as something homogeneous) by its vigour, by its +duration, and by the amount of matter animated, whether in the +individual or in its progeny. It is obvious how, at this rate, our +zoological hierarchy is turned topsy-turvy; and how difficult it will be +to show that man is a better life-machine than, say, a mud-turtle with +its centuries of vital existence. + +It would be a monstrous allegation to say that any evolutionist would +defend these conclusions in all their crudity; but is only by thus +pushing implied principles to their results, that their incoherence can +be made plain. Once more, if this simple uniform thing called life be +the sole cause, determining organic Evolution and selecting accidental +variations, just in so far as they favour its own maintenance and +multiplication, then every organ, appliance, and faculty by which man +differs from the simplest bioplast, is merely a life-preserving +contrivance. To speak human-wise, Nature in that case has but one +end--animal life; and chooses every means solely with a view to that +end. She does not care about pain or pleasure, or consciousness, or +knowledge, or truth, or morality, or society, or science, or religion, +for their own sakes; she cares for life only, and for these so far +as--like horns and teeth and claws--they are conducive to life. +Evolution therefore is governed by a blind non-moral principle--as blind +and ruthless as gravitation. This being so, the mind is for the sake of +the body, and not conversely. Evolution is not making for truth and +righteousness as for greater or even as for co-ordinate ends; but simply +for life, to which sometimes truth and righteousness, but just as often +illusion and selfishness, are means. There is nothing therefore in this +process of Nature to make us trust that our mind really makes for truth +as such, or that it has any essential tendency to greater correspondence +with reality, beyond what subserves to fuller animal existence. The fact +that a certain belief makes animal life possible is no proof of its +truth, but only of its expediency. The extent to which many pleasures +depend on illusion is proverbial; and pleasure is almost the note of +vital vigour, according to this philosophy. + +Plainly, our argument from the adaptability of a belief to man's higher +moral needs, vanishes into thin air as soon as the key to the order of +nature is thus sought in a blind non-moral tendency, and when that which +is lowest is put at the top, and everything above it made to minister to +it. + +But then it is not only this particular argument that perishes, but all +possibility of arguing at all, all faith in our mental faculties, except +so far as they minister to the finding of food and the propagation of +life. Thus the very attempt to prove such a system of Evolution is a +contradiction, since it cuts away all basis of proof. On this I need not +dwell longer, since it has been worked out so fully and clearly by +others. We get rid of the argument from adaptability, by a conception of +the order of Nature that reduces us to mental and moral chaos. + +In its semblance of simplicity this form of Evolution-philosophy shows +itself kin to those other old-world attempts to dispense with a +governing mind, and to educe the existing cosmos from the blind strife +of primordial atoms. It has indeed a more plausible basis, seeing how +many things, too quickly attributed to design in a theological age, can +really be explained by the struggle for existence. But in trying to make +an occasional and partial cause universal and ultimate, it has +undertaken the impossible task of bringing the greater out of the less; +which really means bringing their difference out of nothing--and this is +creation with the First Cause left out; that is, spontaneous creation. +It is from first to last an "aggregation" theory, and has to face the +insupportable burdens which such a theory brings with it. Haunted by a +false analogy drawn from the political organism whose members are +intelligent and self-directive, and who put themselves under an +intelligent government to be marshalled and directed to one common +end--haunted by this anthropomorphic conception, it tries to explain how +independent and indestructible units, void of all intelligence, come +together into polities with no assignable government; and how these +groups or polities, which are nothing separate from the sum of their +components, are aggregated to one another in like manner; until at last +we come to the highest organism, which again is only the sum of its +ultimate atoms, and its activity the sum of their activities--the whole +distinction between highest and lowest organism being such as exists +between a society of two and a highly complex civilized state. And all +this political life is the spontaneous work of unintelligent units; that +is to say, we have results exceeding the highest ever attained by human +intelligence, long before intelligence or sentience has yet been +evolved. + +Nobody will care to support "Pangenesis" as a theory of generation. To +suppose that there is a mysterious power which breaks a little fraction +off each of the bioplasts of which we are asserted to be the sum; that +having collected these fractions it arranges them all in the right order +within the compass of a single germ, and from that germ reproduces the +parent organism, is an hypothesis compared with which the creation of +the world in its entirety six thousand years ago, including the fossils +and remains of aeonian civilizations, is lucid and intelligible. This is +no hyperbole. For if once we allow creation at all, the creation of the +world at any stage of Evolution is just as conceivable as the creation +of primordial atoms. If any living thing were now created (e.g., a +grain of corn or a full ear) it would bear in itself the apparent +evidence of having _grown_ to its present state _ab ovo_; or the _ovum_ +itself would seem to ground a similar false inference of having come +from a parent. Strange as such an idea may be, it is easy and pellucid +compared with the hypothesis of Pangenesis--still more when we remember +that this complex germ, which is a lion or a horse in small--itself the +elaboration of aeons of Evolution--can replicate itself with ease and +rapidity, reproducing in adjacent pabulum a "cosmos" which differs in +degree, not in kind, from that described in the story of the Six Days. +Yet the more we look into it, the more clear is it that Pangenesis (and +not Polarigenesis or Perigenesis) is the inevitable outcome of the +aggregation-theory of life. + +And therefore to return to our former assertion, whatever we seem to +gain in simplicity of statement by this form of the Evolution theory, we +pay for dearly when we come to its application; nay more, as soon as we +attempt to translate the words into clear and distinct ideas, we are +left with nothing coherent that the mind can get hold of; and it is only +at this price that we can cut away the basis of the "argument from +adaptability," and with it the basis of all reason and morality. We must +therefore go on to examine if there be any alternative form of the same +philosophy more bearable. + +I have forborne all criticism of the supposed _facts_ on which Evolution +is based; as others have dealt frequently with their various weaknesses. +Nor do I think it necessary to deal with the extravagant subordinate +hypotheses by aid of which facts are forced under the main hypothesis, +e.g., those which explain how the horse grew out of the hipparion. The +crudest finalists have been everywhere out-stripped by Evolutionists in +dextrous application of the argument _a posse ad esse_. + + +III. + +Assuming still that the facts collected and arranged by experimental +science in favour of the hypothesis are such as to demand some kind of +Evolution-philosophy; assuming that the very imperfect serial +classification of living things according to their degree of organic +definiteness, coherence, and heterogeneity not merely represents a +variety which has always coexisted since life was possible on this +earth, but rather traces out or hints at the genetic process by which +this variety has been produced, let us see if there be any other +governing principle directing the process, more intelligible than the +persistence of that mere organic life which cannot even be thought of as +distinct from those appliances and functions which it is supposed to +have evolved for its own service by "natural selection." + +Let us admit, what is really evident, that life is nothing distinct from +the sum of those functions which minister to the preservation of life; +and that therefore it is not the same thing in a man and in a +mud-turtle. Man's superior faculties are not merely a more complicated +machinery for producing an identical effect which the mud-turtle +produces more simply and abundantly, but rather by their very play +_constitute_ an entirely different and higher kind of life. When Hume, +in his _Treatise on Human Nature_, says: "Reason is and ought to be the +slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to +serve and obey them," he implies that the exercise of reason is no +constituent factor of human life, but something outside it, subordinate +to it, whereas that life itself consists in passion, or pleasurable +sensation, of which man, in virtue of his reason and other advantages, +secures more than do his fellow-animals. This is just the conception of +life which we have seen to be incoherent on close inspection; and if it +be so, then the evolutionary process is a struggle not for bare life or +existence, but for the prevalence of the _higher kinds_ of life and +existence; and intelligence and morality are not only co-operative as +instruments in maintaining and extending human life, but are themselves +the principal elements of that complex life. True, the mind does +minister to the body and preserve it; but still more does the body +minister to the mind; or rather, each ministers to that whole in which +the play of the mind is the principal function and the play of the body +subordinate. If, then, we hold to the verdict of our common sense, and +regard our mental life not as subordinate to our sensitive and vegetal +life, but as co-ordinate and even superior, we must (so to speak) view +it as no less "for its own sake," as no less an "end in itself" than +they are, but rather much more; we must regard evolution as making for +the life of truth and the life of righteousness even more principally +than for bare existence or animal vitality. It is now no longer mere +life that tries to assert itself, and in the struggle shapes things to +what they are; but it is the very highest kind of life, that is trying +to come to the birth. Nature inherently tends to the higher through the +lower forms of life, and these minister to the higher and receive in +return from them the means of a yet more efficacious ministry. + +In this conception, every function of the organism has two aspects, +under one of which it is its own end and exists for its own sake as an +element of the life of the whole; under the other it is ministerial, +serving other functions above and below it, as it in return is served by +them. Correspondence with the environment is, similarly, not merely a +condition of life, but also that wherein vitality principally consists. +"Living" is spontaneous self-adaptation to surrounding reality, taken in +the very widest sense. The more diverse and multiform this adaptability, +the fuller and higher is the life; and thus our ordinary common-sense +classifications are justified. Each new manifestation of life means some +new correspondence with surrounding reality as we piss from mere +vegetation, and then add local movement, and one sense after another, +till we come finally to intelligence and the life of reason and +right-doing, which again, consists in self-conformation to things as +they really are. In all this we are in agreement with common sense and +common language, which identify the fullest life with the fullest +activity; all activity being of the nature of response to stimulus, that +is, correspondence to reality. As soon as consciousness supervenes on +the lower forms of life it is evident that the pleasures of sight, +hearing, taste, mind, and affection all depend on, and consist in, the +consciousness of this successful accommodation of the subject to the +object; and that all pain and disease is simply the felt failure of such +adaptation. What was anciently and very wisely called the "natural +appetite" of living creatures is in this view nothing else but their +response to the modifying attraction exerted upon them by the objective +Reality which presses upon them on every side, and tends to draw them +into conformity with itself so far as they have latent capacity for such +a correspondence. It is the light that makes (or rather elicits) sight; +and it is sound that develops the sense of hearing: and it is the ideas +embodied in Nature that call our intellect into play. Hence it follows +that, desire for truth and justice, for society and for religion, which +assert themselves as invariably in the soul of man at certain stages of +progress, as the desire for mere life asserts itself from the first, is +simply the felt result of the as yet unsuccessful endeavour of Nature to +draw man into a fuller kind of correspondence with herself. + +Thus conceived, the course of evolution is comparable, not as before, to +the gradual unveiling of a blank canvas, revealing simply a greater +extent of the same appearance, but to the gradual unveiling of a picture +whose full unity of meaning is held in suspense till the disclosure is +completed. We do not now interpret the higher by the lower, but the +lower by the higher; the beginning by the end. This may seem perilously +near to finalism, yet it is no more necessarily so, than the process of +photography; we only need a self-adaptive tendency in life-matter +responsive to the stimulating-tendency of the environment. Not, of +course, that this bundle of words really explains anything, but that +like other formulae of the kind, it prescinds from the question of ends +and origins, by making a statement of what happens serve as a cause of +what happens, and calling it a Law or a Tendency, or a Latent +Potentiality--thus filling the gap which mere agnosticism creates in our +thought. + +With this conception of Evolution our ordinary estimates of "higher" and +"lower" are saved; also the value of our mental processes upon which +rests whatever proof the theory may admit of; while the "argument from +adaptability" is provided with a firm basis independent of finality. All +our "natural," as opposed to our personal and self-determined appetites +or cravings,--those which are, so to say, constitutional and inseparable +from our nature in certain conditions, are evidence of the influence of +some reality outside us seeking to draw us into more perfect +correspondence with itself, and whose nature can be more or less dimly +conjectured from the nature of those cravings. What are called "natural +religions" represent man's self-devised attempts to explain the reality +answering to his religious and moral cravings. Revelation is but a +divine interpretation of the same; as though one with dim vision were to +supplement his defect by the testimony of another more clear-sighted. + +It may be practically admitted that no philosophy allows of strict +demonstration, since, being a conception of the totality of things, it +modifies our understanding of every principle by which one might attempt +to prove or disprove it. Eventually it is its harmony with the totality +of things as we perceive them that determines us to accept it, and no +two of us perceive just the same totality, however substantial an +agreement there may be in our experience; yet I think it can hardly be +denied that this conception of evolution is far more in agreement with +the world as most of us know it, and commonly think and speak of it, +than the former; that it not merely satisfies our intellect, but offers +some satisfaction to our whole spiritual nature. "Is it certain," asks +Mr. Bradley, in a fairly similar connection, "that the mere intellect +can be self-satisfied if the other elements of our nature remain +uncontented?" And, again: "A result, if it fails to satisfy our whole +nature, comes short of perfection: and I could not rest tranquilly in a +truth if I were compelled to regard it as hateful.... I should insist +that the inquiry was not yet closed and that the result was but partial. +And if metaphysics" [for which we may substitute: any philosophy, such +a& that of Evolution] "is to stand, it must, I think, take account of +all sides of our being. I do not mean that every one of our desires must +be met by a promise of particular satisfaction; for that would be absurd +and utterly impossible. But if the main tendencies of our nature do not +reach consummation in the Absolute, we cannot believe that we have +attained to perfection and truth."[7] From this point of view there can +be no doubt as to which of these conceptions of Evolution is the more +rational and satisfactory; that which would explain it by a simple +tendency in living matter to persist and spread, and would see in all +organic variety only the selected means to that somewhat colourless end; +or that conception which would explain it by a tendency in living matter +to come into ever fuller correspondence with its environment, seeing in +such spontaneous correspondence the very essence of life, and not merely +a condition of life. + +We need only add a few criticisms on this second conception. + +1. It is true that every creature struggles more intensely and +vigorously for the lower kind of life, or for "mere life," as we might +say, than for any of those things which alone would seem to make life +worth the having. But this only means that to live at all is the most +fundamental condition of living well and fully and enjoyably. The higher +life cannot stand without the lower, which it includes, but the lower is +not therefore the better, nor is it the end for whose sake the higher is +desirable; but conversely. Not until men have got bread enough to eat +will they have leisure or energy to spare for the animal grades of +vitality. When the means of bodily subsistence grow scarce, then the +faculties that were previously set free to seek the bread of a higher +and fuller life are diverted to the struggle for bare animal existence, +and progress is thrown back; but when there is abundance for all, +secured by the labour of a few from whom the remainder can buy, then +fuller life becomes once more possible for that remainder. The struggle +for bodily food gives an advantage to, and "selects" naturally, those +mental and other powers which facilitate its attainment; but just as man +does not only eat and labour in order to live, but also (however it may +shock conventional ethics) lives in order to eat and labour; so the new +energies called forth by competition do not merely secure that grade of +life in whose interests they are evoked and perfected, but extend the +sphere of vitality, in so much as their own play adds a new element to +life and gives it a new form. + +The part played by struggle and competition in this process of Evolution +is naturally exaggerated by those who deny any latent tendency other +than that of mere persistence in being; who repudiate an internal +expansiveness towards fuller kinds of existence, drawn out or checked by +the environment. + +Competition plays a prominent part when there is question of the lower +grades of life, in so far as these depend on a pabulum that is limited +in quantity. In such cases competition, within certain limits, will +secure the bringing-out of latent powers by which the lower level of +life is maintained and a higher level entered upon; the lower being +secured by the superimposition of the higher. + +But how does it do so? Not by creating anything, but by giving the +victory to those individuals who already were ahead of their fellows in +virtue of a fuller development of their nature from within; in clearing +the ground for them and letting them increase and multiply. + +2. Again, we should notice that development in one direction may be at +the cost of development in another. The struggle for any lower form of +existence than that already attained, is inevitably at the cost of the +higher. The degrading effects of destitution are proverbial. Craft, +cruelty, selfishness, and all the vices needed for success in a +gladiatorial contest are often the fruits of such competition. Also, +commercial progress seems on the whole to be at the expense of progress +in art and the higher tastes, sacrificing everything to the production +of the greatest possible quantity of material comforts. If it sharpens +the wits and sensibilities in some directions, it blunts them in others. + +Now, the first sense suggested to us in these days by the word +"progress," is material progress--all that came in with steam; and this +narrow conception vitiates much of our reasoning. It is in this realm +undoubtedly that competition is such a factor of rapid advance; but we +forget that the food of what the best men have ever considered the best +life, is not limited or divisible; but like the light and air is +undiminished how many soever share it. Whatever advance there has been +in the life of the mind and of the higher tastes and sensibilities, +cannot directly be explained by competition, but simply by the quiet +upward working of Nature's inherent forces. We look with scorn at the +unprogressive East, satisfied that there can be no progress, no life +worth living, where there is no rush for dollars. But I think we have +yet to learn the meaning of _ex Oriente lux_. + +Much of our immorality and our social evil comes from the fact that +those who have developed the faculties of a higher grade of life, seek +the lower as an end in itself, and not simply so far as it is a +condition of the higher and no further. The Gospel precept, as usual, +enunciates only the law of reason and nature, when it bids us to "Seek +first the Kingdom of God and its justice," that is, to put our best life +in the front, and to make it the measure and limit of any other quest. +The neglect of this principle gives us high living and plain thinking, +instead of "high thinking and plain living;" and takes the bread out of +the mouths of the poor. The competition for pleasures and luxuries and +amusements, may indeed develop certain industries and cause progress in +certain narrow lines, but it is at the cost of the only progress worth +the name. + +The conflict between this "struggle-theory" and ethics has been freely +acknowledged by Professor Huxley and others; every attempt to educe +unselfishness from selfishness has failed. The moral man even in our day +has rather a bad time of it; what chance would he have had of surviving +to propagate his species in the supposed pre-moral states of human +society? Who can possibly conceive mere rottenness being cured by +progress in rottenness; or a man drinking himself into temperance? On +the other hand, it is at least conceivable that in the wildest savage +there is some little seed of a moral sense--weak, compared with the +lowest springs of action, just because it is the highest and therefore +only struggling into being; and that in the slow lapse of time events +may here and there prove that honesty is the best policy; and that +honesty once tasted may be found not only useful for other things, but +agreeable for itself, and may be cherished and strengthened by social +and religious sanctions. + +There is, however, a reaction on foot which tends to reconcile the +breach between ethics and evolution, by reducing the part played by +competition within reasonable bounds, and making it subservient to the +survival, not of the most selfish, but of the most social individuals. +Definite variations from within, modified between narrow limits by +accidental variation from without, is coming to be acknowledged as the +chief factor of progress. But we should not forget that to allow an +internal principle of orderly development is, not merely to modify the +popular evolution theory by a slight concession to its adversaries; it +is rather to make it no longer the supreme explanation of development, +but at most a slight modification of the more mysterious theory which it +was its boast and merit to have supplanted. According to Geddes and +Foster and others of their school, it is the species-subserving +qualities that Nature selects; and these, in the higher grades of life, +are equivalent to the altruistic, social, and ethical qualities. It is +in virtue of the parental and maternal instincts of self-sacrifice, +self-diffusion, self-forgetfulness in the interests of the offspring, +that species are preserved and prevail. Selfish egoism leads eventually +(as we see in some modern countries where _laizzez-faire_ liberalism +prevails) to social disruption, decadence, and chaos; and this is the +universal law of life in every grade. At first indeed the unit struggles +to live, for life is the condition of propagation; but the root of this +instinct is altruistic; it is the whole asserting itself in the part; +and all "self-regarding" instincts are to be likewise explained as +subordinate to the "other-regarding" instincts. As soon as this +sub-ordination is ignored in practice, regress takes the place of +progress. The transit, we are told, from the unicellular to the +multicellular organism cannot be explained by individualism, but implies +a diminution of the competitive, an increase of the social and +subordinative tendency. The argument from economics to biology and back +again, is said to be nearing exposure; the "progress of the species +through the internecine struggle of its individuals at the margin of +subsistence," is the outgoing idea. Yes, and with it goes out all that +made Evolution a simple and therefore popular explanation of the world; +and there comes in that "organic" conception of the process which +clamours for theism and finalism as its only coherent complement. + +3. But though Evolution so conceived makes the "argument from +adaptability," as well as the arguments for theism, stronger rather than +weaker; we must not shut our eyes to the difficulty created by the fact +(too little insisted upon by Evolutionists) that there is no solid +reason for thinking that progress is all-pervading. We have already said +that progress in commerce may be regress in art or in religion or in +morality. Also, progress in benevolence may co-exist with regress in +fortitude and purity; progress in one point of morality with regress in +another; progress in ethical judgment with regress in ethical practice. +And in every realm, growth and decay, life and death, seem so to +intertwine and oscillate that it is very gratuitous to designate the +total process as being one or the other. Spencer confesses that the +entire universe oscillates between extremes of integration and +disintegration. Why we should consider the universe at present to be +rising rather than falling, waxing rather than waning, one cannot say. +The easier presumption is that it is equally one and the other, and +always has been. Even were we rash enough to pronounce progress to be on +the whole prevalent within the narrow field of our own experience, +surely it were nothing but the inevitable "provincialism" of the human +mind to pass _per saltum_ from that, to a generalization for all +possible experience. Our optimism, our faith that right, truth, and +order will eventually prevail, can find only a delusive basis in actual +experience, and must draw its life from some deeper source. + +Why then should we so presume that our moral and religious ideas are +really progressive and not regressive, as to regard their interpretation +as approximating to the truth? The answer is simply that our argument +from adaptability does not require the assumption in question, but only +that we should be able to distinguish higher from lower tendencies, +progressive from regressive movements, without holding the optimistic +view that on the whole the forward tendency is at present prevailing. It +is not because we live in the nineteenth century that we consider our +moral perceptions truer than those of the ancient Hebrews, but because +we at once comprehend and transcend their ideas (in some respects), as +the greater does the less. In many points surely the relation is +inverted and we feel ourselves transcended (or may at least suspect it), +by those who lived or live in ruder conditions than our own. David has +perhaps taught us more than we could have taught him; and there are +other vices than those proper to semi-barbarism. It is not by reference +to date or country, or grade of material progress, that we assess the +value of moral judgments, but by that subjective standard with which our +own moral attainments supply us in regard to all that is equal or less, +similar or dissimilar. To deny this discernment is to throw the doors +open to unqualified scepticism; to admit it, is all that we need for the +validity of our inference. + +4. If Evolution is really of this oscillatory character; if at all times +much the same processes have been going on in different parts of this +universe as now--one system decaying as another is coming into being; is +it not more reasonable to imagine (for it is only a question of +imagining) that the primordial datum was not uniform nebula, but matter +in all stages of elaboration from the highest to the lowest--the same +sort of result as we should get from a cross-section at any subsequent +moment in the process? What reason is there for assuming primordial +homogeneity, since every backward step would show us, together with the +unravelling of what is now in process of weaving, a counter-balancing +weaving of what is now in process of disintegration? Were this earth +all, we might dream of universal advance by shutting our eyes to a great +many incompatible facts; but when our telescopes show us the +co-existence of integration and disintegration everywhere, what can we +conclude but that in the past as in the future, no alteration is to be +looked for beyond the shifting of the waves' crest from side to side of +the sea of matter--the total ratio of depressions to elevations +remaining exactly constant. + +Were the other view of an original universal homogeneity correct, how +conies it that we have still co-existent every stage of advance from the +lowest to the highest, and that there is not a greater equality?--a +difficulty which does not exist if we suppose things to have been _on +the whole,_ as they are now, from the very first. But whichever view we +take; whether we suppose all things collectively to oscillate between +recurring extremes of "sameness" and "otherness;" or every stage of the +wave of progress from crest to trough, to be simultaneously manifested +in the universe at all times, the old difficulty of "the beginning" will +force itself upon us. A process _ab aeterno_ is at least as unimaginable +as the process of creation _ex nihilo;_ if it be not altogether +inconceivable to boot. And the alternative is, either a primordial state +of homogeneous matter which contains the present cosmos in germ, and +from which it is evolved without the aid of any environment--such a germ +claiming a designer as much as any ready-made perfect world; or else, a +primordial state of things like that which we should get at any +cross-section of the secular process, in which every stage of life and +death, growth and decay, evolution and involution, is represented as +now. This would include fossils and remains of past civilizations +which (in the hypothesis) would never have existed; and would be +in all respects as difficult as the crudest conception of the +creation-hypothesis. And if this absurdity drives us back to +primordial homogeneity, as before, we must remember that here, too, +though not so evidently, we should have all the signs of an antecedent +process that was non-existent. Life and death, corruption and +integration, are parts of one undulatory process. Cut the wave where +you will its curve claims to be finished in both directions and +suggests a before as well as an after. If, in the very nature of +things, the pendulum sways between confusion and order, chaos and +cosmos, each extreme intrinsically demands the other, not only as its +consequent, but as its antecedent; and the first chaos, no less than +any succeeding one, will seem the ruin of a previous cosmos. Therefore +we are driven back upon a process _ab aeterno_ with every stage of +evolution always simultaneously represented in one part or other of +the whole. Whatever mitigation such a conception may offer, surely we +may be excused for still adhering to that simpler explanation which +involves a mystery indeed, but nothing so positively unthinkable as a +process without a beginning. + +5. This same conception of a process without beginning, favours the +notion that since life was possible on our globe all species may well +have co-existed in varying proportions. From the sudden spread of +population through almost accidental conditions, we can imagine how +certain species might have been so scarce as to leave no trace in +geological strata, whereas those which enormously preponderated at the +same time would have done so. A change of conditions might easily cause +the former to preponderate, and their sudden appearance in the strata +would look as though they had then first come into being. In a word, we +can have good evidence for the extinction of species, but scarcely any +for their origination. + +This supposition is not adverse to the derivation of species from a +common stock, but rather favours the notion that as in the case of the +individual the period of plasticity is short compared with that of +morphological stability, so if there was such an arboreal branching out +of species from a common root, it took place rapidly in conditions as +different from ours as those of uterine from extra-uterine life; and +that the stage of inflexibility may have been reached before any time of +which we have record. + +But in truth when we see in the world of chemical substances an +altogether similar sedation of species where there can be no question of +common descent as its cause, we may well suspend our judgment till the +established facts have excluded the many hypotheses other than Evolution +by which they may be explained. + +As long as Evolution claims to be no more than a working scientific +hypothesis, like ether or electric fluid--a sort of frame or subjective +category into which observed facts are more conveniently fitted, it +cannot justly be pressed for a solution of ultimate problems; but when +it claims to be a complete philosophy and as such to extrude other +philosophies previously in possession, it must show that it can rest the +mind where they leave it restless; or that it has proved their proffered +solutions spurious. This, so far, it has absolutely failed to do. At +most it may determine more accurately the way in which God works out His +Idea in Creation. It can stand as long as it is content to prescind from +the question of ends and origins; but then it is no longer a complete +philosophy. As soon as it attempts to solve those problems it becomes +incoherent and unthinkable. Its true complement is theism and finality, +which flow from it as naturally, if not quite so immediately as the +"argument from adaptability." _Deus creavit_ is so far the only +moderately intelligible, or at least not demonstrably unintelligible, +answer given to the problem of _In principio_. + +We have then in this second and soberer form of the philosophy of +Evolution, an attempt to explain the order of the universe without +explicit recourse to the hypothesis of an intelligent authorship and +government of the world: that is to say, independently of theism and +finality; and so far as this explanation admits all the effects and +consequences of an intelligent government, without ascribing them to +that cause, it admits among their number the value of the "argument from +adaptability," and allows us to infer that the postulates of man's +higher moral needs correspond approximately to reality, of which they +are in some sense the product; and that the "wish to believe" is less +likely to be a source of delusion in proportion as the belief in +question is higher in the moral scale. + +But it is also clear how unsuccessful this attempted philosophy is in +many ways; and with what difficulties and mysteries it is burdened. At +best it can prescind from finalism by a confession of incompleteness and +philosophical bankruptcy; by resolutely refusing to face the problem of +the whole--of the ultimate whence and whither. If it would positively +exclude theism or finalism it must ascribe all seeming order and +adaptation to the persistence of some blind force, subduing all things +to itself, to "existence," or to "life" striving to assert and extend +itself. It is this conception that seems best to bring the mystery of +the universe within the comprehension of the popular mind, and is more +in keeping with those "aggregation theories" of our day which regard +dust as the one eternal reality whose combination and disguises delude +us into believing in soul and intelligence and divinity. But on closer +examination the words "life" and "existence" answer to no simple reality +or force which can be regarded as governing nature, and from this +radical fallacy of language a whole brood of further absurdities spring +up which make the popular form of Evolution-philosophy utterly +incoherent. + +_June, Aug. Sept._ 1899. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: This will perhaps be the most convenient term. In the +_Summa of Aquinas_, the elaborate treatise _De vera religione_, called +into existence by more recent exigencies, had no place. Still, in so far +as it is constructed roughly on the same scheme and presupposes the same +philosophy, and (were it not a deepening of the roots rather than an +extension of the branches) might almost be regarded as a development of +scholasticism, it may rightly be called "scholastic" to distinguish it, +say, from such a work as the _Grammar of Assent_.] + +[Footnote 2: _Science and a Future Life_, By F. W. Myers.] + +[Footnote 3: i.e., If an object be adequately and exhaustively +conceived under the predicates A.B.C.D., it is inadequately conceived as +A.B.x.x. But if each of these properties be permeated and modified by +the rest, then A in this object is not as A in any other combination, +but is A as related to and modified by B.C.D.; and similarly, the other +properties are each unique. Hence any part is somewhat falsely +apprehended till the whole be apprehended, when we are dealing with +organic as opposed to mechanical totalities.] + +[Footnote 4: Not that the transmutation of one species into another has +yet been detected in any instance, or perhaps, even were it a fact, +could be detected; but that such a serial graduation has been observed +as might be commodiously explained by that supposition,--and also by +fifty others.] + +[Footnote 5: _Mind_, 1876, p. 185.] + +[Footnote 6: _Mind_, 1876, p. 9.] + +[Footnote 7: _Appearance and Reality_.] + + + +XXIII. + + +IDEALISM IN STRAITS. + +"Can any good come out of Trinity?" is a question that has been asked +and answered in various senses during the recent Catholic University +controversies in Ireland; but for whatever other good Catholics might +look to that staunchly Elizabethan institution, they would scarcely turn +thither for theological guidance. Yet all definition is negative as well +as positive; exclusive as well as inclusive; and we always know our +position more deeply and accurately in the measure that we comprehend +those other positions to which it is opposed. The educative value of +comparing notes, quite apart from all prospect of coming to an +agreement, or even of flaying our adversaries alive, is simply +inestimable; we do not rightly know where we stand, except in so far as +we know where others stand--for place is relative. + +The Donnellan Lecturer for 1897-8 [1] took for his subject the doctrine +of the Blessed Trinity in relation to contemporary idealistic +philosophy. The scope of these lectures is, not to prove the doctrine of +the Trinity philosophically, but to show that the difficulty besetting +the conception of a multiplicity of persons united by a superpersonal +bond, is just the same difficulty that brings idealistic philosophy to a +dead-lock when it endeavours (1) to escape from solipsism, (2) to +vindicate free-will,(3) to solve the problem of evil. He naturally +speaks of Idealism as "the only philosophy which can now be truly called +living," in the sense in which a language is said to live; that is, +which is growing and changing, and endeavouring to bring new tracts of +experience under its synthesis; which is current in universities of the +day. Of the Realism which survives in the seminaries of the +ecclesiastical world he naturally knows nothing; addressing himself to a +wholly different public, he speaks to it on its own assumptions, in its +own mental language; and indeed he knows no other. But having weighed +idealism in the balance of criticism, he finds it far short of its +pretensions to be an adequate accounting for the data of experience; he +finds that it leads the mind in all directions to impassable chasms +which only faith can overleap. It does not demand or suggest the mystery +of the Trinity, but reveals a void which, as a fact that doctrine alone +does fill. The convinced Realist will not be very interested about the +problem of solipsism which for him is non-existent, but the proposed +relief from the difficulties of free-will and of the existence of evil +may be grateful to all indifferently; or at least may suggest principles +adaptable to other systems. In his Trinitarian theology Mr. D'Arcy is in +many points at variance with the later conclusions of the schools; and +in some instances his argument depends vitally on this variance; but not +in the main. For his main point is that as our own personality--the +highest unity of which we have experience--takes under itself unities of +a lower grade; so the doctrine of the Trinity implies what the hiatuses +of philosophy require, namely, that personal unity is not the highest; +that, beyond any power of our present conception, the personally many +can be really (not only morally or socially) _one thing_. "A wonderfully +unspeakable thing it is," says Augustine, "and unspeakably wonderful +that whereas this image of the Trinity" _(sc.,_ the human soul), "is one +person, and the sovereign Trinity itself, three persons, yet that +Trinity of three persons is more inseparable than this trinity" (memory, +understanding, and will) "of one person." This "superpersonal" unity is +of course a matter of faith and not of philosophy, yet it is a faith +without which subjective philosophy must come to a stand-still; it is as +much a postulate of the speculative reason as God and immortality are of +the practical reason. + +"If man is to retain the full endowment of his moral nature, we must +make up our minds to accept for ourselves an incomplete theory of +things." A philosophy which should unify the sum-total of human +experience, including the supernatural facts of Christianity, is +impossible; but even excluding these facts there is always need of some +kind of non-rational assent, which, however reasonable and prudent in +the very interests of thought, is not necessitated by the laws of +thought--is not, in the strictest sense philosophical. Idealism, like +other philosophies, "is not satisfied with an imperfect knowledge of the +greatest things. It must rise to the Divine standpoint and comprehend +the concrete universal," and so, of course, it breaks down. "But it +would surely be a hasty inference," says Mr. D'Arcy, "that philosophy +must needs be exhausted because idealism has done its work and delivered +its message to mankind," that is, has explored another blind alley, and +has arrived at the _cul de sac_. In fact, if idealism is a living +philosophy, it is nevertheless showing signs of age and decay. Ptolemaic +astronomy, as an explanation of planetary movements, proved its +exhaustion by a liberal recourse to epicycles as the answer to all +awkward objections; and philosophies show themselves moribund in an +analogous way, by a monotonous pressing of some one hackneyed principle +to a degree that makes common-sense revolt and fling the whole theory to +the winds--chaff and grain indiscriminately. But philosophy must be +distinguished from philosophies, as religion from religions. The +imperfection of the various concrete attempts to satisfy either +spiritual need, may make the desperate-minded wish to cut themselves +free from all connection with any particular system; but the desire and +effort to have a knowledge of the whole (_i.e._, a philosophy) is as +natural and ineradicable as the desire to live and breathe. In this +general sense, philosophy "takes human experience, sets it out in all +its main elements, and then endeavours to form a plan of systematic +thought which will account for the whole. It has one fundamental +postulate, that there is a meaning, or, in other words, that there is an +all-pervading unity." This "faith" in the ultimate coherence and unity +of everything is the presupposition and motive of the very attempt to +philosophize or to determine the nature of that unity. It is not, +therefore, itself a product of philosophy; it is an innate conviction +that can be denied only from the teeth outwards, but can neither be +proved nor disproved by the finite mind. + +To "explain" is in one way or another to liken the less known to what is +better known; and thus every philosophy is an attempt to express--by +means of sundry extensions and limitations--the universe of our +experience in the terms of some totality with which we are more +familiar; plainly, it is also an endeavour to express the greater in +terms of the less, and must therefore be almost infinitely inadequate +even at the best. At one time the Whole has been conceived as the unity +of a mere aggregate--of a heap of stones; at another, as a mere +sand-storm of fortuitous atoms; there has been the egg-theory, and the +tortoise-theory, and many others, no less grotesque to our seeming. But, +leaving fanciful and poetical philosophies aside, and considering only +those which pretend to be strictly rational, we find the objective +philosophy and the subjective confronting one another; the former +likening the universe to the works of men's hands; the latter likening +it to man himself; the former taking its metaphors from the artificer +shaping his material according to a preconceived plan for a definite +purpose; the latter, from the thinking and willing self considered as +the creator of its own personal experience. + +There is enough uniformity of plan throughout the animal body to make +any one part of the organism a likeness of the whole--the eye, the +heart, or the hand. And so, presumably, there is hardly any unity we can +think of in our own little corner of experience that does not offer some +similitude of the universal unity. But to take this as an adequate +explanation; to force the metaphor to its logical consequences, to the +exclusion of every other reasonable though non-rational assent, is the +commonest but most fatal form of intellectual provincialism and +narrowness. Our mind is essentially limited not merely in that it cannot +know everything, but in that its mode of knowledge is imperfect and +analogical in regard to all that is greater than itself. It is broad +only when conscious of its narrowness. + +The first difficulty into which idealism gets itself is that of +solipsism. According to its rigidly argued principles, "mind is +separated from mind by a barrier which is, not figuratively, but +literally impassable. It is impossible for any _ego_ to leap this +barrier and enter into the experience of any other _ego_." It is not an +abstract self-in-general, but my one solitary concrete self for which +all experience exists. There is no room for any other person. But this +philosophy does not account for our common-sense belief in Nature as +existing independently of self and of other selfs; or in those other +selfs with their several and distinct spheres of experience. + +The unification it effects when treated rigorously as a complete +philosophy leaves out of account the best part of what it was bound to +account for. In spite of idealism, the idealist goes on _believing_ in +other persons or spheres of experience, and in Nature as the experience +of a Divine Person. But since, on his principles, persons are mutually +exclusive, and none can enter the sphere of another's experience, to see +with his eyes, or to feel with his nerves, since, + + Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe + Our hermit spirits dwell and range apart, + +we are thrown back on a disconnected plurality of beings, and God +Himself, viewed as personal (in this sense) is but one among many. +Albeit immeasurably the greatest, He cannot be regarded as the ground of +the possibility and existence of all the rest--the home and bond of +union of all other spirits which in Him live and move and have their +being. + +The belief in the personality of God is all-essential for the +satisfaction of our religious cravings, as a presupposition of trust, +love, prayer, obedience, and such relationships; as bringing out the +transcendence in contrast with the all-pervading immanence of the deity; +as checking the pantheistic perversion of this latter truth by which, in +turn, its own deistic perversion is checked. God is not only in and +through all things; but also outside and above all things; just as +Christ is not only the soul of the Church, but also its Head and Ruler. +Between these two compensating statements the exact truth is hidden from +our eyes. + +But it is not to the conception of the Divine personality and +separateness that we are to look for the missing bond by which the head +and members are to be knit together, and the essential disconnection of +these "spheres of experience" overcome. The ultimate unity is a mystery; +in a word, philosophy, as a quest of that unity, breaks down. The +solution is suggested only by the revelation of a superpersonal unity in +some sense prior to the multiplicity of Divine Persons, a unity in which +they being many are one, and in which we too are, not merged, but +unified without prejudice to our personal distinctness. + +Hence, the writer concludes: "Materialism, when its defect is discovered +and understood, points on to idealism. Idealism, when its defect is +disclosed, points to Christian theism." For those who have not come to +Christian theism by this thorny and circuitous path, the mode in which +the idealist extricates himself from his self-wrought entanglement may +seem of little interest; but inasmuch as they take for granted the +existence of that same multitude of mutually impenetrable personalities +which he, by a revolt of his common-sense against his philosophy is +forced to confess, the problem of the ultimate unity exists for them +also. + +If in its endeavour to vindicate the spirituality of man against the +materialist, idealism tumbles into the slough of solipsism and needs to +be fetched out by the doctrine of the Trinity, it fares much the same +way in its attempted defence of free-will against necessity. That +freedom from determination by the "not-self" which idealism vindicates, +can belong only to the all-inclusive Spirit, outside whose self nothing +exists; it belongs to me only on the supposition that I am the +all-inclusive; and this, as before, is the point at which common-sense +revolts. "Free-will is based on man's consciousness of his moral nature. +It represents not any speculative theory, but one of the great facts +which every theory of things must explain or perish." If we ascribe +freedom to the Absolute and to other spirits (whose existence is forced +on us in spite of Idealism), it is because we first find it in ourselves +as the very essence of our spiritual nature. But if we accept our +freedom as a fact which it is the business of philosophy to explain and +not to deny; on just the same testimony we must accept the fact of the +manifold limitations of our liberty of which we are continually +conscious. Now here it is that the Idealist defence of liberty against +materialism fails by a deplorable _nimis probat_. It can only save our +liberty by denying our limitations; or at least it leaves us facing a +problem which can be solved only by an assumption for which Idealism +offers no philosophical warrant. Hence we are brought back to the +world-old dilemma "between a freedom of God which annihilates man, and a +freedom of man which annihilates God." Idealism has really contributed +nothing to the solution of the difficulty which is persistent as long as +God is known only as a Sovereign and Infinite Personality among a +multitude of finite personalities, and until revelation hints at the +possibility of a higher "unity which transcends personality, by which He +is to be the reconciling principle and home of the multitude of +self-determining agents." "Final reconciliation of the Divine and human +personality is in fact beyond us." + +Similarly, in dealing with problems of moral evil, Idealism leads to an +_impasse_. As long as we keep to the notion of one all-inclusive Spirit, +the Subject of universal experience, it is easy to show that sin is but +relatively evil, that it is, when viewed absolutely, as much a factor of +the universal life as is righteousness; yet surely this is not to +account for so large and obstinate a part of our experience, but to deny +it. Nor can the ethical corollaries of such a view be tolerated for a +moment. That sin is an absolute, eternal, in some sense, irreparable +evil is a conception altogether fundamental to that morality with which +Christianity and modern civilization have identified themselves. It is +but another aspect of the doctrine of freedom and responsibility. Of +physical and necessary evil it is possible to assert the merely negative +or relative character; we can view it as the good in process of making; +or as the good imperfectly comprehended; but if this optimism be +extended to sin it can only be because sin is regarded as necessitated, +_i.e._, as no longer sin. Hence the view in question does not account +for, but implicitly denies the existence of sin. + +Furthermore, the whole tendency of more recent idealism is to explain +moral evil as an offence against man's social nature by which he is a +member of an organism or community. It is the undue self-assertion of +the part against the interests of the whole. Of course the idealist +explains this organic conception with a respect for personality which is +absent from socialistic and evolutionary doctrines of society. But the +notion of sin as a rebellion of one member against all, is common to +both. The latter consider the external life and activity of the unit as +an element in the collective external life of the community--as part of +a common work; the former considers the unity as a free spiritual +agency, an end for itself--whose liberty is curtailed only by the claims +of other like agencies, equal or greater. But by what process, apart +from faith and practical postulates and regulative ideas, can +subjectivism pass to belief in other free agencies outside the thinking +and all-creating self? The result of Mr, D'Arcy's criticism of the +matter is that "it is because the man exists as a member of a spiritual +universe, and must therefore so exert his power of self-determination as +to be in harmony or discord with God above him, and with other men +around him, that the distinction between the good self and the bad self +arises. But in this very conception of a universe of spirits we have +passed beyond the bounds of a purely rational philosophy. Such a +universe is not explicable by reference to the vivifying principle of +the self;" and accordingly we are driven back as before upon the +alternative of philosophical chaos, or else of faith in such a +superpersonal unity as is suggested by the doctrine of the Trinity. + +We have but hinted at the barest outlines of Mr. D'Arcy's argument +which, as against Idealism, is close-reasoned and subtle; and now we +have left but little space to deal with the more really interesting +chapter on the "Ultimate Unity." It is not pretended that we can form +any conception of the precise nature of that unity, but merely that some +such unknown kind of unity is needed to deliver us from the antinomies +of thought. As we could never rise to the intrinsic conception of +personal unity from the consideration of some lower unity, material or +mechanical; so neither can we pass from the notion of personal to that +of superpersonal unity or being. + +This is only a modern and Hegelian setting of the truth that "being" and +"unity" are said analogously and not univocally of God and creatures. +That there are grades of reality; that "substance is more real than +quality and subject is more real than substance," that "the most real of +all is the concrete totality, the all-inclusive universal"--the _Ens +determinatissimum_, is not a modern discovery, but a re-discovery. That +our own personality is the highest unity of which we have any proper +non-analogous notion; that it is the measure by which we spontaneously +try to explain to ourselves other unities, higher or lower, by means of +extensions or limitations; that our first impulse, prior to correction, +is to conceive everything self-wise, be it super-human or infra-human, +is of course profoundly true; but for this reason to make "self" the +all-explaining and only category, to deny any higher order of reality +because we can have no definite conception of its precise nature, is the +narrowness which has brought Idealism into such difficulties. It is +probably in his notion of Divine personality that Mr. D'Arcy comes most +in conflict with the technicalities of later schools. If, as he says, +modern theology oscillates between the poles of Sabellianism and +Tritheism, he himself inclines to the latter pole. Father de Regnon, +S.J., in his work on the Trinity, shows that the Greek Fathers and the +Latin viewed the problem from opposite ends. "How three can be one," was +the problem with the former; "How one can be three," with the latter. +These inclined to an emptier, those to a fuller notion of personality. +Mr. D'Arcy's Trinitarianism is decidedly more Greek than Latin. The more +"content" he gives to Divine personality, the more he is in-danger of +denying identity of nature and operation; as appears later. + +Plainly, the word "person," however analogously applied to God, must +contain something of what we mean when we call ourselves "persons," else +"we are landed in the unmeaning." When Christ spoke of Himself as "I," +the selfness implied by the pronoun must have had some kind of +resemblance to our own; just as when He called God His Father He +intended to convey something of what fatherhood meant for His then +hearers. That He intended to convey what it might come to mean in other +conditions and ages seems very doubtful; and so if the word "person" has +acquired a fuller and different meaning in modern philosophy, we are not +at once justified in applying this fuller conception to the Divine +persons, unless we can show that it is a legitimate development of the +older sense. + +He argues that if the Trinity be the ultimate truth, the Unitarian +suppositions and conclusions of the "natural theologian" are bound to +lead to antinomies and confusions; and he sees in those harmonious +interferences and variations of universal import (which are no less an +essential factor in the evolution of the world than the groundwork of +uniformity and law), evidence of a multi-personal Divine government, of +a division of labour between co-operant agencies. This, of course, goes +beyond the doctrine of "appropriation;" and amounts to a denial of the +singleness of the Divine operation _ad extra_. It seems, in short, to +imply a diversity of nature in each of the persons, over and above the +principle of personal distinctness. Indeed, while it offers a plausible +solution of some minor perplexities, it rather weakens the value of the +general argument. For the notion of a superpersonal unity is needed +chiefly as suggesting a mode in which many mutually exclusive +personalities or "spheres of experience" or lives, may be welded +together into a coherent whole. Even could I reproduce most exactly in +myself the thoughts and feelings of another, it were but a reproduction +or similarity. I can know and feel the like; but I cannot know his +knowing and feel his feeling; for this were to be that other and not +myself. + +That God's knowledge of our thoughts and feelings should be of this +external, inferential kind is as intolerable to our mental needs of +unification as it is to our religious sense, our hope, our confidence, +our love. In Him we live and move and think and feel; and He in us. That +we can say this of no other personality is what constitutes the burden +of our separateness and loneliness. Our experience exists for no other; +but at least it is in some mysterious way shared by That which lies +behind all otherness, not destroying, but fulfilling. "We know not why +it is," says St. Catherine of Genoa, "we feel an internal necessity of +using the plural pronoun instead of the singular." Perhaps it was that +she saw in a purer and clearer light what we only half feel in the +obscurity of our grosser hearts. + +But if God knows our knowing, and feels our feeling, not merely by a +similitude but in itself, it is not because He is transcendent and +"personal," as we understand the word, because He is immanent and +"superpersonal," whatever that may mean. But it is just because +revelation tells us that in God there are three selves or Egos, for each +of whom the experience (i.e., the thought, love, and action) of the +other two exists, not merely similar, but one and the same--the same +thinking, loving, and doing, no less than the same thought, love, and +deed--that we can believe in the possibility of our personal +separateness being at once preserved and overcome in that mysterious +unity. + +That God is love; and that love, which as an affection, produces an +affective unity between separate persons, can as the subsistent and +primal unity produce a substantial and ineffable union of which the +other is a shadow, is a view towards which revelation points. That the +mere affection of love, the moral union of wills, is an insufficient +unification of personalities is implied by the fact that love always +tends to some sort of real union and communication; and still more, that +it springs from a sense of inexplicable identity. + +It is almost a crime in criticism to deal with such a multitude of deep +problems in so brief and hasty an essay. But if we have roughly +indicated the main outlines of the author's position, we shall have done +as much as can be reasonably expected of us; though it is with great +reluctance that we pass over many points, and even whole chapters, +bristling with interest. + +Perhaps the most important feature of the book is the prominence it +gives to the difficulties and insufficiencies of idealism. With those of +realism we are all familiar enough, but so far, idealism has been looked +at one-sidedly as evading, if not solving, some of the antinomies of the +earlier philosophy, while its own embarrassments have been condoned in +hopes of future solution. The solution has not come, and now the hopes +are dead or dying. What we need is a higher synthesis, if such be +possible for the human mind, or else a frank admission that faith, in +some sense or other, is a necessary complement of every philosophy. One +thing is clear, that reconciliation can be effected, if at all, only by +a fair-minded admission of difficulties inseparable from either system, +and by a conscientious criticism of presuppositions. No one can deal +effectually with the idealist position to whom it is simply "absurd" or +"ridiculous;" who has not been to some degree intellectually entangled +in it; whose realism is not more or less of an effort. Else he is +dealing with some man of straw of his own fancy, and will be found, as +so often happens, assuming the truth of realism in every argument he +brings forward. Plainly the best minds of modern times have not been +victimized by a fallacy within the competence of a school-boy. And a +like intellectual self-denial is needed on the part of the idealist, who +is apt to dismiss all realism as crude, uncritical, or barbaric. We have +all our antinomies, our blind alleys, our crudities; and we have all to +fill up awkward interstices with assumptions and postulates. + +However much we may dissent from Mr. D'Arcy's theology in certain +details; however little we personally may labour under the difficulties +of idealism, we cannot too strongly commend the endeavour to meet the +modern mind on its own platform; to speak to the cultivated in their own +language. Belief is caused by the wish to believe; but it is conditioned +by the removal of intellectual obstacles, different for different grades +of intelligence and education. To create the "wish to believe" is +largely a matter of example, of letting Christianity appear attractive +and desirable, and correspondent to the deeper needs of the soul. It is +also to some extent a work of exposition. But when this all-important +wish has been created, the intellect can hinder its effect. It is much +to know and feel that Christianity is good and useful and beautiful; +"But some time or other the question must be asked: _Is it true_?" And +to liberate the will by satisfying the intellect is work of what alone +is properly called apologetic. Unless we fall back into quietism which +would tell us to read a Kempis and say our prayers and wait, we must +address ourselves first of all to making Christianity attractive; and +then to making it intelligible. And if we do not find it against Gospel +simplicity to address ourselves, as we continually do, to the +intelligence of the semi-educated, we cannot allege that scruple as a +reason why we should not address ourselves to the fully educated,--to +those who eventually form and guide the opinions of the many. + +_Feb. 1901_. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: _Idealism and Theology_. By Charles D'Arcy, B.D. Hodder and +Stoughton, 1900.] + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10139 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d33bdd3 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10139 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10139) diff --git a/old/10139-8.txt b/old/10139-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b603c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10139-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8363 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Faith of the Millions (2nd series), by +George Tyrrell + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) + +Author: George Tyrrell + +Release Date: November 19, 2003 [eBook #10139] + +Language: English + +Chatacter set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAITH OF THE MILLIONS (2ND +SERIES)*** + + +E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo, Tam, Tom Allen, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE FAITH OF THE MILLIONS + +A SELECTION OF PAST ESSAYS + +SECOND SERIES + +BY + +GEORGE TYRRELL, S.J. + +1901 + + + + + + + +"AND SEEING THE MULTITUDES HE WAS MOVED WITH +COMPASSION ON THEM, FOR THEY WERE HARASSED AND +SCATTERED AS SHEEP HAVING NO SHEPHERD." +(Matthew ix. 36.) + + + + + + _Nil Obstat:_ + J. GERARD, S.J. + CENS. THEOL. DEPUTATUS. + + _Imprimatur:_ + HERBERTUS CARD. VAUGHAN, + ARCHIEP. WESTMON. + + + +CONTENTS + + + XIII.--Juliana of Norwich + XIV.--Poet and Mystic + XV.--Two Estimates of Catholic Life + XVI.--A Life of De Lamennais + XVII.--Lippo, the Man and the Artist + XVIII.--Through Art to Faith + XIX.--Tracts for the Million + XX.--An Apostle of Naturalism + XXL.--"The Making of Religion" + XXII.--Adaptability as a Proof of Religion + XXIII.--Idealism in Straits + + + +XIII. + + +JULIANA OF NORWICH. + +"One of the most remarkable books of the middle ages," writes Father +Dalgairns, [1] "is the hitherto almost unknown work, titled, _Sixteen +Revelations of Divine Love made to a Devout Servant of God, called +Mother Juliana, an Anchoress of Norwich_" How "one of the most +remarkable books" should be "hitherto almost unknown," may be explained +partly by the fact to which the same writer draws attention, namely, +that Mother Juliana lived and wrote at the time when a certain mystical +movement was about to bifurcate and pursue its course of development, +one branch within the Church on Catholic lines, the other outside the +Church along lines whose actual issue was Wycliffism and other kindred +forms of heterodoxy, and whose logical outcome was pantheism. Hence, +between the language of these pseudo-mystics and that of the recluse of +Norwich, "there is sometimes a coincidence ... which might deceive the +unwary." It is almost necessarily a feature of every heresy to begin by +using the language of orthodoxy in a strained and non-natural sense, and +only gradually to develop a distinctive terminology of its own; but, as +often as not, certain ambiguous expressions, formerly taken in an +orthodox sense, are abandoned by the faithful on account of their +ambiguity and are then appropriated to the expression of heterodoxy, so +that eventually by force of usage the heretical meaning comes to be the +principal and natural meaning, and any other interpretation to seem +violent and non-natural. "The few coincidences," continues Father +Dalgairns, "between Mother Juliana and Wycliffe are among the many +proofs that the same speculative view often means different things in +different systems. Both St. Augustine, Calvin, and Mahomet, believe in +predestination, yet an Augustinian is something utterly different from a +Scotch Cameronian or a Mahometan.... The idea which runs through the +whole of Mother Juliana is the very contradictory of Wycliffe's +Pantheistic Necessitarianism." Yet on account of the mere similarity of +expression we can well understand how in the course of time some of +Mother Juliana's utterances came to be more ill-sounding to faithful +ears in proportion as they came to be more exclusively appropriated by +the unorthodox. It is hard to be as vigilant when danger is remote as +when it is near at hand; and until heresy has actually wrested them to +its purpose it is morally impossible that the words of ecclesiastical +and religious writers should be so delicately balanced as to avoid all +ambiguities and inaccuracies. Still less have we a right to look for +such exactitude in the words of an anchoress who, if not wholly +uneducated in our sense of the word, yet on her own confession "could no +letter," i.e., as we should say, was no scholar, and certainly made no +pretence to any skill in technical theology. But however much some of +her expressions may jar with the later developments of Catholic +theology, it must be remembered, as has been said, that they were +current coin in her day, common to orthodox and unorthodox; and that +though their restoration is by no means desirable, yet they are still +susceptive of a "benignant" interpretation. "I pray Almighty God," says +Mother Juliana in concluding, "that this book come not but into the +hands of those that will be His faithful lovers, and that will submit +them to the faith of Holy Church." [2] And indeed such can receive no +possible harm from its perusal, beyond a little temporary perplexity to +be dispelled by inquiry; and this only in the case of those who are +sufficiently instructed and reflective to perceive the discord in +question. The rest are well used in their reading to take what is +familiar and to leave what is strange, so that they will find in her +pages much to ponder, and but a little to pass over. + +It is, however, not only to these occasional obscurities and ambiguities +that we are to ascribe the comparative oblivion into which so remarkable +a book has fallen; but also to the fact that its noteworthiness is +perhaps more evident and relative to us than to our forefathers. It +cannot but startle us to find doubts that we hastily look upon as +peculiarly "modern," set forth in their full strength and wrestled with +and overthrown by an unlettered recluse of the fourteenth century. In +some sense they are the doubts of all time, with perhaps just that +peculiar complexion which they assume in the light of Christianity. Yet, +owing to the modern spread of education, or rather to the indiscriminate +divulgation of ideas, these problems are now the possession of the man +in the street, whereas in former days they were exclusively the property +of minds capable--not indeed of answering the unanswerable, but at least +of knowing their own limitations and of seeing why such problems must +always exist as long as man is man. Dark as the age of Mother Juliana +was as regards the light of positive knowledge and information; yet the +light of wisdom burned at least as clearly and steadily then as now; and +it is by that light alone that the shades of unbelief can be dispelled. +Of course, wisdom without knowledge must starve or prey on its own +vitals, and this was the intellectual danger of the middle ages; but +knowledge without wisdom is so much food undigested and indigestible, +and this is the evil of our own day, when to be passably well-informed +so taxes our time and energy as to leave us no leisure for assimilating +the knowledge with which we have stuffed ourselves. + +We must not, however, think of Mother Juliana as shut up within four +walls of a cell, evolving all her ideas straight from her own inner +consciousness without any reference to experience. Such a barren +contemplation, tending to mental paralysis, belongs to Oriental +pessimism, whose aim is the extinction of life, mental and physical, and +reabsorption into that void whence, it is said, misfortune has brought +us forth to troublous consciousness. The Christian contemplative knows +no ascent to God but by the ladder of creatures; he goes to the book of +Nature and of human life, and to the book of Revelation, and turns and +ponders their pages, line by line and word by word, and so feeds and +fills the otherwise thin and shadowy conception of God in his own soul, +and ever pours new oil upon the flame of Divine love. Father Daigairns +writes: "Juliana is a recluse very different from the creatures of the +imagination of writers on comparative morals. So far from being cut off +from sympathy with her kind, her mind is tenderly and delicately alive +to every change in the spiritual atmosphere of England.... The four +walls of her narrow home seem to be rent and torn asunder, and not only +England but Christendom appears before her view;" and he is at pains to +show how both anchorites and anchoresses were much-sought after by all +in trouble, temporal or spiritual, and how abundant were their +opportunities of becoming acquainted with human life and its burdens, +and of more than compensating, through the confidences of others, +whatever defect their minds might suffer through lack of personal +experience. Even still, how many a priest or nun whose experience had +else been narrowed to the petty domestic interests of a small family, +is, in virtue of his or her vocation, put in touch with a far larger +world, or with a far more important aspect of the world, than many who +mingle with its every-day trivialities, and is thus made a partaker in +some sense of the deeper life and experience of society and of the +Universal Church! The anchoress "did a great deal more than pray. The +very dangers against which the author of her rule [3] warns her, are a +proof that she had many visitors. He warns her against becoming a +'babbling' or 'gossiping' anchoress, a variety evidently well-known; a +recluse whose cell was the depository of all the news from the +neighbourhood at a time when newspapers did not exist." Such abuses +throw light upon the legitimate use of the anchoress's position in the +mediæval community. + +And so, though Mother Juliana "could no letter," though she knew next to +nothing of the rather worthless physical science of those times, and +hardly more of philosophy or technical theology, yet she knew no little +of that busy, sad, and sinful human life going on round her, not only at +Norwich, but in England, and even in Europe; and rich with this +knowledge, to which all other lore is subordinate and for whose sake +alone it is valuable, she betook herself to prayer and meditation, and +brought all this experience into relation with God, and drew from it an +ever clearer understanding of Him and of His dealings with the souls +that His Love has created and redeemed. + +It is not then so wonderful that this wise and holy woman should have +faced the problems presented by the apparent discord between the truths +of faith and the facts of human life--a discord which is felt in every +age by the observant and thoughtful, but which in our age is a +commonplace on the lips of even the most superficial. But an age takes +its tone from the many who are the children of the past, rather than +from the few who are the parents of the future. Mother Juliana's book +could hardly have been in any sense "popular" until these days of ours, +in which the particular disease of mind to which it ministers has become +epidemic. + +If then these suggestions to some extent furnish an explanation of the +oblivion into which the revelations of Mother Juliana have fallen, they +also justify the following attempt to draw attention to them once more, +and to give some sort of analysis of their contents; more especially as +we have reason to believe that they are about to be re-edited by a +competent scholar and made accessible to the general public, which they +have not been since the comparative extinction of Richardson's edition +of 1877. Little is known of Mother Juliana's history outside what is +implied in her revelations; nor is it our purpose at present to go aside +in search of biographical details that will be of interest only after +their subject has become interesting. Suffice it here to say that she +was thirty at the time of her revelations, which she tells us was in +1373. Hence she was born in 1343, and is said to have been a +centenarian, in which case she must have died about 1443. She probably +belonged to the Benedictine nuns at Carrow, near Norwich, and being +called to a still stricter life, retired to a hermitage close by the +Church of St. Julian at Norwich. The details she gives about her own +sick-room exclude the idea of that stricter "reclusion" which is +popularly spoken of as "walling-up"--not of course in the mythical +sense. + +With these brief indications sufficient to satisfy the craving of our +imagination for particulars of time and place, let us turn to her own +account of the circumstances of her visions, as well as of their nature. +She tells us that in her life previous to 1373, she had, at some time or +other, demanded three favours from God; first, a sensible appreciation +of Christ's Passion in such sort as to share the grace of Mary Magdalene +and others who were eye-witnesses thereof: "therefore I desired a bodily +sight wherein I might have more knowledge of the bodily pain of our +Saviour." And the motive of this desire was that she might "afterwards +because of that showing have the more true mind of the Passion of +Christ." Her aim was a deeper practical intelligence, and not the +gratification of mere emotional curiosity. + +This grace she plainly recognizes as extraordinary; for she says: "Other +sight or showing of God asked I none, till when the soul was departed +from the body." Her second request was likewise for an extraordinary +grace; namely, for a bodily sickness which she and others might believe +to be mortal; in which she should receive the last sacraments, and +experience all the bodily pains, and all the spiritual temptations +incident to the separation of soul and body. And the motive of this +request was that she might be "purged by the mercy of God, and +afterwards live more to the worship of God because of that sickness." In +other words, she desired the grace of what we might call a +"trial-death," that so she might better meet the real death when it +came. Further, she adds, "this sickness I desired in my youth, that I +might have it when I was thirty years old." And "these two desires were +with a condition" (namely, if God should so will), "for methought this +was not the common use of prayer." But the third request she proffers +boldly "without any condition," since it was necessarily God's desire to +grant it and to be sued for it; namely, the grace of a three-fold wound: +the wound of true sorrow for sin; the wound of "kind compassion" with +Christ's sufferings; and the wound of "wilful belonging to God," that +is, of self-devotion. + +She is careful to tell us that while she ever continued to urge the +unconditional third request, the two first passed completely out of her +head in the course of years, until she was reminded of them by their +simultaneous and remarkable fulfilment. "For when I was thirty years old +and a half, God sent me a bodily sickness in which I lay three days and +three nights; and on the fourth night I took all my rites of Holy +Church, and weened not to have lived till day. And after this I lay two +days and two nights, and on the third night I weened oftentimes to have +passed, and so weened they that were with me.... And I understood in my +reason, and by the feeling of my pains that I should die, and I assented +fully with all the will of my heart, to be at God's will. Thus I endured +till day, and by then, was my body dead to all feeling from the midst +down." She is then raised up in a sitting position for greater ease, and +her curate is sent for, as the end is supposed to be near. On arrival, +he finds her speechless and with her eyes fixed upwards towards heaven, +"where I trusted to come by the mercy of God." He places the crucifix +before her, and bids her bend her eyes upon it. "I assented to set my +eyes in the face of the crucifix if I could; and so I did; for methought +I could endure longer to look straight in front of me than right up"--a +touch that shows the previous upturning of the eyes to have been +voluntary and not cataleptic. At this moment we seem to pass into the +region of the abnormal: "After this my sight began to fail; it waxed as +dark about me in the chamber as if it had been night, save in the image +of the cross, wherein I beheld a common light, and I wist not how. And +all that was beside the cross was ugly and fearful to me, as it had been +much occupied with fiends." Then the upper part of her body becomes +insensible, and the only pain left is that of weakness and +breathlessness. Suddenly she is totally eased and apparently quite +cured, which, however, she regards as a momentary miraculous relief, but +not as a deliverance from death. In this breathing space it suddenly +occurs to her to beg for the second of those three wounds which were the +matter of her unconditional third request; namely, for a deepened sense +and sympathetic understanding of Christ's Passion. "But in this I never +desired any bodily sight, or any manner of showing from God; but such +compassion as I thought that a kind soul might have with our Lord +Jesus." In a word, the remembrance of her two conditional and +extraordinary requests of bygone years was not in her mind at the time. +"And in this, suddenly I saw the red blood trickling down from under the +garland;"--and so she passes from objective to subjective vision;[4] and +the first fifteen revelations follow, as she tells us later, one after +another in unbroken succession, lasting in all some few hours. + +"I had no grief or no dis-ease," she tells us later, "as long as the +fifteen showings lasted in showing. And at the end all was close, and I +saw no more; and soon I felt that I should live longer." Presently all +her pains, bodily and spiritual, return in full force; and the +consolation of the visions seems to her as an idle dream and delusion; +and she answers to the inquiries of a Religious at her bedside, that she +had been raving: "And he laughed loud and drolly. And I said: 'The cross +that stood before my face, methought it bled fast.'" At which the other +looked so serious and awed that she became ashamed of her own +incredulity. "I believed Him truly for the time that I saw Him. And so +it was then my will and my meaning to do, ever without end--but, as a +fool, I let it pass out of my mind. And lo! how wretched I was," &c. +Then she falls asleep and has a terrifying dream of the Evil One, of +which she says: "This ugly showing was made sleeping and so was none +other," whence it seems that her self-consciousness was unimpaired in +the other visions; that is, she was aware at the time that they were +visions, and did not confound them with reality as dreams are +confounded. Then follows the sixteenth and last revelation; ending with +the words: "Wit well it was no raving thou sawest to-day: but take it, +and believe it, and keep thee therein, and comfort thee therewith and +trust thereto, and thou shalt not be overcome." Then during the rest of +the same night till about Prime next morning she is tempted against +faith and trust by the Evil One, of whose nearness she is conscious; but +comes out victorious after a sustained struggle. She understands from +our Lord, that the series of showings is now closed; "which blessed +showing the faith keepeth, ... for He left with me neither sign nor +token whereby I might know it." Yet for her personally the obligation +not to doubt is as of faith: "Thus am I bound to keep it in my faith; +for on the same day that it was showed, what time the sight was passed, +as a wretch I forsook it and openly said that I raved." + +Fifteen years later she gets an inward response as to the general gist +and unifying purport of the sixteen revelations. "Wit it well; love was +His meaning. Who showed it thee? Love. Wherefore showed He it thee? For +love." + +Having thus sketched the circumstances of the revelations, we may now +address ourselves to their character and substance. + +There is nothing to favour and everything to disfavour the notion that +Mother Juliana was an habitual visionary, or was the recipient of any +other visions, than those which she beheld in her thirty-first year; and +of these, she tells us herself, the whole sixteen took place within a +few hours. "Now have I told you of fifteen showings, ... of which +fifteen showings, the first began early in the morning about the hour of +four, ... each following the other till it was noon of the day or past, +... and after this the Good Lord showed me the sixteenth revelation on +the night following." Speaking of them all as one, she tells us: "And +from the time it was showed I desired oftentimes to wit what was in our +Lord's meaning; and fifteen years after and more I was answered in +ghostly understanding, saying thus: 'What! wouldst thou wit thy Lord's +meaning in this thing? Wit it well: Love was His meaning.'" But this +"ghostly understanding" can hardly be pressed into implying another +revelation of the evidently supernormal type. + +We rather insist on this point, as indicating the habitual healthiness +of Mother Juliana's soul--a quality which is also abundantly witnessed +by the unity and coherence of the doctrine of her revelations, which +bespeaks a mind well-knit together, and at harmony with itself. The +hysterical mind is one in which large tracts of consciousness seem to +get detached from the main body, and to take the control of the subject +for the time being, giving rise to the phenomena rather foolishly called +double or multiple "personality." This is a disease proper to the +passive-minded, to those who give way to a "drifting" tendency, and +habitually suffer their whole interests to be absorbed by the strongest +sensation or emotion that presents itself. Such minds are generally +chaotic and unorganized, as is revealed in the rambling, involved, +interminably parenthetical and digressive character of their +conversation. But when, as with Mother Juliana, we find unity and +coherence, we may infer that there has been a life-long habit of active +mental control, such as excludes the supposition of an hysterical +temperament. + +Perhaps the similarity of the phenomena which attend both on +extraordinary psychic weakness and passivity, and on extraordinary +energy and activity may excuse a confusion common enough, and which we +have dwelt on elsewhere. But obviously as far as the natural +consequences of a given psychic state are concerned, it is indifferent +how that state is brought about. Thus, that extreme concentration of the +attention, that perfect abstraction from outward things, which in +hysterical persons is the effect of weakness and passive-mindedness--of +the inability to resist and shake off the spell of passions and +emotions; is in others the effect of active self-control, of voluntary +concentration, of a complete mastery over passions and emotions. Yet +though the causes of the abnormal state are different, its effects may +well be the same. + +In thus maintaining the healthiness and vigour of Mother Juliana's mind, +we may seem to be implicitly treating her revelation, not as coming from +a Divine source, but simply as an expression of her own habitual line of +thought--as a sort of pouring forth of the contents of her subconscious +memory. Our direct intention, however, is to show how very unlikely it +is antecedently that one so clear-headed and intelligent should be the +victim of the common and obvious illusions of the hysterical visionary. +For her book contains not only the matter of her revelations, but also +the history of all the circumstances connected with them, as well as a +certain amount of personal comment upon them, professedly the fruit of +her normal mind; and best of all, a good deal of analytical reflection +upon the phenomena which betrays a native psychological insight not +inferior to that of St. Teresa. From these sources we could gather the +general sobriety and penetration of her judgment, without assuming the +actual teaching of the revelations to be merely the unconscious +self-projection of her own mind. But in so much as many of these +revelations were professedly Divine answers to her own questions, and +since the answer must ever be adapted not merely to the question +considered in the abstract, but as it springs from its context in the +questioner's mind; we are not wrong, on this score alone, in arguing +from the character of the revelation to the character of the mind to +which it was addressed. Fallible men may often speak and write above or +beside the intelligence of their hearers and readers; but not so He who +reads the heart He has made. Now these revelations were not addressed to +the Church through Mother Juliana; but, as she says, were addressed to +herself and were primarily for herself, though most that was said had +reference to the human soul in general. They were adapted therefore to +the character and individuality of her mind; and are an index of its +thoughts and workings. For her they were a matter of faith; but, as she +tells us, she had no token or outward proof wherewith to convince others +of their reality. Those who feel disposed, as we ourselves do, to place +much confidence in the word of one so perfectly sane and genuinely holy, +may draw profit from the message addressed to her need; but never can it +be for them a matter of faith as in a Divine message addressed directly +or indirectly to themselves. So far as these revelations are a clear and +noble expression of truths already contained implicitly in our faith and +reason, which it brings into more explicit consciousness and vitalizes +with a new power of stimulus, they may be profitable to us all; but they +must be received with due criticism and discernment as themselves +subject to a higher rule of truth--namely, the teaching of the Universal +Church. + +But to determine, with respect to these and kindred revelations, how far +they may be regarded as an expression of the recipient's own mind and +latent consciousness, will need a digression which the general interest +of the question must excuse. + +There is a tendency in the modern philosophy of religion (for example, +in Mr. Balfour's _Foundations of Belief_) to rationalize inspired +revelation and to explain it as altogether kindred to the apparently +magical intuitions of natural genius in non-religious matters; as the +result, in other words, of a rending asunder of the veil that divides +what is called "super-liminal" from "subliminal" consciousness; to find +in prophecy and secret insight the effect of a flash of unconscious +inference from a mass of data buried in the inscrutable darkness of our +forgotten self. Together with this, there is also a levelling-up +philosophy, a sort of modernized ontologism, which would attribute all +natural intuition to a more immediate self-revelation on God's part than +seems quite compatible with orthodoxy. + +But neither of these philosophies satisfy what is vulgarly understood by +"revelation," and therefore both use the word in a somewhat strained +sense. For certainly the first sense of the term implies a consciousness +on the part of the recipient of being spoken to, of being related +through such speech to another personality, whereas the flashes and +intuitions of natural genius, however they may resemble and be called +"inspirations" because of their exceeding the known resources of the +thinker's own mind, yet they are consciously autochthonous; they are +felt to spring from the mind's own soil; not to break the soul's +solitude with the sense of an alien presence. Such interior +illuminations, though doubtless in a secondary sense derived from the +"True Light which enlightens every man coming into this world," +certainly do not fulfil the traditional notion of revelation as +understood, not only in the Christian Church, but also in all ethnic +religions. For common to antiquity is the notion of some kind of +possession or seizure, some usurpation of the soul's faculties by an +external personality, divine or diabolic, for its own service and as its +instrument of expression--a phenomenon, in fact, quite analogous, if not +the same in species, with that of hypnotic control and suggestion, where +the thought and will of the subject is simply passive under the thought +and will of the agent. + +Saints and contemplatives are wont--not without justification--to speak +of their lights in prayer, and of the ordinary intuitions of their mind, +under the influence of grace, as Divine utterances in a secondary sense; +to say, "God said to me," or "seemed to say to me," or "God showed me," +and so on. But to confound these products of their own mind with +revelation is the error only of the uninstructed or the wilfully +self-deluded. Therefore, as commonly understood, "revelation" implies +the conscious control of the mind by another mind; just as its usual +correlative, "inspiration," implies the conscious control of the will by +another will. + +There can be no doubt whatever but that Mother Juliana of Norwich +considered her revelations to be of this latter description, and not to +have been merely different in degree from those flashes of spiritual +insight with which she was familiar in her daily contemplations and +prayers. How far, then, her own mind may have supplied the material from +which the tissues were woven, or lent the colours with which the +pictures were painted, or supplied the music to which the words were +set, is what we must now try to determine. + + +II. + +Taking the terms "revelation" and "inspiration" in the unsophisticated +sense which they have borne not only in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, +but in almost all the great ethnic religions as well, we may inquire +into the different sorts and degrees of the control exercised by the +presumably supernatural agents over the recipient of such influence. For +clearness' sake we may first distinguish between the control of the +cognitive, the volitional, and the executive faculties. For our present +inquiry we may leave aside those cases where the control of the +executive faculties, normally subject to the will and directed by the +mind, seem to be wrested from that control by a foreign agent possessed +of intelligence and volition, as, for example, in such a case as is +narrated of the false prophet Balaam, or of those who at the Pentecostal +outpouring spoke correctly in languages unintelligible to themselves, or +of the possessed who were constrained in spite of themselves to confess +Christ. In these and similar cases, not only is the action involuntary +or even counter to the will, but it manifests such intelligent purpose +as seemingly marks it to be the effect of an alien will and +intelligence. Of this kind of control exercised by the agent over the +outer actions of the patient, it may be doubted if it be ever effected +except through the mediation of a suggestion addressed to the mind, in +such sort that though not free, the resulting action is not wholly +involuntary. Be this as it may, our concern at present is simply with +control exercised over the will and the understanding. + +With regard to the will, it is a commonplace of mystical theology that +God, who gave it its natural and essential bent towards the good of +reason, i.e., towards righteousness and the Divine will; who created +it not merely as an irresistible tendency towards the happiness and +self-realization of the rational subject, but as a resistible tendency +towards its _true_, happiness and _true_ self-realization--that this +same God can directly modify the will without the natural mediation of +some suggested thought. We ourselves, by the laborious cultivation of +virtue, gradually modify the response of our will to certain +suggestions, making it more sensitive to right impulses, more obtuse to +evil impulses. According to mystic theology, it is the prerogative of +God to dispense with this natural method of education, and, without +violating that liberty of choice (which no inclination can prejudice), +to incline the rational appetite this way or that; not only in reference +to some suggested object, but also without reference to any distinct +object whatsoever, so that the soul should be abruptly filled with joy +or sadness, with fear or hope, with desire or aversion, and yet be at a +loss to determine the object of these spiritual passions. St. Ignatius +Loyola, in his "Rules for Discerning Spirits," borrowed no doubt from +the current mystical theology of his day, makes this absence of any +suggested object a criterion of "consolation" coming from God alone--a +criterion always difficult to apply owing to the lightning subtlety of +thoughts that flash across the soul and are forgotten even while their +emotional reverberation yet remains. Where there was a preceding thought +to account for the emotion, he held that the "consolation" might be the +work of spirits (good or evil) who could not influence the will +directly, but only indirectly through the mind; or else it might be the +work of the mind itself, whose thoughts often seem to us abrupt through +mere failure of self-observation. + +Normally what is known as an "actual grace" involves both an +illustration of the mind, and an enkindling of the will; but though +supernatural, such graces are not held to be miraculous or +preternatural, or to break the usual psychological laws of cause and +effect; like the ordinary answers to prayer, they are from God's +ordinary providence in that supernatural order which permeates but does +not of itself interfere with the natural. But over and above what, +relatively to our observation, we call the "ordinary" course, there is +the extraordinary, whose interference with it is apparent, though of +course not absolute or real--since nothing can be out of harmony with +the first and highest law, which is God Himself. And to the category of +the extraordinary must be assigned such inspirations and direct +will-movements as we here speak of. [5] + +Yet not altogether; for in the natural order, too, we have the +phenomenon of instinct to consider--both spiritual and animal. Giving +heredity all the credit we can for storing up accumulated experience in +the nervous system of each species, there remains a host of fundamental +animal instincts which that law is quite inadequate to explain; those, +for example, which govern the multiplication of the species and secure +the conditions under which alone heredity can work. Such cannot be at +once the effect and the essential condition of heredity; and yet they +are, of all instincts, the most complex and mysterious. Indeed, it seems +more scientific to ascribe other instincts to the same known and +indubitable, if mysterious, cause, than to seek explanation in causes +less known and more hypothetical. In the case of many instincts, it +would seem that the craving for the object precedes the distinct +cognition of it; that the object is only ascertained when, after various +tentative gropings, it is stumbled upon, almost, it might seem, by +chance. And this seems true, also, of some of our fundamental spiritual +instincts; for example, that craving of the mind for an unified +experience, which is at the root of all mental activity, and whose +object is ever approached yet never attained; or, again, there is the +social and political instinct, which has not yet formed a distinct and +satisfying conception of what it would be at. Or nearer still to our +theme, is the natural religious instinct which seeks interpretations and +explanatory hypotheses in the various man-made religions of the race, +and which finds itself satisfied and transcended by the Christian +revelation. + +In these and like instances, we find will-movements not caused by the +subjects' own cognitions and perceptions, but contrariwise, giving birth +to cognitions, setting the mind to work to interpret the said movements, +and to seek out their satisfying objects. + +This is quite analogous to certain phenomena of the order of grace. St. +Ignatius almost invariably speaks, not, as we should, of thoughts that +give rise to will-states of "consolation" or "desolation," but +conversely, of these will-states giving rise to congruous thoughts. +Indeed, nothing is more familiar to us than the way in which the mind is +magnetized by even our physical states of elation or depression, to +select the more cheerful or the gloomier aspects of life, according as +we are under one influence or the other; and in practice, we recognize +the effect of people's humours on their opinions and decisions, and +would neither sue mercy nor ask a favour of a man in a temper. In short, +it is hardly too much to say, that our thoughts are more dependent on +our feelings than our feelings on our thoughts. This, then, is one +possible method of supernatural guidance which we shall call "blind +inspiration"--for though the feeling or impulse is from God, the +interpretation is from the subject's own mind. It is curious how St. +Ignatius applies this method to the determining of the Divine will in +certain cases--as it were, by the inductive principle of "concomitant +variation." A suggestion that always comes and grows with a state of +"consolation," and whose negative is in like manner associated with +"desolation," is presumably the right interpretation of the blind +impulse. [6] And perhaps this is one of the commonest subjective +assurances of faith, namely, that our faith grows and declines with what +we know intuitively to be our better moods; that when lax we are +sceptical, and believing when conscientious. + +Another species of will-guidance recognized by saints, is not so much by +way of a vague feeling seeking interpretation, as by way of a sort of +enforced decision with regard to some naturally suggested course of +conduct. And this, perhaps, is what is more technically understood by an +inspiration; as, for example, when the question of writing or not +writing something publicly useful, say, the records of the Kings of +Israel, rises in the mind, and it is decided for and in the subject, but +not by him. Of course this "inspiration" is a common but not essential +accompaniment of "revelation" or "mind-control,"--in those cases, +namely, where the communicated information is for the good of others; +as, also, where it is for the guidance of the practical conduct of the +recipient. Such "inspiration" at times seems to be no more than a strong +inclination compatible with liberty; at other times it amounts to such a +"fixing" of the practical judgment as would ordinarily result from a +determination of the power of choice--if that were not a contradiction. +Better to say, it is a taking of the matter out of the jurisdiction of +choice, by the creation of an _idée fixe_ [7] in the subject's mind. + +Turning now to "revelation" in the stricter sense of a preternatural +enlightenment of the mind, it might conceivably be either by way of a +real accretion of knowledge--an addition to the contents of the mind--or +else by way of manipulating contents already there, as we ourselves do +by reminiscence, by rumination, comparison, analysis, inference. Thus we +can conceive the mind being consciously controlled in these operations, +as it were, by a foreign will; being reminded of this or that; being +shown new consequences, applications, and relations of truths already +possessed. + +When, however, there is a preternatural addition to the sum total of the +mind's knowledge, we can conceive the communication to be effected +through the outer senses, as by visions seen (real or symbolic), or +words heard; or through the imagination--pictorial, symbolic, or verbal; +visual or auditory; or, finally, in the very reason and intelligence +itself, whose ideas are embodied in these images and signs, and to whose +apprehension they are all subservient. + +Now from all this tedious division and sub-division it may perhaps be +clear in how many different senses the words of such a professed +revelation as Mother Juliana has left on record can be regarded as +preternatural utterances; or rather, in how many different ways she +herself may have considered them such, and wished them so to be +considered. Indeed, as we shall see, she has done a good deal more to +determine this, in regard to the various parts of her record, than most +have done, and it is for that reason that we have taken the opportunity +to open up the general question. Such a record might then be, either +wholly or in part: + + (a) The work of religious "inspiration" or genius, in the sense + in which rationalists use the word, levelling the idea down to the same + plane as that of artistic inspiration. + + (b) Or else it might be "inspired" as mystic philosophy or + ontologism uses the expression, when it ascribes all natural insight to + a more or less directly divine enlightenment. + + (c) Or, taking the word more strictly as implying the influence + of a distinct personal agency over the soul of the writer, it might be + that the record simply expresses an attempted interpretation, an + imaginary embodiment, of some blind preternatural stirring of the + writer's affections--analogous to the romances and dreams created in the + imagination at the first awakening of the amatory affections. + + (d) Or, the matter being in no way from preternatural sources, + the strong and perhaps irresistible impulse to record and publish it, + might be preternatural. + + (e) Or (in addition to or apart from such an impulse), it might + be a record of certain truths already contained implicitly in the + writer's mind, but brought to remembrance or into clear recognition, not + by the ordinary free activity of reason, but, as it were, by an alien + will controlling the mind. + + (f) Or, if really new truths or facts are communicated to the mind + from without, this may be effected in various ways: (i) By the way of + verbal "inspiration," as when the very words are received apparently + through the outer senses; or else put together in the imagination. + (ii) Or, the matter is presented pictorially (be it fact or symbol) + to the outer senses or to the imagination; and then described or + "word-painted" according to the writer's own ability. (iii) Or, the + truth is brought home directly to the intelligence; and gets all its + imaginative and verbal clothing from the recipient. + +Many other hypotheses are conceivable, but most will be reducible to one +or other of these. We may perhaps add that, when the revelation is given +for the sake of others, this purpose might be frustrated, were not a +substantial fidelity of expression and utterance also secured. This +would involve, at least, that negative kind of guidance of the tongue or +pen, known technically as "assistance." + +Mother Juliana gives us some clue in regard to her own revelations where +she says: [8] "All this blessed showing of our Lord God was showed in +three parts; that is to say, by bodily sight; and by words formed in my +understanding; and by ghostly sight. For the bodily sight, I have said +as I saw, as truly as I can" (that is, the appearances were, she +believed, from God, but the description of them was her own). "And for +the words I have said them right as our Lord showed them to me" (for +here nothing was her own, but bare fidelity of utterance). "And for the +ghostly sight I have said some deal, but I may never full tell it" (that +is to say, no language or imagery of her own can ever adequately express +the spiritual truths revealed to her higher reason). As a rule she makes +it quite clear throughout, which of these three kinds of showing is +being described. We have an example of bodily vision when she saw "the +red blood trickling down from under the garland," and in all else that +seemed to happen to the crucifix on which her open eyes were set. And of +all this she says: "I conceived truly and mightily that it was Himself +that showed it me, without any mean between us;" that is, she took it as +a sort of pictorial language uttered directly by Christ, even as if He +had addressed her in speech; she took it not merely as _having_ a +meaning, but as designed and uttered to _convey_ a meaning--for to speak +is more than to let one's mind appear. Or again, it is by bodily vision +she sees a little hasel-nut in her hand, symbolic of the "naughting of +all that is made." Of words formed in her imagination she tells us, for +example, "Then He (i.e., Christ as seen on the crucifix) without voice +and opening of lips formed in my soul these words: _Herewith is the +fiend overcome_." Of "ghostly sight," or spiritual intuition, we have an +instance when she says: "In the same time that I saw (i.e., visually) +this sight of the Head bleeding, our good Lord showed a ghostly sight of +His homely loving. I saw that He is to us everything that is comfortable +to our help; He is our clothing, that for love wrappeth us," &c.--where, +in her own words and imagery, she is describing a divine-given insight +into the relation of God and the soul. Or again, when she is shown our +Blessed Lady, it is no pictorial or bodily presentment, "but the virtues +of her blissful soul, her truth, her wisdom, her charity." "And Jesus +... showed me a _ghostly_ sight of her, right as I had seen her before, +little and simple and pleasing to Him above all creatures." + +Just as in the setting forth of these spiritual apprehensions, the words +and imagery are usually her own, so in the description of bodily vision +she uses her own language and comparisons. For example, the following +realism: "The great drops of blood fell down from under the garland like +pellets, seeming as it had come out of the veins; and in coming out they +were brown red, for the Blood was full thick, and in spreading abroad +they were bright red.... The plenteousness is like to drops of water +that fall off the eavings after a great shower of rain.... And for +roundness they were like to the scales of herrings in the spreading of +the forehead," &c. These similes, she tells us, "came to my mind in the +time." In other instances, the comparisons and illustrations of what she +saw with her eyes or with her understanding, were suggested to her; so +that she received the expression, as well as the matter expressed, from +without. + +But besides the records of the sights, words, and ideas revealed to her, +we have many things already known to her and understood, yet "brought to +her mind," as it were, preternaturally. Also, various paraphrases and +elaborate exegeses of the words spoken to her; a great abundance of +added commentary upon what she saw inwardly or outwardly. Now and then +it is a little difficult to decide whether she is speaking for herself, +or as the exponent of what she has received; but, on the whole, she +gives us abundant indications. Perhaps the following passage will +illustrate fairly the diverse elements of which the record is woven: + +With good cheer our Lord looked into His side and beheld with joy +[_bodily vision_]: and with His sweet looking He led forth the +understanding of His creature, by the same wound, into His side within +[_her imagination is led by gesture from one thought to another_]. [9] +And then He showed a fair and delectable place, and large enough for all +mankind that should be saved, and rest in peace and love [_a conception +of the understanding conveyed through the symbol of the open wound in +the Heart_]. And therewith He brought to my mind His dear worthy Blood +and the precious water which He let pour out for love [_a thought +already contained in the mind, but brought to remembrance by Christ_]. +And with His sweet rejoicing Pie showed His blessed Heart cloven in two +[_bodily or imaginative vision_], and with His rejoicing He showed to my +understanding, in part, the Blissful Godhead as far forth as He would at +that time strengthen the poor soul for to understand [_an enlightening +of the reason to the partial apprehension of a spiritual mystery_]. And +with this our Good Lord said full blissfully: "Lo! how I love thee!" +[_words formed in the imagination or for the outer hearing_], as if He +had said: "My darling, behold, and see thy Lord," &c. [_her own +paraphrase and interpretation of the said words_]. + +Rarely, however, are the different modes so entangled as here, and for +the most part we have little difficulty in discerning the precise origin +to which she wishes her utterances to be attributed--a fact that makes +her book an unusually interesting study in the theory of inspiration. + +Thus, in provisionally answering the problem proposed at the beginning +of this article, as to how far Mother Juliana supplied from her own mind +the canvas and the colours for this portrayal of Divine love, and as to +how far therefore it may be regarded as a product of and a key to her +inner self, we are inclined to say that, a comparison of her own style +of thought and sentiment and expression as exhibited in her paraphrases +and expositions of the things revealed to her, with the substance and +setting of the said revelations, points to the conclusion that God spoke +to her soul in its own language and habitual forms of thought; and that +if the "content" of the revelation was partly new, yet it was harmonious +with the previous "content" of her mind, being, as it were, a congruous +development of the same--not violently thrust into the soul, but set +down softly in the appointed place already hollowed for it and, so to +say, clamouring for it as for its natural fulfilment. This, of course, +is not a point for detailed and rigorous proof, but represents an +impression that gathers strength the oftener we read and re-read Mother +Juliana's "showings." + +_Jan. Mar._ 1900. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: Prefatory Essay to Walter Hilton's _Scale of Perfection._] + +[Footnote 2: The Protestant editor of the Leicester edition (of 1845), +not understanding that an appreciation of difficulties, far from being +incompatible with faith, is a condition of the higher and more +intelligent faith, would fain credit Mother Juliana with a secret +disaffection towards the Church's authority. How far he is justif may be +gathered from such passages as these: "In this way was I taught by the +grace of God that I should steadfastly hold me fast in the faith, as I +had before understood." "It was not my meaning to take proof of anything +that belongeth to our faith, for I believed truly that Hell and +Purgatory is for the same end that Holy Church teacheth." "And I was +strengthened and learned generally to keep me in the faith in every +point ... that I might continue therein to my life's end." "God showed +full great pleasaunce that He hath in all men and women, that mightily +and wisely take the preaching and teaching of Holy Church; for it is His +Holy Church; He is the ground; He is the substance; He is the teaching; +He is the teacher," &c.] + +[Footnote 3: _Ancren Riwle_.] + +[Footnote 4: It is clear from many little touches and allusions that +throughout the "showings" Mother Juliana considers herself to be gazing, +not on a vision of Calvary, but on the illuminated crucifix hung before +her by her attendants, in which crucifix these appearances of bleeding, +suffering, movement, and speech take place. All else is shrouded in +darkness. Yet she never loses the consciousness that she is in her bed +and surrounded by others. Notice, for instance: "After this, I saw with +bodily sight in the face _of the crucifix that hung before me_," &c. +"The cross that stood before my face, methought it bled fast." "This +[bleeding] was so plenteous, to my sight, that methought if it had been +so in nature and substance" (i.e., in reality and not merely in +appearance), "it should have made the bed all a-blood, and have passed +over all about." "For this sight I laughed mightily, and made them to +laugh that were about me." Evidently she is quite awake, is well +conscious of her state and surroundings, and distinguishes appearance +from reality, shadow from substance. There is no dream-like illusion in +all this. Appearances presented to the outer senses are commonly spoken +of as "hallucinations;" but it seems to me that this word were better +reserved for those cases where appearance is mistaken for reality; and +where consequently there is illusion and deception. Mother Juliana is +aware that the crucifix is not really bleeding, as it seems to do, and +she explicitly distinguishes such a vision from her later illusory +dream-presentment of the Evil One. This dream while it lasted was, like +all dreams, confounded with reality; whereas the other phenomena, even +if made of "dream-stuff," were rated at their true value. Hence it seems +to me that if such things have any outward independent reality, to see +them is no more an hallucination than to see a rainbow. Even if they are +projected from the beholder's brain, there is no hallucination if they +are known for such; but only when they are confounded with reality, as +it were, in a waking-dream. As we are here using the word, an experience +is "real" which fits in with, and does not contradict the totality of +our experiences; which does not falsify our calculation or betray our +expectancy. If I look at a fly through a magnifying medium of whose +presence I am unconscious, its size is apparent, or illusory, and not +real; for being unaware of the unusual condition of my vision, I shall +be thrown out in my calculations, and the harmony of my experiences will +be upset by seeming contradictions. If, however, I am aware of the +medium and its nature, then I am not deceived, and what I see is +"reality," since it is as natural and real for the fly to look larger +through the optician's lense, as to look smaller through the optic +lense. I cannot call one aspect more "real" than the other, for both are +equally right and true under the given conditions. For these reasons I +should object to consider Mother Juliana's "bodily showings" as +hallucinations, so far as the term seems to imply illusion.] + +[Footnote 5: For those therefore who make an act of faith in the +absolute universality and supremacy of the laws of physics and +chemistry, and find in them the last reason of all things, these +phenomena are interesting only as studies in the mechanics of illusion.] + +[Footnote 6: It was largely by this method, supplemented no doubt by +that of reasoned discussion, that St. Ignatius guided himself in +determining points connected with the constitution of his Order, +according to the journal he has left us of his "experiences," which is +simply a record of "consolations" and "desolations."] + +[Footnote 7: i.e., A kinæsthetic idea, as it is called, an idea of +something to be done in the given conditions.] + +[Footnote 8: P. 272 in Richardson's Edit., from which I usually quote as +being the readiest available.] + +[Footnote 9: On another occasion, by looking down to the right of His +Cross, He brought to her mind, "where our Lady stood in the time of His +Passion and said: 'Wilt Thou see her?'" leading her by gesture from the +seen to the not seen.] + + + +XIV. + + +POET AND MYSTIC. + +A biographer who has any other end in view, however secondary and +incidental, than faithfully to reproduce in the mind of his readers his +own apprehension of the personality of his subject, will be so far +biassed in his task of selection; and, without any conscious deviation +from truth, will give that undue prominence to certain features and +aspects which in extreme cases may result in caricature. A Catholic +biographer of Coventry Patmore would have been tempted to gratify the +wish of a recent critic of Mr. Champneys' very efficient work, [1] and +to devote ten times as much space as has been given to the account of +his conversion, and a good deal, no doubt, to the discussion and +correction of his eccentric views in certain ecclesiastical matters; +thus giving us the history of an illustrious convert, and not that of a +poet and seer whose conversion, however intimately connected with his +poetical and intellectual life, was but an incident thereof. On the +other hand, one less intelligently sympathetic with the more spiritual +side of Catholicism than Mr. Champneys, would have lacked the principal +key to the interpretation of Patmore's highest aims and ideals, towards +which the whole growth and movement of his mind was ever tending, and by +which its successive stages of evolution are to be explained. Again, +with all possible respect for the feelings of the living, the biographer +has wisely suppressed nothing needed to bring out truthfully the +ruggednesses and irregularities that characterize the strong and +somewhat one-sided development of genius as contrasted with the regular +features and insipid perfectness of things wrought on a small scale. If +idealizing means the filing-away of jagged edges--and surely it does +not--Mr. Champneys has left us to do our own idealizing. The faults that +marred Purcell's _Life of Manning_ are here avoided, and yet truth is no +whit the sufferer in consequence. + +In speaking of Patmore as a thinker and a poet, we do not mean to +dissociate these two functions in his case, but only to classify him +(according to his own category) with those "masculine" poets whose power +lies in a beautiful utterance of the truth, rather than in a truthful +utterance of the beautiful. + +We propose, however, to occupy ourselves with the matter rather than the +mode of Patmore's utterance; with that truth which he conceived himself +to have apprehended in a newer and clearer light than others before him; +and this, because he does not stand alone, but is the representative and +exponent of a certain school of ascetic thought whose tendency is +diametrically contrary to that pseudo-mysticism which we have dealt with +elsewhere, and have ascribed to a confusion of neo-platonic and +Christian principles. This counter-tendency misses the Catholic mean in +other respects and owes its faultiness, as we shall see, to some very +analogous fallacies. If in our chapter on "The True and the False +Mysticism," it was needful to show that the principles of Christian +monasticism and contemplative life, far from in any way necessarily +retarding, rather favour and demand the highest natural development of +heart and mind; it is no less needful to assign to this thought its true +limits, and to show that the noblest expansion of our natural faculties +does not conflict with or exclude the principles of monasticism. I think +it is R.H. Hutton who remarks that it is not "easy to give us a firm +grasp of any great class of truths without loosening our grasp on some +other class of truths perhaps nobler and more vital;" and undoubtedly +Patmore and his school in emphasizing the fallacies of neo-platonic +asceticism are in danger of precipitating us into fallacies every whit +as uncatholic. It is therefore as professedly formulating the principles +of a certain school that we are interested in the doctrine of which +Patmore constitutes himself the apostle. + + Lights are constantly breaking in upon me [he + writes] and convincing me more and more that the + singular luck has fallen to me of having to write, for + the first time that any one even attempted to do so + with any fulness, on simply the greatest and most + exquisite subject that ever poet touched since the + beginning of the world. + + The more I consider the subject of the marriage of + the Blessed Virgin, the more clearly I see that it is the + _one_ absolutely lovely and perfect subject for poetry. + Perfect humanity, verging upon, but never entering the + breathless region of the Divinity, is the real subject of + _all_ true love-poetry; but in all love-poetry hitherto, an + "ideal" and not a reality has been the subject, more + or less. + +Taking the "Angel of the House" as representing the earlier, and the +"Odes" the later stage of the development which this theme received +under his hands, it seems as though he passes from the idealization and +apotheosis of married love to the conception of it as being in its +highest form, not merely the richest symbol, but even the most +efficacious sacrament of the mystical union between God and the soul. He +is well aware--though not fully at first--that these conceptions were +familiar to St. Bernard and many a Catholic mystic; it was for the +poetic apprehension and expression of them that he claimed originality; +or, at least, for their unification and systematic development. "That +his apprehensions were based generally--almost exclusively, on the +fundamental idea of nuptial love must," as Mr. Champneys says, "be +admitted." This was the governing category of his mind; the mould into +which all dualities naturally fell; it was to his philosophy what love +and hate, light and dark, form and matter, motion and atoms, have been +to others. + + It was, at all events, the predominance of this conception + which bound together his whole life's work, + rendering coherent and individualizing all which he + thought, wrote, or uttered, and those who study + Patmore without this key are little likely to understand + him. + +And it is the persistent and not always sufficiently restrained use of +this category that made much of his writing just a trifle shocking to +sensitive minds. + +These latter will have "closed his works far too promptly to discover +that far from gainsaying the Catholic instinct which prefers virginity +to marriage" (not a strictly accurate statement) he makes virginity a +condition of the idealized marriage-relation, and finds its realization +in her who was at once matron and virgin. Following the fragmentary +hints to be found here and there in patristic and mystical theology, he +assumes that virgin-spousals and virgin-birth were to have been the law +in that Paradise from which man lapsed back into natural conditions +through sin; that in the case of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph the +paradisaic law was but resumed in this respect. Accordingly, he writes +of Adam and Eve in "The Contract," + + Thus the first Eve + With much enamoured Adam did enact + Their mutual free contract + Of virgin spousals, blissful beyond flight + Of modern thought, with great intention staunch, + Though unobliged until that binding pact. + +To their infidelity to this contract he ascribes the subsequent +degradation of human love through sensuality; and all the sin and +selfishness thence deriving to our fallen race: + + Whom nothing succour can + Until a heaven-caress'd and happier Eve + Be joined with some glad Saint + In like espousals, blessed upon Earth, + And she her fruit forth bring; + + No numb chill-hearted shaken-witted thing, + 'Plaining his little span. + But of proud virgin joy the appropriate birth, + The Son of God and Man. + +The rationalistic objection to this suppression of what seems to be of +the essence or integrity of matrimony is obvious enough, and yet finds +many a retort even in the realm of nature, where the passage to a higher +grade of life so often means the stultifying of functions proper to the +lower. As to the pre-eminence of that state in which the spiritual +excellencies of marriage and virginity are combined, Catholic teaching +is quite clear and decided; in this, as in other points, Patmore's +untaught intuitions, and instincts--his _mens naturaliter +catholica_--had led him, whither the esoteric teaching of the Church had +led only the more appreciatively sympathetic of her disciples, from time +to time, as it were, up into that mountain of which St. Ambrose says: +"See, how He goes up with the Apostles and comes down to the crowds. For +how could the crowds see Christ save in a lowly spot? They do not follow +Him to the heights, nor rise to sublimities"--a notion altogether +congenial to Patmore's aristocratic bias in religion as in everything +else. Undoubtedly it was this mystical aspect of Catholic doctrine that +appealed to his whole personality, offering as it did an authoritative +approval, and suggesting an infinite realization, of those dreams that +were so sacred to him. As far as the logic of the affections goes, it +was for the sake of this that he held to all the rest; for indeed the +deeper Catholic truths are so internetted that he who seizes one, drags +all the rest along with it under pain of self-contradiction. + +No one knew better than Patmore the infinite insufficiency of the +highest created symbols to equal the eternal realities which it is their +whole purpose to set forth; he fully realized that as the lowliest +beginnings of created love seem to mock, rather than to foreshadow, the +higher forms of which they are but the failure and botched essay, so the +very highest conceivable, taken as more than a metaphor, were an +irreverent parody of the Divine love for the human soul. It is not the +_same_ relationship on an indefinitely extended scale, but only a +somewhat _similar_ relationship, the limits of whose similarity are +hidden in mystery. But when a man is so thoroughly in love with his +metaphor as Patmore was, he is tempted at times to press it in every +detail, and to forget that it is "but one acre in the infinite field of +spiritual suggestion;" that, less full and perfect metaphors of the same +reality, may supply some of its defects and correct some of its +redundancies. We should do unwisely to think of the Kingdom of Heaven +only as a kingdom, and not also as a marriage-feast, a net, a treasure, +a mustard-seed, a field, and so forth, since each figure supplies some +element lost in the others, and all together are nearer to the truth +than any one: and so, although the married love of Mary and Joseph is +one of the fullest revealed images of God's relation to the soul, we +should narrow the range of our spiritual vision, were we to neglect +those supplementary glimpses at the mystery afforded by other figures +and shadowings. + +And this leads us to the consideration of a difficulty connected with +another point of Patmore's doctrine of divine love. He held that the +idealized marriage relationship was not merely the symbol, but the most +effectual sacrament and instrument of that love; "yet the world," he +complains, "goes on talking, writing, and preaching as if there were +some essential contrariety between the two," the disproof of which "was +the inspiring idea at the heart of my long poem (the 'Angel')." Now, +although in asserting that the most absorbing and exclusive form of +human affection is not only compatible with, but even instrumental to +the highest kind of sanctity and divine love, Patmore claimed to be at +one, at least in principle, with some of the deeper utterances of the +Saints and Fathers of the Christian Church; it cannot be denied that the +assertion is _prima facie_ opposed to the common tradition of Catholic +asceticism; and to the apparent _raison d'être_ of every sort of +monastic institution. + +It must be confessed that, in regard to the reconciliation of the claims +of intense human affection with those of intense sanctity, there have +been among all religious teachers two distinct conceptions struggling +for birth, often in one and the same mind, either of which taken as +adequate must exclude the other. It would not be hard to quote the +utterances of saints and ascetics for either view; or to convict +individual authorities of seeming self-contradiction in the matter. The +reason of this is apparently that neither view is or can be adequate; +that one is weak where the other is strong; that they are both imperfect +analogies of a relationship that is unique and _sui generis_--the +relationship between God and the soul. Hence neither hits the centre of +truth, but glances aside, one at the right hand, the other at the left. +Briefly, it is a question of the precise sense in which God is "a +jealous God" and demands to be loved alone. The first and easier mode of +conception is that which is implied in the commoner language of saints +and ascetics--language perhaps consciously symbolic and defective in its +first usage, but which has been inevitably literalised and hardened when +taken upon the lips of the multitude. God is necessarily spoken of and +imagined in terms of the creature, and when the analogical character of +such expression slips from consciousness, as it does almost instantly, +He is spoken of, and therefore thought of, as the First of Creatures +competing with the rest for the love of man's heart. He is placed +alongside of them in our imagination, not behind them or in them. Hence +comes the inference that whatever love they win from us in their own +right, by reason of their inherent goodness, is taken from Him. Even +though He be loved better than all of them put together, yet He is not +loved perfectly till He be loved alone. Their function is to raise and +disappoint our desire time after time, till we be starved back to Him as +to the sole-satisfying--everything else having proved _vanitas +vanitatum_. Then indeed we go back to them, not for their own sakes, but +for His; not attracted by our love of them, but impelled by our love of +Him. + +This mode of imagining the truth, so as to explain the divine jealousy +implied in the precept of loving God exclusively and supremely, is, for +all its patent limitations, the most generally serviceable. Treated as a +strict equation of thought to fact, and pushed accordingly to its utmost +logical consequences, it becomes a source of danger; but in fact it is +not and will not be so treated by the majority of good Christians who +serve God faithfully but without enthusiasm; whose devotion is mainly +rational and but slightly affective; who do not conceive themselves +called to the way of the saints, or to offer God that all-absorbing +affection which would necessitate the weakening or severing of natural +ties. In the event, however, of such a call to perfect love, the logical +and practical outcome of this mode of imagining the relation of God to +creatures is a steady subtraction of the natural love bestowed upon +friends and relations, that the energy thus economized may be +transferred to God. This concentration may indeed be justified on other +and independent grounds; but the implied supposition that, the highest +sanctity is incompatible with any pure and well-ordered natural +affection, however intense, is certainly ill-sounding, and hardly +reconcilable with the divinest examples and precepts. + +The limitations of this simpler and more practical mode of imagining the +matter are to some extent supplemented by that other mode for which +Patmore found so much authority in St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Teresa, +and many another, and which he perhaps too readily regarded as +exhaustively satisfactory. + +In this conception, God is placed, not alongside of creatures, but +behind them, as the light which shines through a crystal and lends it +whatever it has of lustre. In recognizing whatever true brilliancy or +beauty creatures possess as due to His inbiding presence, the love which +they excite in us passes on to Him, through them. As He is the primary +Agent and Mover in all our action and movement, the primary Lover in all +our pure and well-ordered love; and we, but instruments of His action, +movement, and love; so, in whatever we love rightly and divinely for its +true merit and divinity, it is He who is ultimately loved. Thus in all +pure and well-ordered affection it is, ultimately, God who loves and God +who is loved; it is God returning to Himself, the One to the One. +According to this imagery, God is viewed as the First Efficient and the +ultimate Final Cause in a circular chain of causes and effects of which +He is at once the first link and the last--a conception which, in so far +as it brings God inside the system of nature as part thereof, is, like +the last, only analogously true, and may not be pressed too far in its +consequences. + +In this view, to love God supremely and exclusively means practically, +to love only the best things in the best way, recognizing God both in +the affection and in its object. God is not loved apart from creatures, +or beside them; but through them and in them. Hence if only the +affection be of the right kind as to mode and object, the more the +better; nor can there be any question of crowding other affections into +a corner in order to make more room for the love of God in our hearts. +The love of Him is the "form," the principle of order and harmony; our +natural affections are the "matter," harmonized and set in order; it is +the soul, they are the body, of that one Divine Love whose adequate +object is God in, and not apart from, His creatures. + +It would not perhaps be hard to reconcile this view with some utterances +in the Gospel of seemingly opposite import; or to find it often implied +in the words and actions of Catholic Saints; but to square it with the +general ascetic traditions of the faithful at large is exceedingly +difficult. Patmore would no doubt have allowed the expediency of +celibacy in the case of men and women devoted to the direct ministry of +good works, spiritual and corporal: a devotion incompatible with +domestic cares; he could and did allow the superiority of voluntary +virginity and absolute chastity over the contrary state of lawful use; +but he could hardly have justified--hardly not have condemned those who +leave father, friend, or spouse, not merely externally in order to be +free for good works, but internally in order that their hearts may be +free for the contemplation and love of God viewed apart from creatures +and not merely in them. He might perhaps say that, as we cannot go to +God through all creatures, but only through some (since we are not each +in contact with all), we must select according to our circumstances +those which will give the greatest expansion and elevation to our +natural affections; and that for some, the home is wisely sacrificed for +the community or the church. Yet this hardly consists with the +pre-eminence he gives to married love as the nearest symbol and +sacrament of divine. + +Both these modes of imagining the truth, whatever their inconveniences, +are helpful as imperfect formulations of Catholic instinct; both +mischievous, if viewed as adequate and close-fitting explanations. +Patmore was characteristically enthusiastic for his own aspect of the +truth; and characteristically impatient of the other. Thus, of à Kempis +he says: + +There is much that is quite unfit for, and untrue of, people who live in +the ordinary relations of life. I don't think I like the book quite so +much as I did. There is a hot-house, egotistical air about much of its +piety. Other persons are, ordinarily, the appointed means of learning +the love of God; and to stifle human affections must be very often to +render the love of God impossible. + +In other words, the further he pushed the one conception the further he +diverged from à Kempis, whose asceticism was built almost purely on the +other. + +Most probably a reconciliation of these two conceptions will be found in +a clear recognition of the two modes in which God is apprehended and +consequently loved by the human mind and heart; the one concrete and +experimental, accessible to the simplest and least cultured, and of +necessity for all; the other, abstract in a sense--a knowledge through +the ideas and representations of the mind, demanding a certain degree of +intelligence and studious contemplation, and therefore not necessary, at +least in any high degree, for all. The difference is like that between +the knowledge of salt as tasted in solution and the knowledge of it as +seen apart in its crystallized state; or between the knowledge and love +of a musical composer as known in his compositions, and as known in +himself, from his compositions. The latter needs a not universal power +of inference which the most sympathetic musical expert may entirely +lack. + +Of these two approaches to Divine love and union, the former is +certainly compatible with, and conducive to, the unlimited fulness of +every well-ordered natural affection; but the latter--a life of more +conscious, reflex, and actual attention to God--undoubtedly does require +a certain abstraction and concentration of our limited spiritual +energies, and can only be trodden at the cost of a certain inward +seclusion of which outward seclusion is normally a condition. +Instinctively, Catholic tradition has regarded it as a vocation +apart--as, like the life of continence, a call to something more than +human, and demanding a sacrifice or atrophy of functions proper to +another grade of spirituality. Even what is called a "life of thought" +makes a similar demand to a great extent; it involves a narrowing of +other interests; a departure from the conditions of ordinary practical +life. The "contemplative life" is inclusively all this and more; it is a +sort of anticipation of the future life of vision. Still, though for a +few it may be the surest or the only approach to sanctity, yet there is +no degree of Divine love that may not be reached by the commoner and +normal path; there have been saints outside the cloister as well as +inside. One could hardly offend the first principles of the Gospel more +grievously than by making intelligence, culture, and contemplative +capacity conditions of a nearer approach to Christ. + +It seems to us then that Patmore failed to get at the root of the +neglected truth after which he was groping, and thereby fell into a +one-sidedness just as real as that against which his chief work was a +revolt and protest. + +As a convert, Patmore is most uninteresting to the controversialist. His +mind was altogether concrete, affirmative, and synthetic, with a +profound distrust of abstract and analytical reasoning. As we have said, +Christianity and, later, Catholicism appealed profoundly to his +intellectual imagination in virtue of some of their deeper tenets, for +whose sake he took over all the rest _per modum unius_. + +The idea [of the Incarnation] no sooner flashed upon me as a possible +reality than it became, what it has ever since remained, ... the only +reality worth seriously caring for; a reality so clearly seen and +possessed that the most irrefragable logic of disproof has always +affected me as something trifling and irrelevant. + +Again: "Christianity is not an 'historical religion,' but a revelation +which is renewed in every receiver of it." "My heart loves that of whose +existence my intellect allows the probability, and my will puts the seal +to the blessed compact which produces faith"--an ingenious application +of his favourite category. + +Of the efforts of Manning and de Vere to proselytize him, he says: + +Their position seemed to me to be so logically perfect that I was long +repelled by its perfection. I felt, half unconsciously, that a living +thing ought not to be so spick and span in its external evidence for +itself, and that what I wanted for conviction was not the sight of a +faultless intellectual superficies, but the touch and pressure of a +moral solid. + +Whatever some may think or have thought of his theology, none who knew +him could have any doubt as to the robust and uncompromising character +of his faith. It was because he felt so sure of his footing that he +allowed himself a liberty of movement perplexing to those whose position +was one of more delicate balance. He had a ruthlessness in tossing aside +what might be called "non-essentials," that was dictated not so much by +an under-estimate of their due importance, as by an impatience with +those who over-estimated them, confounding the vessel with its contained +treasure. + +When he says: "I believe in Christianity as it will be ten thousand +years hence," it would be a grave misinterpretation to suppose that he +implied any lack of belief in the Christianity of to-day. It is but +another assertion of his claim to be in sympathy with the esoteric +rather than the exoteric teaching of the present; to be on the mount +with the few and not on the plain with the many. For as the glacier +formed on the mountain slips slowly down to the plain, so, he held, the +esoteric teaching of to-day will be the popular teaching of future ages. +However little we may relish this distinction between "aristocratic" and +vulgar belief; however strongly we may hold that best knowledge of +God--that, namely, which is experimental and tactual rather than +intellectual or imaginative--is equally accessible to all; yet just so +far as there is question of the intellectual and imaginative forms in +which the faith is apprehended, the distinction does and must exist, not +only in religion but in every department of belief, as long as there are +different levels of culture in the same body of believers. It is, after +all, a much more superficial difference than it sounds--a difference of +language and symbolism for the same realities. Where language fits +close, as it does to things measurable by our senses, divergency makes +the difference between truth and error; but where it is question of the +substitution of one analogy or symbol for another, the more elegant is +not necessarily the more truthful; nor when we consider the infinite +inadequacy of even the noblest conceivable finite symbolism to bring God +down to our level, need we pride ourselves much for being on a mountain +whose height is perceptible from the plain but imperceptible from the +heavens. + +Hence to say that the distinction between esoteric and exoteric teaching +means that the Church has two creeds, one for the simple, another for +the educated, is a thoughtless criticism which overlooks the necessarily +symbolic nature of all language concerning the "eternities," and +confounds a different mode of expression with a difference of the facts +and realities expressed. + +Matthew Arnold, too, believed in the Catholicism of the future; but in +how different a sense! What he hoped for was, roughly speaking, the +preservation of the ancient and beautiful husk after the kernel had been +withered up and discarded; what Patmore looked forward to was the +expansion of the kernel bursting one involucre after another, and ever +clamouring for fairer and more adequate covering. With one, the language +of religion was all too wide; with the other, all too narrow, for its +real signification. Arnold belongs to the first, Patmore to the last of +those three stages of religious thought of which Mr. Champneys writes: + +The first is represented by those whose creed is so simple as to afford +little or no ground for contention; the second by such as in their +search for greater precision enlarge the domain of dogma, but fail to +pass beyond its mere technical aspect; the third consists of those who +rise from the technical to the spiritual, and without repudiating or +disparaging dogma, use it mainly as a guide and support to thought which +transcends mere definition. + + +_Dec._ 1900. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: _Coventry Patmore_. By Basil Champneys. Geo. Bell and Sons, +1900.] + + + +XV. + + +TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE. + +Dealing as both do so largely with the inner life of English Catholic +society, it is hardly possible to avoid comparing and contrasting _One +Poor Scruple_ [1] with _Helbeck of Bannisdale_,--one the work of a +Catholic who knows the matter she is handling, almost experimentally; +the other the work of a gifted outsider whose singular talent, careful +observation, and studious endeavour to be fair-minded, fail to save her +altogether from that unreality and _à priori_ extravagance which +experience alone can correct. To the non-Catholic, Mrs. Humphrey Ward's +book will appear a marvel of insight and acute analysis; for it will fit +in with, and explain his outside observation of those Catholics with +whom he has actually come in contact, far better than the preposterous +notions that were in vogue fifty years ago. It represents them not as +monstrously wicked and childishly idolatrous; but as narrow, +extravagant, out-of-date, albeit, well-meaning folk--more pitiable than +dangerous. + +Formerly when they lived secret and unknown, anything might safely be +asserted about them; nothing was too wild or improbable. In those days +"Father Clement" was the issue of a superhuman effort at charity and +fairness; and the author almost seemed to think an apology was needed +for such temerarious liberalism. But when Catholics began to breathe a +little more freely and to creep out of their burrows somewhat less +nervously; when, in fact, they were seen to be, at least in outward +semblance, much as other men; some regard had to be paid to statements +that could be checked by observation; and the Papist's disappointing +ordinariness had to be attributed to dissimulation or to be otherwise +interpreted into accord with the preposterous principles by which their +lives were thought to be governed. + +Mrs. Humphrey Ward represents the furthest advance of this reform. She +at least has spared no pains to acquaint herself with facts, to gather +information, to verify statements. She is never guilty of the grotesque +blunders that other high-class novelists fall into about Catholic +beliefs, practices, and habits, simply because they are dealing with +what is to their readers a _terra incognita,_ and can, therefore, afford +to be loose and inaccurate. An artistic conscientiousness which values +truth and honesty in every detail, saves her from this too common snare. +But it does not and cannot save her in the work of selection, synthesis, +and interpretation of instances, which has to be guided, not by +objective facts, but by subjective opinions and impressions. History +written in a purely positivist spirit, _ad narrandum_, and in no sense +_ad docendum_, is a chimerical notion by which Renan beguiled himself +into thinking that his _Vie de Jesus_ was a bundle of facts and nothing +more. And Mrs. Humphrey Ward is no less beguiled, if she is unaware that +in threading together, classifying and explaining the results of her +conscientious observation and inquiry, she is governed by an _a priori_ +conception of Catholicism hardly different from that which inspired the +author of "Father Clement." Hence, to us Catholics, though her evident +desire to be critical and impartial is gratifying, yet her failure is +none the less conspicuous. Dr. Johnson once observed, that what might be +wonderful dancing for a dog would be a very poor performance for a +Christian; and so, to us, "Helbeck" as a presentment of Catholic life is +wonderful as coming from an outsider, and, perhaps, especially from Mrs. +Humphrey Ward, but in itself it is grotesque enough--not through any +culpable infidelity to facts, but through lack of the visual power, the +guiding idea, whereby to read them aright. + +In _One Poor Scruple_, Mrs. Wilfrid Ward brings to bear upon a somewhat +similar task, an equal fidelity of observation supplemented by a +first-hand, far wider, and more intimate experience of Catholics and +their ways, and, above all, by that key which a share in their faith and +beliefs alone furnishes to the right understanding of their conduct. +Here too, no doubt, a contrary bias is to be suspected, nor is a purely, +"positive" treatment of the subject conceivable or desirable. The view +of an insider is as partial as the view of an outsider, though less +viciously so; nor can we get at truth by the simple expedient of fitting +the two together. The best witness is the rare individual who to an +inside and experimental knowledge, adds the faculty of going outside and +taking an objective and disinterested view. In truth this needs an +amount of intellectual self-denial seldom realized to any great degree; +but we venture to say that Mrs. Wilfrid Ward proves herself very worthy +of confidence in this respect. There is certainly no artistic idealizing +of Catholics, such as we are accustomed to in books written for the +edification of the faithful. There is the same almost merciless realism +which we find in "Helbeck" in dealing with certain trivialities and +narrownesses of piety--defects common to all whom circumstances confine +to a little world, but more incongruous and conspicuous as contrasted +with the dignity of Catholic ideals. Without conscious departure from +truth, Mrs. Humphrey Ward is evidently influenced in her selection and +manipulation of facts by the impression of Catholicism she already +possesses and wants to illustrate and convey; but Mrs. Wilfrid Ward has, +we think, risen above this weakness very notably, and should accordingly +merit greater attention. + +It may well be that this judicial impartiality may meet with its usual +reward of pleasing neither side altogether. Some will complain that she +brings no idealizing love to her subject, and does little to bring out +the greatness and glory of her religion. Yet this would be a hasty and +ill-judging criticism; for our faith is no less to be commended for the +restraint it exercises over the multitude of ordinary men and women, +than for the effect it produces in souls of a naturally heroic type. +That it should bring a certain largeness into the smallest life, that it +should impart a strange stability to a naturally unstable and frivolous +character; that it should check the worldly-minded with a sense of the +superior claims of the other world--all this impresses us, if not with +the sublimity or mystic beauty, at least with the solid reality and +penetrating power of the Catholic faith. + +The most loyal and deep-seated love needs not to shut its eyes to all +defects and limitations, but can face them unchilled; and similarly +there is often more faith and reverence and quiet enthusiasm in this +seemingly cold and critical attitude towards the cause or party we love, +than in the extravagant idealism that depends for its maintenance on an +ignoring of things as they are. + +Nothing perhaps is more unintelligible to the Protestant critic of +Catholicism, nothing more needs to be brought out prominently, than the +firm hold our religion can exercise over souls that are naturally +irreligious. + +This very phrase "naturally irreligious" will fall with a shock on +sensitive Protestant ears; yet we use it advisedly. While all men are +capable of faith and of substantial fidelity to the law of God, it is +undeniable that but few are by natural inclination "religious" in the +common acceptation of the term. As there is a poetic or mystical +temperament, so also there is a religious temperament--not quite so +rare, but still something exceptional. + +We find it so in all ages, ancient and modern; in all religions, +Christian and non-Christian--nay, even amid agnostics and unbelievers we +often detect the now aimless, unused faculty. But most men have, +naturally, no ardent spiritual sympathy with holiness, or mysticism, or +heroism; their interests are elsewhere; and even where there are latent +capacities of that kind, they are not usually developed until life's +severest lessons have been learnt. Thus the young, who have just left +the negative faith and innocence of the nursery behind them and stand +inexperienced on the threshold of life, are not normally religious; +whereas we naturally expect those who have passed through the ordeal, +and been disillusioned, to begin to think about their souls, since there +is nothing else left to think about. + +Now, the Catholic religion clearly recognizes these facts of human +nature, and accommodates herself to them. However frankly it may be +acknowledged that a religious temperament--a certain complexus of +mental, moral, and even physical dispositions--is a condition favourable +to heroic sanctity, it must be emphatically denied that to be +"religious," in the Protestant sense of the word, is requisite for +salvation. And this denial the Church enforces by her recognition of the +"religious state" [2] as an extraordinary vocation. The purpose of +"orders" and "congregations" is to provide a suitable environment for +people of a religious temperament whose circumstances permit them to +attend to its development in a more exclusive and, as it were, +professional way. Not, indeed, that all religious-minded persons do, or +ought to, enter into that external state of life; nor that all who so +enter are by temperament and sympathy fitted for it, but that the +institution points to the Church's recognition of what is technically +called the "way of perfection" as something exceptional and +super-normal. + +But the Church has a wider vocation than to provide hot-houses for the +forcing of these rare exotics, whom the rough climate of a worldly life +would either stunt or kill. Her first thought is for the multitudes of +average humanity, who are not, and cannot be, in intelligent sympathy +with many of the commands she lays upon them. They are but as children +in religious matters--however cultivated they may chance to be in other +concerns. From such souls God requires faith, and obedience to the +commandments--a due, which, in certain rare crises, may mean heroism and +martyrdom; but He does not expect of them that refinement of sanctity, +that sustained attention to divine things, which depends so largely on +one's natural cast of mind and disposition; and may even be found where +the martyr's temper is altogether wanting. We recognize that there is +certain serviceable, fustian, every-day piety, where, together with a +great deal of spiritual coarseness, insensibility to venial sin and +imperfection, there exists a firm faith that would go cheerfully to the +stake rather than deny God, or offend Him in any grave point that might +be considered a _casus belli_. And on the other hand a certain nicety of +ethical discernment and delicacy of devotion, an anxiety about points of +perfection, is a guarantee rather of the quality of one's piety than of +its depth or strength. The saint is usually one whose piety excels both +in quality and strength; the martyr is often enough a man of many +imperfections and sins, veiling an unsuspected, deep-reaching faith. The +day of persecution has ever been a day of revelation in this respect--a +day when the seemingly perfect have been scattered like chaff before the +wind, while the once thoughtless and careless have stood stubborn before +the blast. + +Protestantism of the Calvinistic or Puritan type shows little +consciousness of the distinction we are insisting upon. It is disposed +to draw a hard-and-fast line between the "converted" and the reprobate. +Those who are not religious-minded, or who do not take a serious turn, +are scarcely recognized as "saved" although they may not be convicted of +any very flagrant or definite breach of the divine law. Their morality +or their "good works" go for little if they do not experience that sense +of goodness, or of being saved, which is called faith. Much stress is +laid on "feeling good" and little value allowed to what we might call an +unsympathetic and grudging keeping of God's law--however much more it +may cost, from the very fact that it is in some way unsympathetic, and +against the grain. The service of fear and reverence, which Catholicism +regards as the basis and back-bone of love, is held to be abject and +unworthy--almost sinful. + +Hence it befalls that no place is found in the Protestant heaven for the +great majority of ordinary people who do not feel a bit good or +religious, who rather dislike going to church and keeping the +commandments, and yet who keep them all the same, because they believe +in God and fear His judgments and honour His law, and even love Him in +the solid, undemonstrative way in which a naughty and troublesome child +loves its parents. + +That such a character as Madge Riversdale's should cover a small, firm +core of faith and fear under a cortex of worldliness and frivolity; that +religion should have such a hold on one so entirely irreligious by +nature, is something quite inconceivable to a mind like, let us say, +Mrs. Humphrey Ward's; and yet absolutely intelligible to the ordinary +Catholic. + +The Church to us, is not what it is to the Protestant--a sort of pasture +land in which we are at liberty to browse if we are piously disposed. It +is not merely a convenient environment for the development of the +religious faculty. She stands to us in the relation of shepherd, with a +more than parental authority to feed and train our souls through infancy +to maturity; that is, from the time when we do not know or like what is +good for us, to the time when we begin to appreciate and spontaneously +follow her directions. Just then as a child, however naturally +recalcitrant and ill-disposed, retains a certain fundamental goodness +and root of recovery so long as it acknowledges and obeys the authority +of its father and mother; so the ordinary unreligious Catholic, who has +been brought up to believe in the divine authority of the Church, finds +therein all the protection that obedience offers to those who are +incapable of self-government. "In Madge's eyes the woman who married an +innocent divorcee was no more than his mistress." Had Madge been a pious +Protestant she naturally might have examined the question of divorce on +its own merits; she might have weighed the pros and cons of the problem; +she might have consulted God in prayer, and have listened to this +clergyman on one side; and to that, on the other: but eventually she +would have been thrown upon herself; she would have had no one whose +decision she was bound to obey. But wild and lawless as she is, yet +being a Catholic there is one voice on earth which she fears to +disbelieve or disobey. Looked at even from a human standpoint, the +consensus of a world-wide, ancient, organized society like the Roman +Church cannot but exert a powerful pressure on the minds of its +individual members. It would need no ordinary rebellion of the will for +a thoughtless girl to shake her mind so free of that influence as to +live happily in the state of revolt. But where in addition to this the +Church is viewed as speaking in the name of God, and as so representing +Him on earth that her ban or blessing is inseparable from His, it is +obvious that such a belief in her claims will give her a power for good +over the unreligious majority analogous to that possessed by a parent +over an untrained child--a power, that is, of discipline and external +motive which serves to supplement or supply for the present defect of +internal motive. + +Thus it is that the Church reckons among her obedient children thousands +of very imperfect and non-religious people for whom Protestantism can +find no place among the elect. + +Again, the solid faith of men with so little intellectual or emotional +interest in religion as Squire Riversdale or Marmaduke Lemarchant is +something very puzzling to the Protestant critic who, for the reasons +just insisted on, can have nothing corresponding to it in his own +experience. It is a psychological state of which his own religious +system takes no account. Where there is no intermediating Church, the +soul is either in direct and mystical union with God or else wholly +estranged and indifferent. A man is either serious and religious-minded, +or he is nothing. Like an untutored child, if he is not naturally good, +there is no one to make him so. But when the Church is acknowledged as +our tutor under God, as empowered by Him to lead us to Him; a middle +condition is found of those who are not naturally disposed to religion, +and yet who are submissive to that divine authority whose office it is +to shape their souls to better sympathies. Riversdale is a far truer +type of the Catholic country squire of the old school than the somewhat +morbid and impossible Helbeck of Bannisdale. With her preconceived +notions, Mrs. Humphrey Ward could not imagine any alternative between +'religious' and 'irreligious' in the Puritan sense. If Helbeck was to be +a good Catholic at all he must of necessity be fanatically devoted to +the propagation of the faith and offer his fortune and energies to the +service of an unscrupulous clergy only too ready to play upon his +credulous enthusiasm. His is represented as being naturally a religious +and mystical soul, but blighted and narrowed through the influence of +Catholicism. We are made to feel that the only thing the matter with him +is his creed--"all those stifling notions of sin, penance, absolution, +direction, as they were conventionalized in Catholic practice and +chattered about by stupid and mindless people." + +On the other hand, in Squire Riversdale and Marmaduke Lemarchant there +is by nature nothing but healthy humanity, no mystic or religious strain +whatever; they are not semi-ecclesiastics like Helbeck; and yet we feel +that their prosaic lives are governed, restrained, and rectified by a +deep-rooted faith in the authority of the Catholic Church. "The +qualities most obvious are not those of the mystic, but of the manly +out-of-door sportsman who may seem to be nothing more than a bluff +Englishman who rides to the hounds and does his ordinary duties. Yet one +of these red-coated cavaliers would, I have not the least doubt, if +occasion called for it, show himself capable of the very highest +heroism. Men of action, I should say, and not of reflection--a race of +few words but of brave deeds." + +It was just men of this unromantic type, men of solid but unostentatious +faith, given wholly to the business of this life save for one sovereign +secret reserve, who in time of persecution stood fast "ready any day to +be martyred for the faith and to regard it as the performance of a +simple duty and nothing to boast of." And if there is in the type a +certain narrowness of sympathy and lack of intelligent interest which +offends us, we may ask whether, with our human limitations, narrowness +is not to some extent the price we pay for strength; whether where +decision of judgment and energy of action is demanded, as in times of +persecution, width of view and multiplicity of sympathies may not be a +source of weakness. Contrast, for example, the character of Mark Fieldes +with that of Marmaduke Lemarchant, and it will be clear that the +strength and straightness of the latter is closely associated with the +absence of that versatility of intellect and affection which make the +former a more interesting but far less lovable and estimable +personality. To see all sides and issues of a question, is a +speculative, but not always a practical advantage; to have many +diversified tastes and affections helps to enlarge our sympathies, but +not to concentrate our energies. + +Of course great minds and strong hearts can afford to be comprehensive +without loss of depth and intensity; but our present interest is with +ordinary mortals and average powers. A man who has all his life +unreflectingly adopted the traditional principle that death is +preferable to dishonour, that a lie is essentially dishonourable, will +be far more likely to die for the truth, than one who has philosophized +much about honour and veracity, and whose resolution is enfeebled by the +consciousness of the weak and flimsy support which theory lends to these +healthy and universally received maxims. And similarly those who have +received the faith by tradition, who for years have assumed it in their +daily conduct as a matter of course, in whom therefore it has become an +ingrained psychological habit, who hold it, in what might be condemned +as a narrow, unintellectual fashion, are just the very people who will +fight and die for it, when its more cultivated and reflective professors +waver, temporize, and fall away. Taking human nature as it is, who can +doubt but that this is the way in which the majority are intended to +hold their religious, moral, philosophical, and political convictions; +that reflex thought is, must, and ought to be confined to a small +minority whose function is slowly to shape and correct that great body +of public doctrine by which the beliefs of the multitude are ruled? We +do not mean to say that such prosaic "narrowness" as we speak of, is +essential to strength; but only that a habit of theoretical speculation +and a continual cultivation of delicate sensibility is a source of +enervation which needs some compensating corrective. This corrective is +found in the exalted idealism which characterizes the great saints and +reformers, such as Augustine, or Francis, or Teresa, or Ignatius--souls +at once mystical and energetically practical to the highest degree. It +is something of this temper which is parodied in Alan Helbeck. But the +Church's mission is not merely to those rare souls whose sympathy with +her own mind and will is intelligent and spontaneous; but at least as +much to the multitudes who have to be guided more or less blindly by +obedience to tradition and authority, or else let wander as sheep having +no shepherd. These considerations explain why _One Poor Scruple_ seems +to us so far truer a presentment of Catholic life than _Helbeck of +Bannisdale_--the difference lying in the incommunicable advantage which +an insider possesses over an outsider in understanding the spirit and +principles by which the members of any social body are governed. Of all +religions, Catholicism which represents the accumulated results of two +thousand years' worldwide experience of human nature applied to the +principles of the Gospel, is least likely to be comprehended by an +outsider, however observant and fair-minded. + +To those for whom the lawfulness of re-marriage for an innocent divorcee +is, like the rest of their religious beliefs, a matter of opinion, the +scruple of a character like Madge Riversdale is unthinkable and +incredible. Such women do not trouble their heads about theological +points; still less, make heroic sacrifices for their private and +peculiar convictions. But those for whom the Church is a definite +concrete reality--almost a person--governing and teaching with divine +authority, will easily understand the firm grip she can and does exert +on those who have no other internal principle of restraint; who would +shake themselves free if they dared. Let those who despise the results +of such a constraint be consistent and abolish all parental and tutorial +control; all educative government of whatsoever description; nay, the +imperious restraint of conscience itself, which is often obeyed but +grudgingly. + +While some features of this portrait of Catholic life are common to all +its phases, others are peculiar to the aspect it presents in England, +where Catholics being a small and weak minority are, so to say, +self-conscious in their faith--continually aware that they are not as +the rest of men; disposed therefore to be apologetic or aggressive or +defensive. Again, the circumstance of their long exclusion from the +social and intellectual life of their country is accountable for other +undesirable peculiarities which Mrs. Wilfrid Ward sees no reason to +spare. + +We have not, however, attempted anything like a literary estimate of +this interesting, altogether readable work, but have only endeavoured to +draw attention to an important point, which, whether intentionally or +unintentionally, it illustrates very admirably. + +_May_, 1899. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: _One Poor Scruple._ By Mrs. Wilfrid Ward. London: Longmans, +1899.] + +[Footnote 2: We do not mean to imply that there is any close +etymological relation between these two uses of the term.] + + + +XVI. + + +A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS. + +The appearance of a work by the Hon. W. Gibson on _The Abbé de +Lamennais, and the Catholic Liberal Movement in France_, invites us to a +new attempt to grapple with a problem which has so far met with no +satisfactory solution, and probably never will. Up to a certain point we +seem to follow more or less intelligently the working of the restless +soul of De Lamennais; but at the last and great crisis of his life we +find all our calculations at fault; "we try to understand him; we wish +that penetrating into the inmost recesses of his wounded soul, we could +force it to yield up its secret, and once more sympathize with him, +perhaps console him; but we cannot. He is an enigma, as impenetrable as +the rocks on his native shore." + +From whatever point of view the story of his life is regarded, it +presents itself as a tragedy. The believing Catholic sees there the ruin +of a vocation to such a work as only a few souls in the history of the +Church are called to accomplish--a ruin desperate and deplorable in +proportion to the force of the talents and energies diverted from the +right path. The non-Catholic or unbeliever cannot fail to be moved by +contemplating the fruitless struggles of a mind so keen, a heart so +enthusiastic in the cause of light and liberty--struggles ending in +failure, perplexity, confusion, and misery. But while we allow a large +element of mystery in his character which will never be eliminated, yet +as we return time after time to gaze upon the picture of his life, as a +whole, and in its details, the seemingly discordant items begin quietly +to drop into their places one after another, and to exhibit unnoticed +connections; and the idea of his distinctive personality begins to shape +itself into a coherent unity. + +It is not our purpose here to summarize Mr. Gibson's admirable work, or +to give even an outline of so well-known a history; but rather to +attempt some brief criticism of the man himself, and incidentally of his +views. + +Temperament and early education are among the principal determinants of +character; and certainly when we contrast Féli with his brother Jean, +who presumably received the same home-training, we see how largely he +was the creature of temperament. Jean was by nature the "good boy," +tractable and docile; Féli, the unmanageable, the lawless, the violent. +While Jean was dutifully learning his lessons to order, Féli, the +obstreperous, imprisoned in the library, was feeding his tender mind +with Diderot, Montaigne, Pascal, Voltaire, Rousseau, and similar diet, +and at twelve exhibited such infidel tendencies as made it prudent to +defer his first Communion for some ten years. + +From first to last, whether we consider his childish waywardness and +outbreaks of violent passion, which persevered in a less childish form +through manhood; or the fits of intense depression and melancholy, +alternating with spells of high nerve-tension and feverish excitement; +or the restlessness and impatient energy which showed themselves always +and everywhere, and at times drove him like a wild man into the woods, +"seeking rest and finding none;" or the prophetic, not to say, the +fanatical strain which breaks out in so much of his writing, especially +in the _Paroles d'un Croyant_,--in all alike there is evident that +predominance of the imaginative and emotional elements which, combined +with intellectual gifts, constitute genius as commonly understood. For +such a character the training which would suffice for half a dozen good +little Jeans would be wholly inadequate. So much fire and feeling ill +submits to the yoke of self-restraint in matters moral or intellectual. +The mind is apt to be fascinated by the brilliant pictures of the +imagination and to become a slave to the tyranny of a fixed idea; while +the strength of passionate desire paralyzes the power of free +deliberation. It is precisely this self-restraint, the fruit of a +careful education given and responded to, that we miss in De Lammenais +both in his moral character and in his mind. Peace and tranquillity of +soul are essential to successful thinking, more especially in +philosophy; and in proportion as a brilliant imagination is a help, it +is also a danger if let run riot. At times, wearied out with himself, he +seems to have felt the need of retreat and quiet; but he was almost as +constitutionally incapable of keeping still, as certain modern statesmen +in their retirement from public life. We smile when we hear him in the +violent first fervour of his conversion, talking about becoming a +Trappist, and, later, a Jesuit. He knew himself better when he shrank so +long and persistently from the yoke of priesthood, and when, having +yielded against his truer instincts to the indiscreet zeal of pious +friends, he experienced an agony of repugnance at his first Mass. With +different antecedents he might have profited by the yoke, but as things +stood it could but gall him. + +In spite of Mr. Gibson's contention to the contrary, it can hardly be +maintained that De Lamennais was well educated in the strict sense of +the expression. The evidence he adduces points to a marvellous diversity +of interests, and even to close and careful reading. But on the whole he +was self-taught, and a self-taught man is never educated. Without +intercourse with other living minds, education is impossible. This is +indeed hoisting De Lammenais with his own petard. For, according to +"Traditionalism," the mind is paralyzed by isolation, and can be duly +developed only in society. An overweening self-confidence and slight +regard for the labours of other thinkers usually characterizes +self-taught genius. This it was that led him to cut all connection with +the philosophy of the past, and to attempt to build up, single-handed, a +new system to supplant that which had been the fruit of the collective +mind-labour of centuries. "I shall work out," he writes calmly to the +Abbé Brute, "a new system for the defence of Christianity against +infidels and heretics, a very simple system, in which the proofs will be +so rigorous that unless one is prepared to give up the right of saying +_I am_, it will be necessary to say _Credo_ to the very end." Only a man +with a very slight and superficial acquaintance with the endeavours of +previous apologists, and the extreme difficulty of the problem, could +speak with such portentous self-confidence. And the result bears out +this remark. For grand and imposing as is the structure of the _Essai +sur l'Indifférence,_ it rests on fallacies so patent that none but a man +of no philosophical training could have failed to perceive them. Here it +is that the self-taught man comes to grief and often misses the mere +truisms of traditional teaching. + +Doubtless ecclesiastical philosophy and theology was then more than ever +painfully fossilized, and altogether lifeless and out of sympathy with +the spirit of the age. It needed to be quickened, adapted and applied to +modern exigencies. The undue intrusion of metaphysics into the domain of +positive knowledge needed checking; the value of _consensus communis_ as +a criterion required to be insisted on, defended, and exactly defined. +With characteristic impetuosity, De Lamennais, like Comte, must bundle +metaphysics out of doors altogether as a merely provisional but illusory +synthesis, necessary for the human intellect in its adolescence, but to +be discarded in its maturity; and thereupon he proceeds to erect his +system of Traditionalism mid-air, quite unconscious that in clearing +away metaphysics he has deprived the structure of its only possible +foundation. But this is the man all over. Because there is a truth in +Traditionalism, therefore, it is the whole and only truth; because +metaphysics alone can do little, it is therefore unnecessary and +worthless. Had he spent but a fraction of the time and trouble he gave +to the elaboration of his own system, in a liberal and critical study of +that which he desired to supersede, his genius might have accomplished a +work for the Church which is still halting badly on its way to +perfection. One feels something like anger in contemplating such +hot-headed zeal standing continually in its own light, and frustrating +with perverse ingenuity the very end which it was most desirous to +realize. For no one can deny that from his first conversion to his +unhappy death De Lamennais was dominated by the highest and noblest and +most unselfish motives; that he was a man of absolute sincerity of +purpose. + +His earliest enthusiasm was for the defence and exaltation of the +Catholic Faith, for the liberation of the Church from the bonds of +nationalism and Erastianism. Even those who repudiate altogether the +extreme Ultramontanism of De Maistre and De Lamennais must allow their +conception to be one of the boldest and grandest which has inspired the +mind of man. He realized more vividly than many that the cause of the +Church and of society, of Catholicism and humanity, were one and the +same. It was the very intensity and depth of his convictions that made +him so importunate in pressing them on others, so intolerant of delay, +so infuriated by opposition. For indeed nothing is more common than to +find a thousand selfishnesses co-existing and interfering with a +dominant unselfishness, lessening or totally destroying its fruitfulness +for good. A man who is unselfish enough to devote his fortune to charity +will not necessarily be free from faults which may more than undo the +good he proposes. + +The same hastiness of thought which moved him to a wholesale, +indiscriminate condemnation of metaphysics, led him to conclude that +because hitherto no happy adjustment of the relations between Church and +State had been devised, there could be no remedy save in their total +severance. Doubtless such a severance would be better, if Gallicanism +were the only alternative; or if the Church's liberty and efficiency +were to be seriously curtailed. A superficial glance might fancy a +fundamental discrepancy in this matter, as well as in the questions of +toleration, and of the freedom of the press, between the official +teaching of Gregory XVI. and Pius IX., and that of Leo XIII. But a +closer inspection shows no alteration of principle, and only a +recognition of altered circumstances, either necessitating a connivance +at inevitable evils, or totally changing the aspect of the question. But +De Lamennais should have learnt from his own teaching that liberty does +not mean the independence of isolation, but the full enjoyment of all +the means necessary for perfect self-development; that it does not mean +the weakness of dissociation, but the strength of a perfectly organized +association for mutual help and protection. And this holds good, not for +individuals alone, but for societies, and for Church and State. Aiming +at one common end, the perfection of humanity, they cannot but gain by +association and lose by dissociation. Each is weaker even, in its own +sphere, apart from the other. It is an unreal abstraction that splits +man into two beings--a body and a soul; that draws a clean, +hard-and-fast line between his temporal and eternal welfare; that +commits the former interest to one society, the latter to another, +absolutely distinct and unconnected. But all this holds true only in the +hypothesis of a nation of Christians or Theists. + +When a large fraction of the community has ceased to believe in +Christianity and the Church, the demands of justice and reason are +different. It may well be allowed that, to determine the exact relation +of the Catholic Church and Christian State, and the law of their +organization into one complex society, is a problem for whose perfect +solution we must wait the further development of the ideas of +ecclesiastical and civil society. But to wait for growth of subjective +truth was just what De Lamennais could not do. He saw that past +solutions of the problem had been unsuccessful; that in most cases the +Church was eventually drawn into bondage under the State as its creature +and instrument in the cause of tyranny and oppression; that it was +insensibly permeated with the local and national spirit, differentiated +from Catholic Christendom, and severed from the full influence of its +head, the Vicar of Christ. The independence of the Church he rightly +judged to be the great safeguard of the people against the tyranny of +their temporal rulers. In the face of that world-wide spiritual society, +whose voice was at once the voice of humanity and the voice of God, he +felt that "iniquity would stop its mouth," and injustice be put to +shame. Yet all this seemed to him impossible so long as the Church +depended on the State for temporalities, and because he could devise no +form of association that would be guarantee against all abuses, he +therefore insisted on total, severance, not merely as expedient for the +present pressure, but as a divine and eternal principle. + +When, therefore, it seemed to him that Gregory XVI. had condemned +Ultramontanism, it was, to De Lamennais, as though he had condemned the +cause of the Church and of humanity, and thrown the weight of his +authority into that of Gallicanism. Here again we see how his mental +intensity and impatience reduced him to the dilemma which found solution +in his apostasy. Holding as he did to the Papal infallibility in a form +far more extreme than that subsequently approved by the Vatican Council, +he was bound in consistency to accept the Pope's decision as infallible +in respect to its expediency and in all its detail. Thus it seemed to +him that the ideal for which he had lived was shattered by a +self-inflicted blow. The infallible voice of humanity had declared +against the cause of humanity. He found himself compelled, in virtue of +his principles, to choose between two alternatives. Either the cause of +humanity, as he conceived it, was not the cause of God; or else the Pope +was not the Vicar of Christ and the divinely-appointed guardian of that +cause. But of the two denials the former was now to him the least +tolerable. "Catholicism," he said, "was my life, because it was that of +humanity." _Sacramenta, propter homines_; the Church was made for man, +and not man for the Church. Given the dilemma, who shall blame his +choice? But the dilemma was purely subjective and imaginary. Though +truths are never irreconcilable, the exaggerations of truth may well +be so. + +Had he possessed that intellectual patience in perplexity, without which +not only faith, but true science, is impossible, he would have been +driven not to apostasy, but to a careful re-sifting of his views, +issuing, perhaps, in a reconciliation of apparently adverse positions, +or at all events in a confession of subjective, uncertainty and +confusion. Faith, in the wider sense of the word, would have bid him to +believe, without seeing, what we have lived to see under Leo XIII. + +This seems to be the intellectual aspect of his defection, though of +course there were many accelerating causes at work. Perhaps if Gregory +XVI. had met his appeal with a few words of simple explanation and +advice, instead of with that mysterious reticence which is falsely +supposed to be the soul of diplomacy, the issue might have been as happy +as it was miserable. De Lamennais himself, in his _Affaires de Rome_, +makes the same remark in so many words. Again, the illiberal and +ungenerous persecution of his triumphant adversaries, who endeavoured to +goad him into some open act of rebellion in order to bring him under +still heavier condemnation, can scarcely have failed to embitter and +harden a soul naturally disposed to pessimism and melancholy. Nor can we +omit from the influences at work upon him, that dramatic instinct which +makes a mediocre and colourless attitude impossible for those who are +strongly under its influence. Perhaps no nation is more governed by it +than the French, with their partiality for _tableaux_ and _sensation_; +and in De Lamennais its presence was most marked, as the pages of his +_Paroles_ will witness. In the _Too Late_ with which he received the +overtures of Pius IX.; in the studied sensationalism of his funeral +arrangements, and in many other minute points, we are made sensible that +if his life culminated in a tragedy, the tragic aspect of it was not +altogether displeasing to him. Still it would be a grievous slur on so +great a character to suppose that such a weakness could have had any +considerable part in his steady and deliberate refusal to see a priest +at the last. This is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that he +believed he could not be absolved without accepting the condemnation of +his own views, and so abandoning the cause of humanity. While under the +spell of his imaginary dilemma, he was constrained to follow the rule +for a perplexed conscience, and to choose what seemed to him the less of +two evils. + +After his ideal had been destroyed, and the Church could no longer be +for him the Saviour of the Nations, he threw himself without reserve +into the cause of humanity and liberty. But his aims were now almost +entirely destructive and revolutionary. His enthusiasm was rather a +hatred of the things that were, than an ardent zeal for the things that +ought to be; and the bitter elements in his character become more and +more accentuated as he finds himself gradually thrust aside and +forgotten--cast off by the Church, ignored by the revolution. Even his +friends, with one or two exceptions, dropped off one by one; some +fleeing like rats from a sinking ship, others perplexed at his obstinacy +or offended by his violence; others removed by death or distance; and we +see him in his old age poor and lonely, and intensely unhappy. + +When dangerously ill in 1827, he exclaimed, on being told that it was a +fine night, "For my peace, God grant that it may be my last." The prayer +was not heard, for, as he felt on his recovery, God had a great work for +him to do. How that work was done we have just seen. Féli de Lamennais, +who would have been buried as a Christian in 1827, was buried as an +infidel in 1854. + +It is vain to contend that he was not a man of prayer. That he had a +keen discernment in spiritual things is evident from his _Commentary on +the Imitation_ and his other spiritual writings, as well as from the +testimony of his young disciples at La Chênaie, to whom he was not +merely a brilliant teacher, a most affectionate friend and father, but +also a trusted guide in the things of God. Yet this would be little had +we not also assurance of his personal and private devoutness. + +All this would make his unfortunate ending a stumbling-block to those +who cannot acquiesce in the fact that in every soul tares and wheat in +various proportions grow side by side, and that which growth is to be +victorious is not possible to predict with certainty; who deem it +impossible that one who ends ill could ever have lived well; or that one +who loses his faith, or any other virtue, could ever at any time have +really possessed it. There is indeed some kind of double personality in +us all which is perhaps more observable in strongly-marked characters +like De Lamennais, where, so to say, the bifurcating lines are produced +further. Proud men have occasional moods of genuine humility; and +habitual bitterness is allayed by intervals of sweetness; and +conversely, there are ugly streaks in the fairest marble. + +And as to the fate of that restless soul, who shall dare to speak +dogmatically? We cling gladly to the story of the tear that stole down +his face in death, and would fain see in it some confirmation of the +view according to which the soul receives in that crucial hour a final +choice based on the collective experience of its mortal life. We would +hope that as there is a baptism of blood or of charity, so there may +perhaps be some uncovenanted absolution for one who so earnestly loved +mankind at large, and especially the poor and the oppressed; who in his +old age and misery was found by their sick-bed; who willed to be with +them in his death and burial. And yet we feel something of that +agonizing uncertainty which forced from the aged Abbe Jean the bitter +cry, "Féli, Féli, my brother!" + +_Jan._ 1897. + + + +XVII. + + +LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST. + +"What pains me most," writes the late Sir Joseph Crowe in the +_Nineteenth Century_ for October, 1896, "is to think that the art of Fra +Filippo, the loose fish, and seducer of holy women, looks almost as +pure, and is often quite as lovely as that of Fra Giovanni Angelico of +Fiesole." And indeed, if the fact be admitted, it cannot but be a shock +to all those high-minded thinkers who have committed themselves +unreservedly to the view that personal sanctity and elevation of +character in the artist is an essential condition for the production of +any great work of art, and especially of religious art. As regards the +fact, we need not concern ourselves very long. If Rio and others, +presumably biassed by the same theory, are inclined to see Lippi's moral +depravity betrayed in every stroke of his brush, yet the more general +and truer verdict accords him a place among the great masters of his +age, albeit beneath Angelico and some others. Beyond all doubt it must +be allowed that even in point of spirituality and heavenliness of +expression, he stands high above numbers of artists of pure life and +blameless reputation; and this fact leaves us face to face with the +problem already suggested as to the precise connection between high +morality and high art--if any. + +Plainly a good man need not be a good artist. Must a good artist be a +good man? I suppose from a vague feeling in certain minds that it ought +to be so, there rises a belief that it must be so, and that it is so; +and from this belief a disposition to see that it is so, and to read +facts accordingly. Prominent among the advocates of this view is Mr. +Ruskin in his treatment of the relation of morality to art. He holds +"that the basis of art is moral; that art cannot be merely pleasant or +unpleasant, but must be lawful or unlawful, that every legitimate +artistic enjoyment is due to the perception of moral propriety, that +every artistic excellence is a moral virtue, every artistic fault is a +moral vice; that noble art can spring only from noble feeling, that the +whole system of the beautiful is a system of moral emotions, moral +selections, and moral appreciation; and that the aim and end of art is +the expression of man's obedience to God's will, and of his recognition +of God's goodness." [1] + +But a man who can characterize a vulgar pattern as immoral, plainly uses +the term "morality" in some transcendental, non-natural sense, and +therefore cannot be regarded as an exponent of the precise theory +referred to. Still, as this larger idea of morality includes the lesser +and more restricted, we may consider Mr. Ruskin and his disciples among +those to whom the case of Lippo Lippi and many another presents a +distinct difficulty. "Many another," for the principle ought to extend +to every branch of fine art; and we should be prepared to maintain that +there never has been, or could have been, a truly great musician, or +sculptor, or poet, who was not also a truly good man. In a way the +position is defensible enough; for one can, in every contrary instance, +patch up the artist's character or else pick holes in his work. Who is +to settle what is a truly great work or a truly good man. But a position +may be quite defensible, yet obviously untrue. Again, if by great art we +mean that which is subordinated to some great and good purpose, we are +characterizing it by a goodness which is extrinsic to it, and is not the +goodness of art itself, as such. If the end of fine art is to teach, +then its goodness must be estimated by the matter and manner of its +teaching, and a "moral pocket-handkerchief" must take precedence of many +a Turner. Yet it would even then remain questionable whether a good and +great moral teacher is necessarily a good man. In truth, a good man is +one who obeys his conscience, and whose conscience guides him right. If, +in defect of the latter condition, we allow that a man is good or +well-meaning, it is because we suppose that his conscience is erroneous +inculpably, and that he is faithful to right order as far as he +understands it. But one who sees right and wills wrong is in no sense +good, but altogether bad. Allowing that for the solution of some +delicate moral problems a certain height of tone and keenness of insight +inseparable from habitual conscientiousness is necessary, yet mere +intellectual acumen, in the absence of any notably biassing influence, +suffices to give us as great a teacher as Aristotle, who, if exonerated +from graver charges, offers no example of astonishing elevation of heart +at all proportioned to the profundity of his genius. We do not deny that +in the case of free assent to beliefs fraught with grave practical +consequences, the moral condition of the subject has much to do with the +judgments of the intellect. But first principles and their logical +issues belong to the domain of necessary truth; while in other matters a +teacher may accept current maxims and sentiments with which he has no +personal sympathy, and weave from all these a whole system of excellent +and orthodox moral teaching. And if one may be a good moralist and a bad +man, why _à fortiori_ may one not be a good artist and a bad man? If +vice does not necessarily dim the eye to ethical beauty, why should it +blind it to aesthetic beauty? In order to get at a solution we must fix +somewhat more definitely the notion of fine art and its scope. + +I think it is in a child's book called _The Back of the North Wind_, +that a poet is somewhat happily and simply defined as a person who is +glad about something and wants to make other people glad about it too. +Yet mature reflection shows two flaws in this definition. First of all, +the theme of poetry, or any other fine art, need not always be gladsome, +but can appeal to some other strong emotion, provided it be high and +noble. The tragedian is one who is thrilled with awe and sorrow, and +strives to excite a like thrill in others. Again, though the craving for +sympathy hardly ever fails to follow close on the experience of deep +feeling; and though, as we shall presently see, fine art is but an +extension of language whose chief end is intercommunion of ideas, yet +this altruist end of fine art is not of its essence, but of its +superabundance and overflow. Expression for expression's sake is a +necessity of man's spiritual nature, in solitude no less than in +society. To speak, to give utterance to the truth that he sees, and to +the strong emotions that stir within his heart, is that highest +energizing in which man finds his natural perfection and his rest. His +soul is burdened and in labour until it has brought forth and expressed +to its complete satisfaction the word conceived within it. Nor is it +only within the mind that he so utters himself in secret self-communing; +for he is not a disembodied intelligence, but one clothed with body and +senses and imagination. His medium of expression is not merely the +spiritual substance of the mind, but his whole complex being. Nor has he +uttered his "word" to his full satisfaction till it has passed from his +intellect into his imagination, and thence to his lips, his voice, his +features, his gesture. And when the mind is more vigorous and the +passion for utterance more intense, he will not be at rest while there +is any other medium in which he can embody his conception, be it stone, +or metal, or line, or colour, or sound, or measure, or imagery, which +under his skilled hand can be made to shadow out his hidden thought and +emotion. We cannot hold with Max Müller and others, who make thought +dependent and consequent on language. + +For it is evident, on a moment's introspection, that thought makes +language for itself to live in, just as a snail makes its own shell or a +soul makes its own body. Who has not felt the anguish of not being able +to find a word to hit off his thought exactly?--which surely means that +the thought was already there unclothed, awaiting its embodiment. As the +soul disembodied is not man, so thought not clothed in language is not +perfect human thought. Its essence is saved, but not its substantial, or +at least its desirable, completeness. A man thinks more fully, more +humanly, who thinks not with his mind alone, but with his imagination, +his voice, his tongue, his pen, his pencil. If, therefore, solitary +contemplative thought is a legitimate end in itself; if it is that +_ludus_, or play of the soul, which is the highest occupation of man, a +share in the same honour must be allowed to its accompanying embodiment; +to the music which delights no ear but the performer's; to poetry, to +painting, to sculpture done for the joy of doing, and without reference +to the good of others communicating in that joy. And if the Divine +Artist, whose lavish hand fills everything with goodness; who pours out +the treasures of His love and wisdom in every corner of our universe; of +whose greatness man knows not an appreciable fraction; who "does all +things well" for the very love of doing and of doing well; who utters +Himself for the sake of uttering, not only in His eternal, co-equal, +all-expressive Word, but also in the broken, stammering accents of a +myriad finite words or manifestations--if this Divine Artist teaches us +anything, it is that man, singly or collectively, is divinest when he +finds rest and joy in utterance for its own sake, in "telling the glory +of God and showing forth His handiwork," or, as Catholic doctrine puts +it, in praise; for praise is the utterance of love, and love is joy in +the truth. + +As most of the useful arts perfect man's executive faculties, and thus +are said to improve upon, while in a certain sense they imitate nature; +so the fine arts extend and exalt man's faculty of expression, or +self-utterance, regarded not precisely as useful and _propter aliud_; +but as pleasurable and _propter se_. Even the most uncultivated savage +finds pleasure in some discordant utterance of his subjective frame of +mind; and it is really hard to find any tribe so degraded as to show no +rudiment of fine art, no sign of reflex pleasure in expression, and of +inventiveness in extending the resources nature has provided us with for +that end. + +The artist as such aims at self-expression for its own sake. It is a +necessity of his nature, an outpouring of pent-up feeling, as much as is +the song of the lark. Of course we are speaking of the true creative +artist, and not of the laborious copyist. If he subordinates his work as +a means to some further end; if his aim is morality or immorality, truth +or error, pleasure or pain; if it is anything else than the embodiment +or utterance of his own soul, so far he is acting riot as an artist, but +as a minister of morality, or truth, or pleasure, or their contraries. +If we keep this idea steadily in view, we can see how much truth, or how +little, is contained in the various theories of fine art which have been +advanced from the earliest times. We can see how truly art is a [Greek: +mimaesis] an imitating of realities; not that art-objects are, as Plato +supposes, faint and defective representations, vicegerent species of the +external world, whose beauty is but the transfer and dim reflection of +the beauty of nature. Were it so, then the mirror, or the camera, were +the best of all artists. As expression, fine art is the imitation of the +soul within; of outward realities as received into the mind and heart of +the artist, in their ideal and emotional setting. The artist gives word +or expression to what he sees; but what he sees is within him. His work +is self-expression. We can from this infer where to look for a solution +of the controversy between idealism and realism. We can also see how, +owing to the essential disproportion between the material and sensible +media of expression which art uses, and the immaterial and spiritual +realities it would body forth, its utterances must always be symbolic, +never literal. We can see how needlessly they embarrass themselves who +deny the name of fine art to any work whose theme is not beautiful, or +which is not morally didactic. Finally, we can see that if fine art be +but an extension of language, there can be no immediate connection +between art as art, and general moral character; no more reason for +supposing that skilful and beautiful self-utterance is incompatible with +immorality, than that its absence is incompatible with sanctity. + +Yet, as a matter of fact, and rightly, we judge of art not merely as +art, or as expression; but we look to that which is expressed, to the +inner soul which is revealed to us, to the "matter" as well as to the +"form." And it maybe questioned whether our estimate of a work is not +rather determined in most cases by this non-artistic consideration. +Obviously it is possible in our estimate of a landscape, to be drawn +away from the artistic to the real beauty; from its merits as a "word," +or expression, to the merits of the thing signified. And still more +naturally is our admiration drawn from the artist's self-utterance, to +the self which he endeavours to utter, and we are brought into sympathy +with his thought and feeling. Much of the fascination exercised over us +by art, which precisely as art is rude and imperfect in many ways, is to +be ascribed to this source. Though here we must remember that the soul +is often more truly and artistically betrayed by the simple lispings of +childhood than by the ornate and finished eloquence of a rhetorician. + +It is in regard to the matter expressed, rather than to the mode of +expression, that we have a right to look for a difference between such +men as Lippo Lippi and Fra Angelico. According to a man's inner tone and +temperament and character, will be the impression produced upon him by +the objects of his contemplation. These will determine him largely in +the choice of his themes, and in the aspect under which he will treat +them. Obviously in many cases there are noble themes of art for whose +appreciation no particular delicacy of moral or religious taste is +required. There is no reason why such a subject as the Laocoon should +make a different impression on a saint and on a profligate. It appeals +to the tragic sense, which may be as highly developed in one as in the +other. But if the Annunciation be the theme, we can well understand how +differently it will impress a man of lively and cultured faith, a +contemplative and mystic, with an appreciative and effective love of +reverence and purity; and another whose faith is a formula, whose life +is impure, frivolous, worldly. Why then is there not a more distinctly +marked inferiority in the religious art of Lippi to that of Angelico? +Why does it look "almost as pure," and "often quite as lovely"? Two very +clear reasons offer themselves in reply. First of all, the art of such a +man as Angelico falls far more hopelessly short of his ideal. Most of +the beauties which such a soul would find in the contemplation of Mary, +or of Gabriel, are spiritual, moral, non-æsthetic, and can embody +themselves in form and feature only most imperfectly. Given equal skill +in expression, equal command of words, one man can say all that he +feels, and more, while another is tortured with a sense of much more to +be uttered, were it not unutterable. Perhaps it is in some hint of this +hidden wealth of unuttered meaning that skilled eyes find in Angelico +what they can never find in Lippi. A second reason might be found in the +external influence exerted on the artist by society, its requirements, +fashions, and conventions. It is plain that Lippi, left to himself, +would never have chosen religious themes as such: it is equally plain, +that having chosen them, he would naturally try to emulate and eclipse +what was most admired in the great works of his predecessors and +contemporaries. It would need little more than a familiar acquaintance +with the great models, together with the artist's discriminating +observance, for a man of Lippi's talent to catch those lines and shades +of form and feature which hint at, rather than express, the inward +purity, the reverence, the gentleness, with which he himself was so +little in sympathy. + +No doubt, were two such men equally skilled in all the arts of +expression, in language, in verse, in song and music, in sculpture and +painting, and acting, their general treatment of religious themes would +be more glaringly different; but within the comparatively narrow limits +of painting, we cannot reasonably expect more than we actually find. + +The saint, as such, and the artist, as such, are occupied with different +facets of the world; the former with its moral, the latter with its +æsthetic beauty. Even were the artist formally to recognize that all the +beauty in nature is but the created utterance of the Divine thought and +love, and that the real, though unknown, term of his abstraction is not +the impersonal symbol, but the person symbolized; yet it is not enough +for sanctity or morality to be attracted to God viewed simply as the +archetype of æsthetic beauty. On the other hand, one may be drawn, +through the love of moral beauty in creatures, of justice, and mercy, +and liberality, and truthfulness, to the love of God as their archetype, +and yet be perfectly obtuse to æsthetic beauty; and thus again we see +that high æstheticism is compatible with low morality, and conversely. +Doubtless when produced to infinity, all perfections are seen to +converge and unite in God, but short of this, they retain their +distinctness and opposition. At the same time, it cannot for a moment be +denied that keenness of moral, and of æsthetic perception, act and react +upon one another. He gains much morally whose eyes are opened to the +innumerable traces of the Divine beauty with which he is surrounded, and +there are æsthetic joys which are necessarily unknown to a soul which is +selfish and gross--still more to a soul from which the glories of +revealed religion are hidden, either through unbelief or sluggish +indifference. Yet, on the whole, it may be said that sanctity is +benefited by art more than art is by sanctity, especially where we deal +with so limited a medium of expression as painting. And so it seems to +us that, after all, there is nothing to surprise or pain us in the fact +that "the art of a Fra Filippo, the loose fish, looks almost as pure, +and is often quite as lovely as that of Fra Giovanni Angelico of +Fiesoli." + +_Dec._ 1896. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: Vernon Lee, _Belcaro_.] + + + +XVIII. + + +THROUGH ART TO FAITH. + +There are few books more difficult to estimate than those in which M. +Huysman sets forth the story of a conversion generally supposed to bear +no very distant resemblance to his own. It would be easy to find +excellent reasons for a somewhat sweeping condemnation of his work, and +others as excellent for a most cordial approval; and, indeed, we find +critics more than usually at variance with one another in its regard. To +be judged justly, these books must be judged slowly. The source of +perplexity is to be found in the fact that the author, who has recently +passed from negation to Catholicism, carries with him the language, the +modes of thought, the taste and temper of the literary school of which +he was, and, in so many of his sympathies, is still a pupil, a school +which regards M. Zola as one of its leading lights. _En Route_, and its +sequels, portray in the colours of realism, in the language of +decadence, the conversion of a realist, nay, of a decadent, to mysticism +and faith. "The voice indeed is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are +the hands of Esau," and according as the critic centres his attention +too exclusively on one or the other, such will his judgment be. + +That his works have commanded attention, and awakened keen interest +among members of the most varying and opposite schools of thought, is an +undeniable fact which at all events proves them to be worth careful +consideration. + +The story of a soul's passage from darkness to light, of its wanderings, +vacillations, doubts, and temptations, must necessarily exercise a +strong fascination over all minds of a reflective cast: "The development +of a soul!" says Browning, "little else is worth study. I always thought +so; you, with many known and unknown to me, think so; others may one day +think so." [1] It is from this attraction of soul to soul that the +_Pilgrim's Progress_, together with many kindred works, derives its +spell; and indeed it is to this that all that is best and greatest in +art owes its power and immortal interest. Here, however, is one reason +why _The Cathedral_ [2] can never be so attractive as _En Route_, +ministering as it does but little to that deepest and most insatiable +curiosity concerning the soul and its sorrows. It portrays but little +perceptible movement, little in the way of violent revulsion and +conflict; the spiritual growth which it registers is mostly underground, +a strengthening and spreading of the roots. It deals with a period of +quiet healing and convalescence after a severe surgical operation; with +the "illuminative" stage of conversion--for there is scarcely any doubt +that the three volumes correspond to the "purgative," "illuminative," +and "unitive" ways respectively. + +Between pulling down and building up--both sensational processes, +especially the former--there intervenes a sober time of planning and +surveying, a quiet taking of information before entering on a new +campaign of action. When the affections have been painfully and +violently uprooted from earth, then first is the mind sufficiently free +from the bias of passion and base attachments to be instructed and +illuminated with profit in the things concerning its peace, and to be +prepared for the replanting of the affections in the soil of Heaven. The +arid desert, with its seemingly aimless wanderings, intervenes between +the exodus from Egypt and the entrance into the Land of Promise. + +Dealing with this stage of the process of conversion, _The Cathedral_ is +comparatively monotonous and barren of spiritual incident. What removes +it still further from all chances of anything like popularity in this +country is the extent to which it is occupied with matters of purely +archæological and artistic interest, and more especially with the +mystical symbolism of the middle ages as chronicled in every detail of +the great Cathedral of Chartres. Little as may be the enthusiasm for +such lore in France, it is far less in England, where the people have +for three centuries been out of all touch with the Catholic Church, and +therefore with whatever modicum of mediævalism she still preserves as +part of her heritage from the past. Architecturally we appreciate our +dismantled cathedrals to some extent, but their symbolism is far less +understood than even the language and theology of the schools, while the +study of it meets as much sympathy as would the study of heraldry in a +modern democracy. Yet we may say that the bulk of the book consists of +an inventory of every symbolic detail in architecture, in sculpture, in +painting, in glass-colouring, to be found at Chartres; to which is added +a careful elaboration of the symbolism of beasts, flowers, colours, +perfumes, all very dreary reading for the uninitiated, and to be +criticized only by the expert. + +Little scope as the plan of the book offers for any variety or display +of character, being mainly occupied with erudite monologue, put +sometimes into the mouth of Durtal, sometimes into that of the Abbé +Plomb, yet the personalities of these two, as well as those of Géversin, +Madame Bavoil, and Madame Mesurat, stand out very vividly, and make us +wish for that fuller acquaintance with them which a little more movement +and incident would have afforded. + +But what will give most offence, and tend to alienate a certain amount +of intelligent and valuable sympathy, is the violence, and even the +coarseness, with which the author, or at least his hero, handles, not +only the opinions, but the very persons of those from whom he differs; +the intemperance of his invective, the narrow intolerance and absolute +self-confidence with which he sits in judgment on men and things. + +As a matter of fact, this is rather a defect of style and expression +than of the inner sentiment. It is part and parcel of the realist temper +to blurt out the thought in all the clothing or nakedness with which it +first surges up into consciousness, before it has been submitted to the +censorship of reason; in a word, to do its thinking aloud, or on paper; +to give utterance not to the tempered and mature judgment--the last +result of refinement and correction, but to display the whole process +and working by which it was reached. As it is part of M. Zola's art to +linger lovingly over each little horror of some slaughter-house scene, +until the whole lives for us again as in a cinematograph, so M. Huysman, +engaged in the portrayal of a spiritual conflict, spares us no link in +the chain of causes by which the final result is produced; he bares the +brain, and exposes its workings with all the scientific calmness of the +vivisector. + +Whether we like or dislike this realism, we must allow for it in forming +our judgment on these volumes, nor must we treat as final and approved +opinions what are often the mere spontaneous suggestions and first +thoughts of the mind, the oscillations through which it settles down to +rest. Over and over again we shall find that Durtal subsequently raises +the very objection to his own view that was on our lips at the first +reading of it. + +But even making such allowance, it none the less remains a matter of +regret that one who, with perhaps some justice, considers that in point +of art-appreciation "the Catholic public is still a hundred feet beneath +the profane public," and chides them for "their incurable lack of +artistic sense," who speaks of "the frightful appetite for the hideous +which disgraces the Church of our day," who himself in many ways, in a +hundred passages of sublime thought, of tender piety, of lyrical poesy, +has proved beyond all cavil his delicacy of sentiment, his exquisite +niceness in matters of taste, his reverence for what is chaste and +beautiful, should at times be so deplorably unfaithful to his better +instincts, so forgetful of the close and inseparable alliance between +restraint and elegance. What can be weaker or uglier, more unbecoming an +artist, more becoming a fish-wife, than his description of Lochner's +picture of the Virgin: "The neck of a heifer, and flesh like cream or +hasty-pudding, that quivers when it is touched;" or of the picture of +St. Ursula's companions, by the same hand: "Their squab noses poking out +of bladders of lard that did duty for their faces;" not to speak of the +characterization of a "Sacred Heart" too revolting to reproduce? Surely +when, after having reviled M. Tissot almost personally, he describes his +works as painted with "muck, wine-sauce, and mud," it is difficult not +to answer with a _tu quoque_ as far as this word-painting is +concerned--difficult not to see here some morbid and "frightful appetite +for the hideous" struggling with the healthy appetite for better things. + +However lame and ridiculous an artist's utterance may be, yet there is a +certain reverence sometimes due to what he is endeavouring to say, and +even to his desire to say it. We do not think it very witty or tasteful +or charitable to laugh at a man because he stammers; still less do we +overwhelm him with the coarsest abuse. One may well shudder at most +presentments of the Sacred Heart, but even apart from all consideration +for the artist, a certain reverence for the idea there travestied and +unintentionally dishonoured, should forbid our insulting what after all +is so nearly related to that idea, and in the eyes of the untaught very +closely identified with it. + +But an occasional trespass of this kind, however offensive, is not +enough to detract materially from the value of so much that is +meritorious; nor again will that outspoken treatment of delicate topics +(less observable in _The Cathedral_ than in _En Route_), which makes the +book undesirable for many classes of readers, prevent its due +appreciation on the part of others--unless we are going to put the +Sacred Scriptures on the Index. In this vexed question, M. Huysman takes +what seems the more robust and healthy view, but he appears to be quite +unaware how many difficulties it involves; and consequently lashes out +with his usual intemperance against the contrary tradition, which is +undeniably well represented. It is not as though the advocates of the +"flight" policy in regard to temptations against this particular virtue +were ignorant of the general principle which undoubtedly holds as +regards all other temptations, and bids us turn and face the dog that +barks at our heels. This counsel is as old as the world. But from the +earliest time a special exception has been made to it in the one case of +impurity by those who have professedly spoken in the light of experience +rather than of _à priori_ inference. Both views are encompassed with +difficulty, nor does any compromise suggest itself. + +What seems to us one of the most interesting points raised by the story +of Durtal's spiritual re-birth and development is the precise relation +between the Catholic religion and fine art. + +God has not chosen to save men by logic; so neither has He chosen to +save them by fine art. If the "election" of the Apostolic Church counted +but few scribes or philosophers among its members--and those few +admitted almost on sufferance--we may also be sure that the followers of +the Galilean fishermen were not as a body distinguished by a fastidious +criticism in matters of fine art. In after ages, when the Church +asserted herself and moulded a civilization more or less in accordance +with her own exigencies and ideals, it is notorious how she made +philosophy and art her own, and subjected them to her service; but +whether in so doing she in any way departed from the principles of +Apostolic times is what interests us to understand. + +There is certainty no more unpardonable fallacy than that of "Bible +Christians," who assume that the Church in the Apostolic age had reached +its full expansion and expression, and therefore in respect of polity, +liturgy, doctrinal statement and discipline must be regarded as an +immutable type for all ages and countries; from which all departure is +necessarily a corruption. They take the flexible sapling and compare it +with aged knotty oak, and shake their heads over the lamentable +unlikeness: "That this should be the natural outgrowth of that! _O +tempora, O mores!_" + +Like every organism, in its beginning, the Church was soft-bodied and +formless in all these respects; but she had within her the power of +fashioning to herself a framework suited to her needs, of assuming +consistency and definite shape in due time. The old bottles would not +serve to hold the new wine, but this did not mean that new bottles were +not to be sought. Because the philosophy, the art, the polity of the age +in which she was born were already enlisted in the service of other +ideas and inextricably associated with error in the minds of men, it was +needful for her at first to dissociate herself absolutely from the use +of instruments otherwise adaptable in many respects to her own ends, and +to wait till she was strong enough to alter them and use them without +fear of scandal and misinterpretation. + +The Church is many-tongued; but though she can deliver her message in +any language, yet she is not for that reason independent of language in +general. There is no way to the human ear and heart but through language +of some kind or another. It is not her mission to teach languages, but +to use the languages she finds to hand for the expression of the truths, +the facts, the concrete realities to which her dogmas point. This does +not deny that one language may not be more flexible, more graphic than +any other, more apt to express the facts of Heaven as well as those of +earth. It only denies that any one is absolutely and exclusively the +best. + +It is no very great violence to include rhetoric, music, painting, +sculpture, architecture, ritual, and every form of decorative art in the +category of language and to bring them under the same general laws, +since even philosophy may to a large extent be treated in the same way. +Christ has not commissioned His Church to teach science or philosophy, +nor has He given her an infallible _magisterium_ in matters of fine art. +She uses what she finds in use and endeavours with the imperfect +implements, the limited colours, the coarse materials at her disposal to +make the picture of Christ and His truth stand out as faithful to +reality as possible; and--to press the illustration somewhat crudely--as +what is rightly black, in a study in black and white, may be quite +wrongly black in polychrome; so what the Church approves according to +one convention, she may condemn according to another. May we not apply +to her what Durtal says of our Lady: "She seems to have come under the +semblance of every race known to the middle ages; black as an African, +tawny as a Mongolian;"--"she unveils herself to the children of the soil +... these beings with their rough-hewn feelings, their shapeless ideas, +hardly able to express themselves"? The more we study the visions and +apparitions with which saints have been favoured and the revelations +which have been vouchsafed to them, the more evident is it that they are +spoken to in their own language, appealed to through their own imagery. +Indeed, were it not so, how could they understand? Our Lady is the +all-beautiful for every nation, but the type of human beauty is not the +same for all. The Madonna of the Ethiopian might be a rather terrifying +apparition in France or Italy. + +There is no art too rough or primitive, or even too vulgar, for the +Church to disdain, if it offers the only medium of conveying her truth +to certain minds. Though custom has made it classical, her liturgical +language, whether Latin or Greek, when first assumed, was that of the +mob--about as elegant as we consider the dialects of the peasantry. She +did not use plain-chaunt for any of those reasons which antiquarians and +ecclesiologists urge in its favour now-a-days, but because it was the +only music then in vogue. Even to-day the breeziest popular melodies in +the East are suggestive of the _Oratio Jeremiæ_. Her vestments (even +Gothic vestments!) were once simply the "Sunday best" of the fashion of +those days. If to-day these things have a different value and +excellence, it is in obedience to the law by which what is "romantic" in +one age becomes "classical" in the next, or what is at first useful and +commonplace becomes at last ceremonial and symbolic; and by which the +common tongue of the vulgar comes by mere process of time to be archaic +and stately. To "create" ancient custom and ritual on a sudden, or to +resuscitate abruptly that which has lapsed into oblivion, is, to say the +least, a very Western idea, akin to the pedantry of trying to restore +Chaucer's English to common use. _Nascitur non fit_, is the law in all +such matters. + +While we assert the Church's independence of any one in particular of +these means of self-expression, her indifference to style and mode of +speech so long as substantial fidelity is secured, we must not deny that +some of them are, of their own nature, more apt to her purpose than +others and allow a fuller revelation of her sense; and that in +proportion as her influence is strong in the world she tends to modify +human thought and language, to leaven philosophy and fine art, so as to +form by a process of selection and refusal, and in some measure even to +create, an ever richer and more flexible medium of utterance. + +In this sense we can with some caution speak of "Catholic art" in music, +architecture, and painting, so far, that is, as we can determine the +extent and nature of the Church's action, and therefore the tendency of +her influence in the way of stimulus and restraint with regard to +subject and treatment. We do not unjustly discern an author's style as a +personal element distinct from the language and phraseology of which no +item is his own. The manner in which he uses that language, his +selections and refusals make, in union with the borrowed elements, a +tongue that may be called his, in an exclusive sense. The Church, too, +has her style, which, though difficult to discern amid her use of a +Pentecostal variety of languages, is no doubt always the same--at least +in tendency. + +Salvation-Army worship is certainly not of the Church's style, but I do +not think, were there no absolute irreverence and scandal to be feared, +that she would hesitate to use such a language, were it the only one +understood by such a people. St. Francis Xavier's "catechisms" were +often hardly less uncouth. Still, her whole tendency would be towards +restraint, order, and exterior reverence. Again, the stoical coldness +and formalism of a liturgical worship, centered round no soul-stirring +mystery of Divine love where there can be feeling so strong as to need +the restraint of liturgy and ritual, has still less of the Church's +style about it. For she is human, not merely in her reason and +self-restraint, but in the fulness of her passion and enthusiasm; and +restraint is only beautiful and needful where there is something to +restrain. + +We are now in a position to consider the surface objection that will +present itself to many a reader concerning Durtal's conversion. "He has +been converted," it will be said, "by a fallacy. He has identified the +Catholic religion with the cause of plain-chaunt and Gothic +architecture, and of all that is, or that he considers to be, best in +art. He has laid hold not of Catholicism, but of its merest accessories, +which it might shake off any day, and him along with them. Indeed, he +scarcely makes any pretence at being in sympathy with the Catholicism of +to-day, which he regards as almost entirely philistine and degenerate, +if we except La Trappe and Solesmes and a few other corners where the +old observances linger on. 'It was so ugly, so painfully adorned with +images, that only by shutting his eyes could Durtal endure to remain in +Notre Dame de la Brèche.' Yes, but what sort of convert is this who is +so insensible to substantials, so morbidly sensitive about mere +accidentals? We come to the Church for the true faith and the +sacraments, not for 'sensations.' In fine, Durtal has not observed the +route prescribed by the apologetics for reaching the door of the +sheep-fold, but has climbed over in his own way, like a thief and a +robber; he has not (as a recent critic says of him) _tombé entre les +bras maternals de l'Eglise selon toutes les régles_." + +Without for a moment denying one of the legitimate claims of scientific +apologetic, we may at once dismiss the idea that it pretends to +represent a process through which the mind of the convert to +Christianity either does or ought necessarily to pass. Its sole purport +is to show that if it is not always possible to synthetize Christianity +with the current philosophy, science, and history of the day, at least +no want of harmony can be positively demonstrated. As secular beliefs +and opinions are continually shifting, so too apologetic needs continual +adjustment: and as that of a century back is useless to us now, so will +ours be in many ways inadequate a century hence. It is fitting for the +Church at large that she should in each age and country have a suitable +apologetic, taking cognizance of the latest developments of profane +knowledge. It is needful for her public honour in the eyes of the world +that she should not seem to be in contradiction with truth, but that +either the apparent truth should be proved questionable, or else that +her own teaching should be shown to be compatible with it. But in no +sense is such apologetic always a necessity for the individual, still +less a safe or adequate basis for a solid conversion, which in that case +would be shaken by every new difficulty unthought of before. + +Our subjective faith in the Church must be like the faith of the +disciples of Christ, an entirely personal relation; an act of implicit +trust based on no lean argument or chain of reasoning, but on the +irresistible spell, the overmastering impression created upon us by a +character manifested in life, action, speech, even in manner; as +impossible to state in its entirety and as impossible to doubt as are +our reasons for loving or loathing, for trusting or fearing. + +No doubt we hear of men of intellect and learning "reading" or +"reasoning" themselves into the Church; but others as able have read and +reasoned along the same line, and yet have not come; for in truth, +reason at the most can set free a force of attraction created by motives +other than reason. + +What this attraction is in each case is impossible to specify +accurately--"Ask me and I know not," one might say, "do not ask me and I +know." Each soul is hooked with its own bait, called by its own name, +drawn in its own way; and as the attractiveness of Christ is virtually +infinite in its multiformity, so is that of His Church, nor is there a +more unpardonable narrowness than that of insisting that others shall be +drawn in the same way as we ourselves, or not at all. + +Let it also be noticed that a very prolonged and minute intimacy is not +always necessary in order that we should feel the spell of personality. +Much depends on our own gifts of sympathy, insight and apprehension, on +the simplicity and strength of the personality in question, on the +nature of the incidents by which it is disclosed to us. We know one man +in a moment, another only after years of intimacy, while others in +regard to the same individuals might experience the converse. We must +not then suppose that because in one case the impression is the result +of slowly-accumulated observations, and in another the work of an +instant, it is less trustworthy in the latter instance than in the +former. It may be, or it may not be. St. Augustine needed years to feel +the spell that one word, nay, one glance from Christ cast upon St. +Peter. Nor again is it always in some striking and notable crisis that a +character reveals itself abruptly, but often in the merest nuance--a +manner, an intonation, something quite unintentional, unpremeditated. We +know well, if we know ourselves at all, how irresistible is the +impression created on us at times by such trifles, and yet how more than +reasonable it often is. + +Who shall say, then, that to an eye and heart attuned to quick sympathy, +any indication is too small to betray the inward spirit and character of +the Catholic Church, or to magnetize a soul and render it restless, +until it obeys her attraction and rests in union with her? + +To a sensitively artistic temperament such as Durtal's, the indications +of the Church's "style," revealed in her influence upon art, in her +creations, in her selections and refusals, would be eloquent of her +whole character and ethos; it would be to him what the very tone of +Christ's voice was to the Baptist, or what His glance was to Peter, or +what His silence was to Pilate. We have known too many instances of +deep-seated and entire conviction, based on seemingly as little or less, +to wish for one moment to indulge in any foolish rationalizing or to +question the possibility or probability of God's drawing souls to +Himself by such methods. + +We must, however, remember that it is not merely by the Church's +mediæval art that Durtal is attracted, but still more by that mysticism +which created it, and by which it was served and fostered in return. +Mysticism must necessarily excite the sympathy of one who is in devout +pursuit of the highest and most spiritual forms of æsthetic beauty. +Whatever be the long-sought and never-to-be-forgotten definition of the +Beautiful, of this much at least a mere process of induction will assure +us, that men count things beautiful in the measure that they are +released from the grossness, formlessness, and heaviness of matter, and +by their delicacy, shapeliness, and unearthliness, betray the influence +of that principle which is everywhere in conflict with matter and is +called spirit. Man at his best is most at home, where at his worst he is +least at home, namely, in the world of those super-realities which are +touched and felt by the soul, but refuse to be pictured or spoken in the +language of the five senses. A hard, "common-sense," labour-and-wages +religion, such as is consonant with the utilitarianism of a commercial +civilization, could never appeal to a temperament like Durtal's. + +Doubtless Catholic Christianity admits of being apprehended under the +narrower and grosser aspect, which however inadequate and unworthy, is +not absolutely false. The Jews were suffered to believe not merely that +God rewards the just and punishes the wicked--which is eternally +true--but that He does so in this life, which is true only with +qualification; and that He rewards them with temporal prosperity and +adversity--which is hardly true at all. Catholic truth, in itself the +same, can only be received according to the recipient's capacity and +sensitiveness. What one age or country is alive to, another may be dead +to; nor can we pretend that here all is progress and no regress, unless +we are prepared to say that in no respect have we anything to learn from +the past. The Ignatian meditation on the "Kingdom of Christ" evoked +heroic response in an age impregnated with the sentiments of chivalry, +but to-day it needs to be adapted to a great extent, and some have +vainly hoped to gather grapes from a thistle by substituting a parable +drawn from some soul-stirring commercial enterprise--a colossal +speculation in cheese. + +Whatever signs there may be of a reaction, yet the whole temper and +spirit of our age is unfavourable to that mysticism which is the very +choicest flower of the Catholic religion. The blame is not with the +seed, but with the soil. Even where least of all we should look for such +indifference, among those who have built up the sepulchres and shrines +of the great masters of mysticism, we sometimes observe a profound +distrust for what is esteemed an unpractical, unhealthy kind of piety, +while every preference is given to what is definite and tangible in the +way of little methods and industries, multitudinous practices, lucrative +prayers, in a word, to what a critic already quoted describes as _les +petitesses des cerveaux étroits et les anguleuses routines_. [3] + +It is one of the narrownesses of Durtal himself to ascribe all this to +the wilful perversity of a person or persons unknown, and not to see in +it the inevitable result of the vulgarizing tendency of modern life upon +the masses. Things being as they are, surely it is better that the +Church should do the little she can than do nothing at all. The +"meditative mind" is incompatible with the rush and worry of a busy +life, especially where educational methods substitute information for +reflection, and so kill the habit, and eventually the faculty, of +thought in so many cases. But if the higher prayer is impossible, the +lower is possible and profitable. Again, if the liturgical sense has in +a great measure become extinct among the faithful owing to the +unavoidable disuse of the public celebration of the Church's worship, it +is well that they should be allowed devotions accommodated to their +limited capacity. As the Church would never dream of expecting a keen +sympathy with her higher dogmas, her mystical piety, her artistic +symbolism, her transcendent liturgy, on the part of a newly-converted +tribe of savages, so neither is she impatient with the civilized +Philistine, but is willing to speak to him in a language all his own, +hoping indeed to tune his tongue one day to something less uncouth. None +can sympathize more cordially than the writer does with Durtal in his +horror of unauthorized devotions, of insufferable vernacular litanies, +of nerveless and sickly hymns, of interminable "acts of consecration" +void of a single definite idea, more especially when these things are +brought into the very sanctuary itself, with stole and cope and every +apparent endeavour to fix the responsibility on the Universal Church. +But if the Church is willing to go in rags to save those who are in +rags, she is only using her invariable economy. We know well the sort of +robe that befits her dignity, and no doubt it is this contrast that +makes the trial of her present humiliation more difficult for us to +bear. + +We do not for a moment allow that the difference between bad taste and +good is merely relative, or that a language or art which is externally +vulgar can ever be the adequate and appropriate expression of the +Catholic religion, whose tendency when unimpeded is ever to refine and +purify. But it is perhaps another narrowness to suppose that a reform +can only be effected by a return to the past, to mediæval symbolism and +music and architecture. No effort of the kind has ever met with more +than seeming success. What is consciously imitated from the past is not +the same as that natural growth which it imitates, and which was as +congenial to those days as it is uncongenial to ours. It is all the +difference between the Mass ceremonial in a Ritualist church and in a +Catholic church--the historical sense is violated in one case and +satisfied in the other. + +What is once really dead can never revive in the same form--at best we +get a cast from the dead face. No doubt the old music and the old +symbolism always will have a beauty of antiquity that can never belong +to the new; but it was not this beauty--the beauty of death, of autumn +leaves, that made them once popular, but the beauty of fresh green life +and flexibility. The effort to make antiquity popular is almost a +contradiction in terms. What we may hope for at most is an improvement +in the æsthetic tastes of the Catholic public which comes from freer and +healthier surroundings, from saner ideas and wider opportunities of +education and liberal culture. When they begin to speak a richer +language, the Church will take that language and find in it a fuller +expression of her mind than she can in the present _patois_; she will be +able again to say to them in other words, as yet unknown, what she said +to the middle ages in Gregorian chaunt and Gothic cathedral. She, who in +virtue of her Pentecostal gift of tongues, speaks in sundry times and +divers manners, may in due season find words as eloquent of her heart +and mind as those which she spoke to Durtal in the aisles of Chartres +and in the cadences of Solesmes. + +_July_, 1898. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: Introduction to Sordello.] + +[Footnote 2: _The Cathedral_. By M.T.K. Huysman. Translated by +Clare Bell.] + +[Footnote 3: R. P. Pacher, S.J., _De Dante à Verlaine_.] + + + +XIX. + + +TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. + +The paradoxes of one generation are the common-places of the next; what +the savants of to-day whisper in the ear, the Hyde Park orators of +to-morrow will bawl from their platforms. Moreover, it is just when its +limits begin to be felt by the critical, when its pretended +all-sufficingness can no longer be maintained, that a theory or +hypothesis begins to be popular with the uncritical and to work its +irrevocable ill-effects on the general mind. In this, as in many other +matters, the lower orders adopt the abandoned fashions of their betters, +though with less of the well-bred taste which sometimes in the latter +makes even absurdity graceful. In this way it has come to pass that at +the very moment in which a reaction against the irreligious or +anti-religious philosophy of a couple of generations ago is making +itself felt in the study, the spreading pestilence of negation and +unbelief has gained and continues to gain possession of the street. Some +fifty years ago religion and even Christianity, seemed to the sanguine +eyes of Catholics so firmly rooted in England that the recovery of the +country to their faith depended almost entirely on the settlement of the +Anglo-Roman controversy; to which controversy they accordingly devoted, +and, in virtue of the still unexhausted impetus of that effort, do still +devote their energies, almost exclusively. But together with a dawning +consciousness that times and conditions have considerably changed, there +is growing up in certain quarters a feeling that we too shall have to +make some modifications in order to adapt ourselves to the altered +circumstances. It is becoming increasingly evident that even could the +said Anglo-Roman controversy be settled by some argument so irresistibly +evident as to leave no _locus standi_ to the opponents of the Petrine +claims, yet the number of those Anglicans who admit the historical, +critical, philosophical, and theological assumptions upon which the +controversy is based and which are presumed as common ground, is so +small and dwindling that, were they all gained to the Church, we should +be still a "feeble folk" in the face of that tidal wave of unbelief +whose gathering force bids fair to sweep everything before it. Also the +lingering impression left from "Tractarian" days as to the intellectual +pre-eminence of the Catholicizing party in the Anglican Church, which +pre-eminence might make amends for their numerical insignificance, is +gradually giving way to the recognition of the sobering fact that at +present that party in no exclusive sense represents the cultivated +intellect of the country. It is no disrespect to that party to say that +while scholarship and intelligence are therein well represented by +scattered individuals, yet it is cumbered, like most religious movements +after they have streamed some distance from their source, with a +majority of those whose adhesion has little or no pretence to an +intellectual basis; and whose occasional accession to the Catholic +Church is almost entirely their own gain. + +To give the last decisive push to those who are already toppling over +the border-line that divides England from Rome, to reap and gather-in +the harvest already ripe for the sickle, is a useful, a necessary, and a +charitable work; one that calls for a certain kind of patient skill not +to be underestimated; but there is a wider and perhaps more fruitful +field whose soil is as yet scarcely broken. It may even be asserted with +only seeming paradox that the best religious intelligence of the country +is to be found in the camp of negation rather than in that of +affirmation; among Broad Churchmen, Nonconformists, Unitarians, and +Positivists, rather than among those who seek rest in the unstable +position of a modified Catholicism. The very instability and difficulty +of that position elicits much ingenuity from its theological defenders, +though it also divides their counsels not a little; nor do we quarrel +with them for affirming instead of denying, but for not affirming +enough. But this attempt at compromise, this midway abortion of the +natural growth of an idea, even were it justifiable as sometimes happens +when legitimate issues are obscured through failure of evidence, repels +the great multitude of religious thinkers who are not otherwise +sufficiently drawn towards Catholicism to care to examine these claims. +To say that there is no logical alternative between Rome and Agnosticism +is a sufficiently shallow though popular sophism. At most it means that +from certain given premisses one or other of those conclusions must +follow syllogistically--a statement that would be more interesting were +the said premisses indisputable and admitted by all the world. Still it +may be allowed that a criticism of these premisses, which is a third +alternative, opens up to religious thought a number of roads, all of +which lead away from, rather than towards the extreme Anglican position, +and hence that the more searching religious intelligence of the country +is as adverse to that position--and for the same reasons--as it is to +our own. And by the "religious intelligence" I mean all that +intelligence that is interested in the religious problem; be that +interest hostile or friendly; be it, in its issue, negative or +constructive. For it must not be forgotten that the enemies of a truth +are as interested in it as its friends; or that the friendliest +interest, the strongest "wish to believe," may at times issue in +reluctant negation. So far then as the great mass of religious +intelligence in this country is not "Anglo-Catholic" in its sympathies; +and so far as it is chiefly on the "Anglo-Catholic" section that we make +any perceptible impression, the conversion of England, for what depends +on our own efforts, does not seem to be as imminent a contingency as it +would appear to be in the eyes of those foreign critics for whom Lord +Halifax is the type of every English Churchman and the English Church +co-extensive with the nation--save for a small irreclaimable residue of +Liberals and Freemasons. + +Those who, influenced by such considerations, would have us extend our +efforts from the narrowing circle of Anglo-Catholicism to the +ever-widening circle of doubt and negation, are not always clear about +the practically important distinction to be drawn between the active +leaders of doubt, and those who are passively led; the more or less +independent few, and the more or less dependent many; between the man of +the study and the man of the street--a distinction analogous to that +between the _Ecclesia docens_ and _Ecclesia discens_, and which +permeates every well-established school of belief, whether historical, +ethical, political, or religious. + +Dealing first with the latter, that is, with those who are led; we are +becoming more explicitly conscious of the fact that in all departments +of knowledge and opinion the beliefs of the many are not determined by +reasoning from premisses, but by the authority of reputed specialists in +the particular matter, or else by the force of the general consent of +those with whom they dwell. There may be other non-rational causes of +belief, but these are the principal and more universal. And when we say +they are non-rational causes, we do not mean that they are +non-reasonable or unreasonable. They provide such a generally +trustworthy, though occasionally fallible, method of getting at truth, +as is sufficient and possible for the practical needs of life--social, +moral, and religious. There is an inborn instinct to think as the crowd +does and to be swayed by the confident voice of authority. If at times +it fail of its end, as do other instincts, yet it is so trustworthy in +the main that to resist it in ordinary conditions is always imprudent. +That our eyes sometimes deceive us would not justify us in always +distrusting their evidence. If a child is deceived through instinctively +trusting the word of its parents, the blame of its error rests with +them, not with it. And so, whatever error the many are led into by +obeying the instinct of submission to authority or to general consent, +is their misfortune, not their fault. Of course there are higher +criteria by which the general consent and the opinion of experts can be +criticized and modified; but such criticism is not obligatory on the +many who have neither leisure nor competence for the task. For here, as +elsewhere, a certain diversity of gifts results in a natural division of +labour in human society; those who have, giving to those who have not; +some ministering spiritual, others temporal benefits to their +neighbours. Not that a man can save another's soul for him any more than +he can eat his dinner for him, but he can minister to him better food or +worse. + +The Mussulman child, then, may be bound, during his intellectual +minority, to accept the religious teaching of its parents, just as is +the Christian child. That one, in obeying this natural but fallible +rule, is led into error, the other into, truth, only verifies the +principle that right faith is a gift of God,--a grace, a bit of good +fortune. None of those who are not professedly teachers of religion and +experts, can be morally bound to a criticism above their competence, or +to more than an obedience to those ordinary causes of assent to whose +influence they are subjected by their circumstances. The ideal of a +Catholic religion is to provide, by means of a divinely guided body of +authorities and experts, an universal, international, inter-racial +consensus regarding truths that are as obscure as they are vital to +individual and social happiness; and thus to afford a means of sure and +easy guidance to those uncritical multitudes whose necessary +preoccupations forbid their engaging in theology and controversy. This +ideal was sufficiently realized for practical purposes in the "ages of +faith," when the whole public opinion of Europe, then believed to be +coterminous with civilization, was Catholic; when dissent needed as much +independence of character, as in so many places, profession does now. +And surely it is a narrow-hearted criticism to prefer the primitive +conditions in which none but those strong enough to face persecution +could reap the benefits of Christianity. The weak and dependent are ever +the majority, and if Christianity had been intended to pass them by or +sift them out, "its province were not large," nor could it claim to be +the religion of humanity. The Christian leaven was never meant to be +kept apart, but to be hidden and lost in that unleavened mass which it +seeks slowly to transform into its own nature. The majority, in respect +to religion and civilization, are like unwilling school-boys who need to +be coerced for their own benefit, to be kept to their work till they +learn (if they ever do) to like it, and to need no more coercion. The +support that Catholic surroundings give to numbers, who else were too +weak to stand alone, cannot be overvalued, although it may weaken a few +who else had exerted themselves more strenuously, or may foster +hypocrisy in secret unbelievers who would like to, but dare not +withstand public opinion. + +Now it is the gradual decay of this support--of this non-rational yet +most reasonable cause of belief, that is rendering the religious +condition of the man in the street so increasingly unsatisfactory. Not +only is there no longer an agreement of experts, and a consequent +consensus of nations, touching the broad and fundamental truths of +Christianity, but what is far more to the point, the knowledge of this +Babylonian confusion has become a commonplace with the multitudes. No +doubt there are yet some shaded patches where the dew still struggles +with the desiccating sun--old-world sanctuaries of Catholicism whose +dwellers hardly realize the existence of unbelief or heresy, or who give +at best a lazy, notional assent to the fact. But there are few regions +in so-called Christendom where the least educated are not now quite +aware that Christianity is but one of many religions in a much larger +world than their forefathers were aware of; that the intellect of +modern, unlike that of mediæval Europe, is largely hostile to its +claims; that its defenders are infinitely at variance with one another; +that there is no longer any social disgrace connected with a +non-profession of Christianity; in a word, that the public opinion of +the modern world has ceased to be Christian, and that the once +all-dominating religion which blocked out the serious consideration of +any other claimant, bids fair to be speedily reduced to its primitive +helplessness and insignificance. The disintegrating effect of such +knowledge on the faith of the masses must be, and manifestly is, simply +enormous. Not that there is any rival consensus and authority to take +the place of dethroned Catholicism. Even scepticism is too little +organized and embodied, too chaotic in its infinite variety of +contradictory positions, to create an influential consensus of any +positive kind against faith. Its effect, as far as the unthinking masses +are concerned, is simply to destroy the chief extrinsic support of their +faith and to throw them back on the less regular, less reliable causes +of belief. If in addition it teaches them a few catchwords of +free-thought, a few smart blasphemies and syllogistic impertinences, +this is of less consequence than at first sight appears, since these are +attempted after-justifications, and no real causes of their unbelief. +For they love the parade of formal reason, as they love big words or +technical terms, or a smattering of French or Latin, with all the +delight of a child in the mysterious and unfamiliar; but their pretence +to be ruled by it is mere affectation, and the tenacity with which they +cling to their arguments is rather the tenacity of blind faith in a +dogma, than of clear insight into principles. + +And this brings us to the problem which gave birth to the present essay. + +The growing infection of the uneducated or slightly educated masses of +the Catholic laity with the virus of prevalent unbelief is arousing the +attention of a few of our clergy to the need of coping with what is to +them a new kind of difficulty. Amongst other kindred suggestions, is +that of providing tracts for the million dealing not as heretofore with +the Protestant, but with the infidel controversy. While the danger was +more limited and remote it was felt that, more harm than good would come +of giving prominence in the popular mind to the fact and existence of so +much unbelief; that in many minds doubts unfelt before would be +awakened; that difficulties lay on the surface and were the progeny of +shallow-mindedness, whereas the solutions lay deeper down than the +vulgar mind could reasonably be expected to go; that on the whole it was +better that the few should suffer, than that the many should be +disturbed. The docile and obedient could be kept away from contagion, or +if infected, could be easily cured by an act of blind confidence in the +Church; while the disobedient would go their own way in any case. Hence +the idea of entering into controversy with those incompetent to deal +with such matters was wisely set aside. But now that the prevalence and +growth of unbelief is as evident as the sun at noon--now that it is no +longer only the recalcitrant and irreligious, but even the religious and +docile-minded who are disturbed by the fact, it seems to some that, a +policy of silence and inactivity may be far more fruitful in evil than +in good, that reverent reserve must be laid aside and the pearls of +truth cast into the trough of popular controversy. + +But to this course an almost insuperable objection presents itself at +first seeming. Seeing that, the true cause of doubt and unbelief in the +uncritical, is to be sought for proximately in the decay of a popular +consensus in favour of belief, and ultimately in the disagreements and +negations of those who lead and form public opinion, and in no wise in +the reasons which they allege when they attempt a criticism that is +beyond them; what will it profit to deal with the apparent cause if we +cannot strike at the real cause? In practical matters, the reasons men +give for their conduct, to themselves as well as to others, are often +untrue, never exhaustive. Hence to refute their reasons will not alter +their intentions. To dispel the sophisms assigned by the uneducated as +the basis of their unbelief, is not really to strike at the root of the +matter at all. Besides which, the work is endless; for if they are +released from one snare they will be as easily re-entangled in the next; +and indeed what can such controversy do but foster in them the false +notion that, belief in possession may be dispossessed by every passing +difficulty, and that their faith is to be dependent on an intellectual +completeness of which they are for ever incapable. Indeed the +unavoidable amount of controversy of all kinds, dinned into the ears of +the faithful in a country like this, favours a fallacy of +intellectualism very prejudicial to the repose of a living faith founded +on concrete reasons, more or less experimental. + +As far as the many are concerned, much the same difficulty attends the +preservation of their faith in these days, as attended its creation in +the beginnings of Christianity, before the little flock had grown into a +kingdom, when the intellect and power of the world was arrayed against +it, when it had neither the force of a world-wide consensus nor the +voice of public authority in its favour. In those days it was not by the +"persuasive words of human wisdom" that the crowds were gained over to +Christ, but by a certain _ostensio virtutis_, by an experimental and not +merely by a rational proof of the Gospel--a proof which, if it admitted +of any kind of formulation, did not compel them in virtue of the +logicality of its form. Further, when the conditions and helps needed by +the Church in her infancy, gave way to those belonging to her +established strength, it was by her ascendency over the strong, the +wealthy, and the learned, that she secured for the crowd,--for the weak +and the poor and the ignorant,--the most necessary support of a +Christianized, international public opinion, and thereby extended the +benefit of her educative influence to those millions whom disinclination +or weakness would otherwise have deterred from the profession and +practice of the faith. + +If the Church of to-day is to retain her hold of the crowd in modernized +or modernizing countries, it must either be by renewing her ascendency +over those who form and modify public opinion, who even in the purest +democracy are ever the few and not the many; or else by a reversion to +the methods of primitive times, by some palpable argument that speaks as +clearly to the simplest as to the subtlest, if only the heart be right. +An outburst of miracle-working and prophecy is hardly to be looked for; +while the argument from the tree's fruits, or from the moral miracle, is +at present weakened by the extent to which non-Christians put in +practice the morality they have learnt from Christ. Other non-rational +causes of belief draw individuals, but they do not draw crowds. + +If we cannot see very clearly what is to supply for the support once +given to the faith of the millions by public opinion, still their +incapacity for dealing with the question on rational grounds will not +justify us altogether in silence. For in the first place it is an +incapacity of which they are not aware, or which at least they are very +unwilling to admit. A candidate at the hustings would run a poor chance +of a hearing who, instead of seeming to appeal to the reason of the mob +should, in the truthfulness of his soul, try to convince them of their +utter incompetence to judge the simplest political point. Again, though +unable to decide between cause and cause, yet the rudest can often see +that there is much to be said on both sides--though what, he does not +understand; and if this fact weakens his confidence in the right, it +also weakens it in the wrong; whereas had the right been silent, the +wrong, in his judgment, would thereby have been proved victorious. This +will justify us at times in talking over the heads of our readers and +hearers, and in not sparing sonorous polysyllables, abstruse +technicalities, or even the pompous parade of syllogistic arguments with +all their unsightly joints sticking out for public admiration. Some +hands may be too delicate for this coarse work; but there will always be +those to whom it is easy and congenial; and its utility is too evident +to allow a mere question of taste to stand in the way. + +Moreover, it must be remembered that while many of the class referred to +are glad to be free from the pressure of a Christianized public opinion, +and are only too willing to grasp at any semblance of a reason for +unbelief; others, more religiously disposed, are really troubled by +these popular, anti-Christian difficulties, the more so as they are +often infected with the fallacy, fostered by ceaseless controversy, +which makes one's faith dependent on the formal reason one can give for +it. + +Though this is not so, yet moral truthfulness forbids us to assent to +what we, however falsely, believe to be untrue. Hence while the virtue +of faith remains untouched, its exercise with regard to particular +points may be inculpably suspended through ignorance, stupidity, +misinformation, and other causes. + +In the interest of these well-disposed but easily puzzled believers of +the ill-instructed and uncritical sort, a series of anti-agnostic tracts +for the million would really seem to be called for. Yet never has the +present writer felt more abjectly crushed with a sense of incompetence +than when posed by the difficulties of a "hagnostic" greengrocer, or of +a dressmaker fresh from the perusal of "Erbert" Spencer. Face to face +with chaos, one knows not where to begin the work of building up an +orderly mind; nor will the self-taught genius brook a hint of possible +ignorance, or endure the discussion of dull presuppositions, without +much pawing of the ground and champing on the bit: "What I want," he +says, "is a plain answer to a plain question." And when you explain to +him that for an answer he must go back very far and become a little +child again, and must unravel his mind to the very beginning like an +ill-knit stocking, he looks at once incredulous and triumphant as who +should say: "There, I told you so!" Yet the same critical incompetence +that makes these simple folk quite obtuse to the true and adequate +solution of their problems (I am speaking of cases where such solutions +are possible), makes them perfectly ready to accept any sort of +counter-sophistry or paralogism. A most excellent and genuine "convert" +of that class told me that he had stood out for years against the +worship of the Blessed Virgin, till one day it had occurred to him that, +as a cause equals or exceeds its effect, so the Mother must equal the +Son. Another, equally genuine, professed to have been conquered by the +reflection that he had all his life been saying: "I believe in the Holy +Catholic Church," and he could not see the use of believing in it if he +didn't belong to it. If their faith in Catholicism or in any other +religion depended on their logic, men of this widespread class were in a +sorry plight. Like many of their betters, these two men probably +imagined the assigned reasons to be the entire cause of their +conversion, making no account of the many reasonable though non-logical +motives by which the change was really brought about. Hence to have +abruptly and incautiously corrected them, would perhaps but have been to +reduce them to confusion and perplexity, and to "destroy with one's +logic those for whom Christ died." + +That we do not sufficiently realize the dialectical incompetence of the +uneducated is partly to be explained by the fact that they often get +bits of reasoning by rote, much as young boys learn their Euclid; and +that they frequently seem to understand principles because they apply +them in the right cases, just as we often quote a proverb appropriately +without the slightest idea of its origin or meaning beyond that it is +the right thing to say in a certain connection. As we ascend in the +scale of education, there is more and more of this reasoning by rote, so +that critical incompetence is more easily concealed and may lurk +unsuspected even in the pulpit and the professorial chair, where logic +alone seems paramount. The "hagnostic" greengrocer, in all the +self-confidence of his ignorance, is but the lower extreme of a class +that runs up much higher in the social scale and spreads out much wider +in every direction. + +But when we have realized more adequately how hopelessly incompetent the +multitude must necessarily be in the problems of specialists, we shall +also see that it is only by inadequate and even sophistical reasoning +that most of their intellectual difficulties can be allayed; that the +full truth (and the half-truth is mostly a lie) would be Greek to them. +If, then, _Tracts for the Million_ seem a necessity, they also seem an +impossibility; for what self-respecting man will sit down to weave that +tissue of sophistry, special-pleading, violence, and vulgarity, which +alone will serve the practical purpose with those to whom trenchency is +everything and subtlety nothing? Even though the means involve a +violation of taste rather than of morals, yet can they be justified by +the goodness of the end? Fortunately, however, the difficulty is met by +a particular application of God's universal method in the education of +mankind. In every grade of enlightenment there are found some who are +sufficiently in advance of the rest to be able to help them, and not so +far in advance as practically to speak a different language. What is a +dazzling light for those just emerging from darkness, is darkness for +those in a yet stronger light. A statement may be so much less false +than another, as to be relatively true; so much less true than a third, +as to be relatively false. For a mind wholly unprepared, the full truth +is often a light that blinds and darkness; whereas the tempered +half-truth prepares the way for a fuller disclosure in due time, even as +the law and the prophets prepared the way for the Gospel and Christ, or +as the enigmas of faith school us to bear that light which now no man +can gaze on and live. Thus, though we may never use a lie in the +interest of truth, or bring men from error by arguments we know to be +sophistical, yet we have the warrant of Divine example, both in the +natural and supernatural education of mankind, for the passive +permission of error in the interest of truth, as also of evil in the +interest of good. Since then there will ever be found those who in all +good faith and sincerity can adapt themselves to the popular need and +supply each level of intelligence with the medicine most suited to its +digestion, all we ask is that a variety of standards in controversial +writings be freely recognized; that each who feels called to such +efforts should put forth his very best with a view to helping those +minds which are likest his own; that none should deliberately condescend +to the use of what from his point of view would be sophistries and +vulgarities, remembering at the same time that the superiority of his +own taste and judgment is more relative than absolute, and that in the +eyes of those who come after, he himself may be but a Philistine. + +We conclude then that all that can be done in the way of _Tracts for the +Million_ should be done; that seed of every kind should be scattered to +the four winds, hoping that each may find some congenial soil. + +But even when all that can be done in this way to save the masses from +the contagion of unbelief has been done, we shall be as far as ever from +having found a substitute for the support which formerly was lent to +their faith by a Christianized public opinion. Can we hope for anything +more than thus to retard the leakage? The answer to this would take us +to the second of our proposed considerations, namely, our attitude +towards those who form and modify that public opinion by which the +masses are influenced for good or for evil. But it is an answer which +for the present must be deferred. [1] + +_Nov._ 1900. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: The Introduction to the First Series of these essays +attempts to deal with this further question.] + + + +XX. + + +AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. + + + "A man that could look no way but downwards, with a + muck-rake in his hand" and "did neither look up nor regard, + but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and the dust + of the floor.... Then said Christiana, 'Oh, deliver me + from this muck-rake.'"--Bunyan. + + +Naturalism includes various schools which agree in the first principle +that nothing is true but what can be justified by those axiomatic truths +which every-day experience forces upon our acceptance, not indeed as +self-evident, but as inevitable, unless we are to be incapacitated for +practical life. It is essentially the philosophy of the unphilosophical, +that is, of those who believe what they are accustomed to believe, and +because they are so accustomed; who are incapable of distinguishing +between the subjective necessity imposed by habits and the objective +necessity founded in the nature of things. It is no new philosophy, but +as old as the first dawn of philosophic thought, for it is the form +towards which the materialistic mind naturally gravitates. Given a +population sufficiently educated to philosophize in any fashion, and of +necessity the bent of the majority will be in the direction of some form +of Naturalism. Hence we find that the "Agnosticism" of Professor Huxley +is eminently suited to the capacity and taste of the semi-educated +majorities in our large centres of civilization. Still it must not be +supposed that the majority really philosophizes at all even to this +extent. The pressure of life renders it morally impossible. But they +like to think that they do so. The whole temper of mind, begotten and +matured by the rationalistic school, is self-sufficient: every man his +own prophet, priest, and king; every man his own philosopher. Hence, he +who poses as a teacher of the people will not be tolerated. The theorist +must come forward with an affectation of modesty, as into the presence +of competent critics; he must only expose his wares, win for himself a +hearing, and then humbly wait for the _placet_ of the sovereign people. +But plainly this is merely a conventional homage to a theory that no +serious mind really believes in. We know well enough, that the opinions +and beliefs of the multitude are formed almost entirely by tradition, +imitation, interest, by in fact any influence rather than that of pure +reason. Taught they are, and taught they must be, however they repudiate +it. But the most successful teachers and leaders are those who contrive +to wound their sense of intellectual self-sufficiency least, and to +offer them the strong food of dogmatic assertion sugared over and +sparkling with the show of wit and reason. + +Philosophy for the million may be studied profitably in one of its +popular exponents whose works have gained wide currency among the class +referred to. Mr. S. Laing is a very fair type of the average +mind-leader, owing his great success to his singular appreciation of the +kind of treatment needed to secure a favourable hearing. We do not +pretend to review Mr. Laing's writings for their own sake, but simply as +good specimens of a class which is historically rather than +philosophically interesting. + +We have before us three of his most popular books: _Modern Science and +Modern Thought_ (nineteenth thousand), _Problems of the Future_ +(thirteenth thousand), _Human Origins_ (twelfth thousand), to which we +shall refer as M.S., P.F., H.O., in this essay; taking the +responsibility of all italics on ourselves, unless otherwise notified. + +Mr. Laing is not regretfully forced into materialism by some mental +confusion or obscurity, but he revels in it, and invites all to taste +and see how gracious a philosophy it is. There is an ill-concealed +levity and coarseness in his handling of religious subjects which +breaks, + + At seasons, through the gilded pale, + +and which warns us from casting reasons before those who would but +trample them under foot. It is rather for the sake of those who read +such literature, imprudently perhaps, but with no sympathy, and yet find +their imagination perplexed and puzzled with a swarm of minute +sophistries and difficulties, collectively bewildering, though +contemptible singly, that we think it well to form some estimate of the +philosophical value of such works. + +Nothing in our study of Mr. Laing surprised us more than to discover [1] +that he had lived for more than the Scriptural span of three-score and +ten years, a life of varied fortunes and many experiences. It seems to +us incredible that any man of even average thoughtfulness could, after +so many years, find life without God, without immortality, without +definite meaning or assignable goal, "worth living," and that "to be +born in a civilized country in the nineteenth century is a boon for +which a man can never be sufficiently thankful." [2] [Thankful to whom? +one might ask parenthetically.] In other words, he is a bland optimist, +and has nothing but vials of contempt to pour upon the pessimists, from +Ecclesiastes down to Carlyle. Pessimism, we are told confidentially, is +not an outcome of just reasoning on the miserable residue of hope which +materialism leaves to us, but of the indisposition "of those digestive +organs upon which the sensation of health and well-being so mainly +depends." "It is among such men, with cultivated intellects, sensitive +nerves, and bad digestion, that we find the prophets and disciples of +pessimism." [3] The inference is, that men of uncultivated intellects, +coarse nerves, and ostrich livers will coincide with Mr. Laing in his +sanguine view of the ruins of religion. The sorrowing dyspeptic asks in +despair: "Son of man, thinkest thou that these dry bones will live +again?" "I'm cock-sure of it," answers Mr. Laing, and the ground of his +assurance is the healthiness of his liver. + +Carlyle, who in other matters is, according to Mr. Laing, a great +genius, a more than prophet of the new religion, on this point suddenly +collapses into "a dreadful croaker," styling his own age "barren, +brainless, soulless, faithless." [4] But the reason is, of course, that +"he suffered from chronic dyspepsia" and was unable "to eat his three +square meals a day." A very consistent explanation for an avowed +materialist, but slightly destructive to the value of his own +conclusions, being a two-edged sword. Indeed he almost allows as much. +"For such dyspeptic patients there is an excuse. Pessimism is probably +as inevitably their creed, as optimism is for the more fortunate mortals +who enjoy the _mens sana in corpore sano_." [5] However, there are some +pessimists for whom indigestion can plead no excuse, [6] but for whose +intellectual perversity some other cosmic influence must be sought +"behind the veil, behind the veil,"--to borrow Mr. Laing's favourite +line from his favourite poem. These are not only "social swells, +would-be superior persons and orthodox theologians, but even a man of +light and learning like Mr. F. Harrison." "Religion, they say, is +becoming extinct.... Without a lively faith in such a personal, +ever-present deity who listens to our prayers, ... there can be, they +say, no religion; and they hold, and I think rightly hold, that the only +support for such a religion is to be found in the assumed inspiration of +the Bible and the Divinity of Christ." "Destroy these and they think the +world will become vulgar and materialized, losing not only the surest +sanction of morals, but ... the spiritual aspiration and tendencies," &c. +[7] "To these gloomy forebodings I venture to return a positive and +categorical denial ... Scepticism has been the great sweetener of modern +life." [8] How he justifies his denial by maintaining that morality can +hold its own when reduced to a physical science; that the "result of +advancing civilization" and of the materialistic psychology is "a +clearer recognition of the intrinsic sacredness and dignity of every +human soul;" [9] that Christianity without dogma, without miracles [or, +as he calls it, "Christian agnosticism"], shall retain the essential +spirit, the pure morality, the consoling beliefs, and as far as possible +even the venerable form and sacred associations of the old faith, may +appear later. At present we are concerned directly with pointing out how +Mr. Laing's optimism at once marks him off from those men who, whether +believing or misbelieving or unbelieving, have thought deeply and felt +deeply, who have seen clearly that materialism leaves nothing for man's +soul but the husks of swine; who have therefore boldly faced the +inevitable alternative between spiritualistic philosophy and hope, and +materialism with its pessimistic corollary. That a man may be a +materialist or atheist and enjoy life thoroughly, who does not know? but +then it is just at the expense of his manhood, because he lives without +thought, reflection, or aspiration, _i.e.,_ materialistically. Mr. Laing +no doubt, as he confesses, has lived pleasantly enough. He has found in +what he calls science an endless source of diversion, he betrays himself +everywhere as a man of intense intellectual curiosity in every +direction, and yet withal so little concerned with the roots of things, +so easily satisfied with a little plausible coherence in a theory, as +not to have found truth an apparently stern or exacting mistress, not to +have felt the anguish of any deep mental conflict. His intellectual +labours have been pleasurable because easy, and, in his own eyes, +eminently fruitful and satisfactory. He has adopted an established +cause, thrown himself into it heart and soul; others indeed had gone +before him and laboured, and he has entered into their labours. Indeed, +he is frank in disclaiming all originality of discovery or theory; [10] +he has not risked the disappointment and anxiety of improving on the +Evolution Gospel, but he has collected and sorted and arranged and +published the evidence obtained by others. This has always furnished him +with an interest in life; [11] but whether it be a rational interest or +not depends entirely on the usefulness or hurtfulness of his work. He +admits, however, that though life for him has been worth living, "some +may find it otherwise from no fault of their own, more by their own +fate." [12] But all can lead fairly happy lives by following his +large-type platitudinous maxim, "Fear nothing, make the best of +everything." [13] In other words, the large majority, who are not and +never can be so easily and pleasantly circumstanced as Mr. Laing, are +told calmly to make the best of it and to rejoice in the thought that +their misery is a necessary factor in the evolution of their happier +posterity. This is the new gospel: _Pauperes evangelizantur_--"Good +news for the poor." [14] "Progress and not happiness" is the end we are +told to make for, over and over again; but, progress towards what, is +never explained, nor is any basis for this duty assigned. Indeed, duty +means nothing for Mr. Laing but an inherited instinct, which if we +choose to disobey or if we happen not to possess, who shall blame us or +talk to us of "oughts"? + +And now to consider more closely the grounds of Mr. Laing's very +cheerful view of a world in which, for all we know, there is no soul, no +God, and certainly no faith. Since of the two former we know and can +know nothing, we must build our happiness, our morality, our "religion," +on a basis whereof they form no part. He believes that morality will be +able to hold its own distinct, not only from all belief in revelation, +in a personal God, and in a spiritual soul, but in spite of a philosophy +which by tracing the origin of moral judgments to mere physical laws of +hereditary transmission of experienced utilities, robs them of all +authority other than prudential, and convicts them of being illusory so +far as they seem to be of higher than human origin. + +Herein, as usual, he treads in the steps of Professor Huxley, "the +greatest living master of English prose" (though why his mastery of +prose should add to his weight as a philosopher, we fail to see). "Such +ideas _evidently_ come from education, and are not the results either of +inherited instinct [15] or of supernatural gift.... Given a being with +man's brain, man's hands, and erect stature, _it is easy to see_ how ... +rules of conduct ... must have been formed and fixed by successive +generations, according to the Darwinian laws." [16] + +He tells us: "We may read the Athanasian Creed less, but we practise +Christian charity more in the present than in any former age." [17] +"Faith has diminished, charity increased." [18] + +Of moral principles, he says: "Why do we say that ... they carry +conviction with them and prove themselves?... Still, there they are, and +being what they are ... it requires no train of reasoning or laboured +reflection to make us _feel_ that 'right is right,' and that it is +_better_ for ourselves and others to act on such precepts ... rather +than to reverse these rules and obey the selfish promptings of animal +nature." [19] "It is _clearly_ our highest wisdom to follow right, not +from selfish calculation, ... but because 'right is right.' ... For +practical purposes it is comparatively unimportant how this standard got +there ... as an absolute imperative rule." [20] As to the apprehended +ill effect of agnosticism on morals, he says: "The foundations of +morals [21] are fortunately built on solid rock and not on shifting sand. +It may truly be said in a great many cases that, as individuals and +nations become more sceptical, they become more moral." [22] "_If there +is one thing more certain than another_ in the history of evolution, it +is that morals have been evolved by the same laws as regulate the +development of species." [23] + +These citations embody Mr. Laing's opinions on this point, and show very +clearly his utter incapacity for elementary philosophic thought. Here, +as elsewhere, as soon as he leaves the bare record of facts and embarks +in any kind of speculation, he shows himself helpless; however, he tries +to fortify his own courage and that of his readers, with "it is clear," +"it is evident," "it is certain." + +To say that "right is right," sounds very oracular; but it either means +that "right" is an ultimate spring of action, inexplicable on +evolutionist principles, or that right is the will of the strongest, or +an illusory inherited foreboding of pain, or a calculation of future +pleasure and pain, or something which, in no sense, is a true account of +what men _do_ mean by right. To say that moral principles "carry +conviction with them, and prove themselves" _(i.e._, are self-evident), +unless, as we suspect, it is mere verbiage conveying nothing particular +to Mr. Laing's brain, is to deny that right has reference to the +consequences of action as bearing on human progress and evolution, which +is to deny the very theory he wishes to uphold. No intuitionist could +have spoken more strongly. Then we are assured that we "feel" rightness, +or that "right is right"--apparently as a simple irresoluble quality of +certain actions--and with same breath, that "it is _better_ for +ourselves and others to act on these rules," where he jumps off to +utilitarianism again; and then we are forbidden to "obey the selfish +impulses of our animal nature"--a strange prohibition for one who sees +in us nothing but animal nature, who denies us any free power to +withstand its impulses. Then it is "clearly our highest wisdom to follow +right"--an appeal to prudential motives--"not from any selfish +calculations"--a repudiation of prudential motives--"but because 'right +is right'"--an appeal to a blind unreasoning instinct, and a prohibition +to question its authority. We are told that for practical purposes it +matters little whence this absolute imperative rule originates. Was +there ever a more unpractical and short-sighted assertion! Convince men +that the dictates of conscience are those of fear or selfishness, that +they are all mere animal instincts, that they are anything less than +divine, and who will care for Mr. Laing's appeal to blind faith in the +"rightness of right"? + +As long as Christian tradition lives on, as it will for years among the +masses, the effects of materialist ethics will not be felt; but as these +new theories filter down from the few to the many, they will inevitably +produce their logical consequences in practical matters. No one with +open eyes can fail to see how the leaven is spreading already. Still the +majority act and speak to a great extent under the influence of the old +belief, which they have repudiated, in the freedom of man's will and the +Divine origin of right. It is quite plain that Mr. Laing has either +never had patience to think the matter out, or has found it beyond his +compass. Having thus established morality on a foundation independent of +religion and of everything else, making "right" rest on "right," he +assumes the prophetic robe, and on the strength of his seventy years of +experience and philosophy poses as a _Cato Major_ for the edification of +the semi-scientific millions of young persons to whom he addresses his +volumes. We have a whole chapter on Practical Life, [24] on +self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, full of portentous +platitudes and ancient saws; St. Paul's doctrine of charity, and all +that is best in the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, is liberated +from its degrading association with the belief in a God who rewards and +punishes.[25] We are "to act strenuously in that direction which, after +_conscientious_ inquiry, seems the best, ... and trust to what religious +men call Providence, and scientific men Evolution, for the result," and +all this simply on the bold assertion of this sage whose sole aim is "to +leave the world a little better rather than a little worse for my +individual unit of existence." [26] + +And here we may inquire parenthetically as to the motive which urges Mr. +Laing to throw himself into the labours of the apostolate and to become +such an active propagandist of agnosticism. We are told[27] that the +enlightened should be "liberal and tolerant towards traditional opinions +and traditional practices, and trust with cheerful faith to evolution to +bring about _gradually_ changes of form," &c.; that the influence of the +clergy is "on the whole exerted for good," and it is frankly +acknowledged that Christianity has been a potent factor in the evolution +of modern civilization. It has, however, nearly run its course, and the +old order must give place to the new, _i.e._, to agnosticism. But even +allowing, what we dare say Mr. Laing would not ask, that the speculative +side of the new religion is fully defined and worked out, and ready to +displace the old dogmatic creeds, yet its practical aspect is so vague +that he writes: "I think the time is come when the intellectual victory +of agnosticism is so far assured, that it behoves thinking men to _begin +to consider_ what practical results are likely to follow from it." [28] +In the face of this confession we find Mr. Laing industriously +addressing himself to "those who lack time and opportunity for +studying," [29] to the "minds of my younger readers, and of the working +classes who are striving after culture," [30] "to what may be called the +semi-scientific readers, ... who have already acquired some elementary +ideas about science," "to the millions;" [31] and endeavouring by all +means in his power to destroy the last vestige of their faith in that +religion which alone provides for them a definite code of morality +strengthened by apparent sanctions of the highest order, and venerable +at least by its antiquity and universality. [32] And while he is thus +busily pulling down the old scaffolding, he is calmly _beginning_ to +consider the practical results. This is his method of "leaving the world +a little better than he found it." He professes to understand and +appreciate "In Memoriam." Has he ever reflected on the lines: "O thou +that after toil and storm," [33] when the practical conclusion is-- + + Leave thou thy sister, when she prays, + Her early Heaven, her happy views; + Nor thou with shadowed hint infuse + A life that leads melodious days. + Her faith through form is pure as thine, + Her hands are quicker unto good; + O sacred be the flesh and blood, + To which she links a truth divine. + +On his own principles he is convicted of being a lover of mischief. No, +one is sorely tempted to think that these men are well aware that the +moral sense which sound philosophy and Christian faith have developed, +is still strong in the minds and deeper conscience of the +English-speaking races, and that were they to present materialism in all +its loathsome nudity to the public gaze, they would be hissed off the +stage. And so they dress it up in the clothes of the old religion just +for the present, with many a quiet wink between themselves at the +expense of the "semi-scientific" reader. + +We have already adverted to Mr. Laing's utter incapacity for anything +like philosophy, except so far as that term can be applied to a power of +raking together, selecting, and piling up into "a popular shape" the +scraps of information which favour the view whose correctness he was +convinced of ere he began. A few further remarks may justify this +somewhat severe estimate. After stating that in the solution of life and +soul problems, science stops short at germs and nucleated cells, he +proceeds with the usual tirade against metaphysics: "Take Descartes' +fundamental axiom: _Cogito ergo sum_.... Is it really an axiom?... If +the fact that I am conscious of thinking proves the fact that I exist, +is the converse true that whatever does not think does not exist?... +Does a child only begin to exist when it begins to think? If _Cogito +ergo sum_ is an institution to which we can trust, why is not _Non +cogito ergo non sum?_" [34] Here is a man posing before the gaping +millions as a philosopher and a severe logician, who thinks that the +proposition, "every cow is a quadruped," is disproved by the evident +falsehood of, "what is not a cow is not a quadruped," which he calls +"the converse." He sums up magnificently by saying: "These are questions +to which no metaphysical system that I have ever seen, can return the +semblance of an answer;" giving the impression of a life devoted to a +deep and exhaustive study of all schools of philosophy. Mr. Laing here +surely is addressing his "younger readers." + +He tells us elsewhere [35] that, "when analyzed by science, spiritualism +leads straight to materialism;" free-will "can be annihilated by the +simple mechanical expedient of looking at a black wafer stuck on a white +wall;" that if "Smith falls into a trance and believes himself to be +Jones, he really is Jones, and Smith has become a stranger to him while +the trance lasts.... I often ask myself the question, If he died during +one of these trances, which would he be, Smith or Jones? and I confess +it takes some one wiser than I am to answer it." Without pretending to +be wiser than Mr. Laing, we hope it will not be too presumptuous for us +to suggest that if Smith dies in a trance _believing_ himself to be +Jones, he is under a delusion, and that he really is Smith. Else it +would be very awkward for poor Jones, who in nowise believes himself to +be Smith. Mr. Laing would have to break it gently to Jones, that, "in +fact, my dear sir, Smith borrowed your personality, and unfortunately +died before returning it; and as to whether you are yourself or Smith, +as to whether you are alive or dead, 'I confess it takes some one wiser +than I am to decide.'" That a man's own name, own surroundings, own +antecedents, are all objects of his thought, and distinguished from the +_self, ego,_ or _subject_ which contemplates them, has never suggested +itself to Mr. Laing. That though Smith may mistake every one of these, +yet the term "I" necessarily and invariably means the same for him, the +one central, constant unity to which every _non-ego_ is opposed. And +this from a man who elsewhere claims an easy familiarity with Kant. +"Again what can be said of love and hate if under given circumstances +they can be transformed into one another by a magnet?" What indeed? And +how is it that the gold-fish make no difference in the weight of the +globe of water? + +His conclusion to these inquiries is: "When Shakespeare said, 'We are +such stuff as dreams are made of,' he enumerates what has become a +scientific fact. The 'stuff' is in all cases the same--vibratory motions +of nerve particles." [36] Thus knowledge, self-consciousness, +free-choice, is as much a function of matter as fermentation, or +crystallisation--a mode of motion, not dissimilar from heat, perhaps +transformable therewith. + +Recapitulating this farrago of nonsense on p. 188, he adds a new +difficulty which ought to make him pause in his wild career. "What is +the value of the evidence of the senses if a suggestion can make us see +the hat, but not the man who wears it; or dance half the night with an +imaginary partner? Am I 'I myself, I,' or am I a barrel-organ playing +'God save the Queen,' if the stops are set in the normal fashion, but +the 'Marseillaise' if some cunning hand has altered them without my +knowledge? These are questions which I cannot answer." He cannot answer +a question on which the value of his whole system of physical philosophy +depends; uncertain about his own identity, about the evidence of his +senses, he would make the latter the sole rule and measure of certitude, +and deny to man any higher faculty by which alone he can justify his +trust in his cognitive faculties. Another instance of his absolute +ignorance of common philosophic terminology is when he asserts that +according to theology we know the dogmas of religion by "intuition." [37] + +This doctrine rests on Cardinal Newman's celebrated theory of the +"Illative Sense." Surely a moment's reflection on the meaning of words, +not to speak of a slight acquaintance with the book referred to, would +have saved him from confounding two notions so sharply distinguished as +"intuition" and "inference." Again, "There can be no doubt there are men +often of great piety and excellence who have, or fancy they have, a sort +of sixth sense, or, as Cardinal Newman calls it, an 'illative sense,' by +which they see by intuition ... things unprovable or disprovable by +ordinary reason." [38] Can a man who makes such reckless travesties of a +view which he manifestly has never studied, be credited with +intellectual honesty? + +Doubtless, the semi-scientific millions will be much impressed by the +wideness of Mr. Laing's reading and his profound grasp of all that he +has read, when they are told casually that "space and time are, ... to +use the phraseology of Kant, 'imperative categories;'" [39] but perhaps +to other readers it may convey nothing more than that he has heard a dim +something somewhere about Kant, about the categories, about space and +time being schemata of sense, and about the _categorical imperative._ +It is only one instance of the unscrupulous recklessness which shows +itself everywhere. Akin to this is his absolute misapprehension of the +Christian religion which he labours to refute. He never for a moment +questions his perfect understanding of it, and of all it has got to say +for itself. Brought up apparently among Protestants, who hold to a +verbal inspiration [40] and literal interpretation of the Scriptures, +who have no traditional or authoritative interpretation of it, he +concludes at once that his own crude, boyish conception of Christianity +is the genuine one, and that every deviation therefrom is a "climbing +down," or a minimizing. He has no suspicion that the wider views of +interpretation are as old as Christianity itself, and have always +co-existed with the narrower. + +He regards the Christian idea of God as essentially anthropomorphic. +Indeed, whether in good faith or for the sake of effect, he brings +forward the old difficulties which have been answered _ad nauseam_ with +an air of freshness, as though unearthed for the first time, and +therefore as setting religion in new and unheard-of straits. So, at all +events, it will seem to the millions of his young readers and to the +working classes. + +Let us follow him in some of his destructive criticism, or rather +denunciations, in order to observe his mode of procedure. "The +discoveries of science ... make it impossible for _sincere_ men to +retain the faith," &c., [41] therefore all who differ from Mr. Laing are +insincere. "It is _absolutely certain_ that portions of the Bible are +not true; and those, important portions." [42] This is based on two +premisses which are therefore absolutely certain, (i) Mr. Laing's +conclusions about the antiquity of man--of which more anon; (43) his +baldly literal interpretation of the Bible as delivered to him in his +early "infancy. On p. 253, we have the ancient difficulty from the New +Testament prophecy of the proximate end of the world, without the +faintest indication that it was felt 1800 years ago, and has been dealt +with over and over again. Papias [44] is lionized [45] in order to upset +the antiquity of the four Gospels--which upsetting, however, depends on +a dogmatic interpretation of an ambiguous phrase, and the absence of +positive testimony. Here again there is no evidence that Mr. Laing has +read any elementary text-book on the authenticity of the Gospels. He is +"perfectly clear" as to the fourth Gospel being a forgery; again for +reasons which he alone has discovered. [46] Paul is the first inventor +of Christian dogma, without any doubt or hesitation. But the undoubted +results of modern science ... shatter to pieces the whole fabric. _It is +as certain as that_ 2 + 2 = 4 that the world was not created in the +manner described in Genesis." + +As regards harmonistic difficulties of the Old and New Testaments, he +assumes the same confident tone of bold assertion without feeling any +obligation to notice the solutions that have been suggested. It makes +for his purpose to represent the orthodox as suddenly struck dumb and +confounded by these amazing discoveries of his. He sees discrepancies +everywhere in the Gospel narrative, e.g.: [47] + + "Judas' death is _differently_ described." "Herod is introduced by + Luke and not mentioned by the others." "Jesus carried His own Cross in + one account, while Simon of Cyrene bore it in another. Jesus gave no + answer to Pilate, says Matthew; He explains that His Kingdom was not + of the world, says John. Mary His Mother sat _(sic)_ at the foot of + the Cross, according to St. John; it was not His Mother, but Mary the + mother of Salome _(sic)_ 'who beheld Him from afar,' according to Mark + and Matthew. There was a guard set to watch the tomb, says Matthew; + there is no mention of one by the others." + +At first we thought Mr. Laing must have meant _differences_ and not +discrepancies; but the following paragraph forbade so lenient an +interpretation. "The only other mention of Mary by St. John, who +describes her as sitting _(sic)_ by the foot of the Cross, is +apocryphal, being directly contradicted by the very precise statement [48] +in the three other Gospels, that the Mary who was present on that +occasion was a different woman, the mother of Salome." Even his youngest +readers ought to open their eyes at this. Similarly he thinks the +omission of the Lord's Prayer by St. Mark tells strongly against its +authenticity. [49] + + +II. + +We must now say something about the great facts of evolutionary +philosophy which have shattered dogmatic Christianity to pieces, and +have made it impossible for any sincere man to remain a Christian. To +say that Mr. Laing is absolutely certain of the all-sufficiency of +evolutionism to explain everything that is knowable to the human mind, +that he does not hint for a moment that this philosophy is found by the +"bell-wethers" of science to be every day less satisfactory as a +complete _rationale_ of the physical cosmos; is really to understate the +case for sheer lack of words to express the intensity of his conviction. +His fundamental fact is that, however theologians may shuffle out of the +first chapter of Genesis by converting days into periods, when we come +to the story of the Noachean Deluge, we are confronted with such a +glaring absurdity that we must at once allow that the Bible is full of +myths. For history and science show that man existed probably two +hundred thousand years ago, at all events not less than twenty thousand; +also that five thousand B.C., a highly organized civilization existed in +Egypt, whose monuments of that date give evidence to the full +development of racial and linguistic differences as now existing among +men; that this plants the common stem from which these have branched +off, in an indefinitely remote pre-historic period; that to suppose that +the present races and tongues are all derived from one man (Noe), who +lived only two thousand B.C., is a monstrous impossibility; still more +so, to believe that the countless thousands of species of animals which +populate the world were collected from the four quarters of the globe, +were housed and fed in the Ark, landed on Mount Ararat, and thence +spread themselves out over the world again regardless of interjacent +seas. Hence the Bible story of human origins is a mere myth; man has not +fallen, but has risen by slow evolution from some ancestor common to him +and apes, at a remote period, long sons prior even to the miocene +period, which shows man to have been then as obstinately differentiated +from the apes as ever. Therefore "all did not die in Adam," and seeing +this is the foundation of the dogmatic Christianity invented by Paul, +the whole thing collapses like a house of cards. [45] + +And indeed, given that the Bible means what Mr. Laing says it means, and +that science has proved what he says it has proved, that the two results +are incompatible, few would care to deny. As regards the latter +condition, let us see some of his reasonings. We are told that "modern +science shows that uninterrupted historical records, confirmed by +contemporary monuments, carry history back at least one thousand years +before the supposed creation of man ... and show then no trace of a +commencement, but populous cities, celebrated temples, great engineering +works, and a high state of the arts and of civilization already +existing." [46] Strange to say, Mr. Laing developes a sudden reverence +for the testimony of _priests_ at the outset of his historical +inquiries, and finds that history begins with "priestly organizations;" +[47] that the royal records are "made and preserved by special castes of +priestly colleges and learned scribes, and that they are to a great +extent precise in date and accurate in fact." Of course this does not +include Christian priests, but the priests of barbarous cults of many +thousand years ago, who, as well as their royal masters, are at once +credited with all the delicacy of the accurate criticism which we boast +of in these days--how vainly, God knows. We are told one moment that +Herodotus "was credulous, and not very critical in distinguishing +between fact and fable," that his "sources of information were often not +much better than vague popular traditions, or the tales told by guides;" +[48] and yet we are to lay great stress on his assertion that the +Egyptian priests told him "that during the long succession of ages of +the three hundred and forty-five high priests of Heliopolis, whose +statues they showed him in the Temple of the Sun, there had been no +change in the length of human life or the course of nature." [49] A +valuable piece of evidence _if_ Herodotus reports rightly, and _if_ the +priest was not like the average guide, and _if_ the statues answered to +real existences, and _if_ each of the three hundred and forty-five high +priests made a truthful assertion of the above to his successor for the +benefit of posterity. + +Manetho's History is, however, the chief source of our information as to +the antiquity of Egyptian civilization. He was commissioned to compile +this History by Ptolemy Philadelphus, "from the most authentic temple +records and other sources of information," [50] whose infallibility is +taken for granted. He was "eminently qualified for such a task, being," +as Mr. Laing will vouch, [51] "a learned and judicious man, and a priest +of Sebbenytus, one of the oldest and most famous temples." Let us by all +means read Manetho's History; but where is it? It is "unfortunately +lost, ... but fragments of it have been preserved in the works of +Josephus, Eusebius, Julius Africanus, and Syncellus.... With the curious +want of critical faculty of almost all the Christian Fathers" [52] (so +different from the learned, judicious, upright priests of the sun), +"these extracts, though professing to be quotations from the same book, +contain many inconsistencies and in several instances they have been +obviously tampered with, especially by Eusebius, in order to bring their +chronology more in accordance with that of the Old Testament, ... but +there can be _no doubt_ that his original work assigned an antiquity to +Menes of over 5500 B.C." [53] "On the whole, we have to fall back on +Manetho as the only authority for anything like precise dates and +connected history." + +Manetho, however, needed confirmation against the aspersions of the +orthodox, who thought he might be deficient in critical delicacy, and +prone to exaggerate as even later historians had done. Their casuistic +minds also suggested that his list comprised Kings who had ruled +different provinces simultaneously. But this "effugium" was cut off by +the witness of contemporary monuments and manuscripts. "This has now +been done to such an extent that it may be fairly said that Manetho is +confirmed, and it is fully established, as a fact acquired by science, +that nearly all his Kings and dynasties are proved by monuments to have +existed, and that, successively." [54] + +What is needed for the validity of this argument is a concurrence, which +could not possibly be fortuitous, between the clear and undoubted +testimony of Manetho and of the monuments. But first of all, what sort +of probability is there left of our possessing anything approximately +like the results of Manetho: and if we had them, of their historical +accuracy? Secondly, is it at all credible that so fragmentary and +fortuitous a record as survives in monuments (allowing again their very +dubious historical worth) should just happen to coincide with the +surviving fragments of our patch-work Manetho, king for king and dynasty +for dynasty, as Mr. Laing would have us believe? On the contrary, +nothing would throw more suspicion on the interpretation of these +monuments than the assertion of such an improbable coincidence. What, +then, is the force of this argument from Egyptology? _If_ the records +from which Manetho compiled were historically accurate; _if_ he was +perfectly competent to understand them; _if_ he was scrupulously honest +and critical; _if_ from the tampered-with fragments in the Christian +Fathers we can arrive at a reliable and accurate knowledge of his +results; and _if_ the Bible in the original text--whatever that may +be--undoubtedly asserts that man was not created till 4000 B.C., then +according to certain Egyptologists (Boeck), Menes reigned fifteen +hundred years previously, and according to others (Wilkinson), one +thousand years subsequently. Similarly as to the argument from +coincidence: _if_, as before, we possess Manetho's genuine list intact, +and _if_ we have the clear testimony of the monuments giving a precisely +similar record, this coincidence, apart from all independent value to be +given to Manetho or to the monuments, is an effect demanding a cause, +for which the most probable is the objective truth from which both these +veracious records have been copied. But the monuments are not written in +plain English, and need a key; and we must be first assured that +Manetho's list has not been used for this purpose. We are told; for +example, [55] that the name "Snefura," deciphered on a tablet found at +the copper-mines of Wady Magerah, is the name of a King of the third +dynasty, who reigned about 4000 B.C. Now _if_ there were no doubt about +the reading of this name on the tablet, and _if_ his date and dynasty +were as plainly there recorded, and _if_ all this tallies exactly with +equally precise particulars in Manetho's list, it would indeed be a +remarkable coincidence and would imply some common source, whether +record or fact. But if having credited Manetho with the record of such a +name and date, one tortures a hieroglyph into a faintly similar name, +and concludes at once that the same name must be the same person, and +that therefore this is the oldest record in the world, the confirmation +is not so striking. That it is so in this instance we do not affirm; but +we should need the assertion of a man of more intellectual sobriety than +Mr. Laing to make it worth the trouble of investigating. + +Passing over the confirmation which he draws from the "known rate of the +deposit of Nile mud of about three inches a century," which would give a +mild antiquity of twenty-six thousand years to pottery fished up from +borings in the mud, since he admits that "borings are not _very_ +conclusive," we may notice how he deals with evidence from Chaldea on +much the same principles. Here, again, the source had been till lately +only "fragments quoted by later writers from the lost work of Berosus. +Berosus was a _learned priest_ of Babylon, who ... wrote in Greek a +history of the country from the most ancient times, compiled from the +annals preserved in the temples and from the oldest traditions." [56] +Still this "learned priest," though antecedently as competent a critic +as Manetho, is so portentously mythical in his accounts, that "no +historical value can be attached to them," which must be regretted, +since he pushes history back a quarter of a million years prior to the +Deluge, and the Deluge itself to about half a million years ago. Here, +therefore, we are thrown solely upon the independent value of the +monumental evidence, and must drop the argument from coincidence. This +evidence, we are told, "is not so conclusive as in the case of Egypt, +where the lists of Manetho, &c.... The date of Sargon I. [57] (3800 B.C.) +rests mainly on the authority of Nabonidus, who lived more than three +thousand years later, and may have been mistaken." "The probability of +such a remote date is enhanced _by the certainty_ that a high +civilization existed in Egypt as long ago as 5000 B.C." If the evidence +for the antiquity of Chaldee civilization is "less conclusive" than that +for Egyptian, and rests on it for an argument _à pari_, it cannot be +said in any way to strengthen Mr. Laing's position. + +These strictures are directed chiefly to showing Mr. Laing's incapacity +for anything like coherent reasoning in historical matters. Subsequently +he uses these most lame and impotent conclusions as demonstrated +certainties, without the faintest qualification, and builds up on them +his refutation of dogmatic Christianity. + +However, it is only in his more recent work on _Human Origins_ that he +thus comes forward as an historian, in preparation for which he seems to +have devoted himself to the study of cuneiform and hieroglyphs and +mastered the subject thoroughly and exhaustively, before bursting forth +from behind the clouds to flood the world with new-born light. + +It is deep down in the bowels of the earth, at the bottom of a +geological well, that he has found not only truth but, also man--among +the monsters, + + Dragons of the prime + Who tare each other in their slime, + +and has hauled him up for our inspection. Mr. Laing is before all else +an evolutionist, with an unshaken belief in spontaneous generation. He +is quite confident that force and atoms will explain everything. He +seems to mean force, pure and simple, without any intelligent direction; +atoms, ultimate, homogeneous, undifferentiated. No doubt, if the +subsequent evolution depends on the _kind_ and _direction_ of force, or +on the _nature_ of the atoms; then there is a remoter question for +physics to determine; but if, as he implies, force and atoms are simple +and ultimate, then evolution is as fortuitous as a sand-storm, or more +so. All prior to force and atoms is "behind the veil." "The material +universe is composed of ether, matter, and energy." [58] Ether is a +billion times more elastic than air, "almost infinitely rare," [59] its +oscillations must be at least seven hundred billions per second, "it +exerts no gravitating or retarding force;" in short, Mr. Laing has to +confess some uncertainty about his original dogma as to the triple +constituents of the universe, and say "that it may be _almost doubted_ +whether such an ether has any real material existence, and is anything +more than a sort of mathematical [why 'mathematical'?] entity." [60] "It +is clear that matter really does consist of minute particles which do +not touch," and even these we must conceive of as "corks as it were +floating in an ocean of ether, causing waves in it by their own proper +movement," [61]--an explanation which loses some of its helpfulness when +we remember that the ethereal ocean is only a mathematical entity. "A +cubic centimetre contains 21,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules," +"the number of impacts received by each molecule of air during one +second will be 4,700 millions. The distance traversed between each +impact averages 95/1000000 of a millimetre," and so on with lines of +ciphers to overawe the gaping millions with Mr. Laing's minute certainty +as to the ultimate constitution of matter. [62] + +As to _how_ atoms came into existence, he can only reply, "Behind the +veil, behind the veil;" for it is at this point at last that he becomes +agnostic.[63] The notion of creation is rejected (after Spencer) as +inconceivable, because unimaginable, as though the origination of every +change in the phenomenal world were not just as unimaginable; we see +movement _in process_, and we see its results, but its inception is +unimaginable, and its efficient cause still more so. + +The evolution of man is practically taken for granted, the only question +being the _when_. + +We have the old argument from embryonic transformism brought forward +without any hint that later investigation tends to show differentiation +further and further back, prior to segmentation and, according to some, +in the very protoplasm itself. Nothing could be more inaccurate than to +say "every human being passes through the stage of fish and reptile +before arriving at that of a mammal and finally of man." [64] All that +can be truly said is that the embryonic man is at certain stages not +superficially distinguishable from the embryonic fish--quite a different +thing, and no more significant than that the adult man possesses organs +and functions in common with other species of the animal genus. + +Mr. Laing's own conclusions from skulls and human remains which he takes +to be those of tertiary man, show man to be as obstinately unlike the +"dryopithecus" as ever, in fact, the reputedly oldest skulls [65] are a +decided improvement on the Carnstadt and Neanderthal type. Even then man +seems to have been the same flint-chipping, tool-making, speaking animal +as now. So convinced is he of this essential and ineradicable difference +in his heart, that seeing traces of design in palaeolithic flint flakes, +and so forth, he has "not the remotest doubt as to their being the work +of human hands,"--"as impossible to doubt as it would be if we had found +clasp-knives and carpenters adzes." [66] Perhaps Professor Boyd-Dawkins, +who credits the "dryopithecus" with these productions, is a more +consistent evolutionist; but at present Mr. Laing is defending a thesis +as to _man's_ antiquity. Yet he has just said that these flint +instruments are "_only one step_ in advance of the rude, natural stone +which an _intelligent_ orang or chimpanzee might pick up to crack a +cocoa-nut with." Truly a very significant step, though it be only one. +How hard this is to reconcile with what Mr. Laing ascribes to dogs and +ants elsewhere, or with what he says on page 173, "These higher apes +remain creatures of very considerable intelligence.... There is a +chimpanzee now in the Zoological Gardens ... which can do _all but_ +speak" [either it speaks, or it does not. It is precisely a case of the +"only one step" quoted above. Here if anywhere a "miss is as good as a +mile"], "which understands almost every word the keeper says to it, and +when told to sing will purse out its lips and try to utter connected +notes." [How on earth do we know what it is trying to do?] "In their +native state they (apes) form societies and obey a chief." [The old +fallacy of metaphors adverted to in relation to ants and dogs.] Yet "no +animal has ever learned to speak," "no chimpanzee or gorilla has ever +been known to fashion any implement." [67] Their nearest approach to +invention is in the building of huts or nests, in which they "are very +inferior to most species of birds, to say nothing of insects." On the +other hand, "as regards tool-making, no human race is known which has +not shown some faculty in this direction." [68] "The difference is a very +fundamental one," and "may be summed up in the words 'arrested +development.'" Words, indeed! but what do they mean? They mean that +these animals have not developed the faculties of speech and +tool-making, which would have been most useful to them in the struggle +for existence, the reason being _that they did not_; and this reason is +exalted into a cause or law of "arrested development." Who or what +arrested it? The advantage of the term is that it implies that they were +on the point of developing, that they could "all but speak," were +"trying to utter connected notes," were "but one step" behind flint +axes, when some cosmic power said, "Hitherto shalt thou come and no +further." + +If the dog had organs of speech or an instrument like the hand by which +to place himself in closer relation to the outer world, he would +doubtless be on a footing of mental equality with man, according to Mr. +Laing. [69] The elephant's trunk accounts for his superior sagacity, and +the horse suffers by his hoof-enclosed forefoot. [70] "Given a being +with man's brain, man's hand, and erect stature, _it is easy to see_ how +intelligence _must_ have been gradually evolved." [71] Now honestly it +seems to us that many animals are as well provided as man is with a +variety of flexible organs of communication with the outward world (for +example, the antennae of insects, the prehensile tails of some monkeys, +whose hands are as lithe as man's and articulated bone for bone and +joint for joint). But letting this pass, we thought evolutionists +allowed that structure is determined by function, rather than the +converse; and so the confession that "it is not so easy to see how this +difference of the structure arose," [72] surprises us, coming from Mr. +Laing; though why this difference should exist at all, on evolution +principles, is a far greater difficulty. Yet he confesses that "the +difference in structure between the lowest existing race of man and the +highest existing ape, [73] is too great to admit of one being possibly +the direct descendant of the other." The ape, then, is not a man whose +development is arrested. "The negro in some respects makes a slight +approximation, ... still he is essentially a man, and separated by a wide +gulf from the chimpanzee or gorilla. Even the idiot is ... an arrested +man and, not an ape." [74] + +Nearly all these (higher intellectual and moral) faculties appear in a +rudimentary state in animals.... Still there is this wide distinction +that even in the highest animals these faculties remain rudimentary and +seem incapable of progress, while even in the lowest races of man they +have reached a much higher level [75] and seem capable of almost +unlimited development. [76] Why does he not seek out the reason of this, +or is he satisfied with the _words_ "arrested development"? If I find a +child who can repeat a poem of Tennyson's, am I to be puzzled because it +cannot originate one as good, or go on even to something better? Am I to +ascribe to it a rudimentary but arrested poetic faculty? Surely the same +poem proceeding from the lips of the poet and of the child he has +taught, are essentially different effects, though outwardly the same. If +there were a true living germ, it would most certainly develope. If the +savage developes through contact with the civilized man after centuries +of degradation, why have not domesticated dogs, who are, according to +Laing, their intellectual and moral equals, developed long ago? + +However, as "evolution has become the axiom of science and is admitted +by every one who has the slightest pretensions to be considered a +competent authority," [77] it is preposterous to suppose man an +exception, whatever be the difficulties. [78] And so Mr. Laing, assuming +axiomatically that man and the ape have a common ancestor, is interested +to make the differences between them deeply marked, and that, as far +back as he can, for thereby "Human Origins" are pushed back by hundreds +of thousands of years. If miocene man is as distinct from the ape as +recent man, the inference is that we are then as far from the source as +ever. Hence it is to geology he looks for the strongest basis of his +position. One thought till lately that geology was a tentative science, +hardly credited with the name of science, but Mr. Laing wisely and +boldly classes it among the "exact sciences," whose subject-matter is +"flint instruments, incised bones, and a few rare specimens of human +skulls and skeletons, the meaning of which has to be deciphered by +skilled experts." [79] "The conclusions of geology," up to the Silurian +period, "are approximate facts, not theories." [80] + +If he means that the only legitimate data of geologists are facts of +observation, classified and recorded, well and good; but to deny that +they deal largely in hypotheses, and use them constantly as the +premisses for inferences which are equally hypothetical, is palpably +absurd. First of all we are to "assume the principle of uniformity" +which Lyell is said to have established on an unassailable basis and to +have made the fundamental axiom of geological science. He "has shown +conclusively that while causes identical with ... existing causes will, +_if given sufficient time_, account for all the facts hitherto observed, +there is not a single fact which _proves_ the occurrence of a totally +different order of causes." [81] This, however, is (1) limited to the +period of geology which gives record of organic life, and not to the +earlier astronomical period; nor (2) does it exclude changes in +temperature, climate, distribution of seas and lands; nor (3) does it +"_affirm positively_ that there may not have been in past ages +explosions more violent than that of Krakatoa; lava-streams more +extensive than that of Skaptar-Jokul, and earthquakes more powerful than +that which uplifted five or six hundred miles of the Pacific coast of +South America six or seven feet." [82] Now, seeing that all these +cataclysms have occurred within the brief limits of most recent time, +compared with which the period of pretended uniformity is almost an +eternity, what sort of presumption or probability is there that such +occurrences should have been confined to historical times; and is not +the presumption all the other way? Again, it is largely on the +supposition of this antecedently unlikely uniformity, that Mr. Laing +argues to the antiquity of life on earth; whereas Lyell's conclusion +warrants nothing of the kind, being simply: that present causes, "_given +sufficient time_," would produce the observed effects. [83] + +Our tests of geologic time are denudation and deposition. We are told +"the present rate of denudation of a continent is known with +_considerable accuracy_ from careful measurements of the quantity of +solid matter carried down by rivers." [84] Now it is a considerable tax +on our faith in science to believe that the _débris_ of the Mississippi +can be so accurately gauged as to give anything like approximate value +to the result of one foot of continental denudation in 6,000 years. We +cannot of course suppose this to be the result of 6,000 years registered +observations, but an inference from the observations of some +comparatively insignificant period; and we have also to suppose that the +very few rivers which have been observed form a sufficient basis for a +conclusion as to all rivers. In fact, a more feebly supported +generalization from more insufficient data it is hard to conceive. To +speak of it as "an _approximation_ based on our knowledge of the time in +which similar results on a smaller scale have been produced by existing +natural laws within the historical period," [85] is a very inadequate +qualification, especially when we have just been told that "here, at any +rate, we are on comparatively certain ground, ... these are measurable +facts which have been ascertained by competent observers." [86] + +Assuming this rate of denudation as certain, and also the estimate of +the known sedimentary strata as 177,000 feet in depth, we are to +conclude that the formation took 56,000,000 years. A mountain mass which +ought to answer to certain fault 15,000 high, and therefore is presumed +to have vanished by denudation, points to a term of 90,000,000 years as +required for the process. [87] + +"Reasoning from these _facts_, assuming the rate of change in the forms +of life to have been the same formerly, Lyell concludes that geological +phenomena postulate 200,000,000 years at least," [88] "to account for +the undoubted facts of geology since life began." [89] On the other +hand, mathematical astronomy, [90] on theories which Mr. Laing complains +of as wanting the solidity of geological calculations (yet which do not +involve more, but fewer assumptions), cannot allow the sun a past +existence of more than 15,000,000 years. [91] "It is evident that there +must be some fundamental error on one side or the other," [92] "for the +laws of nature are uniform, and there cannot be one code for +astronomers, and one for geologists." But while modestly relegating this +slight divergency among the "bell-wethers of science" (bell-wethers, I +presume, because the crowd follow them like sheep), to the "problems of +the future," Mr. Laing is quite confident that we should "distrust these +mathematical calculations," and rely on conclusions based on +_ascertained facts_ and undoubted deductions from them, rather than on +abstract and doubtful theories, "which would so reduce geological time +as to negative the idea of uniformity of law and evolution, and +introduce once more the chaos of catastrophes and supernatural +interferences."[93] As regards the ice-age, Mr. Laing is professedly +interested in putting it as far back as possible, since "a short date +for that period shortens that for which we have positive proof of the +existence of man, and ... a very short date ... brings us back to the +old theories of repeated and recent acts of supernatural interference." +[94] Strange, that in the same page he should refer to Sir J. Dawson as +an "extreme instance" of one who approaches the question with +"theological prepossessions;" and of course in complete ignorance of Mr. +Laing's indubitable conclusions about the antiquity of Egyptian +civilization. Unfortunately, even the best scientists have not that +perfect freedom from bias, which gives Mr. Laing such a towering +advantage over them all. "An authority like Prestwich," who "cannot be +accused of theological bias," influenced, however, by a servile +astronomical bias, "reduces to 20,000 years a period to which Lyell and +modern geologists assign a duration of more than 200,000 years;" [95] +which "shows in what a state of uncertainty we are as to this vitally +important problem;" for this time assigned by Prestwich "would be +clearly insufficient to allow for the development of Egyptian +civilization, as it existed 5,000 years ago, from savage and semi-animal +ancestors; as is _proved_ to be the case with the horse, stag, elephant, +ape," and so on. [96] Now Prestwich, we are told elsewhere, is "the +first living authority on the tertiary and quaternary strata." [97] If, +then, astronomical prepossession can reduce 200,000 to 20,000 years, the +sin of theology, which reduces 20,000 to 7,000 is comparatively venial. +Prestwich's two objections are (1) the data of astronomy, and (2) "the +difficulty of conceiving that man could have existed for 80,000 or +100,000 years without change and without progress." The former is "only +one degree less mischievous than the theological prepossession." +However, Prestwich has some "facts" as well as prepossessions, such as +"the rapid advance of the glaciers of Greenland,"[98] which does not +accord with the generalization from the Swiss glaciers;[99] and the +quicker erosion of river valleys, due to a greater rainfall; facts +which, however, are met by "a _minute description_ of the successive +changes by which in post-glacial time the Mersey valley and estuary were +brought into their present condition, with an estimate of the time they +may have required;" which is "in round numbers 60,000 years," as opposed +to Prestwich's 10,000 or 8,000. [100] The 200,000 years for the ice-age +depends chiefly on Croll's theory of secular variation of the earth's +orbitular eccentricity; but we are told it is open to the "objection +that it requires us to assume a periodical succession of glacial epochs" +of which two or three "must have occurred during each of the great +geological epochs. [101] This is opposed to geological evidence." "'Not +proven' is the verdict which most geologists would return." "The +confidence with which Croll's theory was first received has been a good +deal shaken." "We have to fall back, therefore, on the geological +evidence of deposition and denudation ... in any attempt to decide +between the 200,000 years of Lyell and the 20,000 years of +Prestwich." [102] + +As to his arguments based on ancient human remains, their value depends +first on the accuracy of his geological conclusions, and then on +preclusion of all possibility of the conveyance of the remains from +upper strata to lower; on the certainty, moreover, of traces of design +in many of the would-be miocene or tertiary flint instruments (which +Prestwich is doubtful about).[103] He takes care not to tell us that the +Carstadt skull which gives name to a race, is a very doubtfully genuine +relic of one hundred and thirty years old, whose history is most +dubious. His evidence for the absence of the slightest approximation to +the simian type even in the oldest relics is cheering to the theologian, +though it loses its value when we know it is in the interests of his +foregone conclusions as to the unspeakable antiquity of man. The Nampe +image, the oldest relic yet discovered, "revolutionizes our conception +of this early palaeolithic age," being a "more artistic and better +representation of the human form than the little idols of many +comparatively modern and civilized people," very like those in Mexico, +"believed to be not much older than the date of the Spanish +conquest"--"and in truth, I believe, contemporaneous." [104] + +As to his treatment of the Bible, it evinces everywhere the crudest +anthropomorphic method of interpretation such as we should expect to +find in a child or very ignorant person. In truth, Mr. Laing is in a +perfectly childish state of mind both as regards the Christian religion +and as regards philosophy, sciences, and all the subjects he dabbles +with. + +For our own part we have at most a general idea as to what exactly the +Church does teach or may teach with regard to the interpretation of the +Scripture. That she has so far acquiesced in the larger interpretation +of Genesiacal cosmogony, that now the literal six-day theory would be +very unsafe, forbids us to judge any present interpretation of other +parts by the number, noise, or notoriety of its adherents. The +universality of the Deluge is by no means the only tolerable +interpretation now; though the doctrine of a partial deluge would have +been most unsafe a century ago. All this does not mean giving up the +inspiration of the record, but determining gradually what is meant by +inspiration and the record. What could be less important to Christian +dogma than the date of the Deluge or of Adam's creation? If it were +proved that the original text _in this point_ had been hopelessly +corrupted, as the discrepancies between the LXX. numbers and the Hebrew +hint to be true to some extent, it would not touch the guaranteed +integrity of Christian dogma. If Christ is the "son" of David, and +Zachæus is "son" of Abraham, what period may not an apparent single +generation stand for, especially in regard to the earlier Patriarchs? As +far as the prophetic import of the Deluge is concerned, a very small +local affair might be mystically large with foreshadowings, as we see +with regard to the enacted prophecies of the later prophets. For the +rest, we are quite weary of Mr. Laing, and are content to have shown +that everywhere he is the same biassed, inconsequent, untrustworthy +writer. His only power is a certain superficial clearness of diction and +brilliancy of style, and this is brought to bear on a mass of +information drawn confessedly from the labours of others, and selected +in the interest of a foregone conclusion, without a single attempt at a +fair presentment of the other side. + +Here, then, we have a very fair specimen of the pseudo-philosophy which +is so admirably adapted to captivate the half-informed, wholly unformed +minds of the undiscriminating multitudes who have been taught little or +nothing well except to believe in their right, duty, and ability to +judge for themselves in matters for which a life-time of specialization +were barely sufficient. A congeries of dogmatic assertions and negations +raked together from the chief writers of a decadent school, discredited +twenty years ago by all men of thought, Christian or otherwise; a show +of logical order and reasoning which evades our grasp the instant we try +to lay critical hands on it; a profuse expression of disinterested +devotion to abstract truth, an occasional bow to conventional morality, +a racy, irreverent style, an elaborate display of miscellaneous +information; good paper, large type, cheap wood-cuts, and the work is +done. + +_Oct. Nov._ 1895. + + + +[Footnote 1: M.S. 319.] + +[Footnote 2: Ibid. 319.] + +[Footnote 3: M.S. 229, 230.] + +[Footnote 4: P.F. 279.] + +[Footnote 5: P.F. 280] + +[Footnote 6: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 7: P.F. 281, 282.] + +[Footnote 8: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 9: Ibid. 210.] + +[Footnote: 10 M.S. Preface] + +[Footnote 11: "These subjects ... have been to me the solace of a long +life, the delight of _many quiet days_, and the soother of many troubled +ones ... a source of enjoyment. + + "'The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, + The guardian of my heart, and soul + Of all my moral being.'" (H.O. 3.)] + +[Footnote: 12 M.S. 319.] + +[Footnote: 13 Ibid. 320.] + +[Footnote: 14 Cf. Ibid. 104, 282.] + +[Footnote 15: This expression seems inconsistent with his here and +elsewhere explicit maintenance of the hereditary transmission of +gathered moral experiences. He means here to exclude innate ideas of +morality as explained by Kant and by other intuitionists.] + +[Footnote 16: M.S. 180.] + +[Footnote 17: M.S. 285.] + +[Footnote 18: M.S. 216.] + +[Footnote 19: M.S. 294.] + +[Footnote 20: M.S. 298, 299.] + +[Footnote 21: P.F. 297. "The truth is that morals are built on a far +surer foundation than that of creeds, which are here to-day and gone +to-morrow. They are built on the solid rock of experiences, and of the +'survival of the fittest,' which in the long evolution of the human race +from primeval savages, have by 'natural selection' and 'heredity' become +almost instinctive." (How careless is this terminology. In the previous +page he denies morality to be a matter of hereditary instinct.)] + +[Footnote 22: P.F. 206.] + +[Footnote 23: Ibid. 207.] + +[Footnote 24: P.P. 204.] + +[Footnote 25: M.S. Preface.] + +[Footnote 26: H.O. 3.] + +[Footnote 27: P.P. 3.] + +[Footnote 28: "The simple undoubting faith which for ages has been the +support and consolation of a large portion of mankind, especially of the +weak, the humble, the unlearned, who form an immense majority, cannot +disappear without a painful wrench, and leaving for a time a great blank +behind." (M.S. 284.)] + +[Footnote 29: xxxiii.] + +[Footnote 30: M.S. 261.] + +[Footnote 31: P.F. 176.] + +[Footnote 32: P. 177.] + +[Footnote 33: P.F. 192.] + +[Footnote 34: P. 245.] + +[Footnote 35: P.F. 222.] + +[Footnote 36: Thus he assumes Mr. Spurgeon's definition of inspiration +as the basis of operations (See H.O. 189), and says, "It is perfectly +obvious that for those who accept these confessions of faith ... all the +discoveries of modern science, from Galileo and Newton down to Lyall and +Darwin, are simple delusions."] + +[Footnote 37: M.S. 215.] + +[Footnote 38: Ibid. 251.] + +[Footnote 39: "The _simplest straightforward evidence_ of the _earliest_ +Christian writer who gives any account of their origin, viz., Papias." +(P.F. 236.) "What does Papias say? Practically this: that he preferred +oral tradition to written documents.... This is a _perfectly clear_ and +_intelligible_ statement made apparently in good faith without any +dogmatic or other prepossession.... It has always seemed to me that all +theories ... were comparatively worthless which did not take into +account _the fundamental fact_ of this statement of Papias." (238.) "The +_clear_ and _explicit_ statement of Papias." (250.)] + +[Footnote 40: PP. 258--260.] + +[Footnote 41: P. 262.] + +[Footnote 42: P.F. 266.] + +[Footnote 43: With regard to this "very precise statement," it is +noticeable that Matthew speaks of "Mary the mother of James and Joses;" +Mark, of "Mary the mother of James the less and of Joseph and Salome," +but not "of Salome." If Mr. Laing's precise mind had looked for a moment +at the text he was criticizing he would have seen that Salome is a +common name in the nominative case. St. Luke does not give the names of +the women at all. These points are trifling in themselves, but important +as evidencing Mr. Laing's standard of intellectual conscientiousness.] + +[Footnote 44: P.F. 235] + +[Footnote 45: M.S. 332 ff.] + +[Footnote 46: H.O. 2.] + +[Footnote 47: H.O. 8.] + +[Footnote 48: H.O. II] + +[Footnote 49: H.O. 9 and 199.] + +[Footnote 50: H.O. 10.] + +[Footnote 51: This seems, later, to be an inference, not an assertion. +"Manetho was a learned priest of a celebrated temple, who _must have +had_ access to all the temples and royal records and other literature of +Egypt, and who _must have been_ also conversant with foreign literature +to have been selected as the best man to write a complete history of his +native country." (H.O. 22.)] + +[Footnote 52: He seems to think that Josephus was a Christian, and +Syncellus a "Father." We might mention that from the fragments of +Africanus' _Pentabiblion Chronicon_, preserved in Eusebius, the author +places the Creation at 5499 B.C., which is certainly hardly compatible +with his giving such fragments of Manetho as would place Menes one year +before that date. If we know nothing of Manetho's results except through +these "orthodox" sources, it is inconceivable that Mr. Laing's version +of them should have any historical basis whatever. It comes in fine to +this, that because their report of Manetho does not give Mr. Laing what +he wants, they have been tampered with.] + +[Footnote 53: H.O. 11.] + +[Footnote 54: H.O. 22.] + +[Footnote 55: H.O. 17.] + +[Footnote 56: H.O. 42.] + +[Footnote 57: "There can be no doubt, moreover, that this Sargon I. is a +perfectly historical personage. _A statue of him has been found at +Agade."_ (H.O. 55.)] + +[Footnote 58: M.S. 50.] + +[Footnote 59: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 60: P.F. 28.] + +[Footnote 61: M.S. 61.] + +[Footnote 62: "Matter is made of molecules; molecules are made of atoms; +atoms are little magnets which link themselves together and form all the +complex creations of an ordered cosmos [an ordered order] by virtue of +the attractive and repulsive forces which are the result of polarity." +(P.F, 223.)] + +[Footnote 63: We suppose he has a right to call himself _agnostic_ as +being a disciple of Professor Huxley, who, we believe, started or +revived the term in our own times. Of course he is also a dogmatic +materialist, and by no means an "agnostic" in the wider sense of general +scepticism.] + +[Footnote 64: M.S. 171.] + +[Footnote 65: "Not only have no missing links been discovered, but the +oldest known human skulls and skeletons, which date from the glacial +period and are probably at least one hundred thousand years old, show no +very decided approximation towards any such pre-human type. On the +contrary," &c. (M.S. 181.) He replies (H.O. 373) that "five hundred +thousand years prior to these men of Spy and Neanderthal, the human race +has existed in higher physical perfection, nearer to the existing type +of modern man," (Cf. P.F. 158.)] + +[Footnote 66: M.S. 112, 114.] + +[Footnote 67: P.F. 154.] + +[Footnote 68: P.F. 154.] + +[Footnote 69: M.S. 175.] + +[Footnote 70: The horse "may be taken as the typical instance of descent +by progressive specialization. What is a horse? It is essentially an +animal specialized for ... the rapid progression of a bulky body over +plains or deserts" [a definition which applies equally to the camel, +&c.]. It commenced existence as a "pentadactyle plantigrade bunodont." +For some indefined reason "the first step was to walking on the toes +instead of on the flat of the foot, ... which became general in most +lines of their descendants. For galloping on hard ground _it is evident_ +that one strong and long toe, protected by a solid hoof, was more +serviceable than four short and weak toes." [But why should it gallop +more than other animals; or why on the _hard_ ground in the deserts and +plains; or would not _four_ strong and long toes have been better than +one?] "The coalescence of the toes is the fundamental fact in the +progress ... by which the primitive bunodont was converted into the +modern horse." But we thought evolution was a change from the +homogeneous, incoherent to the heterogeneous and coherent: surely the +change from five toes to one must have been a misfortune on the whole, +if the flexibility of the human hand accounts for man's intellect. The +advantages of a convenient gallop over occasional oases of hard ground +in the desert would hardly balance that of being able to climb trees. +(P.F. 143.)] + +[Footnote 71: Cf. P.F. 151.] + +[Footnote 72: M.S. 180.] + +[Footnote 73: "A wide gap which has never been bridged over." (Huxley, +P.F. 150.)] + +[Footnote 74: But cf. M.S. 181. "Attempt after attempt has been made to +find some fundamental characters in the human brain, on which to base a +generic distinction between man and the brute creation." (P.F. 149.)] + +[Footnote 75: Cf. "It is probable, therefore, that this (drill-friction) +was the original mode of obtaining fire, but if so it must have required +a good deal of intelligence and observation, for the discovery is by no +means an obvious one." (M.S. 204.)] + +[Footnote 76: P.F. 153.] + +[Footnote 77: P.F. 135.] + +[Footnote 78: "The inference, therefore, to be drawn alike from the +physical development of the individual man and from the origin and +growth" [as though he had explained their origin] "of all the faculties +which specially distinguish him from the brute creation, ... all point to +the conclusion that he is the product of evolution." (M.S. 210.) "Man +... whose higher faculties of intelligence and morality are _so clearly_ +... the products of evolution and education." (M.S. 182.)] + +[Footnote 79: H.O. 260.] + +[Footnote 80: M.S. 48.] + +[Footnote 81: P.F. 17.] + +[Footnote 82: P.F. 17, 18. "The conclusion is therefore certain that the +land at this particular spot must have sunk twenty feet, and again risen +as much so as to bring the floor of the temple to its present position, +&c. Similar proofs may be multiplied to any extent.... In fact the more +we study geology the more we are impressed with the fact that the normal +states of the earth is and always has been one of incessant changes." +(M.S. 35--9.)] + +[Footnote 83: i.e., Lyell says: Present causes could give these effects, +given the time. Laing says: Therefore, since they have given these +effects, we must suppose the time.] + +[Footnote 84: P.F. 18] + +[Footnote 85: P.F. 74.] + +[Footnote 86: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 87: P.F. 20.] + +[Footnote 88: M.S. 34, 41.] + +[Footnote 89: P.F. 6.] + +[Footnote 90: P.F. 23.] + +[Footnote 91: M.S. 46.] + +[Footnote 92: P.F. 24.] + +[Footnote 93: P.F. 32.] + +[Footnote 94: P.F. 66.] + +[Footnote 95: "Thus giving to palæolithic man no greater antiquity than +perhaps about 20,000 to 30,000 years, while, should he be restricted to +the so-called post-glacial period, the antiquity need not go back +further than from 10,000 to 15,000 years before the time of neolithic +man." (57.)] + +[Footnote 96: P.F. 67.] + +[Footnote 97: M.S. 109.] + +[Footnote 98: Prestwich evinces the same recalcitrance according to the +_Nineteenth Century_, December 4, 1894, p. 961, being one of the +geologists of high standing "who have lately come to believe in some +sudden and extensive submergence of continental dimensions in very +recent times."] + +[Footnote 99: 74.] + +[Footnote 100: P.F. 84.] + +[Footnote 101: P.F. 69, 70.] + +[Footnote 102: P.F. 70.] + +[Footnote 103: H.O. 364.] + +[Footnote 104: H.O. 388.] + + + +XXI. + + +"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." + +Some twelve years since we read Mr. Tylor's well-known and able work on +_Primitive Culture_, and were much impressed with the evident +fair-mindedness and courageous impartiality which distinguished the +author so notably from the Clodds, the Allens, the Laings, and other +popularizers of the uncertain results of evolution-philosophy. For this +very reason we made a careful analysis of the whole work, and more +particularly of his "animistic" hypothesis, and laid it aside, waiting, +according to our wont, for further light bearing upon a difficulty +wherewith we felt ourselves then incompetent to deal. This further light +has been to some extent supplied to us by Mr. Andrew Lang's _Making of +Religion_, which deals mainly with that theory of animism which is +propounded by Mr. Tylor, and unhesitatingly accepted, dogmatically +preached, and universally assumed, by the crowd of sciolists who follow +like jackals in the lion's wake. Without denying the value of our +conceptions of God and of the human soul, Mr. Tylor believes that these +conceptions, however true in themselves, originated on the part of +primitive man in fallacious reasoning from the data of dreams and of +like states of illusory vision. He assumes, perhaps with some truth, +that the distinction between dream and reality is more faintly marked in +the less developed mind; in the child than in the adult, in the savage +than in the civilized man. Hence a belief arises in a filmy phantasmal +self that wanders abroad in sleep and leaves the body untenanted, and +meets and converses with other phantasmal selves. Nor is it hard to see +how death, being viewed as a permanent sleep, should be ascribed to the +final abandonment of the body by its "dream-stuff" occupant. Whether as +dreaded or loved or both, this ever-gathering crowd of disembodied +spirits wins for itself a certain _cultus_ of praise and propitiation, +and reverence, and is humoured with food-offerings and similar +sacrifices. Nor is it long before the form of an earthly polity is +transferred to that unearthly city of the dead, till for one reason or +another some jealous ghost gains a monarchic supremacy over his +brethren, and thus polytheism gives place to monotheism. It need not be +that this supreme deity is always conceived as a defunct ancestor, once +embodied, but no longer in the body. Rather it would seem that the +primitive savage, having once arrived at the conception of a ghost, +passes by generalization to that of incorporeal beings unborn and +undying, of spirits whose presence and power is revealed in stocks and +stones, or in idols shaped humanwise--spirits who preside over trees, +rivers, and elements, over species and classes and departments of +Nature, over tribes and peoples and nations; until, as before, the +struggle for existence or some other cause gives supremacy to some one +god fittest to survive either through being more conceivable, or more +powerful, or in some other way more popular than the rest of the +pantheon. + +Again, it is assumed that the gods of primitive man are non-ethical, +that they do not "make for righteousness;" that they are at most jealous +powers to be feared and propitiated. When the savage speaks of a god as +good, he only means "favourable to me," "on my side;" he does not mean +"good to me if I am good." God is conceived first as power and force; +then as non-moral wisdom, or cunning, and only in the very latest +developments as holy and just and loving. + +Starting with the assumptions of evolutionists, the theory is plausible +enough. Nor is it inconceivable that God, without using error and evil +directly as a means to truth and good, should passively permit error for +the sake of the truth that He foresees will come out of it. Astrology +was not incipient astronomy; nor was alchemy primitive chemistry; the +end and aim in each case was wholly different. Yet the pseudo-science +gave birth to the true; as false premisses often lead by bad logic to +sound conclusions. Totemism, "a perfectly crazy and degrading belief," +says Mr. Lang, "rendered possible--nay, inevitable--the union of hostile +groups into large and relatively peaceful tribal societies.... We should +never have educated the world thus; and we do not see why it should have +been thus done. But we are very anthropomorphic, and totally ignorant of +the conditions of the problem." In like manner it might have been, that +God willed to let men wander through the slums and backways of animism +into the open road of theism. + +But our concern is not with what might have been, but with what was. + +Mr. Lang contends, first, that belief in spirits and in a circumambient +spiritual world, more probably originated in certain real or imaginary +experiences of supernormal phenomena, than in a fallacious explanation +of dreams; then, that belief in a supreme god is most probably not +derived from or dependent upon belief in ghosts. + +Consistently with the whole trend of his thought in his recent work +connected with psychical research, in _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, in +_Cock-Lane and Common-Sense_, Mr. Lang begins by entering a protest +against the attitude observed towards the subject by contemporary +science, especially by anthropology, which, as having been so lately "in +the same condemnation," might be expected to show itself superior to +that injustice which it had itself so much reason to complain of. Yet +anthropology, abandoning the first principles of modern science, still +refuses to listen to the facts alleged by psychical research, and +justifies its refusal on Hume's oft-exploded fallacy, namely, on an _à +priori_ conviction of their impossibility and therefore of their +non-occurrence. + +However wide the range of experience upon which physical generalizations +are based, it can never be so wide as on this score alone to prove the +inherent possibility of exceptions; more especially when we consider the +confinement of the human race to what is relatively a momentary +existence on a whirling particle of dust in a sandstorm. There may +indeed be abundant evidence of a certain impetus or tendency enduring +from a comparatively distant and indefinite past and making for an +equally indefinite future; but there is not, cannot be evidence against +the possibility of interference from other laws whose paths, at points +unknown and incalculable, intersect those followed by the (to us) +ordinary course of events. + +And in this wholesome agnosticism we are confirmed when we see that +while some animals are deprived of certain senses which we possess, and +all of them of the gift of reason, others are apparently endowed with +senses unknown to us, and are taught by seeming instincts which surpass +what reason could effect; whence we may infer that the likelihood of our +being _en rapport_ with the greater part of the _possible_ phenomena +amidst which we live, or of our possessing all possible senses or the +best of those possible, is infinitely small. What a magician a man with +eyes would be among a race of sightless men; or a man with ears among a +deaf population! How studiously would the scientists explain the effects +of sight as produced by subtilty of hearing; and those of hearing as due +to abnormal sensitiveness in some other respect! + +But though there be no _à priori_ impossibility in deviations from the +beaten track, yet there is a certain _à priori_ improbability which may +seem to justify those who refuse to go into alleged instances of the +supernormal. There is a story against Thomas Aquinas, that on being +invited by a frisky brother-monk to come and see a cow flying, or some +such marvel, he gravely came and saw not, but expressed himself far more +astounded at the miracle that a religious man should say "the thing +which was not." This is certainly a glorious antithesis to Hume's +position. Whether we take it to illustrate the Saint's extreme lack of +humour, or a subtler depth of humour veiled under stolidity, or his +rigorous veracity, or his guileless confidence in the veracity of +others, we certainly cannot approve it as an example of the attitude we +ought to observe with regard to every newly recounted marvel. Truly +there might be more liberality, more enlightenment, more imagination in +such a ready credulity, than in the wall-eyed, ear-stopping scepticism +of popular science; but the mere inner possibility of a recounted marvel +does not oblige us to search into the matter unless the evidence offered +bear some reasonable proportion to the burden it has to support. That +this is the case as regards crystal-gazing, telepathy, possession, and +kindred manifestation, is what Mr. Lang contends; nor would he have any +quarrel with the anthropologists were they not fully impressed with the +importance of similar or even weaker cumulative evidence for conclusions +which happen to be in harmony with their preconceived hypotheses. Where +such evidence exists it must be faced, and at least its existence must +be explained. + +True criticism should either account for the seeming breach of +uniformity, by reducing it to law; or else should show how the assertion +if false ever gained credence; but in no case is it scientific to put +aside, on an _à priori_ assumption, evidence that is offered from all +sides in great abundance. Psychic research is daily applying to that +tangled mass of world-wide evidence ancient and modern for the existence +of an X-region of experience, those same critical and historical +principles which created modern science. Men who, as often as not, have +no religion or no superstition themselves, see that both religion and +superstition are universal phenomena, and cannot be neglected by those +who would study humanity historically and scientifically. Even if there +be nothing in hallucinations, apparitions, scrying, second-sight, +poltergeists, and the rest, there is a great deal in the fact that +belief in these things is as wide and as old as the world; it is a fact +to be explained. "Each man," says Meister, "commonly defends himself as +long as possible from casting out the idols which he worships in his +soul; from acknowledging a master-error, and admitting any truth that +brings him to despair;" and indeed a system as complete and compact as +that of Mr. Spencer or Mr. Tylor is apt to become an intellectual idol +forbidding under pain of infidelity all inquiries that might cause it to +totter on its throne, or which might unravel in an instant what has been +woven by years of hard and honest thought. Few of us are in a position +to cast stones on this score; still, recognizing the weakness more +clearly in others than in ourselves, we are justified in reckoning with +it, and in discounting for the unwillingness of men of science to listen +to facts inconsistent with long-cherished theories, and for their +tendency to accumulate and magnify evidence on the other side. "If the +facts not fitting their theories are little observed by authorities so +popular as Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer; if _instantiae contradictoriae_ +are ignored by them, or left vague; if these things are done in the +green tree, we may easily imagine what shall be done in the dry. But we +need not war with hasty _vulgarisateurs_ and headlong theorists." + +We cannot for a moment question the sincerity of purpose and honesty of +intention of many of the leaders of modern scientific enlightenment, +whatever we may think of the said crowd of _vulgarisateurs_--those +camp-followers who bring disgrace on every respectable cause. But beside +wilful bias and unfairness, there is unconscious bias from which none of +us are free, but from which we need to be delivered by mutual criticism; +for, however much a man can see of himself, he can never get behind his +own back. Of such unwitting dishonesty men of thought are abundantly +guilty, when deeming themselves to be governed only by reason, they are +in fact slaves to some intellectual fashion of the day. Not one of them +in a thousand would dare to appear in public with the clothes of last +century, or to face the laughter of a crowd of his compeers. Hence a +certain indocility and rigidness of mind which they only escape who live +out of the fashion or have strength to lead it or to live above it. +Simple, whether from greatness or littleness, they escape the narrowing +influence inseparable from being identified, even in their own mind, +with a school or coterie; and can afford to say things as they see them. + +Contemporary fashion says at present that there are to be no miracles, +nothing supernormal; whatever cannot be reduced in any way to known laws +and causes can be flatly denied, for the supposition of unknown causes +and laws is rank heresy. Until more recent years, it was not permitted +to listen to or show any disposition to investigate the narratives of +phenomena which have since been "explained" and reduced to such +legalized causes as hysteria or hypnotism, and even (of late) to +thought-transference. But since this happy reconciliation has been +effected, such stories are allowed to be believed on ordinary evidence, +although the accounts of other "unclassed" supernormal marvels coming +from the same lips with the same attestation are still brushed aside as +traveller's tales, or as the puerilities of hagiography--not worth a +thought. One would think that some kind of apology or reparation were +due to ecclesiastical tradition, which was credited with wholesale lying +so long as its recorded wonders were classed among impossibilities by +the intellectual fashion-mongers, but it seems we have only partly +escaped the reproach of knavery to incur that of wholesale folly for not +having seen that these apparent miracles were but forms of hysteria or +hypnotism. + +Yet what is hysteria and what does it really explain? [1] Surely the +etymology throws no light on the subject! Is it then merely a name for +the unknown cause of phenomena every whit as strange as those which were +held incredible till their like had been actually witnessed and forced +upon the unwilling eyes of science beyond all possibility of denial? Is +it that science blindly refused even to weigh the evidence for abnormal +facts till the same or similar had become matters of personal +observation? Is it that every reported breach of her assumed +uniformities is incredible, because impossible, until the possibility +has been proved by some fact which is then named, erected into a class, +a cause, a law, and used to explain away similar facts formerly denied, +and is thus taken into that bundle of generalizations called the "laws +of nature"? The ancients assumed all heavenly motion to be circular of +necessity, and where facts gave against them, they patched the matter up +with an epicycle or two. Are not hysteria, hypnotism, and +thought-transference of the nature of epicycles? It is now confessed +that the mind can so affect and dominate the body as to produce blisters +and wounds by mere force of suggestion and expectancy; that a like +"faith" can cure, not only such ailments as are clearly connected with +the nerves, but others where such connection is not yet traceable. And +this is supposed to tell in some way against like marvels reported by +hagiology, as though they were explained by being observed and named. +Yet what did that supposed marvellousness consist in, except in a +seeming revelation of the power and superiority of mind over matter, and +of things unseen over things seen and palpable; and in proving that +there were more wonders in heaven and earth than were dreamt of by a +crude and self-satisfied materialism? They were taken as evidence of a +circumambient X-region where the laws of mechanics were set at defiance +and where the fetters of time and place were loosened or cast aside. +Such an X-region being supposed by every supernatural religion and +denied by most of those who deny religion, and on the same grounds, its +establishment by any kind of experiment is rightly considered in some +sort to make for religion. Indeed, it is just on this account that the +evidence for it is so opposed by those who are pre-occupied by the +anti-religious bias of contemporary science. But unless hysterical +effects can be shown to be ultimately due, not to mind, but to matter +acting on matter, according to methods approved by materialism, hysteria +remains a word-cause and no more, like the meat-cooking quality of the +roasting-jack. + +Hypnotism is a kindred cause in every way. It means sleep-ism; yet +manifestly it deals with characteristics which are utterly unlike those +of sleep; and it is precisely these that need to be explained away in +conformity with received laws, unless we are to find in these phenomena +evidence of such modes of being and operation as every kind of religion +postulates. "Possession" is of course a fable; the superabundant +world-wide, world-old evidence for the phenomenon was thrust aside +without a glance, till hypnotic experiments brought to light what is +called "alternating personality." As though this name had explained +everything in accordance with materialism, forthwith it was permitted to +believe the aforesaid evidence, provided one laughed loudly enough at +the theory of "possession." It is allowed that the hypnotic patient may +in some sense be said to be "possessed" by the hypnotiser for the time +being; nay, even a certain chronic possession of this kind is +observable. But an invisible hypnotiser and possession by a disembodied +spirit is still out of fashion, notwithstanding all Mrs. Piper's efforts +and Dr. Hodgson's audacious declaration of his not very willing belief +that those who speak through her "are veritably the personalities they +claim to be, and that they have survived the change we call death." + +Thought-transference, however, promises to be a potent and popular +solvent of psychic problems. Thought-transference was a supremely +ludicrous supposition till comparatively recently; nor could there be +any credible testimony for what was known antecedently to be quite +impossible. But some way or other, facts which demanded a name were +forced upon the direct observation of science, and so Mr. F. Podmore has +written a book in which, assuming thought-transference to be a +scientifically recognized possibility, he proceeds to reduce many of the +marvels collected by the S.P.R. to that simple and obvious cause, and to +reject the residue on the sound old principle that what is known to be +impossible cannot be true. Hallucinations, solitary and collective, and +other perplexing instances are tortured into cases of thought-transfer +with an ingenuity which we should smile at in a mediaeval scholastic +explaining the universe by the four elements and the four temperaments. +But is not thought-transference itself lamentably unscientific? No; +because we see that unconnected magnets affect one another +sympathetically; and the brain being a sort of magnet may well affect +distant brains. Thought is a kind of electricity, and electricity, if +not exactly a fluid, yet may some day be liquefied and bottled. At all +events, science has seen something very remotely analogous to +thought-transference and every whit as unintelligible and antecedently +incredible till observed; and therefore it is permissible to listen to +the evidence for it, and forced thereto, to accept the fact. + +But have we really disposed of ghosts if we prove the appearance to be +caused by a subjective modification of the perceiver's sensorium and not +by a modification of the external medium--the air or the ether? Since it +is a question of a spiritual substance independent of spatial dimensions +and relations, said to be present only so far and where its effects and +manifestations are present, what does it matter whether it reports +itself by an effect outside or inside the percipient--whether it be a +"vision sensible to feeling, as to sight," or but "a false creation +proceeding from a heat-oppressed brain"? Is not this very distinction of +outside and inside in the matter of perceptions open to no slight +ambiguity? The savage, familiar with the electric sparks caused by the +friction of deer-skins, ascribes the _aurora borealis_ to the friction +of a jostling herd of celestial deer. "Nonsense," says science, after +centuries of false hypotheses, "it is nothing more nor less than +electricity." This is very much the way she is dealing with the +supernormal at present; brushing aside as wholly nonsensical, beliefs +that envelope a core of useful fact in a wrapping of crude explanation, +and then receiving the same facts as new discoveries, because she has +fitted them into an involucre more to her own liking, though perhaps but +little less crude. "Not deer-skin," says science, "but amber; not +miracle, but faith-cure; not prophetic insight, but thought-transference; +not apparition, but hallucination." And so with the rest. + +Considering then the bias of the dominant scientific school, which makes +it refuse even to examine the carefully gathered evidence of the S.P.R.; +we need not wonder if the reports of travellers concerning the existence +of like phenomena among savages and barbarians all over the world are +dismissed with a certain _à priori_ superciliousness. Yet surely, on +evolutionist principles, the only possible clue to the mode in which +belief in spirits and in God may have originated with "primitive man," +is the mode in which those beliefs are actually now sustained, and, so +to say, "proved" by the most primitive specimens of existing humanity; +by, for example, those bushmen of Australia whose facial angle and +cerebral capacity is supposed to leave no room for much difference +between their mind and that of the higher anthropoids. Doubtless it is +hard to get anything like scientific evidence out of people so +uncultivated, whose language and modes of conception are so alien to our +own. Individual travellers, moreover, have been the victims of their own +credulity, stupidity, self-conceit, and prejudice. "But the best +testimony of the truth of the reports as to the actual belief in the +facts, is the undesigned coincidence of the evidence from all quarters. +When the stories brought by travellers, ancient and modern, learned and +unlearned, pious or sceptical, agree in the main, we have all the +certainty that anthropology can offer." + +From this ever-growing mass of evidence, it would appear that the +universal belief among savages in a spirit-world is mainly strengthened +and sustained, not by the phenomena of dreaming but by what Mr. Spencer +would call "alleged" supernormal manifestations, such as those of +clairvoyance, crystal-gazing, apparitions, miracles, prophecies, +possession, and the like. For belief in such marvels exists beyond +doubt, and furnishes a very obvious and logical basis for the further +belief in the invisible causes of these visible effects; nor should we +have recourse to an hypothetical and more indirect explanation of belief +in a spirit-world when an actual and direct explanation is at hand. If +we see the branch growing out of the tree, we need not inquire what +trunk it sprang from, unless we have strong evidence that it is only a +graft. All investigation tends to show that savages believe in spirits +and in the spirit-world because they witness, or firmly believe they +witness, supernormal phenomena. + +Besides this, it must be allowed that together with the _normal_ +phenomena of dreaming, there are abnormal dreams which even to +cultivated minds seem at times as supernormal as second-sight or +prophecy. But it is not on supernormal, but on normal dreams that +animists base their explanation. We need not deny that dreams and +delirium may have given palpable shape to the conception of a ghost, and +may also have helped forward the notion of a spirit by furnishing +something intermediary between the grossness of our waking +sense-experiences, and the altogether elusive and difficult thought of +unembodied will and intelligence independent of space and time. + +In the main then it seems more plausible to maintain that the idea of +unembodied or disembodied spirits was shaped by that instinctive law of +our mind which makes us argue from the nature of effects to the nature +of the agency. The first impulse would be to ascribe every intelligent +effect to some human agency, but other circumstances would subsequently +incline the savage reluctantly to divest the agent of one or more of the +limitations of humanity, and to clothe him with preter-human attributes. +Nearly all the supernormal phenomena believed in by primitive man--so +far as we can judge of him from contemporary savagery--would suggest the +agency of an invisible man; clairvoyance, and other manifestations of +preternatural knowledge, would suggest independence of the senses in the +acquisition of knowledge; every kind of "miracle" would bespeak an +extension of power over physical nature beyond human wont; while all +these together would point to that freedom from the trammels of space +and time, which is of the very essence of immaterial or spiritual +subsistence. Thus, by a gradual process of dehumanization, the mind +would be instinctively led from the notion of a man magnified in all +excellences and refined from all limitations, to the conception of +spirit. But coexistently with this progress of the reason, the +imagination would ever strain to clothe the thought in bodily form as +far as possible, and would cling to the notions suggested by dreams and +waking hallucinations, while language, after its wont, would speak of +the spirit as the _umbra_, the _imago_, the shadow, the breath, the +attenuated replica of the body. Thus we find among all men, savage and +civilized, a certain unsteadiness in their notion of spirit, whether +created or divine--a continual tendency to corruption and +anthropomorphism, due to the conflict between reason and imagination, +resulting so often in the domination of the latter. + +For this view of the subject it is not necessary that we should admit +the preternatural character of the phenomena which form the +subject-matter of psychical research, but only that we should +acknowledge the hardly disputable fact that belief in such marvels is +universal and persistent among savages--a fact which science is bound by +its own principles to explain, and not to ignore. Whether, as Mr. Lang +seems inclined to think, among much illusion, chicanery, and ignorance, +there may not be truth enough to make the inference of an X-world +legitimate, whether the said universality, persistence, and +recrudescence of this seeming credulity can be accounted for in any +other satisfactory way, is a further consideration. If in some dim +fashion the Northern Indians anticipated modern science in their +explanation of the _aurora borealis_, connecting it with familiar +electric manifestations, may it not be, asks Mr. Lang, that in their +inference from supernormal facts which experimental science refuses to +hear of or to examine, they have again been sagaciously beforehand? +Doubtless their explanation is crude and inadequate in both cases; but +is it much more so than that offered by supposing electricity to be a +fluid subject to currents; or by assigning many inexplicable psychic +phenomena to "hysteria"--a mere word-cause? + +The supposition is somewhat favoured if we give ear to that crowd of +witnesses whose combined evidence, duly discounted and tested, makes it +clear that even among those who ought to have been civilized out of all +belief in aught behind the veil, the very same superstitions break out, +or creep in, time after time, with new names perhaps, new clothes, new +faces, but in substance identical with those held by what we esteem the +most benighted races. + +Further, it is evident that savages pay attention--over-attention, no +doubt--to these supernormal phenomena, being free from hostile +philosophic bias in the matter, and bent the other way; and that in +consequence they have everywhere observed, classified, and systematized +them in their own rude, simple way, and have thus forestalled what the +S.P.R., in the teeth of science, is now endeavouring to do +scientifically. With us, moreover, it is mere chance that reveals a +"medium," or hypnotic subject here and there: but with savages they are +sought out diligently, and all who have any latent aptitude that way are +detected and utilized; and thus the field of their experience is +considerably widened. + +But besides all this, it seems more than plausible to suppose that among +primitive and undeveloped races such preternatural phenomena either +occur, or seem to occur, much more frequently and extensively; and that +apparently supernormal faculties are more often developed. + +Nor can this be explained solely on the score of their readier credulity +and their lack of criticism; for there is good evidence to show that the +development of the rational and self-directive faculties is at the +sacrifice of those instinctive and intuitional modes of operation which +do duty for them while man is yet in a state of pupilage. Memory, for +example, is fresher and more assimilative in childhood, but deteriorates +very often as the higher faculties come into use; and indeed we cannot +fail to see how the introduction of printing, writing, and mnemonic arts +and artifices of all kinds, has lowered the average power of civilized +memory, and made the ordinary feats of more primitive times seem to us +magical and incredible. We also notice the high development of hearing, +sight, and other forms of perception among savages who live by their +five senses rather than by their wits. When we descend to the +animal-world we are confronted by cognitive faculties whose effects we +see, but of whose precise nature we can form no conjecture whatever. +That which guides the migratory birds in their wanderings, and simulates +polity in the bee-hive and ant-hill, is not reason, but is something for +practical purposes far better than reason. Putting a number of these and +of similar considerations together seems to suggest that development in +the direction of self-instruction (which is reason) and self-management +and independence, is loss as well as gain. + +What we gain is no doubt our own in a truer sense than that we had when +we hung upon Nature's breast, and were guided passively by instincts and +intuitions to purposes that reason can never reach to. + +By far the most wonderful and seemingly intelligent work of the soul is +that by which it builds up, nourishes, repairs, developes, and finally +reproduces the body it dwells in. Yet in all this it is almost as +passive and unconscious as a vegetable. The effect is (as far as our +comprehension of it goes) altogether preternatural and inexplicable; yet +it is far less _our_ effect than what we do by reason and by taking +thought. What we pay for in dignity we lose in efficiency. While Nature +carries us in her arms we move swiftly enough, but when she sets us on +our feet to learn independence and self-rule, we cut a sorry figure. In +our helplessness she does all for us as though we were yet part of her; +but in the measure that we are weaned and begin to fend for ourselves as +responsible agents, we are deprived of the aids and easements befitting +the childhood of our race. + +If this be true, if man in his primitive state possessed intuitive +powers which have sunk into abeyance, either through the diversion of +psychic energy to the development of other powers, or through desuetude, +or as the instincts of the new-born babe are lost when their brief +purpose is fulfilled; if the occasional recrudescence of these powers +among civilized peoples is really a survival of an earlier state; then +indeed we can understand that the evidence, or apparent evidence, for +the existence of an X-region, or spirit-world, may have been +immeasurably more abundant in the infancy of the human race, than it is +now even among contemporary savages. + +Put it how we will, it cannot be denied that belief in divination, in +diabolic possession, and in magic, has largely contributed to belief in +spirits; and that to ignore this contribution by throwing the whole +burden on ordinary dreams is unscientific. During sleep Mr. Tylor +himself is as much a prey to delusion as the most primitive savage; but +the criteria by which on waking we condemn _most_ of our dreams as +illusions, seem really as accessible and obvious to the child or savage +as to the philosopher; though the former through carelessness or poverty +of language will perhaps say: "I saw," instead of: "I dreamt I saw." +Children will speak as it were historically of even their day-dreams +and imaginings, not from any untruthfulness or wish to deceive, but from +that romancing tendency rightly reprehended in their elders, who should +be alive to the conventional value of language. But the first and most +natural use of speech is simply to express and embody the thought that +is in us, not to assert, or affirm, or to instruct others. The child's +romancing is not intended as assertion, although so taken by prosaic +adults. It is from the same instinct which lies at the back of his +eternal monologue, of the "Let's pretend" by which he is for the moment +transformed into a soldier, or a steam-engine, or a horse. Eye-reading +without articulation is impossible for the beginner, and thought that is +not talked and acted is impossible for the child. Yet deeply as the +child is wrapped up in his dreams, there is nothing more certain than +that he is as clear as any adult as to the difference between romance +and fact; and so it is no doubt with the savage, who can hardly be +denied to have at least as much reason as an average child. + +Closer study of the savage points to the conclusion that the civilized +man falls into the same error in his regard as many adults do with +respect to children, whom they fail hopelessly to interpret through lack +of imagination, and to whom they are but tedious and ridiculous when +they would fain be instructive and amusing; forgetting that the +difference between the two stages of life is rather in the size of the +toys played with, than in the way they are regarded. So too we are apt +to look on foreign, and still more on savage language, symbolism, ways, +and customs, as indicative of a far more radical difference and greater +inferiority of mental constitution and ethical instincts than really +exists. Mr. Kidd, in his book on Social Evolution, has contended with +some plausibility that the brain-power of the Bushman and of the Cockney +is much on a par at starting, and that the subsequent divergence is due +chiefly to education and moral training; and certainly much of the +evidence brought forward in Mr. Lang's volume seems to look that way. If +the aboriginal Australian has a faith in the immortality of the soul and +in a supreme God, the rewarder of righteousness, if he summarizes the +laws of God under the precept of unselfishness; if in all this he is but +a type of the universal savage, surely it were well if some of the +missionary zeal which is devoted to supplying the heathen with Bibles +which they cannot understand, were turned to the work of bringing our +own godless millions up to their religious level. + +But this takes us to the second and still more interesting part of _The +Making of Religion_, which we shall have to discuss in the next section. +At present we only wish to insist that it is a mistake to assume that +because savages and children are, when compared with ourselves, so +little, therefore their thoughts and ideas can be understood with little +difficulty. Contrariwise, as the apparent difference in life and +language is greater, the deeper and more patient investigation will it +need to detect that radical sameness of mental and moral constitution +which binds men together far more than diversity of education and +environment can ever separate them. It is, therefore, exceedingly +unlikely that either the child or the savage should, by failing to +distinguish between dream and reality, introduce into his whole life +that incoherence which is just the distinguishing characteristic of +dreaming and lunacy. And, as a fact, do we really find the savage as +depressed, on waking, by a dreamt-of calamity as by a real one; or as +elated after a visionary scalping of foes as after a real victory? Does +he on waking look for the said scalps among his collection of trophies, +and is he perplexed and incensed at not finding them? Even if, like +ourselves, he has occasionally a very vivid and coherent dream +reconcilable with his waking circumstances, will he not judge of it by +the vast majority of his dreams which are palpable illusions, and not by +the few exceptional cases? If at times we ourselves doubt whether we +witnessed something or dreamt it, yet we do so not because the seeming +fact is one which makes for the existence of another world of a +different order to this, but for the very contrary reason. If the savage +only dreamt of the dead, he might find in this an evidence of their +survival, but he dreams far more often of the living, and that, with +circumstances which make the illusion manifest on waking. Seeing the awe +and terror which all men have of the supernatural region, we ought, on +the animistic hypothesis, to find among savages a great reluctance to go +to bed--"to sleep! Perchance to dream--aye, there's the rub!" But we do +not. Finally, just as the Chinese, who are supposed to mistake epilepsy +for possession, have, unfortunately for the supposition, got two +distinct words for the two phenomena, so it will doubtless be found that +there is no savage who has not some word to express illusion; or whose +language does not prove that he knows dreams are but dreams. We may well +doubt if even animals on waking are affected by their dreams as by +realities, or if a dog ever bit a man for a kick received in a dream. In +short the dream-theory of souls is plausible only in the gross, but +melts away under closer examination bit by bit. + +Whether the S.P.R. will ever succeed in bottling a ghost, and in +submitting it to the tests necessary to convince science, matters +little. The real fruit of its labours will be to "convince men of sin," +to convict science of being unscientific, and criticism of being +uncritical--of being biassed by fashion to the extent of refusing to +examine evidence which must be either admitted or explained away. +Scepticism and credulity alike are hostile both to science and religion, +and it is the common interest of these latter to secure a full +recognition, on the one side of the principle of faith, that with God +all things are possible; and on the other, of the principle of science +which is: to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. +Credulity tends to make the actual co-extensive with the possible; while +scepticism would limit the possible to the known actual. The true mind +would be one in which faith and criticism were so tempered as to secure +width without slovenliness, and exactitude without narrowness. + +II. + +How, apart from the imperfect lingering tradition of some primitive +revelation, the belief in a surviving soul originates with contemporary +savages, or might have originated among still ruder past races, is a +question of some interest, not only for its own sake, but for the sake +of whatever little light it may throw upon the more vital question as to +the value of that belief. Had the doctrine of souls no other origin than +a false inference from the ordinary phenomena of sleeping and dreaming; +were it in no sense an instinctive belief, suggested perhaps and +confirmed by supernormal facts, it would still have interest for the +anthropologist as one of those almost necessary and universal errors +through which the human mind struggles to the truth, such as the errors +of astrology or alchemy; but it would in no way contribute to the +argument for immortality _ex consensu hominum_--an argument of much +avail when it is a case of man's instinctive judgments and primary +intuitions, which are God-given, but of ever less value in proportion as +there is a question of deductions, inferences, and self-formed +judgments. Even if we discard the dream-theory altogether, we get no +support from the consensus of savages as to the soul's survival, unless +we have reason to think that the facts on which their inference rests +are truly, and not only apparently, supernormal, and are, moreover, such +as leave no other inference possible. + +We know only too well that there are universal fallacies as well as +universal truths of the human mind. For the practical necessities of +life the imagination stands to man in good stead, but as the inadequate +instrument of speculative thought its fertile deceitfulness is betrayed +in his very earliest attempts at philosophy; nor are his subsequent +efforts directed to anything else than the endeavour to correct and +allow for its refractions and distortions, to transcend its narrow +limitations, to force it to express, meanly and clumsily, truths which +otherwise it would entirely obscure and deny. There might well be facts, +nay, there are undoubtedly facts, which to the untutored mind +necessarily and always seem altogether supernormal, but which science +rightly explains to be, however unusual, yet natural, and in no way +outside the ordinary laws. So far as the marvels of sorcerers and +medicine-men are the work of chicanery, they will lack that persistence +and ubiquity which justifies the investigation of other marvels for +whose universality some basis must be sought in the uniform nature of +things. Cheats will not always and everywhere hit on the same plan, nor +will the independent testimony of false witnesses be found agreeing. + +But if besides facts and appearances that science can really explain +away, there be a residue which takes us into a region wherein science as +yet has set no foot, then we may indeed be on our way to a confirmation +of the usually accepted arguments for immortality by which the +positivist may be met upon his own ground. In truth, metaphysical, +moral, and religious arguments, however much they may avail with +individuals who are subjectively disposed to receive them, cannot in +these days influence the crowd of men who need some sort of violence +offered to their intellect if they are to accept truths against which +they are biassed. The temper of the majority is positivist; it will +believe what it can see, touch, and handle, and no more. If then the +natural truth of the independent existence of spirits can be inade +experimentally evident--and _à priori_, why should it not?--men may not +like it, but they will have either to accept it, or to deny all that +they accept on like evidence. Such unwilling concession would of itself +make little for personal religion in the individual; but its widespread +acceptance could not fail to counteract the ethics of materialism, and +so prepare the way for perhaps a fuller return to religion on the part +of the many. + +It is the belief, and perhaps the hope, of not a few men of light and +learning that a comparison of the results of the S.P.R. investigations +with those of anthropology touching the beliefs and superstitions of +savages and ruder races, may point to an order of facts which, with +reference to the admissions of existing science, are rightly called +supernormal, and yet which are in another sense strictly normal, namely, +with reference to that science of experimental psychology which, amid +the usual storm of ridicule and jealousy, is slowly struggling into +existence--ridicule from all devout slaves of the intellectual fashion +of the times; jealousy from the neighbour sciences of mental physiology +and neurology, which it declares bankrupt in the face of +newly-discovered liabilities. + +So far this gathered evidence seems, in the eyes of some of its +interpreters, to point to a close connection, if not of being, at least +of influence, between soul and soul, such as binds each atom of matter +to every other; a connection which increases as we descend from the +above-ground level of full consciousness, through ever lower strata of +subconsciousness, to those hidden depths of unconscious operation from +which the most unintelligibly intelligent effects of the soul +proceed--as though, in the darkness, it were taught by God, and guided +blindfold by the hand of its Maker. In other words, the individuation of +souls is conceived to be somewhat like that of the separate branches of +the same tree which, traced downwards, run into a common root, from +whence they are differenced by every hour of their growth, yet not +disconnected, as though each several consciousness sprang from some +unconscious psychic basis common to all, wherein, like forgotten +memories, the experiences of all are buried, at a depth far beyond the +reach of all normal powers of reminiscence, yet through which terminus +of converging souls thoughts can, in our intenser moments, pass from +mind to mind,--reverberated as it were from the base, and thence caught +by the one consciousness altogether resonant to that particular +vibration. How far such an interpretation may favour pantheism, or +imperil personality, or involve a doctrine of "pre-existence," or of +innate ideas, is not for us here to discuss. If we are to judge it +fairly, it must be simply as a provisional working-hypothesis +explanatory of certain observations, and apart from all other +psychological theories with which it may seem in conflict. Truth will in +the end adjust itself with truth, but nothing is to be hoped from forced +and premature adjustments. + +Mr. Lang's second and principal contention is that even if we allow the +animistic account of the belief in spirits, in no sense can we admit +that process by which belief in God is supposed to be a later +development of the belief in spirits, as though inequality among spirits +had given rise to aristocracy, and aristocracy to monarchy. + +By God here we understand: "a primal eternal Being, author of all +things, the father and the friend of man, the invisible omniscient +guardian of morality," a definition which, while it fixes the high-water +mark of monotheism, yet only states with formidable distinctness what, +according to Mr. Lang, is found confusedly in the apprehension of the +rudest savages. There are two senses in which we can understand an +evolution of this idea of God; first, as Mr. Tylor understands it, in +the sense of a development by accretion from a simple germ, from the +idea of a phantasm nowise a god, to that of a spirit still lacking +divinity, thence to that of a Supreme Spirit in whom first the essential +definition of God is somewhat fulfilled. Secondly, it can be understood +strictly as a mere unfolding of the contents of a confused apprehension; +so that there is an advance only in point of coherence and distinctness. +Thus understood, the entire religious history of the race, as also of +the individual, viewed from its mental side, consists in an evolution of +the idea of God and culminates in a face-to-face seeing of God. + +From the evidence amassed, or perhaps rather, sampled, by Mr. Lang it +would seem that, what we account the lowest races are in possession of a +confused idea of God, whencesoever derived, which is in substantial +agreement with the reflex conception contained in the above definition; +and that there is no existing series of intellectual stages whereby this +can be seen, as it were, in the act of growing out of previous simpler +ideas. Evolution in the direction of greater clearness and distinctness +is to be observed, as well as a downward process of obscuration and +confusion: but for a substantial development of the idea of God from an +idea of "not God" there is no proof forthcoming so far. + +On the animistic hypothesis we should be prepared to find the notion of +God, as above stated, to be of very late development and accepted only +by races fairly advanced in culture. We should, _à priori_, deem it +impossible to discover more among the lower savages than a rude religion +of ghost-worship, without any consciousness of a moral Supreme Being, +the father and friend of man. Whatever might seem to suggest the +contrary, would be explainable by some infiltration of more civilized +beliefs. + +Armed with this hypothesis the eye is quick "to see that it brings with +it the power of seeing," and to impose its own forms and schemata on the +phenomena offered to its observation. The "animist" ill-acquainted with +the savage's language and modes of thought; excluded from those inner +"mysteries" which figure in nearly every savage religion; confounding +the symbolism, the popular mythology, and also the corruptions, +distortions, and abuses which are the parasites of all religion, with +the religion itself, can easily come away with the impression that there +is nothing but ghost-worship, priestcraft, and superstition, no +conception whatever of a personal "Power that makes for Righteousness." +If Protestants have almost as crude an idea of the religion of their +Catholic fellow-Christians with whom they live side by side, and +converse in the same language, if they are so absolutely dominated by +their own form of religious thought, as to be as helpless as idiots in +the presence of any other, can we expect that the ordinary British +traveller, "brandishing his Bible and his bath," strong in the smug +conviction of his mental, moral, and religious preeminence, will be a +very sympathetic, conscientious, and reliable interpreter of the +religion of the Zulu or the Andamanese? + +The fact is that without a preliminary hypothesis he would see nothing +at all except dire confusion. But an assumption such as that of +"animism," has the selective power of a magnet, drawing to itself all +congruous facts and little filings of probability, until it so bristles +over with evidence that a hedge-hog is easier to handle. + +But before discussing the relation of this assumption to existing facts +and so bringing it to an _à posteriori_ test, let us examine its _à +priori_ supports. + +First of all, as Mr. Lang points out, it takes for granted that the +savage can have no idea of the Creator until he conceive Him as a +spirit. "God is a spirit," has been dinned into our ears from childhood; +and hence we conclude that he who has no notion of a spirit can have no +notion of God; and that the idea of God is of later growth than that of +a ghost. In truth, he who ascribes to God a body does not know _all_ +about Him; but which of us knows _all_ about God? The point is, not +whether the savage can know the metaphysics of divinity, but whether he +can conceive a primal eternal moral being, author of all things, man's +father and judge--a conception which abstracts entirely from the +question of matter and spirit. We ourselves, like the savage, +necessarily speak of God and imagine Him humanwise,--although our +instructed reason, at times, corrects the error of our fancy,--and +perhaps only "at times,"--only when we leave the ground of spontaneous +thought, to walk on metaphysical stilts--nor while that childish image +remains uncorrected and we neither affirm nor deny to Him a body, can +our notion be called false, however obscure it be and inadequate. If the +savage has no notion of spirit, yet he may have, and often seems to have +a very true, though of course infinitely imperfect, notion of God; nay, +perhaps a truer notion than those who affirm, without any sense of using +analogy, that God is a spirit. For if His spirituality is insisted on, +it is rather to exclude from Him the grossness and limitation of matter, +and to ascribe to Him a transcendental degree of whatever perfection our +notion of spirit may involve, than to classify Him, or to predicate of +Him that finite nature which we call a spirit. God is neither a spirit +nor a body; but rather like Ndengei of the Fijians: "an impersonation of +the abstract idea of eternal existence;" one who is to be "regarded as a +deathless _Being_, no question of 'spirit' being raised;" so that the +first intuition of the unsophisticated mind is found to be in more +substantial agreement with the last results of reflex philosophical +thought, than those early philosophizings which halt between the +affirmation and denial of bodily attributes, unable to prescind from the +difficulty and unable to solve it. The history of the Jews, nay, the +history of our own mind proves to demonstration that the thought of God +is a far easier thought and a far earlier, than that of a spirit. Our +mind, oar heart, our conscience, affirm the former instinctively, while +the latter does continual violence to our imagination, except so far as +spirit is misconceived to be an attenuated phantasmal body. Not only, +therefore, does the savage imagine God and speak of Him humanwise, as we +all do; but if he does not actually believe Him to be material, he at +least will be slow in mastering the thought of His spirituality. + +Another assumption underlying the animistic hypothesis, and also +borrowed from Christian teaching, is that the savage regards the soul or +ghost as the liberated and consummated man, and that therefore he will +place God rather in the category of disembodied than of embodied men. +Yet not only the Greek and Roman, but even the Jew, looked on the shade +of the departed as a mere fraction of humanity, as a miserable residue +of man, helpless and hopeless, and withal disposed to be mischievous and +exacting, and therefore needing to be humoured in various ways. Nay, +even Christianity with its dogma of the bodily resurrection, denies that +Platonic doctrine which views the body as the prison rather than as the +complement and consort of the soul; although it holds the soul to be of +an altogether higher, because spiritual, order. But to the primitive +savage, who everywhere regards death as non-natural, as accidental and +violent, the surviving spirit, however uncertain-tempered and +incalculable in its movements, however much to be feared and +propitiated, does not command reverence as a being of a superior order. +At best it is: "Alas! poor ghost!" Better a live dog than a dead lion; +better the meanest slave that draws breath, than the monarch of Orcus. +Surely it is not in the region of shadows that the savage will look for +the great "all-father;" but in the world of solid, tangible realities. + +Again, it is assumed that progress in one point is progress in all; that +because we surpass all other races and generations in physical science +and useful arts, we surpass them in every other way; and that they must +be far behind us in ethical and religious conceptions, as they are in +inventions and the production of comforts. To find our own theism and +morality among savages is therefore impossible; for as the crooked stick +is unto the steam-plough, so is the god of the savage unto the God of +Great Britain. Yet when we consider how closely religious and ethical +principles are intertwined, and how glaringly untrue it is to say that +industrial civilization makes for morality,--for purity or self-denial, +or justice, or truth, or honour: how manifestly it is accompanied with a +deterioration of the higher perceptions and tastes, we must surely pause +before taking it for granted that the course of true religion has been +running smoothly parallel to that of commerce. + +In a thoughtful essay, entitled _The Disenchantment of France_, Mr. F.W. +Myers points out the goal towards which "progress" is leading us, +through the destruction of those four "illusions" which formerly gave +life all its value and dignity,--namely, belief in religion; devotion to +the State--whether to the prince or to the people; belief in the +eternity and spirituality of human love; belief in man's freedom and +imperishable personal unity. "I cannot avoid the conclusion," he says, +"that we are bound to be prepared for the worst. Yet by the worst I do +not mean any catastrophe of despair, any cosmic suicide, any world-wide +unchaining of the brute that lies pent in man. I mean merely the +peaceful, progressive, orderly triumph of _l'homme sensuel moyen_; the +gradual adaptation of hopes and occupations to a purely terrestrial +standard; the calculated pleasures of the cynic who is resolved to be a +dupe no more." + +In other words, if we accept this very temperate and reluctant +conclusion, we must confess that the one-sided progress, with whose +all-sufficiency we are so thoroughly satisfied, is making straight for +the extermination, not only of religion, but of morality in any received +sense of the term. + +But when Mr. Lang, who has no hypothesis of his own as to the origin of +belief in God, brings the animistic theory to an _à posteriori_ test, he +finds it encumbered with still greater difficulties; for nothing is as, +_à priori_, it ought to be. + +While Mr. Tylor asserts "that no savage tribe of monotheists has ever +been known," but that all ascribe the attributes of deity to other +beings than the Almighty Creator, it appears in fact that many of the +rudest savages "are as monotheistic as some Christians. They have a +Supreme Being, and the 'distinctive attributes of deity' are not by them +assigned to other beings further than as Christianity assigns them to +angels, saints, the devil," &c. Catholics at least will readily +understand how hastily and unjustly the charge of polytheism is made by +the protestantized mind against any religion which believes in a +Heavenly Court as well as in a Heavenly Monarch. "Of the existence of a +belief in a Supreme Being" amongst the lowest savages, "there is as good +evidence as we possess for any fact in the ethnographic region. It is +certain that savages, when first approached by curious travellers and +missionaries, have again and again recognized our God in theirs." + +If, therefore, belief in God grew out of belief in ghosts, it must have +been in some stage of culture lower than any of which we have experience +so far; and at some period which belongs to the region of hypothesis and +conjecture. There are no known tribes where ghosts are worshipped and +God is not known, or where the supposed process of development can be +watched in action. Nor is it only that links are missing, but one of the +very terms to be connected, namely, a godless race, is conjectural. +Still more unfortunate is it for the animists that evidence points to +the fact that advance in civilization often means the decay of +monotheism, and that the ruder races are the purer in their religious +and ethical conceptions. Once more, all facts are against the theory +that tribes transfer their earthly polity to the heavenly city; for +monotheism is found where monarchy is unknown. "God cannot be a +reflection from human kings where there are no kings; nor a president +elected out of a polytheistic society of gods, where there is as yet no +polytheism; nor an ideal first ancestor where men do not worship their +ancestors." To the substantiating of these facts Mr. Lang then applies +himself, and shows us how among the Australians, Red Indians, Figians, +Andamanese, Dinkas, Yao, Zulus, and all known savages there lives the +conception of a Supreme Being (not necessarily spirit) who is variously +styled Father, Master, Our Father, The Ancient One in the skyland, The +Great Father. He shows us, moreover, that this deity is the God of +conscience, a power making for goodness, a guardian and enforcer of the +interests of justice and truth and purity; good to the good, and froward +with the froward. + +But surely, it will be said, all this is too paradoxical, too violently +in conflict with what is notorious concerning the religion and morality +of savages. + +The reason of this seeming contradiction is, however, not altogether +difficult. It is to be found partly in the fact that religion, like +morality, being counter to those laws which govern the physical world +and the animal man,--to the law of egoism and competition and struggle +for existence; to the law that "might is right,"--tends from the very +nature of the case towards decay and disintegration. The movement of +material progress is in some sense a downhill movement. No doubt it +evokes much seeming virtue, such as is necessary to secure the end; but +the motive force is one with regard to which man is passive rather than +active, a slave rather than a master, as a miser is in respect to that +passion which stimulates him to struggle for gain. Religion and morality +are uphill work, needing continual strain and attention if the motive +force is to be maintained at all. Huxley, in one of his later +utterances, allowed this with regard to morality; and it is not less but +more true with regard to faith in the value of unseen realities. Even if +belief in a moral God be as natural to man as are the promptings of +conscience, it ought not to surprise us that it should be as universally +stifled, neglected, seemingly denied, as conscience is. It is not +usually in old age and after years of conflict with the world that +conscience is most sensitive and faithful to light, but rather in early +childhood. And similarly the sense of God and of His will is apparently +more strong and lively in the childhood of races than after it has been +stifled by the struggle for wealth and pre-eminence-- + + When yet I had not walked above + A mile or two from my first love: + But felt through all this fleshly dress + Bright shoots of everlastingness. [2] + +Degradation may almost be considered a law of religion and morality +which needs some kind of violent counteraction, some continual +intervention and providence, if it is to be kept in check. After all, +this is only a dressing-up of the old platitude that a holy life means +continual warfare and straining of the spirit against the flesh, of the +moral order against the physical order, of altruism or the true egoism +against selfishness or the false egoism. Of course an ideal civilization +would help and not hinder religion; but the chances against civilization +being ideal are so large as to make it historically true that, advance +in civilization does not always mean advance in religion and morality, +and often means decay. + +Far from animism being the root of theism, more often it is rather the +ivy that grows up about it, hides it and chokes it. Just because the +demands of religion and morality are so burdensome to men, they will +ever seek short-cuts to salvation; and the intercession of presumably +corruptible courtiers will be secured to win the favour, or avert the +displeasure, of the rigorously incorruptible and inexorable King, who is +"no respecter of persons." Except among Jews and Christians, the Supreme +Being is nowhere worshipped with sacrifice--that service of +food-offering being reserved for subordinate deities susceptible to +gentle bribery. The great God of conscience is naturally the least +popular object of cultus; though, were the animists right, He should be +the most popular, seeing He would be the latest development demanded and +created by the popular mind. But contrariwise, He tends to recede more +and more into the background, behind the ever-multiplying crowd of +patron-spirits, guardians, family-gods; till, as in Greece and Rome, He +is almost entirely obscured, "an unknown God ignorantly worshipped"--the +End, as usual, being forgotten and buried in the means. All this process +of degradation will be hastened by the corruption of priests whose +avarice or ambition, as Mr. Lang says, will tempt them to exploit the +lucrative elements in religion at the expense of the ethical; to +whittle-away the decrees of God and conscience to suit the wealthy and +easy-going; to substitute purchasable sacrifice, for obedience; and the +fat of rams, for charity. We need only look to the history of Israel and +of the Christian Church to see all these tendencies continually at work, +and only held in check by innumerable interventions of Divine +Providence, and of that Spirit which is always striving with man. + +Scant, however, as may be the amount of direct worship accorded to the +Supreme God, compared with that received by subordinate spiritual +powers, yet it is _sui generis_, and of an infinitely higher order. The +familiar distinction of _latria_ and _dulia_ seems to obtain everywhere; +as also that between _Elohim_ and _Javeh_, that is, between supernal +beings in general, and the Supreme Being who is also supernal. Yet so +excessive in quantity is the secondary cultus compared with the primary, +that an outsider may well be pardoned for thinking that there is nothing +beyond what meets the eye on every side. As has been said, the Supreme +Being alone is usually considered above the weakness of caring for +sacrifice, or for external worship in "temples made with hands." His +name is commonly tabooed, only to be whispered in those mysteries of +initiation which are met with so universally. Outside these mysteries He +may only be spoken of in parables and myths, grotesque, irreverent, +designed to conceal rather than to reveal. But rarely is there an image +or an altar to this unknown God. + +It is easy for those who recognize no other religion among savages +behind the popular observances and cults which are so much to the front, +to believe that early religion is non-ethical. For indeed, for the most +part, all this secondary cultus is directed to the mitigation of the +moral code and the substitution of exterior for interior sacrifice. It +is the result of an endeavour to compound with conscience; and to hide +away sins from the all-seeing eye. Again it is chiefly in the secrecy of +the mysteries that the higher ethical doctrine is propounded--a doctrine +usually covering all the substantials of the decalogue; and in some +cases, approaching the Christian summary of the same under the one +heading of love and unselfishness. As for the corrupt lives of savages, +if it proves their religion to be non-ethical, what should we have to +think of Christianity? We cry out in horror against cannibalism as the +_ne plus ultra_ of wickedness., but except so far as it involves murder, +it is hard to find in it more than a violation of our own convention, +while a mystical mind might find more to say for it than for cremation. +Certainly it is not so bad as slander and backbiting. Human sacrifice +offered to the Lord of life and death at His own behest, is something +that did not seem wicked and inconceivable to Abraham. Head-hunting is +not a pretty game; nor is scalping and mutilation the most generous +treatment of a fallen foe; yet war has seen worse things done by those +who professed an ethical religion. + +But, chief among the causes why savage religion has been so +misrepresented, is the almost universal co-existence of a popularized +form of religion addressed to the imagination, with that which speaks to +the understanding alone. As has already been said, man's imagination is +at war with his intelligence when supersensible realities, such as God +and the soul, are in question. Without figures we cannot think; yet the +timeless and spaceless world can ill be figured after the likeness of +things limited by time and space. This mental law is the secret of the +invariable association of mythology with religion. Setting aside the +problem as to how the truths of natural religion (_sc._ that there is a +God the rewarder of them that seek Him) are first brought home to man, +it is certain that if he does not receive them embedded in history or +parable, in spoken or enacted symbolism, he will soon fix and record +them in some such language for himself. Christ recognized the necessity +of speaking to the multitude in parables, not attempting to precise or +define the indefinable; but contenting Himself with: "The Kingdom of +Heaven is _like_," &c. "I am content," says Sir Thomas Browne, "to +understand a mystery without a rigid definition, in an easie and +Platonick description," and it is only through such easie and Platonick +descriptions that spiritual truth can slowly be filtered into the +popular mind. Still when we consider how prone all metaphors are to be +pressed inexactly, either too far, or else not far enough, how abundant +a source they are of misapprehension, owing to the curiosity that will +not be content to have the gold in the ore, but must needs vainly strive +to refine it out, we can well understand how mythology tends to corrupt +and debase religion if it be not continually watched and weeded; and +how, being, from the nature of the case, ever to the front, ever on +men's lips and mingling with their lives, it should seem to the outsider +to be not the imperfect garment of religion, but a substitute for it. +Yet in some sense these mythologies are a safeguard of reverence in that +they provide a theme for humour and profanity and rough handling, which +is thus expended, not on the sacred realities themselves, but on their +shadows and images. Among certain savages God's personal name is too +holy to be breathed but in mysteries; yet His mythological substitute is +represented to be as grotesque, freakish, and immoral as the Zeus of the +populace. We can hardly enter into such a frame of mind, though possibly +the irreverences and buffooneries of some of the miracle-plays of the +middle ages are similarly to be explained as the rebound from the strain +incident to a continual sense of the nearness of the supernatural; and +perhaps the _Messer Domeniddio_ of the Florentines stood rather for a +mental effigy that might be played with, than for the reasoned +conception of the dread Deity. If we possessed a minutely elaborated +history of the Good Shepherd and His adventures, or of the Prodigal's +father, or of the Good Samaritan, interspersed with all manner of +ludicrous and profane incidents, and losing sight of the original +purport of the figure, we should have something like a mythology. Were +it not stereotyped as part of an inspired record, the mere romancing +tendency of the imagination would easily have added continually to the +original parable, wholly forgetful of its spiritual significance. + +It is part of the very economy of the Incarnation to meet this weakness, +to provide for this want of the human mind; to satisfy the imagination +as well as the intelligence. Here Divine truth has received a Divine +embodiment, has been set forth in the language of deeds, in a real and +not in a fictitious history. Sacrifice and sacrament, and every kind of +natural religious symbolism, has been appropriated and consecrated to +the service of truth and to the fullest utterance of God that such weak +accents will stretch to. Here the channel of communication between +Heaven and earth is not of man's creation but of God's; or at least is +of God's composition. This is the great difference between the ethnic +religions and a religion that professes to be revealed--that is, spoken +by God and put into language by Him. The latter is, so to say, cased in +an incorruptible body, its very expression being chosen and sealed for +ever with Divine approval, and rescued from the fluent and unstable +condition of religions whose clothes are the works of men's hands. Here +it is that Catholic Christianity stands out as altogether catholic and +human, adapted as it is to the world-wide cravings of the religious +instinct; satisfying the imagination and the emotions, no less than the +intellect and the will; and yet saving us from the perils of the +myth-making tendency of our mind. + +The same thought is pressed upon us when we view the collective evidence +as to the universal demand for a mediatorial system--for intercessors, +and patrons, for a heavenly court surrounding the Heavenly Monarch; a +demand often created by and tending to a degradation of purer religion, +yet most surely embodying and expressing a spiritual instinct which is +only fully explained and satisfied by the Catholic doctrine of the +communion of saints and souls in one great society, labouring for a +conjoint salvation and beatitude. We Catholics know well enough that the +degraded and superstitious will pervert saint-worship as they pervert +other good things to their own hurt and to God's dishonour, but we also +know that of itself the doctrine of the Heavenly Court is altogether in +the interests of the very highest and purest religion. In all this +matter, needless to say, Mr. Lang is not with us; but the affinities of +Catholicism with universal religion, which he marks to our prejudice, +are really in some sort proof of our contention that the Church is the +divinely conceived fulfilment of all man's natural religious instincts, +providing harmless and healthy outlets for humours otherwise dangerous +and morbid; never forgetful of man's double nature and its claims, +neither wearying him with an impossible intellectualism--a religion of +pure philosophy--not suffering him to be the prey of mere imagination +and sentiment, but tempering the divine and human, the thought and the +word, so as to bring all his faculties under the yoke of Christ. + +Mr. Lang's concern is with the universality of belief in God the +Rewarder, not with its origin nor even its value; though he seems at +times to imply that the solution may be found in a primitive revelation +of some sort. For ourselves, accordant as such a notion would be with +popular Christian tradition, we do not think that the adduced evidence +needs that hypothesis; but is explained sufficiently by "the hypothesis +of St. Paul," which, as Mr. Lang admits, "seem not the most +unsatisfactory." The mere verbal tradition of a primitive "deposit" not +committed to any authorized guardians would, to say the least, be a +hazardous and conjectural way of accounting for the facts; nor is there +any evidence offered to show that such religious beliefs are held, as +the Catholic religion is, on the authority of antiquity, interpreted by +a living voice. The substance of this elementary religion--the existence +of God the Rewarder of them that seek Him--is naturally suggested to the +simple-minded by the data of unspoilt conscience, confirmed and +supplemented by the spectacle of Nature. That the truth would be +borne-in on a solitary and isolated soul we need not maintain; for in +solitude and isolation man is not man, and neither reason nor language +can develop aright. Further we may allow that as Nature or God provides +for society, and therefore for individuals, by an equal distribution of +gifts and talents, giving some to be politicians, others poets, others +philosophers, others inventors, so He gives to some what might be called +natural religious genius or talent or spiritual insight, for the benefit +of the community. Thus whatever be true of the individual savage, we +cannot well suppose that any tribe or people, taken collectively, should +fail to draw the fundamental truths of religion from the data of +conscience and nature. In this sense no doubt they would become +traditional--the common property of all--so that the innate facility of +each individual mind in regard to them would be stimulated and +supplemented by suggestion from without. + +How far God can be said actually to "speak" to the soul through +conscience or through Nature so as to make faith, in the strict sense of +reliance on the word of another, possible, is for theologians to +discuss. If besides expressing these truths in creation or in +conscience, He also expresses in some way His intention to reveal them +to the particular soul, we have all that is requisite. In what way, or +innumerable ways He makes His voice heard in every human heart day by +day, and causes general truths to be brought near and recognized and +received as a particular message, each can answer best for himself. + +But undoubtedly the results of comparative religion are, so far, almost +entirely favourable to the doctrine of God's all-saving will; and in +many other points confirmatory of received beliefs. Even where, for +example, in the question of the origin and meaning of sacrifice, they +seem to necessitate a modification of the somewhat elaborate _à priori_ +definition, popular in some modern schools (though not in them all), yet +that modification is altogether favourable to the sounder conception of +the Eucharistic Sacrifice as a food-offering complementary to the +Sacrifice of the Cross. Above all it is in bringing out the unity of +type between natural ethnic religions, and that revealed Catholic +religion which is their correction and fulfilment, that the studies of +Mr. Lang and Mr. Jevons are of such service. The militant Protestant +delights to dwell on the analogies between Romanism and Paganism; we too +may dwell on them with delight, as evidence of that substantial unity of +the human mind which underlies all surface diversities of mode and +language, and binds together, as children of one family, all who believe +in God the Rewarder of them that seek Him, who is no respecter of +persons. What man in his darkness and sinfulness has feebly been trying +to utter in every nation from the beginning, that God has formulated and +written down for him in the great Catholic religion of the Word made +Flesh-- + + Which he may read that binds the sheaf + Or builds the house, or digs the grave, + And those wild eyes that watch the wave + In roarings round the coral reef. + +True, even could it be established beyond all doubt that belief in the +one God were universal among rude and uncultivated races, this would not +add any new proof to the truth of religion, unless it could be shown +that it was really an instinctive, inwritten judgment, and not one of +those many natural fallacies into which all men fall until they are +educated out of them. Still, for those who do not need conviction on +this point, it is no slight consolation to be assured that simplicity +and savagery do not shut men out from the truths best worth knowing; +that even where the earthen vessel is most corrupted, the heavenly +treasure is not altogether lost; that it is only those who deliberately +go in search of obscurities who need stumble. It was not the crowds of +pagandom that St. Paul censured, but the philosophers. God made man's +feet for the earth, and not for the tight-rope. Whatever be the truth +about Idealism, man is by nature a Realist; and similarly he is by +nature a theist, until he has studiously learnt to balance himself in +the non-natural pose. + +Will a man be excused for deliberately dashing his foot against a stone +because forsooth he has persuaded himself with Zeno, that there is no +such thing as motion; or with Berkeley, that the externality of the +world is a delusion; or will he be pardoned in his unbelief because he +could not justify by philosophy the truth which conscience and nature +are dinning into his ears: that there is a God the Rewarder of them that +seek Him? + +_Sept. Oct._ 1898. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: "A hysterical fit indicates a lamentable instability of the +nervous system. But it is by no means certain _à priori_ that every +symptom of that instability, without exception, will be of a +degenerative kind. The nerve-storm, with its unwonted agitations, may +possibly lay bare some deep-lying capacity in us which could scarcely +otherwise have come to light. Recent experiments on both sensation and +memory in certain abnormal states have added plausibility to this view, +and justify us in holding that in spite of its frequent association with +hysteria, ecstasy is not necessarily in itself a morbid symptom." +(F.W.H. Myers, _Tennyson as a Prophet_.)] + +[Footnote 2: _The Retreat_. By Henry Vaughan.] + + + +XXII. + + +ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. + +Much as we may think of the abstract and objective value of the treatise +_De vera religione_, which forms the usual introduction to those _cursus +theologici_ whose multiplication of late has been so remarkable, it can +hardly be denied that its cogency is much diminished for the large +number of those thinkers who repudiate the philosophical presuppositions +upon which that treatise rests. As long as negation halted before that +minimum of religious truth which is in some way accessible to +reason,--before belief in God and in immortality; as long as the +principles and methods of proof by which "natural theology" reached its +conclusion were admitted even by those who denied those conclusions, an +apologetic such as we are speaking of had an undoubted practical +value--not indeed as sufficing to bring conviction to the unwilling or +ill-disposed, not as a cause of faith, but as removing an obstacle which +existed in the supposed incompatibility of revealed truth with these +same rational principles and processes. + +Apart from this preparation of the intellect, to which perhaps the name +"apologetic" should be more strictly reserved, a prior and more +important need was the disposing of the will and affections to the +acceptance of the truth. For, in a very real sense, love is the root of +faith; and the wish that a thing should be true, not only stimulates the +mind to inquire and investigate, but also creates a fear of +self-deception and a spirit of incredulity which is the fruitful parent +of intellectual difficulties. + +Such an appeal to the affections is really outside the province of +theological science and belongs rather to the rhetorician, the poet, or +the prophet. Yet it was a work at all times needful for the extension +and maintenance of the faith, in even a greater degree than the more +dispensable preparation of the intellect. For the great multitude of men +who are innocent of any really independent thought, who professedly or +unconsciously take all their beliefs from some individual or society, +there is really no need of scientific apologetic--the sole need being to +win or maintain their confidence, their loyalty, their reverence, in +regard to some teacher or leader, to Christ or the Church. + +It was only towards the close of last century when scepticism was +beginning to reach the very root from which the Christian apologetic +sprang, and the former philosophic methods had themselves fallen in +disrepute, that the necessity of accommodating the remedy to the disease +began to be recognized here and there, and of framing an argument that +would appeal to the perverse and erratic mind of the day, rather than to +an abstract and perfectly normal mind, which, if it existed, would "need +no repentance." That a given medicine is the best, avails nothing if it +be not also one which the patient is willing to take. If a man has +closed his teeth against everything that savours of scholasticism, we +must either abandon him or else see if there be any among the methods he +will submit to, which may in any wise serve our purpose. And, indeed, +among the jangle of philosophies there is surely in all something that +is a common heritage of the human mind, a unity which a little skill can +detect lurking under that diversity of form which unfortunately it is +the delight of most men to emphasize. To suppose that Christianity is +pledged to more than this common substratum which none deny, except +through verbal confusion, that there is no road to faith but through +what is peculiar to scholasticism, or that my first step in converting a +man to Christ must be to convert him to Aristotle, is about as +intelligent as to suppose that because the Church has adopted Latin as +her official language she means to discredit every other. + +It was then with a view of meeting the exigencies of the world as it is, +not as it might or ought to have been, that such a work as the _Génie du +Christianisme_ strove to find an apologetic in what previously had been +regarded as outside the domain of theology and more properly the concern +of the preacher. The beauty, the solace, the adaptation to our higher +needs of Christian teaching had been one thing; its truth, quite +another. By dilating eloquently on the first, men might be won to the +love of such an ideal, to wish that it might be true; and then disposed +to profit by the distinct and independent labours of the apologist whose +theme was, not the utility or beauty of the Catholic religion, but +solely its truth. + +But now that the "scholastic" [1] apologetic was in disgrace with all +but those who stood least in need of it, some more acceptable method had +to be sought out, and amongst many others there was that of +Chateaubriand, which strove to find an argument for the intellect in the +very appeal which Christianity made to the will and affections. Because +a religion is fair and much to be desired, because, if true, it would +give unity and meaning to man's higher cravings, and turn human life +from a senseless chaos into an intelligible whole, therefore, and for +this reason, it _is_ true. + +It is hardly wonderful that such a method should incur the charge of +sentimentalism. "It would be so nice to believe it, therefore it must be +true," sounds like a shameless abandonment of reasonableness. The fact +that a belief is "consoling," quite independently of its truth or +falsehood, creates a bias towards its acceptance. That it is pleasant to +believe oneself very clever and competent will incline one to that +belief until something important depends, not on our thinking ourselves +so, but on our being so. Before an examination, the wish to succeed will +make me sceptical about my prospects, much as I should like to think +them the brightest; afterwards, when self-deception can only console and +can do no harm, I shall be credulous of any flattery that is offered me. +In one case, my interest depends upon the facts, and therefore the wish +to believe makes me critical and even sceptical; in the other, on my +belief concerning the facts, and the wish to believe, makes me +uncritical and credulous. + +It was seemingly a bold and hazardous venture to justify this same +credulity, and to affirm that an argument could be drawn from the wish +to believe in just those cases where its influence would seem most +suspicious; yet this was practically what the new apologetic amounted +to. It was an argument from the utility of beliefs to their truth; from +the fact that certain subjective convictions produced good results, to +the correspondence of such convictions with objective reality. The +advantages to the individual and to society of a firm belief in God the +righteous Judge, in the sanction of eternal reward and penalty, in the +eventual adjustment of all inequalities, in the reversible character of +sin through repentance, in the divine authority of conscience, of +Christianity, of the Catholic Church, are to a great extent independent +of the truth of those beliefs. No amount of hypnotic suggestion will +enable a man to subsist upon cinders, under the belief that they are a +very nutritious diet; for the effect depends upon their actual nature, +and not wholly upon his belief concerning their nature; but the salutary +fear of Hell or hope of Heaven, depends not on the existence of either +state, but on our belief in its existence. The fact that the denial of +these and many similar beliefs would bring chaos into our spiritual and +moral life, that it would extinguish hopes which often alone make life +bearable, that it would issue for society at large in such a grey, +meaningless, uninspired existence as Mr. F. W. Myers prognosticates in +his admirable essay on "The Disillusionment of France," [2] all this and +much more makes it our interest, if not our duty, to cling to such +convictions at all costs. "If these things are not true, it might be +said, then life is chaos; and if life be chaos, what does truth matter? +Why may not such useful illusions and self-deceptions be fostered? If we +are dreaming, let our dreams be the pleasantest possible!" + +Nor can it be urged that though some part of our interest thus depends +on the beliefs, rather than on their being true, yet the consequences of +self-deception are so momentous, as to create a spirit of criticism to +balance or over-balance the said bias of credulity. For though the +consequences of denial are disastrous if the beliefs are true, yet if +they are false, the ill-consequences of belief are almost insignificant. +It is sometimes said too hastily that if religion be an illusion, then +religious people lose both this life and the next; and it is assumed +that an unrestrained devotion to pleasure would secure a happiness which +faith requires us to forego. But unless we take a gross, and really +unthinkable view of the homogeneity of all happiness, and reduce its +differences to degree and quantity, the shallowness of the preceding +objection will be apparent. It is only through restraint that the higher +kinds of temporal happiness are reached, and as confusions are cleared +away in process of discussion, it becomes patent that such restraint +finds its motive directly or indirectly in religion. When the religious +influence with which irreligious society is saturated, has exhausted +itself, and idealism is no more, the unrestrained egoistic pursuit of +enjoyment must tend to its steady diminution in quantity, and its +depreciation in kind. The sorrow and pain entailed by fidelity to the +Christian ideal is, on the whole, immeasurably less in the vast majority +of cases than that attendant on the struggles of unqualified +selfishness, while the capacities for the higher happiness are steadily +raised and largely satisfied by hope and even by some degree of present +fruition. Even vice would be in many ways sauceless and insipid in the +absence of faith. Who does not remember the old cynic's testimony (in +the "New Republic") to the piquancy lent by Christianity to many a sin, +otherwise pointless. If the moralist distinguishes between actions that +are evil because they are forbidden, and those that are forbidden +because they are evil, the libertine has a counter-distinction between +those that are forbidden because they are pleasant, and those that are +pleasant because they are forbidden. St. Paul himself is explicit enough +as to this effect of the law. + +Look at it how we will, even were religion unfounded our life would on +the whole gain in fulness far more than it would lose, by our believing +in religion. Hence some of our more thoughtful agnostics, however unable +themselves to find support in what they deem an illusion, are quite +willing to acknowledge the part religion has played in the past in the +evolution of rational life, and to look upon it as a necessary factor in +the earlier stages of that process whose place is to be taken hereafter +by some as yet undefined substitute. If indeed Nature thus works by +illusions and justifies the lying means by the benevolent end, it is +hard to believe in a moral government of the universe, or to hope that +an "absolute morality"--righteousness for its own sake--will be the +outcome of such disreputable methods. But till the illusion of "absolute +morality" is strong enough to take care of itself, and has passed from +the professors to the populace, it is plainly for the interest and +happiness of individuals and of society to hold fast to religion. + +Undoubtedly then the advantages resulting from a belief in religion, +whether valid or illusory, are such as to incline not only the higher +and more unselfish minds, but even those which are more prudential and +self-regarding, to wish to hold that belief--to be unwilling to hear +arguments against it. But among the former class will be found many +intellectually conscientious and even scrupulous persons, whom the +recognition of this inevitable bias will drive to an extreme of caution. +Not so much because the facts believed-in are of such intense moment, +but rather because the belief itself, whether true or false, is so +consoling and helpful, that there seems to them a danger of +self-deception just proportioned to their wish to believe. + +It were then no small rest and relief to such, could it be shown that +what they deem a reason for doubt, is really a reason for belief; that +the welcome which all that is best in them gives to a belief, affords +some sort of philosophical justification thereof. + +This particular argument had undoubtedly a more favourable hearing in +the age of Chateaubriand, when unbelief stopped short at the threshold +of what was called "Natural Religion," and the apologist's task was +confined to the establishment of revelation. "It is now pretty generally +admitted," says the author of _Contemporary Evolution_, "with regard to +Christianity and theism that the arguments really telling against the +first, are in their logical consequences fatal also to the second, and +that a _Deus Unus, Remunerator_ once admitted, an antecedent probability +for a revelation must be conceded." + +Given an intelligent and benevolent author of the universe, it is not +perhaps very difficult to show that any further religious belief +approximates to the truth in the measure that it satisfies the more +highly developed rational needs of mankind. It is not seriously denied +any longer that religion is an instinct with man, however it may be +lacking in some individuals or dormant in others. We have savages at +both ends of the scale of civilization, but man is none the less a +political creature; nor does the existence of idiots and deaf mutes and +criminals at all affect the fact that he is a reasoning and speaking and +ethical animal. As soon as he wakes to consciousness, he feels that he +is part of a whole, one of a multitude; and that as he is related to his +fellow-parts--equals or inferiors--so also is he related to the Whole +which is above him and greater than all put together. Religion, taken +subjectively, in its loosest sense, is a man's mental and moral attitude +in regard to real or imaginary superhuman beings--a definition which +includes pantheism, polytheism, monotheism; moral, non-moral, and +immoral religions; which prescinds from materialist or spiritualist +conceptions of the universe. And by a religion in the objective sense, +so far as true or false can be predicated of it, we mean a body of +beliefs intended to regulate and correct man's subjective religion. It +is to such systems and their parts that we think the above test of +"adaptability" maybe applied as we have stated it. + +We must of course assume that our distinction of higher from lower +states of rational development is valid; that we can really attach some +absolute meaning to the terms "progress" and "decline;" that there is +some vaguely conceived standard of human excellence which such terms +refer to. Else we are flung into the very whirlpool of scepticism. +Measured back from infinity it may be infinitesimal, but measured +forward from zero, the difference of mental and, partly, of moral +culture between ourselves and the aborigines of Australia is +considerable, and is really to our advantage. Now if a given religion or +religious belief suggests itself more readily, or when suggested +commends itself more cordially in the measure that men's spiritual needs +are more highly developed; if, furthermore, it tends to make men still +better and to raise their desires still higher so as to prepare the way +for a yet fuller conception of religious truth, it may be said to be +adapted to human needs; and it is from such adaptability that we argue +its approach to the truth. We say "its approach," for all our ideas of +the Whole, of the superhuman, of those beings with which religion deals, +are necessarily analogous and imperfect. What is admitted by all with +regard to the strict mysteries of the Christian faith is in a great +measure to be extended to the central or fundamental ideas of all +religion. They are at best woefully inadequate, and if the unity between +the parts of an idea be organic and not merely mechanical, they must be +regarded as containing false mingled with true.[3] Still some analogies +are less imperfect, less mingled with fallacy than others, and there is +room for indefinite approximation towards an unattainable exactitude. +For example, assuming theism, as we do in the argument under +consideration, it is evident that man conceives the superhuman object of +his fear and worship more truly as personal than as impersonal; as +spiritual than as embodied; as one or few than as many; as infinite than +as finite; as creator than as maker; as moral than as non-moral or +immoral; as both transcendent and immanent than as either alone. If then +it appears that as man's intelligence and morality develop in due +proportion, he advances from a material polytheistic immoral conception +of the All, to a spiritual and moral monotheism, it may be claimed that +the latter is a less inadequate conception. And similarly with regard to +other dependent religious beliefs which usually radiate from the central +notion. It will be seen that we do not argue from the self-determined +wishes or desires of any individual or class of individuals to their +possible fulfilment,--to the existence in Nature of some supply +answering to that demand; we do not argue that because many men or all +men desire to fly, flying must for that reason alone be possible. We +speak of the needs of man's nature, not of this individual's nature; of +needs consequent on what man is made, and not on what he has made +himself; of those wants and exigencies which if unsatisfied or +insatiable must leave his nature not merely negatively imperfect and +finite, but positively defective and as inexplicable as a lock without a +key--not necessarily, of needs felt at all times by every man, but of +those which manifest themselves naturally and regularly at certain +stages of moral and social development; just as the bodily appetites +assert themselves under certain conditions not always given. + +Now there is one form in which this argument from adaptability is +somewhat too hastily applied and which it is well to guard against. Were +we to find a key accommodated to the wards of a most complicated lock, +we should be justified in concluding, with a certainty proportioned to +the complexity of the lock, that both originated with one and the same +mind; and so, it is urged, if a religion, say Christianity, answers to +the needs of human nature, we may conclude that it is from the Author of +human nature with a certainty increasing as it is seen to answer to the +higher and more complex developments of the soul. + +Now if, like the key in our illustration, the religion in question were +something given _in rerum natura_ independent of human origination in +any form, this argument would be practically irresistible. That besides +those beliefs which lead man on to an ever fuller understanding of his +better self, and stimulate and direct his moral progress, Christianity +imposes others more principal, of which man as yet has no exigency, and +which hint at some future order of existence that new faculties will +disclose--all this, in no wise makes the argument inapplicable. The +whole system of beliefs is accepted for the sake, and on the credit, of +that part which so admirably unlocks the soul to her own gaze. "Now are +we the sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what we shall be;" if +besides satisfying our present ideal of religion, Christianity hints at +and prepares us for such a transition as that from merely organic to +sensitive life, or from this, to rational life, it rather adds to than +detracts from the force of the argument. + +Yet all this supposes that Christianity is something found by man +outside himself, with whose origination he had nothing to do; but, if +this be established, its supernatural origin, and therefore, supposing +theism, its truth, is already proved, and can only receive confirmation +from the argument of adaptability. If the Book of Mormon really came +down from Heaven, my conviction that polygamy is not for the best, would +seem a feeble objection against its claims. That the Judaeo-Christian +religion is supernatural and is from without, not only with respect to +the individual but to the race; that it is an external, God-given rule, +awakening, explaining, developing man's natural religious instinct, +correcting his own clumsy interpretations thereof, is just what gives it +its claim to pre-eminence over all, even the most highly conceived, +man-made interpretations of the same instinct. + +Yet though claiming to be a God-made interpretation, it is confessedly +through human agency, through the human mind and lips of the prophets +and of Christ that this revelation has come to us. Moreover, it +involves, though it transcends, all those religious beliefs of which +human nature seems exigent and which are, absolutely speaking, +attainable by what might be called the "natural inspiration" of +religious genius. Viewing the whole revelation in itself, its +adaptability is evident only in respect to that part which might have +originated with those minds through which it was delivered to us. If the +beliefs proposed seem to have anticipated moral and intellectual needs +not felt in the prophet's own age or society, this might be paralleled +from the inspiration of genius in other departments, and could not of +itself be regarded as establishing the _ab extra_ character of the +revelation. + +Plainly, then, so far as a religion claims to be from outside, its +adaptability to our religious and moral instincts may confirm but cannot +establish its Divine origin, which, given theism, is equivalent to its +truth. For to show that it is from outside, is to show that it is from +God. + +It is only therefore with regard to man-made interpretations of our +spiritual instincts, to the natural inspirations of religious genius, to +the intuitions and even the reasoned inferences of the conscientious and +clean-hearted, that the argument from adaptability can have any +independent value. It is now no longer as one who argues from a +comparison of lock and key to their common authorship; but rather we +have a self-conscious lock, pining to be opened, and from a more or less +imperfect self-knowledge dreaming of some sort of key and arguing that +in the measure that its dream is based on true self-knowledge there must +be a reality corresponding to it--a valid argument enough, supposing the +locksmith to act on the usual lines and not to be indulging in a freak. + +Such, in substance, is the argument from adaptability founded on the +assumption of theism and applied to the criticism or establishment of +further religious beliefs. It is indeed somewhat stronger when we +remember that the self-consciousness, with which we fictitiously endowed +the lock, plays chief part in the very design and structure of man; that +his self-knowledge, his moral and religious instincts, his desire and +power of interpreting them, are all from the Author of his nature. + +Of this difference Tennyson takes note in applying the argument from +adaptability to the immortality of the soul: + + Thou wilt not leave us in the dust; + Thou madest man, he knows not why; + He thinks he was not made to die, + And Thou hast made him, Thou art just. + +But so far as the argument presupposes theism it cannot be made to +support or even confirm theism. If, then, we want to make the argument +absolutely universal with regard to religious beliefs--theism included +and not presupposed--and so to make it available for apologetic purposes +in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, we must inquire +whether any basis can be found for it in non-theistic philosophy; +whether, prescinding from Divine governance and from an intelligent +purpose running through nature, the adaptability of a belief to the +higher needs of mankind can be considered in any way to prove its truth. +So far we have only shown that such a conclusion results from a clearer +insight into the theistic conception. Can we show that it springs, +co-ordinately with theism, from some conception prior to both? + + +II. + +If what is usually understood by "theism" be once granted as a +foundation, it is easy to raise thereon a superstructure of further +religious beliefs by means of the argument drawn from their adaptability +to the higher needs of mankind. However individuals may fail, yet it +must be allowed that on the whole the human mind progresses, or tends to +progress, from a less to a more perfect self-knowledge, to a fuller +understanding of its own origin, its end and destiny, and of the kind of +life by which that end is to be reached,--that is, if once we admit that +man is a self-interpreting creature, and the work of an intelligent +Creator. So far however as the Christian creed exceeds man's natural +exigencies and aspirations, it plainly cannot be subjected to this +criterion; and so far as it includes (while it transcends) the highest +form of "natural religion," the argument from adaptability holds of it +only if we suppose Christianity to be a natural product of the human +mind, thus destroying its claim to be from without and from above. But +if from other reasons we know Christianity to be a God-made and not a +man-made religion, then, though its divinity and truth is already +proved, yet it is in some sort confirmed and verified by its +adaptability to the demands of our higher nature. In a word, this +particular argument holds strictly only for man's own guesses at +religious truth,--for "natural" religions; but for Christianity, only so +far as we deny it to be supernatural as to its content and mode of +origination. + +But so far as this argument presupposes theism, it cannot be made to +support or even confirm theism; if then we wish to make it available for +apologetic purposes in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, +we must now inquire whether, prescinding from divine governance and from +finality in nature, the adaptability of a belief (say, in God, or in +future retribution) to the needs of mankind, can be considered in any +way as a proof of its truth; whether that argument can find any deeper +mental basis than theism; whether it can be rested on anything which in +the order of our thought is prior to theism so as to support or at least +to confirm theism itself. + +Our present endeavour is to show that though this argument rests more +easily and securely on theism, yet it need not rest upon it; but +springs, co-ordinately with theism, from _any_ conception of the world +that saves us from mental and moral chaos. Hence it confirms theism and +is confirmed by theism; but each is strictly independent of the other +and rests on a conception prior to both; they diverge from one and the +same root and then intertwine and support one another. + +By prescinding from theism I do not mean to exclude or deny it; for it +is, as I have just said, bound up with the same conception from which +the "argument from adaptability" is drawn. I only mean that I do not +need to build upon it as on a prior conception; that I can put it aside. +Indeed, of these two off-shoots, theism is less near to the common root, +as will appear later. + +Our limited mind cannot take in at once all the consequences or +presuppositions of a thought; for this would be to know everything; but +as with our outward eye we take in the circle of the horizon bit by bit, +so with our mind when we turn to one aspect of an idea we lose sight of +another. Hence in studying some complex organism or mechanism I may be +clear about the bearing of any part on its immediately neighbouring +parts, and yet may have no present notion of the whole; or may prescind +entirely from the question of its origin or its purpose. Thus our +thoughts are always unfinished and frayed round the edges, and we do not +know how much they involve and drag along with them. We can think of the +mechanism, and the organism, and the design, without thinking of the +mechanist, or the organizer, or the designer; and so in all cases where +two ideas are connected without being actually correlative. What is +commonly called a philosophical proof consists simply in showing us the +implications of some part of the general conception of things that we +already hold. It is to force us either to loosen our hold on that part +or else to admit all that it entails by way of consequences or +presuppositions; and so to bring our thoughts into consistency one way +or the other. But until something sets our mind in motion it can rest +very comfortably in partial conceptions, without following them out to +their results. + +Now as we can understand a mechanism to the extent of seeing the bearing +of part upon part, and even of all the parts upon the work it does, +without going on to think about the designer or his design; and without +explicitly considering it as designed; so we can and do think of the +world and recognize order in it, and see the bearing of part upon part +without going back to God or forward to God's purposes. Indeed, so far +as we use the argument from design to prove the existence of God, it +means that we first apprehend this order and regular sequence of events, +and then, as a second and distinct step, put it down to design. For +although God is the prior cause of design and of all creation, yet +design and creation is the prior cause of our knowing God, The +conception of a rational and moral world leads us to the conception of a +rational and moral origin, i.e., to theism. Further, it is plain that +this same order and regularity is recognized by many who refuse to see +design in it, and who invent other hypotheses to account for it; and of +one of these hypotheses we shall presently speak at length. + +Now, if I take any single organism and study it carefully, simply as a +biologist or physiologist, I shall recognize in it certain regularities +of structure and function and development, upon which I can found +various arguments and predictions. I can argue from its general +characteristics, to the nature of its environment and habits and modes +of life; or from its earlier stages, to what it will be when more fully +developed; and these arguments will be quite unaffected by any theory I +may hold as to the origin of these changes, and as to the causes of +these adaptations. The order and regularity on which my predictions are +based is an admitted fact. Theism or materialism are only theories by +which that fact is explained. Now, for mind in the abstract, theism is +really as much a presupposition of that fact, as the predicted truth is +a consequence of it. Both are logically connected with it, and yet +neither is derived from it through the other. + +If, however, we cannot thus observe and calculate on certain +regularities and tendencies in the world as we know it, then, not only +is the appearance of design and finality an illusion, not only is that +particular argument for theism cut away, but with it goes all scientific +certainty, all that stands between us and the most hopeless mental and +moral scepticism. + +It is not our immediate concern to prove the value of the "argument from +adaptability," but simply to show that it is logically (though not +really) unaffected by the question of theism and finality and design. As +long as we admit those same effects and consequences of which design is +one explanation, but of which others are _prima facie_ conceivable; as +long as we hold that the world works on the whole as though it were +designed; that the present anticipates and prepares for the future; that +the future and absent can be predicted from the present, so long do we +hold all upon which the "argument of adaptability" is strictly based. +And indeed, as has been said, if once it be admitted that the general +progressive tendency on the part of living things is towards a greater +harmony and correspondence with surrounding reality, then that argument +is a more immediate inference from the existence of an orderly world, +than is theism. + +Though both are strictly independent deductions from the same principle +(i.e., from an orderly world), yet theism and the argument from +adaptability when once deduced, confirm one another. For it is not hard +to show that theism is better adapted to man's higher needs, than +atheism or polytheism or pantheism; while if theism be once granted, +then, as we said in the last section, the argument from adaptability is +much more easily established. + +There have been at various times several philosophies or attempted +explanations of the world, which have either denied or prescinded from +theism and finality. These two conceptions may be considered as one; for +by finality we mean the intelligent direction of means towards a +preconceived end; and therefore to admit a pervading finality, is to +imply a theistic origin and government of the universe. + +Perhaps, the best and most finished attempt to explain the world +independently of finality is the philosophy of Evolution, so widely +popularized in our own day; and since it is in the region of organic +existence, that finalism looks for its chief basis, it is especially by +Darwinistic Evolution that its force is supposed to be destroyed. + +Any form of "monism" gets rid of finality more easily than does any form +of dualism; and again, any form of materialism, more easily than +idealism; and therefore as monistic and materialistic (at least in some +sense of the term), popular Evolutionism is the best plea for +non-finalist philosophy. We propose therefore briefly to examine this +philosophy, so far as it claims to be such, and to see whether it in any +way touches the validity of the argument from adaptability. + +Evolution may be considered both as an empirical fact and as an +aetiological theory or philosophy. Considered as a fact, it is the +statement of observed processes, and belongs to positive science like +the observed courses of the planets, or any other observed regularities +and uniformities. Science professes to have found everywhere as far as +its experience has extended--in astronomy, geology, physiology, biology, +psychology, ethics, sociology--a uniform process of change from the +simple to the complex, from the indefinite and unstable to the stable +and definite; and with this statement, so far as it can be verified, the +positivist should rest content, seeking no theory, and drawing no +generalization. But, the mind cannot hold together such collected facts +without some binding theory, nor even observe a single fact without some +preconception to give meaning to its suggested outlines: for what we +really get from our senses bears but a slight ratio to what we fill in +with our mind. Hence, answering to this supposed, but far from proven, +universality of Evolution as a fact,[4] we have a certain philosophy of +Evolution which takes us out of the sphere of facts into that of +hypotheses and generalizations, and tries to give meaning and unity to +the positive information that physical science has collected and +classified; to finish, as it were, the suggested curves; to fill up the +lacunae of observation; to extend to the whole world what is known of +the part; and perhaps to erect into a cause what is only an orderly +statement of facts. Undoubtedly it is this last fallacy that makes it +more easy for evolutionists to dispense with or ignore finality. Law in +its first sense is an expression of effectual human will. Call Evolution +a law and the popular mind will soon vaguely conceive it as a rule or +uniformity resulting from some kind of unconscious will-power at the +back of everything; and this Will-Power stops the gap created in our +thought by the exclusion of theism and finality. This confusion is +furthered still more by not distinguishing between the cause of a fact +and the cause of our knowledge of the fact. If I act in willing +conformity with the civil law, I also act in obedience to it, in some +way coerced by its authority and its sanctions. The law is really a +cause of my action; because it represents the fixed will and effectual +power of the ruler. But when this conception and name is transferred by +analogy to physical uniformities of action, an event which conforms to +the observed law or regularity of sequence, is not really caused by the +law unless we suppose that law to be representative of something +equivalent to a fixed will from which it originates. Yet we say loosely, +such an event happens _in consequence of_ the law of attraction; meaning +only, _in conformity with_ the law, so as to verify the law, to follow +from it logically. Thus again the law comes to be mistaken for an +effectual power of some kind, whereas it is merely a sort of regularity +that might result either from an intelligent will or from something +equivalent. But in thus adroitly slipping-in the conception of a +governing force or tendency, or even in openly asserting it, with +Schopenhauer or Hartmann, and in explaining the graduated resemblances +of species by the origin of one from the other, and in extending this +mode of Evolution in all directions from the known to the unknown so as +to make it pervade the universe, we at once cease to be faithful +positivists and, becoming philosophers, must submit to philosophic +criticism, since these problems cannot be settled merely by an appeal to +facts. Thus when Professor Mivart speaks of Evolution as "the continuous +progress of the material universe by the unfolding of latent +potentialities in harmony with a preordained end," the latent +potentialities, the preordained end, the procession of one species from +another, the extension of this law to every difference of time and +place--all are matters of hypothesis or intuition; but by no means of +exterior observation. + +The most that observation gives us is the very imperfect suggestion of +the track that such a movement would have left behind it, not unlike the +scraps that boys litter along the road in a paper-chase. Similarly, if +in the case of organic Evolution we deny all latent potentialities and +preordained ends and throw the whole burden on accidental variations and +natural selection; if we regard the whole process as no more intelligent +or designed than that by which water seeks and finds its own level; yet +as in the case of water we must perforce introduce "a gravitating +tendency," so in the case of living organisms a "persisting" or +"struggling tendency," as an hypothesis to give unity to our facts or to +account for their uniformity. But these tendencies are as little matter +of observation as the aforesaid latent potentialities or preordained +ends. In fine, Evolution, whatever form it take, gets rid of theism and +finality only by slipping into their place some tendency or indefinable +power which it considers adequate to account for the facts to be +explained. + +Let us now see if there be room in this philosophy for our argument from +adaptability, and whether it will allow us to infer that because belief +in theism and in future retribution are beliefs postulated by our higher +moral aspirations, therefore they answer to reality more or less +approximately; whether, in short, under certain conditions (specified in +our last essay) the wish to believe may be a valid reason for believing. + +Now Evolution as a philosophy or explanatory hypothesis owes its +popularity to its apparent simplicity. Wrapped in its wordy envelope, +the notion as formulated by Spencer needs no subtilty of apprehension, +but only a dictionary. Nor is the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection +more difficult. + +Other things equal, the simpler hypothesis is to be preferred to the +less simple where no proof can be had of either. But none the less, the +simpler may be false and the other true. Cheapness is no proof of +goodness. We are naturally impatient of troublesome and complex +theories; but what we gain in the simplicity of an hypothesis, we +commonly lose in the difficulty of getting the facts to square with it. +It is a simple theory that circular motion is the most perfect, and that +the planets being the most perfect bodies must move with the most +perfect motion; but so many epicycles must be introduced to explain +apparent exceptions that the modern astronomical hypothesis, however +more complex in statement, is on the whole welcomed as a simplification. +So we are disposed to think it is with regard to the popular form of +Evolutionism. Its simplicity in statement is more than cancelled by its +difficulty in application; and at last we are driven to conceive it in a +form which at once deprives it of its title to popularity. So far as it +is simple it is fallacious and proves incoherent on closer inspection, +when we try to translate its terms into clear and distinct ideas; but +when we get it into intelligible form it is no simpler than the theistic +hypothesis which it wants to displace, except inasmuch as it prescinds +from the question of origin and last end. But in this, its only +intelligible form, it leaves the argument from adaptability intact, and +even requires theism as its rational complement. + +This is what we must now endeavour to show. We cannot illustrate our +contention better than from the popular simplification of Ethics +introduced by Bentham. Taking pleasure as a simple and ultimate notion +he affirms that our conduct is always determined by a balance of +pleasure on one side or the other. The problem of practical ethics is to +construct a calculus of pleasures, a sort of ready-reckoner whereby men +may be able to invest in the most profitable course of action. "When we +have a hedonistic calculus with its senior wranglers," says Mr. Bain, +"we shall begin to know whether society admits of being properly +reconstructed." [5] It is assumed that pleasures differ only in quantity, +i.e., in intensity, extent, and duration, just as warmth does, which may +be of high or low temperature; diffused over a greater or less extent of +body; and that, for a shorter or a longer time. On this assumption +pleasure is every bit as mathematically measurable as is warmth, the +whole difficulty being due to its subjective and therefore inaccessible +nature. Simple in statement, this theory proves in application +infinitely complex, and indeed on closer inspection breaks up into a +mere verbal fallacy--as Dr. Martineau, amongst others, has shown in his +_Types of Ethical Theory_. For "pleasure," though one simple word, has +an endless variety of meanings, not indeed wholly disconnected, but +bound together only by a certain kind of analogy. The eye, the ear, the +palate, the mind, the heart, have each their proper pleasure; which is +nothing else than the resultant of their perfect operation in response +to the stimulus of some all-satisfying object--a fact which may be +expressed differently by different philosophies, but with substantial +identity of meaning. But not till we find some common measure for sound +and colour and flavour and thought and affection, will it be possible to +compare in any hedonistic scales the pleasures they produce. Yet colour +is to the eye what music is to the ear; and therefore the one word +pleasure is used not unreasonably of both. + +Quite similar seems to us the fallacy to which Evolution owes its +seeming simplicity and its popularity. The word "existence" or "life" +(which is the existence of organic beings, about which we are chiefly +concerned), is taken as having one homogeneous meaning, like "heat" or +"warmth;" the only difference being quantitative--a difference of +intensity, of breadth, of duration; not a difference of kind such as +would destroy all common measure. Life is something which we predicate +of the most diversely organized beings, and therefore would seem to be +something the same in all, which they secure in a diversity of ways. + +Thus Darwin defines the general good or welfare which should be the aim +of our conduct as "the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in +full health and vigour with all their faculties perfect;" upon which Mr. +Sidgwick remarks[6] with justice: "Such a reduction of the notion of +'well-being' to 'being' (actual and potential) would be a most important +contribution from the doctrine of Evolution to ethical science. But it +at least conflicts in a very startling manner with those ordinary +notions of progress and development" in which "it is always implied that +certain forms of life are qualitatively superior to others, +independently of the number of individuals, present or future, in which +each form is realized.... And if we confine ourselves to human beings, +to whom alone the practical side of the doctrine applies, is it not too +paradoxical to assert that 'rising in the scale of existence' means no +more than 'developing the capacity to exist'? A greater degree of +fertility would thus become an excellence outweighing the finest moral +and intellectual endowments; and some semi-barbarous races must be held +to have attained the end of human existence more than some of the +pioneers and patterns of civilization." Nor is it only in the region of +ethics but in every region that this false simplification is fertile in +paradoxes; and yet if it be disowned, the charm to which Evolution owes +its popularity is gone. + +It would be indeed a short cut to knowledge if we might believe life to +be, as this theory imagines it, a simple, self-diffusing force with an +irrepressible tendency to spread itself in all directions, like fire in +a prairie. True we should not have altogether got rid of innate +tendencies, but we should have reduced them to one, namely, to the +struggling, or persisting, or self-asserting tendency; a simplification +like that offered by the matter-and-force theory of Buchner. + +This flame of life once kindled (we are told) endeavours to subdue all +things to itself, and all that we find in the way of variety of organic +structure and function has been shaped and determined by its +struggle--much as a river channels a way for its waters in virtue of its +own onward force, checked and determined by the nature of the obstacles +it has to encounter. Every organism is related to life as the +candlestick to the candle; it is simply a device for supporting and +spreading as much life as is possible with the surrounding conditions. +Often, when conditions are favourable, the simplest contrivance will be +more effectual, more life-producing than the most complex in less +favourable conditions. Where food is not present the animal that can +move about in search of it will survive, and the stationary animal +perish; and likewise those that can escape their foes will live down +those rooted in one spot. And if to motion we add perception and +intelligence, and associative instincts and the rest, we increase the +appliances for dealing with difficulties; and therewith the means of +survival when such difficulties exist. Still, in the hypothesis we are +dealing with, all these contrivances--movement, consciousness, +intelligence, will, society--are distinct from life and ministerial to +it; they are instruments by which it is preserved, increased, and +multiplied--like those contrivances by which heat or electricity is +generated, sustained, and transmitted; with this difference, that no one +has designed these life-machines, but they are simply the result of +life's innate tendency to struggle and spread. A great deal of the form +and movement of the inorganic world is due simply to the stress of +gravitation and not to design, and so we are asked to believe that the +human and every other organism has been shaped and quickened by the +action of as blind a power; that it is in some sense a casual result. + +Now if seeing and hearing and thinking do not constitute life, but are +only chance discoveries helpful to life; if we do not live in order to +eat and to see and to think, but only think, see, and eat in order to +live, we ask ourselves, what then is this life which is none of these +things and to which they are all subordinate? And when once we begin +subtracting those functions which minister to life and which life has +selected for its own service, we find there is absolutely nothing left +to serve. Taking the very earliest forms, if we subtract movement, +nutrition, growth, generation, we find there is nothing over called +"life" distinct from these. This is the first and fundamental +incoherence of the theory; life has simply no meaning apart from those +functions which we speak of as ministering to life; unless we mean by +life the mere cohering together of the bodily organism--an end more +effectually secured without any such complex apparatus, by a stone or by +an elementary atom. + +If existence in that sense, be the force or principle whose persistence +and self-assertion is the cause of all evolution, it is impossible to +conceive how primordial atoms, which are assumed to be indestructible +and constant in quantity, should trouble themselves to struggle at all; +since the amount of that kind of existence can neither be lessened nor +increased. And as motion is also assumed to be a constant quantity, it +is plain that what struggles to be and to multiply, must be some special +collocation and grouping of atoms with some correspondingly particular +determination of motion, called "life;" but what "life" is, apart from +the means it is supposed to have selected for itself, does not appear. + +Another difficulty attendant on this false simplification is the +complete subversion of that scale of dignity or excellence upon which we +range the various kinds of living creatures, putting ourselves at the +top--not merely in obedience to a pardonable vanity, but, as has +hitherto been supposed, in obedience to a trustworthy intuition which, +without attempting to apply a common measure to things incommensurable, +judges life to be higher than death; consciousness than unconsciousness; +mind than mere sensation; and in general, what includes and surpasses, +than what is included and surpassed. We see that the organic world +presupposes the ministry of the inorganic; and the animal world, that of +the plant world; and that the human world depends on the ministry of all +three; and our whole conception of this world as "cosmos" is simply the +filling in of this hierarchic framework. Yet this old structure falls to +pieces under the new simplification. If "life" (as vaguely conceived) be +the first beginning and the last end (or rather result) of the whole +process of evolution, if it be the _summum bonum_, then the "highest" +creature means, the most life-producing. + +Now if we put "money" instead of "life," and begin to classify men by +this standard, we see how it inverts the old-world ideas of social +hierarchy. True it is, the man of letters or of high artistic gifts +can produce a certain amount of money, but has little chance against +the inventor of a new soap or a patent pill. Honesty at once becomes +the worst policy, and a thousand other maxims have to be reformed. Yet +this is a trifling _boule-versement_ compared with that which would +have to be introduced into our scientific classification were +"life-productivity" (in the vague) taken as the criterion of excellence. + +For we cannot any longer determine the rank of an animal by its organic +complexity, since, _ceteris paribus_, this is a defect rather than +otherwise. + +To secure life more simply is better than to secure the same amount by +means of complex apparatus. Of course when the favouring conditions are +altered, then any apparatus that makes life still possible is an +advantage; but till that crisis arises it is only an encumbrance. When +life can be secured only at the cost of greater labour and exertion and +cunning, it is well to be capable of these things, but surely those +animals are more to be envied that have no need of these things. It is +only on the hypothesis of an unkindly environment that complexity of +organization is an excellence. + +Furthermore, although these accidental variations allow certain +creatures to survive in crises of difficulty, yet they also make the +conditions of their survival more complicated and hard to secure. All +that differentiates man from an amoeba has enabled him to get safe +through certain straits where the lower forms of life were left behind +to perish; but it has also made it impossible for him to live in the +simpler conditions he has escaped from; like a parvenu whose luxurious +habits have gradually created a number of new necessities for him, which +make a return to his original poverty and hardships quite impracticable. +If the development of lungs has allowed animals to come out of the water +into the air, it has also prevented their going back again. Furthermore, +a considerable amount of vital energy is consumed in the production, +support, and repair of all this supplementary, life-preserving +apparatus; just as, much of the national wealth for whose protection +they exist is absorbed by a standing army and other military +preparations. And in fact of two countries otherwise equal in wealth, +that is surely the better off which has no need of being thus armed up +to the teeth. Thus man's superior organization may be compared to the +overcoat and umbrella with which one sets out on a threatening morning; +very desirable should it rain, but a great nuisance should it clear up. + +It seems, then, that the highest organism is that which produces or +secures the greatest quantity of life in the simplest manner, and at the +cost of the least complexity of structure and function; while the lowest +is that which yields the least quantity at the greatest cost; and +between these two extremes organisms will be ranked by the ratio of +their complexity to their life-productivity--life being measured +mathematically (as something homogeneous) by its vigour, by its +duration, and by the amount of matter animated, whether in the +individual or in its progeny. It is obvious how, at this rate, our +zoological hierarchy is turned topsy-turvy; and how difficult it will be +to show that man is a better life-machine than, say, a mud-turtle with +its centuries of vital existence. + +It would be a monstrous allegation to say that any evolutionist would +defend these conclusions in all their crudity; but is only by thus +pushing implied principles to their results, that their incoherence can +be made plain. Once more, if this simple uniform thing called life be +the sole cause, determining organic Evolution and selecting accidental +variations, just in so far as they favour its own maintenance and +multiplication, then every organ, appliance, and faculty by which man +differs from the simplest bioplast, is merely a life-preserving +contrivance. To speak human-wise, Nature in that case has but one +end--animal life; and chooses every means solely with a view to that +end. She does not care about pain or pleasure, or consciousness, or +knowledge, or truth, or morality, or society, or science, or religion, +for their own sakes; she cares for life only, and for these so far +as--like horns and teeth and claws--they are conducive to life. +Evolution therefore is governed by a blind non-moral principle--as blind +and ruthless as gravitation. This being so, the mind is for the sake of +the body, and not conversely. Evolution is not making for truth and +righteousness as for greater or even as for co-ordinate ends; but simply +for life, to which sometimes truth and righteousness, but just as often +illusion and selfishness, are means. There is nothing therefore in this +process of Nature to make us trust that our mind really makes for truth +as such, or that it has any essential tendency to greater correspondence +with reality, beyond what subserves to fuller animal existence. The fact +that a certain belief makes animal life possible is no proof of its +truth, but only of its expediency. The extent to which many pleasures +depend on illusion is proverbial; and pleasure is almost the note of +vital vigour, according to this philosophy. + +Plainly, our argument from the adaptability of a belief to man's higher +moral needs, vanishes into thin air as soon as the key to the order of +nature is thus sought in a blind non-moral tendency, and when that which +is lowest is put at the top, and everything above it made to minister to +it. + +But then it is not only this particular argument that perishes, but all +possibility of arguing at all, all faith in our mental faculties, except +so far as they minister to the finding of food and the propagation of +life. Thus the very attempt to prove such a system of Evolution is a +contradiction, since it cuts away all basis of proof. On this I need not +dwell longer, since it has been worked out so fully and clearly by +others. We get rid of the argument from adaptability, by a conception of +the order of Nature that reduces us to mental and moral chaos. + +In its semblance of simplicity this form of Evolution-philosophy shows +itself kin to those other old-world attempts to dispense with a +governing mind, and to educe the existing cosmos from the blind strife +of primordial atoms. It has indeed a more plausible basis, seeing how +many things, too quickly attributed to design in a theological age, can +really be explained by the struggle for existence. But in trying to make +an occasional and partial cause universal and ultimate, it has +undertaken the impossible task of bringing the greater out of the less; +which really means bringing their difference out of nothing--and this is +creation with the First Cause left out; that is, spontaneous creation. +It is from first to last an "aggregation" theory, and has to face the +insupportable burdens which such a theory brings with it. Haunted by a +false analogy drawn from the political organism whose members are +intelligent and self-directive, and who put themselves under an +intelligent government to be marshalled and directed to one common +end--haunted by this anthropomorphic conception, it tries to explain how +independent and indestructible units, void of all intelligence, come +together into polities with no assignable government; and how these +groups or polities, which are nothing separate from the sum of their +components, are aggregated to one another in like manner; until at last +we come to the highest organism, which again is only the sum of its +ultimate atoms, and its activity the sum of their activities--the whole +distinction between highest and lowest organism being such as exists +between a society of two and a highly complex civilized state. And all +this political life is the spontaneous work of unintelligent units; that +is to say, we have results exceeding the highest ever attained by human +intelligence, long before intelligence or sentience has yet been +evolved. + +Nobody will care to support "Pangenesis" as a theory of generation. To +suppose that there is a mysterious power which breaks a little fraction +off each of the bioplasts of which we are asserted to be the sum; that +having collected these fractions it arranges them all in the right order +within the compass of a single germ, and from that germ reproduces the +parent organism, is an hypothesis compared with which the creation of +the world in its entirety six thousand years ago, including the fossils +and remains of aeonian civilizations, is lucid and intelligible. This is +no hyperbole. For if once we allow creation at all, the creation of the +world at any stage of Evolution is just as conceivable as the creation +of primordial atoms. If any living thing were now created (e.g., a +grain of corn or a full ear) it would bear in itself the apparent +evidence of having _grown_ to its present state _ab ovo_; or the _ovum_ +itself would seem to ground a similar false inference of having come +from a parent. Strange as such an idea may be, it is easy and pellucid +compared with the hypothesis of Pangenesis--still more when we remember +that this complex germ, which is a lion or a horse in small--itself the +elaboration of aeons of Evolution--can replicate itself with ease and +rapidity, reproducing in adjacent pabulum a "cosmos" which differs in +degree, not in kind, from that described in the story of the Six Days. +Yet the more we look into it, the more clear is it that Pangenesis (and +not Polarigenesis or Perigenesis) is the inevitable outcome of the +aggregation-theory of life. + +And therefore to return to our former assertion, whatever we seem to +gain in simplicity of statement by this form of the Evolution theory, we +pay for dearly when we come to its application; nay more, as soon as we +attempt to translate the words into clear and distinct ideas, we are +left with nothing coherent that the mind can get hold of; and it is only +at this price that we can cut away the basis of the "argument from +adaptability," and with it the basis of all reason and morality. We must +therefore go on to examine if there be any alternative form of the same +philosophy more bearable. + +I have forborne all criticism of the supposed _facts_ on which Evolution +is based; as others have dealt frequently with their various weaknesses. +Nor do I think it necessary to deal with the extravagant subordinate +hypotheses by aid of which facts are forced under the main hypothesis, +e.g., those which explain how the horse grew out of the hipparion. The +crudest finalists have been everywhere out-stripped by Evolutionists in +dextrous application of the argument _a posse ad esse_. + + +III. + +Assuming still that the facts collected and arranged by experimental +science in favour of the hypothesis are such as to demand some kind of +Evolution-philosophy; assuming that the very imperfect serial +classification of living things according to their degree of organic +definiteness, coherence, and heterogeneity not merely represents a +variety which has always coexisted since life was possible on this +earth, but rather traces out or hints at the genetic process by which +this variety has been produced, let us see if there be any other +governing principle directing the process, more intelligible than the +persistence of that mere organic life which cannot even be thought of as +distinct from those appliances and functions which it is supposed to +have evolved for its own service by "natural selection." + +Let us admit, what is really evident, that life is nothing distinct from +the sum of those functions which minister to the preservation of life; +and that therefore it is not the same thing in a man and in a +mud-turtle. Man's superior faculties are not merely a more complicated +machinery for producing an identical effect which the mud-turtle +produces more simply and abundantly, but rather by their very play +_constitute_ an entirely different and higher kind of life. When Hume, +in his _Treatise on Human Nature_, says: "Reason is and ought to be the +slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to +serve and obey them," he implies that the exercise of reason is no +constituent factor of human life, but something outside it, subordinate +to it, whereas that life itself consists in passion, or pleasurable +sensation, of which man, in virtue of his reason and other advantages, +secures more than do his fellow-animals. This is just the conception of +life which we have seen to be incoherent on close inspection; and if it +be so, then the evolutionary process is a struggle not for bare life or +existence, but for the prevalence of the _higher kinds_ of life and +existence; and intelligence and morality are not only co-operative as +instruments in maintaining and extending human life, but are themselves +the principal elements of that complex life. True, the mind does +minister to the body and preserve it; but still more does the body +minister to the mind; or rather, each ministers to that whole in which +the play of the mind is the principal function and the play of the body +subordinate. If, then, we hold to the verdict of our common sense, and +regard our mental life not as subordinate to our sensitive and vegetal +life, but as co-ordinate and even superior, we must (so to speak) view +it as no less "for its own sake," as no less an "end in itself" than +they are, but rather much more; we must regard evolution as making for +the life of truth and the life of righteousness even more principally +than for bare existence or animal vitality. It is now no longer mere +life that tries to assert itself, and in the struggle shapes things to +what they are; but it is the very highest kind of life, that is trying +to come to the birth. Nature inherently tends to the higher through the +lower forms of life, and these minister to the higher and receive in +return from them the means of a yet more efficacious ministry. + +In this conception, every function of the organism has two aspects, +under one of which it is its own end and exists for its own sake as an +element of the life of the whole; under the other it is ministerial, +serving other functions above and below it, as it in return is served by +them. Correspondence with the environment is, similarly, not merely a +condition of life, but also that wherein vitality principally consists. +"Living" is spontaneous self-adaptation to surrounding reality, taken in +the very widest sense. The more diverse and multiform this adaptability, +the fuller and higher is the life; and thus our ordinary common-sense +classifications are justified. Each new manifestation of life means some +new correspondence with surrounding reality as we piss from mere +vegetation, and then add local movement, and one sense after another, +till we come finally to intelligence and the life of reason and +right-doing, which again, consists in self-conformation to things as +they really are. In all this we are in agreement with common sense and +common language, which identify the fullest life with the fullest +activity; all activity being of the nature of response to stimulus, that +is, correspondence to reality. As soon as consciousness supervenes on +the lower forms of life it is evident that the pleasures of sight, +hearing, taste, mind, and affection all depend on, and consist in, the +consciousness of this successful accommodation of the subject to the +object; and that all pain and disease is simply the felt failure of such +adaptation. What was anciently and very wisely called the "natural +appetite" of living creatures is in this view nothing else but their +response to the modifying attraction exerted upon them by the objective +Reality which presses upon them on every side, and tends to draw them +into conformity with itself so far as they have latent capacity for such +a correspondence. It is the light that makes (or rather elicits) sight; +and it is sound that develops the sense of hearing: and it is the ideas +embodied in Nature that call our intellect into play. Hence it follows +that, desire for truth and justice, for society and for religion, which +assert themselves as invariably in the soul of man at certain stages of +progress, as the desire for mere life asserts itself from the first, is +simply the felt result of the as yet unsuccessful endeavour of Nature to +draw man into a fuller kind of correspondence with herself. + +Thus conceived, the course of evolution is comparable, not as before, to +the gradual unveiling of a blank canvas, revealing simply a greater +extent of the same appearance, but to the gradual unveiling of a picture +whose full unity of meaning is held in suspense till the disclosure is +completed. We do not now interpret the higher by the lower, but the +lower by the higher; the beginning by the end. This may seem perilously +near to finalism, yet it is no more necessarily so, than the process of +photography; we only need a self-adaptive tendency in life-matter +responsive to the stimulating-tendency of the environment. Not, of +course, that this bundle of words really explains anything, but that +like other formulae of the kind, it prescinds from the question of ends +and origins, by making a statement of what happens serve as a cause of +what happens, and calling it a Law or a Tendency, or a Latent +Potentiality--thus filling the gap which mere agnosticism creates in our +thought. + +With this conception of Evolution our ordinary estimates of "higher" and +"lower" are saved; also the value of our mental processes upon which +rests whatever proof the theory may admit of; while the "argument from +adaptability" is provided with a firm basis independent of finality. All +our "natural," as opposed to our personal and self-determined appetites +or cravings,--those which are, so to say, constitutional and inseparable +from our nature in certain conditions, are evidence of the influence of +some reality outside us seeking to draw us into more perfect +correspondence with itself, and whose nature can be more or less dimly +conjectured from the nature of those cravings. What are called "natural +religions" represent man's self-devised attempts to explain the reality +answering to his religious and moral cravings. Revelation is but a +divine interpretation of the same; as though one with dim vision were to +supplement his defect by the testimony of another more clear-sighted. + +It may be practically admitted that no philosophy allows of strict +demonstration, since, being a conception of the totality of things, it +modifies our understanding of every principle by which one might attempt +to prove or disprove it. Eventually it is its harmony with the totality +of things as we perceive them that determines us to accept it, and no +two of us perceive just the same totality, however substantial an +agreement there may be in our experience; yet I think it can hardly be +denied that this conception of evolution is far more in agreement with +the world as most of us know it, and commonly think and speak of it, +than the former; that it not merely satisfies our intellect, but offers +some satisfaction to our whole spiritual nature. "Is it certain," asks +Mr. Bradley, in a fairly similar connection, "that the mere intellect +can be self-satisfied if the other elements of our nature remain +uncontented?" And, again: "A result, if it fails to satisfy our whole +nature, comes short of perfection: and I could not rest tranquilly in a +truth if I were compelled to regard it as hateful.... I should insist +that the inquiry was not yet closed and that the result was but partial. +And if metaphysics" [for which we may substitute: any philosophy, such +a& that of Evolution] "is to stand, it must, I think, take account of +all sides of our being. I do not mean that every one of our desires must +be met by a promise of particular satisfaction; for that would be absurd +and utterly impossible. But if the main tendencies of our nature do not +reach consummation in the Absolute, we cannot believe that we have +attained to perfection and truth."[7] From this point of view there can +be no doubt as to which of these conceptions of Evolution is the more +rational and satisfactory; that which would explain it by a simple +tendency in living matter to persist and spread, and would see in all +organic variety only the selected means to that somewhat colourless end; +or that conception which would explain it by a tendency in living matter +to come into ever fuller correspondence with its environment, seeing in +such spontaneous correspondence the very essence of life, and not merely +a condition of life. + +We need only add a few criticisms on this second conception. + +1. It is true that every creature struggles more intensely and +vigorously for the lower kind of life, or for "mere life," as we might +say, than for any of those things which alone would seem to make life +worth the having. But this only means that to live at all is the most +fundamental condition of living well and fully and enjoyably. The higher +life cannot stand without the lower, which it includes, but the lower is +not therefore the better, nor is it the end for whose sake the higher is +desirable; but conversely. Not until men have got bread enough to eat +will they have leisure or energy to spare for the animal grades of +vitality. When the means of bodily subsistence grow scarce, then the +faculties that were previously set free to seek the bread of a higher +and fuller life are diverted to the struggle for bare animal existence, +and progress is thrown back; but when there is abundance for all, +secured by the labour of a few from whom the remainder can buy, then +fuller life becomes once more possible for that remainder. The struggle +for bodily food gives an advantage to, and "selects" naturally, those +mental and other powers which facilitate its attainment; but just as man +does not only eat and labour in order to live, but also (however it may +shock conventional ethics) lives in order to eat and labour; so the new +energies called forth by competition do not merely secure that grade of +life in whose interests they are evoked and perfected, but extend the +sphere of vitality, in so much as their own play adds a new element to +life and gives it a new form. + +The part played by struggle and competition in this process of Evolution +is naturally exaggerated by those who deny any latent tendency other +than that of mere persistence in being; who repudiate an internal +expansiveness towards fuller kinds of existence, drawn out or checked by +the environment. + +Competition plays a prominent part when there is question of the lower +grades of life, in so far as these depend on a pabulum that is limited +in quantity. In such cases competition, within certain limits, will +secure the bringing-out of latent powers by which the lower level of +life is maintained and a higher level entered upon; the lower being +secured by the superimposition of the higher. + +But how does it do so? Not by creating anything, but by giving the +victory to those individuals who already were ahead of their fellows in +virtue of a fuller development of their nature from within; in clearing +the ground for them and letting them increase and multiply. + +2. Again, we should notice that development in one direction may be at +the cost of development in another. The struggle for any lower form of +existence than that already attained, is inevitably at the cost of the +higher. The degrading effects of destitution are proverbial. Craft, +cruelty, selfishness, and all the vices needed for success in a +gladiatorial contest are often the fruits of such competition. Also, +commercial progress seems on the whole to be at the expense of progress +in art and the higher tastes, sacrificing everything to the production +of the greatest possible quantity of material comforts. If it sharpens +the wits and sensibilities in some directions, it blunts them in others. + +Now, the first sense suggested to us in these days by the word +"progress," is material progress--all that came in with steam; and this +narrow conception vitiates much of our reasoning. It is in this realm +undoubtedly that competition is such a factor of rapid advance; but we +forget that the food of what the best men have ever considered the best +life, is not limited or divisible; but like the light and air is +undiminished how many soever share it. Whatever advance there has been +in the life of the mind and of the higher tastes and sensibilities, +cannot directly be explained by competition, but simply by the quiet +upward working of Nature's inherent forces. We look with scorn at the +unprogressive East, satisfied that there can be no progress, no life +worth living, where there is no rush for dollars. But I think we have +yet to learn the meaning of _ex Oriente lux_. + +Much of our immorality and our social evil comes from the fact that +those who have developed the faculties of a higher grade of life, seek +the lower as an end in itself, and not simply so far as it is a +condition of the higher and no further. The Gospel precept, as usual, +enunciates only the law of reason and nature, when it bids us to "Seek +first the Kingdom of God and its justice," that is, to put our best life +in the front, and to make it the measure and limit of any other quest. +The neglect of this principle gives us high living and plain thinking, +instead of "high thinking and plain living;" and takes the bread out of +the mouths of the poor. The competition for pleasures and luxuries and +amusements, may indeed develop certain industries and cause progress in +certain narrow lines, but it is at the cost of the only progress worth +the name. + +The conflict between this "struggle-theory" and ethics has been freely +acknowledged by Professor Huxley and others; every attempt to educe +unselfishness from selfishness has failed. The moral man even in our day +has rather a bad time of it; what chance would he have had of surviving +to propagate his species in the supposed pre-moral states of human +society? Who can possibly conceive mere rottenness being cured by +progress in rottenness; or a man drinking himself into temperance? On +the other hand, it is at least conceivable that in the wildest savage +there is some little seed of a moral sense--weak, compared with the +lowest springs of action, just because it is the highest and therefore +only struggling into being; and that in the slow lapse of time events +may here and there prove that honesty is the best policy; and that +honesty once tasted may be found not only useful for other things, but +agreeable for itself, and may be cherished and strengthened by social +and religious sanctions. + +There is, however, a reaction on foot which tends to reconcile the +breach between ethics and evolution, by reducing the part played by +competition within reasonable bounds, and making it subservient to the +survival, not of the most selfish, but of the most social individuals. +Definite variations from within, modified between narrow limits by +accidental variation from without, is coming to be acknowledged as the +chief factor of progress. But we should not forget that to allow an +internal principle of orderly development is, not merely to modify the +popular evolution theory by a slight concession to its adversaries; it +is rather to make it no longer the supreme explanation of development, +but at most a slight modification of the more mysterious theory which it +was its boast and merit to have supplanted. According to Geddes and +Foster and others of their school, it is the species-subserving +qualities that Nature selects; and these, in the higher grades of life, +are equivalent to the altruistic, social, and ethical qualities. It is +in virtue of the parental and maternal instincts of self-sacrifice, +self-diffusion, self-forgetfulness in the interests of the offspring, +that species are preserved and prevail. Selfish egoism leads eventually +(as we see in some modern countries where _laizzez-faire_ liberalism +prevails) to social disruption, decadence, and chaos; and this is the +universal law of life in every grade. At first indeed the unit struggles +to live, for life is the condition of propagation; but the root of this +instinct is altruistic; it is the whole asserting itself in the part; +and all "self-regarding" instincts are to be likewise explained as +subordinate to the "other-regarding" instincts. As soon as this +sub-ordination is ignored in practice, regress takes the place of +progress. The transit, we are told, from the unicellular to the +multicellular organism cannot be explained by individualism, but implies +a diminution of the competitive, an increase of the social and +subordinative tendency. The argument from economics to biology and back +again, is said to be nearing exposure; the "progress of the species +through the internecine struggle of its individuals at the margin of +subsistence," is the outgoing idea. Yes, and with it goes out all that +made Evolution a simple and therefore popular explanation of the world; +and there comes in that "organic" conception of the process which +clamours for theism and finalism as its only coherent complement. + +3. But though Evolution so conceived makes the "argument from +adaptability," as well as the arguments for theism, stronger rather than +weaker; we must not shut our eyes to the difficulty created by the fact +(too little insisted upon by Evolutionists) that there is no solid +reason for thinking that progress is all-pervading. We have already said +that progress in commerce may be regress in art or in religion or in +morality. Also, progress in benevolence may co-exist with regress in +fortitude and purity; progress in one point of morality with regress in +another; progress in ethical judgment with regress in ethical practice. +And in every realm, growth and decay, life and death, seem so to +intertwine and oscillate that it is very gratuitous to designate the +total process as being one or the other. Spencer confesses that the +entire universe oscillates between extremes of integration and +disintegration. Why we should consider the universe at present to be +rising rather than falling, waxing rather than waning, one cannot say. +The easier presumption is that it is equally one and the other, and +always has been. Even were we rash enough to pronounce progress to be on +the whole prevalent within the narrow field of our own experience, +surely it were nothing but the inevitable "provincialism" of the human +mind to pass _per saltum_ from that, to a generalization for all +possible experience. Our optimism, our faith that right, truth, and +order will eventually prevail, can find only a delusive basis in actual +experience, and must draw its life from some deeper source. + +Why then should we so presume that our moral and religious ideas are +really progressive and not regressive, as to regard their interpretation +as approximating to the truth? The answer is simply that our argument +from adaptability does not require the assumption in question, but only +that we should be able to distinguish higher from lower tendencies, +progressive from regressive movements, without holding the optimistic +view that on the whole the forward tendency is at present prevailing. It +is not because we live in the nineteenth century that we consider our +moral perceptions truer than those of the ancient Hebrews, but because +we at once comprehend and transcend their ideas (in some respects), as +the greater does the less. In many points surely the relation is +inverted and we feel ourselves transcended (or may at least suspect it), +by those who lived or live in ruder conditions than our own. David has +perhaps taught us more than we could have taught him; and there are +other vices than those proper to semi-barbarism. It is not by reference +to date or country, or grade of material progress, that we assess the +value of moral judgments, but by that subjective standard with which our +own moral attainments supply us in regard to all that is equal or less, +similar or dissimilar. To deny this discernment is to throw the doors +open to unqualified scepticism; to admit it, is all that we need for the +validity of our inference. + +4. If Evolution is really of this oscillatory character; if at all times +much the same processes have been going on in different parts of this +universe as now--one system decaying as another is coming into being; is +it not more reasonable to imagine (for it is only a question of +imagining) that the primordial datum was not uniform nebula, but matter +in all stages of elaboration from the highest to the lowest--the same +sort of result as we should get from a cross-section at any subsequent +moment in the process? What reason is there for assuming primordial +homogeneity, since every backward step would show us, together with the +unravelling of what is now in process of weaving, a counter-balancing +weaving of what is now in process of disintegration? Were this earth +all, we might dream of universal advance by shutting our eyes to a great +many incompatible facts; but when our telescopes show us the +co-existence of integration and disintegration everywhere, what can we +conclude but that in the past as in the future, no alteration is to be +looked for beyond the shifting of the waves' crest from side to side of +the sea of matter--the total ratio of depressions to elevations +remaining exactly constant. + +Were the other view of an original universal homogeneity correct, how +conies it that we have still co-existent every stage of advance from the +lowest to the highest, and that there is not a greater equality?--a +difficulty which does not exist if we suppose things to have been _on +the whole,_ as they are now, from the very first. But whichever view we +take; whether we suppose all things collectively to oscillate between +recurring extremes of "sameness" and "otherness;" or every stage of the +wave of progress from crest to trough, to be simultaneously manifested +in the universe at all times, the old difficulty of "the beginning" will +force itself upon us. A process _ab aeterno_ is at least as unimaginable +as the process of creation _ex nihilo;_ if it be not altogether +inconceivable to boot. And the alternative is, either a primordial state +of homogeneous matter which contains the present cosmos in germ, and +from which it is evolved without the aid of any environment--such a germ +claiming a designer as much as any ready-made perfect world; or else, a +primordial state of things like that which we should get at any +cross-section of the secular process, in which every stage of life and +death, growth and decay, evolution and involution, is represented as +now. This would include fossils and remains of past civilizations +which (in the hypothesis) would never have existed; and would be +in all respects as difficult as the crudest conception of the +creation-hypothesis. And if this absurdity drives us back to +primordial homogeneity, as before, we must remember that here, too, +though not so evidently, we should have all the signs of an antecedent +process that was non-existent. Life and death, corruption and +integration, are parts of one undulatory process. Cut the wave where +you will its curve claims to be finished in both directions and +suggests a before as well as an after. If, in the very nature of +things, the pendulum sways between confusion and order, chaos and +cosmos, each extreme intrinsically demands the other, not only as its +consequent, but as its antecedent; and the first chaos, no less than +any succeeding one, will seem the ruin of a previous cosmos. Therefore +we are driven back upon a process _ab aeterno_ with every stage of +evolution always simultaneously represented in one part or other of +the whole. Whatever mitigation such a conception may offer, surely we +may be excused for still adhering to that simpler explanation which +involves a mystery indeed, but nothing so positively unthinkable as a +process without a beginning. + +5. This same conception of a process without beginning, favours the +notion that since life was possible on our globe all species may well +have co-existed in varying proportions. From the sudden spread of +population through almost accidental conditions, we can imagine how +certain species might have been so scarce as to leave no trace in +geological strata, whereas those which enormously preponderated at the +same time would have done so. A change of conditions might easily cause +the former to preponderate, and their sudden appearance in the strata +would look as though they had then first come into being. In a word, we +can have good evidence for the extinction of species, but scarcely any +for their origination. + +This supposition is not adverse to the derivation of species from a +common stock, but rather favours the notion that as in the case of the +individual the period of plasticity is short compared with that of +morphological stability, so if there was such an arboreal branching out +of species from a common root, it took place rapidly in conditions as +different from ours as those of uterine from extra-uterine life; and +that the stage of inflexibility may have been reached before any time of +which we have record. + +But in truth when we see in the world of chemical substances an +altogether similar sedation of species where there can be no question of +common descent as its cause, we may well suspend our judgment till the +established facts have excluded the many hypotheses other than Evolution +by which they may be explained. + +As long as Evolution claims to be no more than a working scientific +hypothesis, like ether or electric fluid--a sort of frame or subjective +category into which observed facts are more conveniently fitted, it +cannot justly be pressed for a solution of ultimate problems; but when +it claims to be a complete philosophy and as such to extrude other +philosophies previously in possession, it must show that it can rest the +mind where they leave it restless; or that it has proved their proffered +solutions spurious. This, so far, it has absolutely failed to do. At +most it may determine more accurately the way in which God works out His +Idea in Creation. It can stand as long as it is content to prescind from +the question of ends and origins; but then it is no longer a complete +philosophy. As soon as it attempts to solve those problems it becomes +incoherent and unthinkable. Its true complement is theism and finality, +which flow from it as naturally, if not quite so immediately as the +"argument from adaptability." _Deus creavit_ is so far the only +moderately intelligible, or at least not demonstrably unintelligible, +answer given to the problem of _In principio_. + +We have then in this second and soberer form of the philosophy of +Evolution, an attempt to explain the order of the universe without +explicit recourse to the hypothesis of an intelligent authorship and +government of the world: that is to say, independently of theism and +finality; and so far as this explanation admits all the effects and +consequences of an intelligent government, without ascribing them to +that cause, it admits among their number the value of the "argument from +adaptability," and allows us to infer that the postulates of man's +higher moral needs correspond approximately to reality, of which they +are in some sense the product; and that the "wish to believe" is less +likely to be a source of delusion in proportion as the belief in +question is higher in the moral scale. + +But it is also clear how unsuccessful this attempted philosophy is in +many ways; and with what difficulties and mysteries it is burdened. At +best it can prescind from finalism by a confession of incompleteness and +philosophical bankruptcy; by resolutely refusing to face the problem of +the whole--of the ultimate whence and whither. If it would positively +exclude theism or finalism it must ascribe all seeming order and +adaptation to the persistence of some blind force, subduing all things +to itself, to "existence," or to "life" striving to assert and extend +itself. It is this conception that seems best to bring the mystery of +the universe within the comprehension of the popular mind, and is more +in keeping with those "aggregation theories" of our day which regard +dust as the one eternal reality whose combination and disguises delude +us into believing in soul and intelligence and divinity. But on closer +examination the words "life" and "existence" answer to no simple reality +or force which can be regarded as governing nature, and from this +radical fallacy of language a whole brood of further absurdities spring +up which make the popular form of Evolution-philosophy utterly +incoherent. + +_June, Aug. Sept._ 1899. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: This will perhaps be the most convenient term. In the +_Summa of Aquinas_, the elaborate treatise _De vera religione_, called +into existence by more recent exigencies, had no place. Still, in so far +as it is constructed roughly on the same scheme and presupposes the same +philosophy, and (were it not a deepening of the roots rather than an +extension of the branches) might almost be regarded as a development of +scholasticism, it may rightly be called "scholastic" to distinguish it, +say, from such a work as the _Grammar of Assent_.] + +[Footnote 2: _Science and a Future Life_, By F. W. Myers.] + +[Footnote 3: i.e., If an object be adequately and exhaustively +conceived under the predicates A.B.C.D., it is inadequately conceived as +A.B.x.x. But if each of these properties be permeated and modified by +the rest, then A in this object is not as A in any other combination, +but is A as related to and modified by B.C.D.; and similarly, the other +properties are each unique. Hence any part is somewhat falsely +apprehended till the whole be apprehended, when we are dealing with +organic as opposed to mechanical totalities.] + +[Footnote 4: Not that the transmutation of one species into another has +yet been detected in any instance, or perhaps, even were it a fact, +could be detected; but that such a serial graduation has been observed +as might be commodiously explained by that supposition,--and also by +fifty others.] + +[Footnote 5: _Mind_, 1876, p. 185.] + +[Footnote 6: _Mind_, 1876, p. 9.] + +[Footnote 7: _Appearance and Reality_.] + + + +XXIII. + + +IDEALISM IN STRAITS. + +"Can any good come out of Trinity?" is a question that has been asked +and answered in various senses during the recent Catholic University +controversies in Ireland; but for whatever other good Catholics might +look to that staunchly Elizabethan institution, they would scarcely turn +thither for theological guidance. Yet all definition is negative as well +as positive; exclusive as well as inclusive; and we always know our +position more deeply and accurately in the measure that we comprehend +those other positions to which it is opposed. The educative value of +comparing notes, quite apart from all prospect of coming to an +agreement, or even of flaying our adversaries alive, is simply +inestimable; we do not rightly know where we stand, except in so far as +we know where others stand--for place is relative. + +The Donnellan Lecturer for 1897-8 [1] took for his subject the doctrine +of the Blessed Trinity in relation to contemporary idealistic +philosophy. The scope of these lectures is, not to prove the doctrine of +the Trinity philosophically, but to show that the difficulty besetting +the conception of a multiplicity of persons united by a superpersonal +bond, is just the same difficulty that brings idealistic philosophy to a +dead-lock when it endeavours (1) to escape from solipsism, (2) to +vindicate free-will,(3) to solve the problem of evil. He naturally +speaks of Idealism as "the only philosophy which can now be truly called +living," in the sense in which a language is said to live; that is, +which is growing and changing, and endeavouring to bring new tracts of +experience under its synthesis; which is current in universities of the +day. Of the Realism which survives in the seminaries of the +ecclesiastical world he naturally knows nothing; addressing himself to a +wholly different public, he speaks to it on its own assumptions, in its +own mental language; and indeed he knows no other. But having weighed +idealism in the balance of criticism, he finds it far short of its +pretensions to be an adequate accounting for the data of experience; he +finds that it leads the mind in all directions to impassable chasms +which only faith can overleap. It does not demand or suggest the mystery +of the Trinity, but reveals a void which, as a fact that doctrine alone +does fill. The convinced Realist will not be very interested about the +problem of solipsism which for him is non-existent, but the proposed +relief from the difficulties of free-will and of the existence of evil +may be grateful to all indifferently; or at least may suggest principles +adaptable to other systems. In his Trinitarian theology Mr. D'Arcy is in +many points at variance with the later conclusions of the schools; and +in some instances his argument depends vitally on this variance; but not +in the main. For his main point is that as our own personality--the +highest unity of which we have experience--takes under itself unities of +a lower grade; so the doctrine of the Trinity implies what the hiatuses +of philosophy require, namely, that personal unity is not the highest; +that, beyond any power of our present conception, the personally many +can be really (not only morally or socially) _one thing_. "A wonderfully +unspeakable thing it is," says Augustine, "and unspeakably wonderful +that whereas this image of the Trinity" _(sc.,_ the human soul), "is one +person, and the sovereign Trinity itself, three persons, yet that +Trinity of three persons is more inseparable than this trinity" (memory, +understanding, and will) "of one person." This "superpersonal" unity is +of course a matter of faith and not of philosophy, yet it is a faith +without which subjective philosophy must come to a stand-still; it is as +much a postulate of the speculative reason as God and immortality are of +the practical reason. + +"If man is to retain the full endowment of his moral nature, we must +make up our minds to accept for ourselves an incomplete theory of +things." A philosophy which should unify the sum-total of human +experience, including the supernatural facts of Christianity, is +impossible; but even excluding these facts there is always need of some +kind of non-rational assent, which, however reasonable and prudent in +the very interests of thought, is not necessitated by the laws of +thought--is not, in the strictest sense philosophical. Idealism, like +other philosophies, "is not satisfied with an imperfect knowledge of the +greatest things. It must rise to the Divine standpoint and comprehend +the concrete universal," and so, of course, it breaks down. "But it +would surely be a hasty inference," says Mr. D'Arcy, "that philosophy +must needs be exhausted because idealism has done its work and delivered +its message to mankind," that is, has explored another blind alley, and +has arrived at the _cul de sac_. In fact, if idealism is a living +philosophy, it is nevertheless showing signs of age and decay. Ptolemaic +astronomy, as an explanation of planetary movements, proved its +exhaustion by a liberal recourse to epicycles as the answer to all +awkward objections; and philosophies show themselves moribund in an +analogous way, by a monotonous pressing of some one hackneyed principle +to a degree that makes common-sense revolt and fling the whole theory to +the winds--chaff and grain indiscriminately. But philosophy must be +distinguished from philosophies, as religion from religions. The +imperfection of the various concrete attempts to satisfy either +spiritual need, may make the desperate-minded wish to cut themselves +free from all connection with any particular system; but the desire and +effort to have a knowledge of the whole (_i.e._, a philosophy) is as +natural and ineradicable as the desire to live and breathe. In this +general sense, philosophy "takes human experience, sets it out in all +its main elements, and then endeavours to form a plan of systematic +thought which will account for the whole. It has one fundamental +postulate, that there is a meaning, or, in other words, that there is an +all-pervading unity." This "faith" in the ultimate coherence and unity +of everything is the presupposition and motive of the very attempt to +philosophize or to determine the nature of that unity. It is not, +therefore, itself a product of philosophy; it is an innate conviction +that can be denied only from the teeth outwards, but can neither be +proved nor disproved by the finite mind. + +To "explain" is in one way or another to liken the less known to what is +better known; and thus every philosophy is an attempt to express--by +means of sundry extensions and limitations--the universe of our +experience in the terms of some totality with which we are more +familiar; plainly, it is also an endeavour to express the greater in +terms of the less, and must therefore be almost infinitely inadequate +even at the best. At one time the Whole has been conceived as the unity +of a mere aggregate--of a heap of stones; at another, as a mere +sand-storm of fortuitous atoms; there has been the egg-theory, and the +tortoise-theory, and many others, no less grotesque to our seeming. But, +leaving fanciful and poetical philosophies aside, and considering only +those which pretend to be strictly rational, we find the objective +philosophy and the subjective confronting one another; the former +likening the universe to the works of men's hands; the latter likening +it to man himself; the former taking its metaphors from the artificer +shaping his material according to a preconceived plan for a definite +purpose; the latter, from the thinking and willing self considered as +the creator of its own personal experience. + +There is enough uniformity of plan throughout the animal body to make +any one part of the organism a likeness of the whole--the eye, the +heart, or the hand. And so, presumably, there is hardly any unity we can +think of in our own little corner of experience that does not offer some +similitude of the universal unity. But to take this as an adequate +explanation; to force the metaphor to its logical consequences, to the +exclusion of every other reasonable though non-rational assent, is the +commonest but most fatal form of intellectual provincialism and +narrowness. Our mind is essentially limited not merely in that it cannot +know everything, but in that its mode of knowledge is imperfect and +analogical in regard to all that is greater than itself. It is broad +only when conscious of its narrowness. + +The first difficulty into which idealism gets itself is that of +solipsism. According to its rigidly argued principles, "mind is +separated from mind by a barrier which is, not figuratively, but +literally impassable. It is impossible for any _ego_ to leap this +barrier and enter into the experience of any other _ego_." It is not an +abstract self-in-general, but my one solitary concrete self for which +all experience exists. There is no room for any other person. But this +philosophy does not account for our common-sense belief in Nature as +existing independently of self and of other selfs; or in those other +selfs with their several and distinct spheres of experience. + +The unification it effects when treated rigorously as a complete +philosophy leaves out of account the best part of what it was bound to +account for. In spite of idealism, the idealist goes on _believing_ in +other persons or spheres of experience, and in Nature as the experience +of a Divine Person. But since, on his principles, persons are mutually +exclusive, and none can enter the sphere of another's experience, to see +with his eyes, or to feel with his nerves, since, + + Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe + Our hermit spirits dwell and range apart, + +we are thrown back on a disconnected plurality of beings, and God +Himself, viewed as personal (in this sense) is but one among many. +Albeit immeasurably the greatest, He cannot be regarded as the ground of +the possibility and existence of all the rest--the home and bond of +union of all other spirits which in Him live and move and have their +being. + +The belief in the personality of God is all-essential for the +satisfaction of our religious cravings, as a presupposition of trust, +love, prayer, obedience, and such relationships; as bringing out the +transcendence in contrast with the all-pervading immanence of the deity; +as checking the pantheistic perversion of this latter truth by which, in +turn, its own deistic perversion is checked. God is not only in and +through all things; but also outside and above all things; just as +Christ is not only the soul of the Church, but also its Head and Ruler. +Between these two compensating statements the exact truth is hidden from +our eyes. + +But it is not to the conception of the Divine personality and +separateness that we are to look for the missing bond by which the head +and members are to be knit together, and the essential disconnection of +these "spheres of experience" overcome. The ultimate unity is a mystery; +in a word, philosophy, as a quest of that unity, breaks down. The +solution is suggested only by the revelation of a superpersonal unity in +some sense prior to the multiplicity of Divine Persons, a unity in which +they being many are one, and in which we too are, not merged, but +unified without prejudice to our personal distinctness. + +Hence, the writer concludes: "Materialism, when its defect is discovered +and understood, points on to idealism. Idealism, when its defect is +disclosed, points to Christian theism." For those who have not come to +Christian theism by this thorny and circuitous path, the mode in which +the idealist extricates himself from his self-wrought entanglement may +seem of little interest; but inasmuch as they take for granted the +existence of that same multitude of mutually impenetrable personalities +which he, by a revolt of his common-sense against his philosophy is +forced to confess, the problem of the ultimate unity exists for them +also. + +If in its endeavour to vindicate the spirituality of man against the +materialist, idealism tumbles into the slough of solipsism and needs to +be fetched out by the doctrine of the Trinity, it fares much the same +way in its attempted defence of free-will against necessity. That +freedom from determination by the "not-self" which idealism vindicates, +can belong only to the all-inclusive Spirit, outside whose self nothing +exists; it belongs to me only on the supposition that I am the +all-inclusive; and this, as before, is the point at which common-sense +revolts. "Free-will is based on man's consciousness of his moral nature. +It represents not any speculative theory, but one of the great facts +which every theory of things must explain or perish." If we ascribe +freedom to the Absolute and to other spirits (whose existence is forced +on us in spite of Idealism), it is because we first find it in ourselves +as the very essence of our spiritual nature. But if we accept our +freedom as a fact which it is the business of philosophy to explain and +not to deny; on just the same testimony we must accept the fact of the +manifold limitations of our liberty of which we are continually +conscious. Now here it is that the Idealist defence of liberty against +materialism fails by a deplorable _nimis probat_. It can only save our +liberty by denying our limitations; or at least it leaves us facing a +problem which can be solved only by an assumption for which Idealism +offers no philosophical warrant. Hence we are brought back to the +world-old dilemma "between a freedom of God which annihilates man, and a +freedom of man which annihilates God." Idealism has really contributed +nothing to the solution of the difficulty which is persistent as long as +God is known only as a Sovereign and Infinite Personality among a +multitude of finite personalities, and until revelation hints at the +possibility of a higher "unity which transcends personality, by which He +is to be the reconciling principle and home of the multitude of +self-determining agents." "Final reconciliation of the Divine and human +personality is in fact beyond us." + +Similarly, in dealing with problems of moral evil, Idealism leads to an +_impasse_. As long as we keep to the notion of one all-inclusive Spirit, +the Subject of universal experience, it is easy to show that sin is but +relatively evil, that it is, when viewed absolutely, as much a factor of +the universal life as is righteousness; yet surely this is not to +account for so large and obstinate a part of our experience, but to deny +it. Nor can the ethical corollaries of such a view be tolerated for a +moment. That sin is an absolute, eternal, in some sense, irreparable +evil is a conception altogether fundamental to that morality with which +Christianity and modern civilization have identified themselves. It is +but another aspect of the doctrine of freedom and responsibility. Of +physical and necessary evil it is possible to assert the merely negative +or relative character; we can view it as the good in process of making; +or as the good imperfectly comprehended; but if this optimism be +extended to sin it can only be because sin is regarded as necessitated, +_i.e._, as no longer sin. Hence the view in question does not account +for, but implicitly denies the existence of sin. + +Furthermore, the whole tendency of more recent idealism is to explain +moral evil as an offence against man's social nature by which he is a +member of an organism or community. It is the undue self-assertion of +the part against the interests of the whole. Of course the idealist +explains this organic conception with a respect for personality which is +absent from socialistic and evolutionary doctrines of society. But the +notion of sin as a rebellion of one member against all, is common to +both. The latter consider the external life and activity of the unit as +an element in the collective external life of the community--as part of +a common work; the former considers the unity as a free spiritual +agency, an end for itself--whose liberty is curtailed only by the claims +of other like agencies, equal or greater. But by what process, apart +from faith and practical postulates and regulative ideas, can +subjectivism pass to belief in other free agencies outside the thinking +and all-creating self? The result of Mr, D'Arcy's criticism of the +matter is that "it is because the man exists as a member of a spiritual +universe, and must therefore so exert his power of self-determination as +to be in harmony or discord with God above him, and with other men +around him, that the distinction between the good self and the bad self +arises. But in this very conception of a universe of spirits we have +passed beyond the bounds of a purely rational philosophy. Such a +universe is not explicable by reference to the vivifying principle of +the self;" and accordingly we are driven back as before upon the +alternative of philosophical chaos, or else of faith in such a +superpersonal unity as is suggested by the doctrine of the Trinity. + +We have but hinted at the barest outlines of Mr. D'Arcy's argument +which, as against Idealism, is close-reasoned and subtle; and now we +have left but little space to deal with the more really interesting +chapter on the "Ultimate Unity." It is not pretended that we can form +any conception of the precise nature of that unity, but merely that some +such unknown kind of unity is needed to deliver us from the antinomies +of thought. As we could never rise to the intrinsic conception of +personal unity from the consideration of some lower unity, material or +mechanical; so neither can we pass from the notion of personal to that +of superpersonal unity or being. + +This is only a modern and Hegelian setting of the truth that "being" and +"unity" are said analogously and not univocally of God and creatures. +That there are grades of reality; that "substance is more real than +quality and subject is more real than substance," that "the most real of +all is the concrete totality, the all-inclusive universal"--the _Ens +determinatissimum_, is not a modern discovery, but a re-discovery. That +our own personality is the highest unity of which we have any proper +non-analogous notion; that it is the measure by which we spontaneously +try to explain to ourselves other unities, higher or lower, by means of +extensions or limitations; that our first impulse, prior to correction, +is to conceive everything self-wise, be it super-human or infra-human, +is of course profoundly true; but for this reason to make "self" the +all-explaining and only category, to deny any higher order of reality +because we can have no definite conception of its precise nature, is the +narrowness which has brought Idealism into such difficulties. It is +probably in his notion of Divine personality that Mr. D'Arcy comes most +in conflict with the technicalities of later schools. If, as he says, +modern theology oscillates between the poles of Sabellianism and +Tritheism, he himself inclines to the latter pole. Father de Regnon, +S.J., in his work on the Trinity, shows that the Greek Fathers and the +Latin viewed the problem from opposite ends. "How three can be one," was +the problem with the former; "How one can be three," with the latter. +These inclined to an emptier, those to a fuller notion of personality. +Mr. D'Arcy's Trinitarianism is decidedly more Greek than Latin. The more +"content" he gives to Divine personality, the more he is in-danger of +denying identity of nature and operation; as appears later. + +Plainly, the word "person," however analogously applied to God, must +contain something of what we mean when we call ourselves "persons," else +"we are landed in the unmeaning." When Christ spoke of Himself as "I," +the selfness implied by the pronoun must have had some kind of +resemblance to our own; just as when He called God His Father He +intended to convey something of what fatherhood meant for His then +hearers. That He intended to convey what it might come to mean in other +conditions and ages seems very doubtful; and so if the word "person" has +acquired a fuller and different meaning in modern philosophy, we are not +at once justified in applying this fuller conception to the Divine +persons, unless we can show that it is a legitimate development of the +older sense. + +He argues that if the Trinity be the ultimate truth, the Unitarian +suppositions and conclusions of the "natural theologian" are bound to +lead to antinomies and confusions; and he sees in those harmonious +interferences and variations of universal import (which are no less an +essential factor in the evolution of the world than the groundwork of +uniformity and law), evidence of a multi-personal Divine government, of +a division of labour between co-operant agencies. This, of course, goes +beyond the doctrine of "appropriation;" and amounts to a denial of the +singleness of the Divine operation _ad extra_. It seems, in short, to +imply a diversity of nature in each of the persons, over and above the +principle of personal distinctness. Indeed, while it offers a plausible +solution of some minor perplexities, it rather weakens the value of the +general argument. For the notion of a superpersonal unity is needed +chiefly as suggesting a mode in which many mutually exclusive +personalities or "spheres of experience" or lives, may be welded +together into a coherent whole. Even could I reproduce most exactly in +myself the thoughts and feelings of another, it were but a reproduction +or similarity. I can know and feel the like; but I cannot know his +knowing and feel his feeling; for this were to be that other and not +myself. + +That God's knowledge of our thoughts and feelings should be of this +external, inferential kind is as intolerable to our mental needs of +unification as it is to our religious sense, our hope, our confidence, +our love. In Him we live and move and think and feel; and He in us. That +we can say this of no other personality is what constitutes the burden +of our separateness and loneliness. Our experience exists for no other; +but at least it is in some mysterious way shared by That which lies +behind all otherness, not destroying, but fulfilling. "We know not why +it is," says St. Catherine of Genoa, "we feel an internal necessity of +using the plural pronoun instead of the singular." Perhaps it was that +she saw in a purer and clearer light what we only half feel in the +obscurity of our grosser hearts. + +But if God knows our knowing, and feels our feeling, not merely by a +similitude but in itself, it is not because He is transcendent and +"personal," as we understand the word, because He is immanent and +"superpersonal," whatever that may mean. But it is just because +revelation tells us that in God there are three selves or Egos, for each +of whom the experience (i.e., the thought, love, and action) of the +other two exists, not merely similar, but one and the same--the same +thinking, loving, and doing, no less than the same thought, love, and +deed--that we can believe in the possibility of our personal +separateness being at once preserved and overcome in that mysterious +unity. + +That God is love; and that love, which as an affection, produces an +affective unity between separate persons, can as the subsistent and +primal unity produce a substantial and ineffable union of which the +other is a shadow, is a view towards which revelation points. That the +mere affection of love, the moral union of wills, is an insufficient +unification of personalities is implied by the fact that love always +tends to some sort of real union and communication; and still more, that +it springs from a sense of inexplicable identity. + +It is almost a crime in criticism to deal with such a multitude of deep +problems in so brief and hasty an essay. But if we have roughly +indicated the main outlines of the author's position, we shall have done +as much as can be reasonably expected of us; though it is with great +reluctance that we pass over many points, and even whole chapters, +bristling with interest. + +Perhaps the most important feature of the book is the prominence it +gives to the difficulties and insufficiencies of idealism. With those of +realism we are all familiar enough, but so far, idealism has been looked +at one-sidedly as evading, if not solving, some of the antinomies of the +earlier philosophy, while its own embarrassments have been condoned in +hopes of future solution. The solution has not come, and now the hopes +are dead or dying. What we need is a higher synthesis, if such be +possible for the human mind, or else a frank admission that faith, in +some sense or other, is a necessary complement of every philosophy. One +thing is clear, that reconciliation can be effected, if at all, only by +a fair-minded admission of difficulties inseparable from either system, +and by a conscientious criticism of presuppositions. No one can deal +effectually with the idealist position to whom it is simply "absurd" or +"ridiculous;" who has not been to some degree intellectually entangled +in it; whose realism is not more or less of an effort. Else he is +dealing with some man of straw of his own fancy, and will be found, as +so often happens, assuming the truth of realism in every argument he +brings forward. Plainly the best minds of modern times have not been +victimized by a fallacy within the competence of a school-boy. And a +like intellectual self-denial is needed on the part of the idealist, who +is apt to dismiss all realism as crude, uncritical, or barbaric. We have +all our antinomies, our blind alleys, our crudities; and we have all to +fill up awkward interstices with assumptions and postulates. + +However much we may dissent from Mr. D'Arcy's theology in certain +details; however little we personally may labour under the difficulties +of idealism, we cannot too strongly commend the endeavour to meet the +modern mind on its own platform; to speak to the cultivated in their own +language. Belief is caused by the wish to believe; but it is conditioned +by the removal of intellectual obstacles, different for different grades +of intelligence and education. To create the "wish to believe" is +largely a matter of example, of letting Christianity appear attractive +and desirable, and correspondent to the deeper needs of the soul. It is +also to some extent a work of exposition. But when this all-important +wish has been created, the intellect can hinder its effect. It is much +to know and feel that Christianity is good and useful and beautiful; +"But some time or other the question must be asked: _Is it true_?" And +to liberate the will by satisfying the intellect is work of what alone +is properly called apologetic. Unless we fall back into quietism which +would tell us to read a Kempis and say our prayers and wait, we must +address ourselves first of all to making Christianity attractive; and +then to making it intelligible. And if we do not find it against Gospel +simplicity to address ourselves, as we continually do, to the +intelligence of the semi-educated, we cannot allege that scruple as a +reason why we should not address ourselves to the fully educated,--to +those who eventually form and guide the opinions of the many. + +_Feb. 1901_. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: _Idealism and Theology_. By Charles D'Arcy, B.D. Hodder and +Stoughton, 1900.] + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAITH OF THE MILLIONS (2ND +SERIES)*** + + +******* This file should be named 10139-8.txt or 10139-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/3/10139 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/10139-8.zip b/old/10139-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..656d2f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10139-8.zip diff --git a/old/10139.txt b/old/10139.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..65f8a18 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10139.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8363 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Faith of the Millions (2nd series), by +George Tyrrell + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) + +Author: George Tyrrell + +Release Date: November 19, 2003 [eBook #10139] + +Language: English + +Chatacter set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAITH OF THE MILLIONS (2ND +SERIES)*** + + +E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo, Tam, Tom Allen, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE FAITH OF THE MILLIONS + +A SELECTION OF PAST ESSAYS + +SECOND SERIES + +BY + +GEORGE TYRRELL, S.J. + +1901 + + + + + + + +"AND SEEING THE MULTITUDES HE WAS MOVED WITH +COMPASSION ON THEM, FOR THEY WERE HARASSED AND +SCATTERED AS SHEEP HAVING NO SHEPHERD." +(Matthew ix. 36.) + + + + + + _Nil Obstat:_ + J. GERARD, S.J. + CENS. THEOL. DEPUTATUS. + + _Imprimatur:_ + HERBERTUS CARD. VAUGHAN, + ARCHIEP. WESTMON. + + + +CONTENTS + + + XIII.--Juliana of Norwich + XIV.--Poet and Mystic + XV.--Two Estimates of Catholic Life + XVI.--A Life of De Lamennais + XVII.--Lippo, the Man and the Artist + XVIII.--Through Art to Faith + XIX.--Tracts for the Million + XX.--An Apostle of Naturalism + XXL.--"The Making of Religion" + XXII.--Adaptability as a Proof of Religion + XXIII.--Idealism in Straits + + + +XIII. + + +JULIANA OF NORWICH. + +"One of the most remarkable books of the middle ages," writes Father +Dalgairns, [1] "is the hitherto almost unknown work, titled, _Sixteen +Revelations of Divine Love made to a Devout Servant of God, called +Mother Juliana, an Anchoress of Norwich_" How "one of the most +remarkable books" should be "hitherto almost unknown," may be explained +partly by the fact to which the same writer draws attention, namely, +that Mother Juliana lived and wrote at the time when a certain mystical +movement was about to bifurcate and pursue its course of development, +one branch within the Church on Catholic lines, the other outside the +Church along lines whose actual issue was Wycliffism and other kindred +forms of heterodoxy, and whose logical outcome was pantheism. Hence, +between the language of these pseudo-mystics and that of the recluse of +Norwich, "there is sometimes a coincidence ... which might deceive the +unwary." It is almost necessarily a feature of every heresy to begin by +using the language of orthodoxy in a strained and non-natural sense, and +only gradually to develop a distinctive terminology of its own; but, as +often as not, certain ambiguous expressions, formerly taken in an +orthodox sense, are abandoned by the faithful on account of their +ambiguity and are then appropriated to the expression of heterodoxy, so +that eventually by force of usage the heretical meaning comes to be the +principal and natural meaning, and any other interpretation to seem +violent and non-natural. "The few coincidences," continues Father +Dalgairns, "between Mother Juliana and Wycliffe are among the many +proofs that the same speculative view often means different things in +different systems. Both St. Augustine, Calvin, and Mahomet, believe in +predestination, yet an Augustinian is something utterly different from a +Scotch Cameronian or a Mahometan.... The idea which runs through the +whole of Mother Juliana is the very contradictory of Wycliffe's +Pantheistic Necessitarianism." Yet on account of the mere similarity of +expression we can well understand how in the course of time some of +Mother Juliana's utterances came to be more ill-sounding to faithful +ears in proportion as they came to be more exclusively appropriated by +the unorthodox. It is hard to be as vigilant when danger is remote as +when it is near at hand; and until heresy has actually wrested them to +its purpose it is morally impossible that the words of ecclesiastical +and religious writers should be so delicately balanced as to avoid all +ambiguities and inaccuracies. Still less have we a right to look for +such exactitude in the words of an anchoress who, if not wholly +uneducated in our sense of the word, yet on her own confession "could no +letter," i.e., as we should say, was no scholar, and certainly made no +pretence to any skill in technical theology. But however much some of +her expressions may jar with the later developments of Catholic +theology, it must be remembered, as has been said, that they were +current coin in her day, common to orthodox and unorthodox; and that +though their restoration is by no means desirable, yet they are still +susceptive of a "benignant" interpretation. "I pray Almighty God," says +Mother Juliana in concluding, "that this book come not but into the +hands of those that will be His faithful lovers, and that will submit +them to the faith of Holy Church." [2] And indeed such can receive no +possible harm from its perusal, beyond a little temporary perplexity to +be dispelled by inquiry; and this only in the case of those who are +sufficiently instructed and reflective to perceive the discord in +question. The rest are well used in their reading to take what is +familiar and to leave what is strange, so that they will find in her +pages much to ponder, and but a little to pass over. + +It is, however, not only to these occasional obscurities and ambiguities +that we are to ascribe the comparative oblivion into which so remarkable +a book has fallen; but also to the fact that its noteworthiness is +perhaps more evident and relative to us than to our forefathers. It +cannot but startle us to find doubts that we hastily look upon as +peculiarly "modern," set forth in their full strength and wrestled with +and overthrown by an unlettered recluse of the fourteenth century. In +some sense they are the doubts of all time, with perhaps just that +peculiar complexion which they assume in the light of Christianity. Yet, +owing to the modern spread of education, or rather to the indiscriminate +divulgation of ideas, these problems are now the possession of the man +in the street, whereas in former days they were exclusively the property +of minds capable--not indeed of answering the unanswerable, but at least +of knowing their own limitations and of seeing why such problems must +always exist as long as man is man. Dark as the age of Mother Juliana +was as regards the light of positive knowledge and information; yet the +light of wisdom burned at least as clearly and steadily then as now; and +it is by that light alone that the shades of unbelief can be dispelled. +Of course, wisdom without knowledge must starve or prey on its own +vitals, and this was the intellectual danger of the middle ages; but +knowledge without wisdom is so much food undigested and indigestible, +and this is the evil of our own day, when to be passably well-informed +so taxes our time and energy as to leave us no leisure for assimilating +the knowledge with which we have stuffed ourselves. + +We must not, however, think of Mother Juliana as shut up within four +walls of a cell, evolving all her ideas straight from her own inner +consciousness without any reference to experience. Such a barren +contemplation, tending to mental paralysis, belongs to Oriental +pessimism, whose aim is the extinction of life, mental and physical, and +reabsorption into that void whence, it is said, misfortune has brought +us forth to troublous consciousness. The Christian contemplative knows +no ascent to God but by the ladder of creatures; he goes to the book of +Nature and of human life, and to the book of Revelation, and turns and +ponders their pages, line by line and word by word, and so feeds and +fills the otherwise thin and shadowy conception of God in his own soul, +and ever pours new oil upon the flame of Divine love. Father Daigairns +writes: "Juliana is a recluse very different from the creatures of the +imagination of writers on comparative morals. So far from being cut off +from sympathy with her kind, her mind is tenderly and delicately alive +to every change in the spiritual atmosphere of England.... The four +walls of her narrow home seem to be rent and torn asunder, and not only +England but Christendom appears before her view;" and he is at pains to +show how both anchorites and anchoresses were much-sought after by all +in trouble, temporal or spiritual, and how abundant were their +opportunities of becoming acquainted with human life and its burdens, +and of more than compensating, through the confidences of others, +whatever defect their minds might suffer through lack of personal +experience. Even still, how many a priest or nun whose experience had +else been narrowed to the petty domestic interests of a small family, +is, in virtue of his or her vocation, put in touch with a far larger +world, or with a far more important aspect of the world, than many who +mingle with its every-day trivialities, and is thus made a partaker in +some sense of the deeper life and experience of society and of the +Universal Church! The anchoress "did a great deal more than pray. The +very dangers against which the author of her rule [3] warns her, are a +proof that she had many visitors. He warns her against becoming a +'babbling' or 'gossiping' anchoress, a variety evidently well-known; a +recluse whose cell was the depository of all the news from the +neighbourhood at a time when newspapers did not exist." Such abuses +throw light upon the legitimate use of the anchoress's position in the +mediaeval community. + +And so, though Mother Juliana "could no letter," though she knew next to +nothing of the rather worthless physical science of those times, and +hardly more of philosophy or technical theology, yet she knew no little +of that busy, sad, and sinful human life going on round her, not only at +Norwich, but in England, and even in Europe; and rich with this +knowledge, to which all other lore is subordinate and for whose sake +alone it is valuable, she betook herself to prayer and meditation, and +brought all this experience into relation with God, and drew from it an +ever clearer understanding of Him and of His dealings with the souls +that His Love has created and redeemed. + +It is not then so wonderful that this wise and holy woman should have +faced the problems presented by the apparent discord between the truths +of faith and the facts of human life--a discord which is felt in every +age by the observant and thoughtful, but which in our age is a +commonplace on the lips of even the most superficial. But an age takes +its tone from the many who are the children of the past, rather than +from the few who are the parents of the future. Mother Juliana's book +could hardly have been in any sense "popular" until these days of ours, +in which the particular disease of mind to which it ministers has become +epidemic. + +If then these suggestions to some extent furnish an explanation of the +oblivion into which the revelations of Mother Juliana have fallen, they +also justify the following attempt to draw attention to them once more, +and to give some sort of analysis of their contents; more especially as +we have reason to believe that they are about to be re-edited by a +competent scholar and made accessible to the general public, which they +have not been since the comparative extinction of Richardson's edition +of 1877. Little is known of Mother Juliana's history outside what is +implied in her revelations; nor is it our purpose at present to go aside +in search of biographical details that will be of interest only after +their subject has become interesting. Suffice it here to say that she +was thirty at the time of her revelations, which she tells us was in +1373. Hence she was born in 1343, and is said to have been a +centenarian, in which case she must have died about 1443. She probably +belonged to the Benedictine nuns at Carrow, near Norwich, and being +called to a still stricter life, retired to a hermitage close by the +Church of St. Julian at Norwich. The details she gives about her own +sick-room exclude the idea of that stricter "reclusion" which is +popularly spoken of as "walling-up"--not of course in the mythical +sense. + +With these brief indications sufficient to satisfy the craving of our +imagination for particulars of time and place, let us turn to her own +account of the circumstances of her visions, as well as of their nature. +She tells us that in her life previous to 1373, she had, at some time or +other, demanded three favours from God; first, a sensible appreciation +of Christ's Passion in such sort as to share the grace of Mary Magdalene +and others who were eye-witnesses thereof: "therefore I desired a bodily +sight wherein I might have more knowledge of the bodily pain of our +Saviour." And the motive of this desire was that she might "afterwards +because of that showing have the more true mind of the Passion of +Christ." Her aim was a deeper practical intelligence, and not the +gratification of mere emotional curiosity. + +This grace she plainly recognizes as extraordinary; for she says: "Other +sight or showing of God asked I none, till when the soul was departed +from the body." Her second request was likewise for an extraordinary +grace; namely, for a bodily sickness which she and others might believe +to be mortal; in which she should receive the last sacraments, and +experience all the bodily pains, and all the spiritual temptations +incident to the separation of soul and body. And the motive of this +request was that she might be "purged by the mercy of God, and +afterwards live more to the worship of God because of that sickness." In +other words, she desired the grace of what we might call a +"trial-death," that so she might better meet the real death when it +came. Further, she adds, "this sickness I desired in my youth, that I +might have it when I was thirty years old." And "these two desires were +with a condition" (namely, if God should so will), "for methought this +was not the common use of prayer." But the third request she proffers +boldly "without any condition," since it was necessarily God's desire to +grant it and to be sued for it; namely, the grace of a three-fold wound: +the wound of true sorrow for sin; the wound of "kind compassion" with +Christ's sufferings; and the wound of "wilful belonging to God," that +is, of self-devotion. + +She is careful to tell us that while she ever continued to urge the +unconditional third request, the two first passed completely out of her +head in the course of years, until she was reminded of them by their +simultaneous and remarkable fulfilment. "For when I was thirty years old +and a half, God sent me a bodily sickness in which I lay three days and +three nights; and on the fourth night I took all my rites of Holy +Church, and weened not to have lived till day. And after this I lay two +days and two nights, and on the third night I weened oftentimes to have +passed, and so weened they that were with me.... And I understood in my +reason, and by the feeling of my pains that I should die, and I assented +fully with all the will of my heart, to be at God's will. Thus I endured +till day, and by then, was my body dead to all feeling from the midst +down." She is then raised up in a sitting position for greater ease, and +her curate is sent for, as the end is supposed to be near. On arrival, +he finds her speechless and with her eyes fixed upwards towards heaven, +"where I trusted to come by the mercy of God." He places the crucifix +before her, and bids her bend her eyes upon it. "I assented to set my +eyes in the face of the crucifix if I could; and so I did; for methought +I could endure longer to look straight in front of me than right up"--a +touch that shows the previous upturning of the eyes to have been +voluntary and not cataleptic. At this moment we seem to pass into the +region of the abnormal: "After this my sight began to fail; it waxed as +dark about me in the chamber as if it had been night, save in the image +of the cross, wherein I beheld a common light, and I wist not how. And +all that was beside the cross was ugly and fearful to me, as it had been +much occupied with fiends." Then the upper part of her body becomes +insensible, and the only pain left is that of weakness and +breathlessness. Suddenly she is totally eased and apparently quite +cured, which, however, she regards as a momentary miraculous relief, but +not as a deliverance from death. In this breathing space it suddenly +occurs to her to beg for the second of those three wounds which were the +matter of her unconditional third request; namely, for a deepened sense +and sympathetic understanding of Christ's Passion. "But in this I never +desired any bodily sight, or any manner of showing from God; but such +compassion as I thought that a kind soul might have with our Lord +Jesus." In a word, the remembrance of her two conditional and +extraordinary requests of bygone years was not in her mind at the time. +"And in this, suddenly I saw the red blood trickling down from under the +garland;"--and so she passes from objective to subjective vision;[4] and +the first fifteen revelations follow, as she tells us later, one after +another in unbroken succession, lasting in all some few hours. + +"I had no grief or no dis-ease," she tells us later, "as long as the +fifteen showings lasted in showing. And at the end all was close, and I +saw no more; and soon I felt that I should live longer." Presently all +her pains, bodily and spiritual, return in full force; and the +consolation of the visions seems to her as an idle dream and delusion; +and she answers to the inquiries of a Religious at her bedside, that she +had been raving: "And he laughed loud and drolly. And I said: 'The cross +that stood before my face, methought it bled fast.'" At which the other +looked so serious and awed that she became ashamed of her own +incredulity. "I believed Him truly for the time that I saw Him. And so +it was then my will and my meaning to do, ever without end--but, as a +fool, I let it pass out of my mind. And lo! how wretched I was," &c. +Then she falls asleep and has a terrifying dream of the Evil One, of +which she says: "This ugly showing was made sleeping and so was none +other," whence it seems that her self-consciousness was unimpaired in +the other visions; that is, she was aware at the time that they were +visions, and did not confound them with reality as dreams are +confounded. Then follows the sixteenth and last revelation; ending with +the words: "Wit well it was no raving thou sawest to-day: but take it, +and believe it, and keep thee therein, and comfort thee therewith and +trust thereto, and thou shalt not be overcome." Then during the rest of +the same night till about Prime next morning she is tempted against +faith and trust by the Evil One, of whose nearness she is conscious; but +comes out victorious after a sustained struggle. She understands from +our Lord, that the series of showings is now closed; "which blessed +showing the faith keepeth, ... for He left with me neither sign nor +token whereby I might know it." Yet for her personally the obligation +not to doubt is as of faith: "Thus am I bound to keep it in my faith; +for on the same day that it was showed, what time the sight was passed, +as a wretch I forsook it and openly said that I raved." + +Fifteen years later she gets an inward response as to the general gist +and unifying purport of the sixteen revelations. "Wit it well; love was +His meaning. Who showed it thee? Love. Wherefore showed He it thee? For +love." + +Having thus sketched the circumstances of the revelations, we may now +address ourselves to their character and substance. + +There is nothing to favour and everything to disfavour the notion that +Mother Juliana was an habitual visionary, or was the recipient of any +other visions, than those which she beheld in her thirty-first year; and +of these, she tells us herself, the whole sixteen took place within a +few hours. "Now have I told you of fifteen showings, ... of which +fifteen showings, the first began early in the morning about the hour of +four, ... each following the other till it was noon of the day or past, +... and after this the Good Lord showed me the sixteenth revelation on +the night following." Speaking of them all as one, she tells us: "And +from the time it was showed I desired oftentimes to wit what was in our +Lord's meaning; and fifteen years after and more I was answered in +ghostly understanding, saying thus: 'What! wouldst thou wit thy Lord's +meaning in this thing? Wit it well: Love was His meaning.'" But this +"ghostly understanding" can hardly be pressed into implying another +revelation of the evidently supernormal type. + +We rather insist on this point, as indicating the habitual healthiness +of Mother Juliana's soul--a quality which is also abundantly witnessed +by the unity and coherence of the doctrine of her revelations, which +bespeaks a mind well-knit together, and at harmony with itself. The +hysterical mind is one in which large tracts of consciousness seem to +get detached from the main body, and to take the control of the subject +for the time being, giving rise to the phenomena rather foolishly called +double or multiple "personality." This is a disease proper to the +passive-minded, to those who give way to a "drifting" tendency, and +habitually suffer their whole interests to be absorbed by the strongest +sensation or emotion that presents itself. Such minds are generally +chaotic and unorganized, as is revealed in the rambling, involved, +interminably parenthetical and digressive character of their +conversation. But when, as with Mother Juliana, we find unity and +coherence, we may infer that there has been a life-long habit of active +mental control, such as excludes the supposition of an hysterical +temperament. + +Perhaps the similarity of the phenomena which attend both on +extraordinary psychic weakness and passivity, and on extraordinary +energy and activity may excuse a confusion common enough, and which we +have dwelt on elsewhere. But obviously as far as the natural +consequences of a given psychic state are concerned, it is indifferent +how that state is brought about. Thus, that extreme concentration of the +attention, that perfect abstraction from outward things, which in +hysterical persons is the effect of weakness and passive-mindedness--of +the inability to resist and shake off the spell of passions and +emotions; is in others the effect of active self-control, of voluntary +concentration, of a complete mastery over passions and emotions. Yet +though the causes of the abnormal state are different, its effects may +well be the same. + +In thus maintaining the healthiness and vigour of Mother Juliana's mind, +we may seem to be implicitly treating her revelation, not as coming from +a Divine source, but simply as an expression of her own habitual line of +thought--as a sort of pouring forth of the contents of her subconscious +memory. Our direct intention, however, is to show how very unlikely it +is antecedently that one so clear-headed and intelligent should be the +victim of the common and obvious illusions of the hysterical visionary. +For her book contains not only the matter of her revelations, but also +the history of all the circumstances connected with them, as well as a +certain amount of personal comment upon them, professedly the fruit of +her normal mind; and best of all, a good deal of analytical reflection +upon the phenomena which betrays a native psychological insight not +inferior to that of St. Teresa. From these sources we could gather the +general sobriety and penetration of her judgment, without assuming the +actual teaching of the revelations to be merely the unconscious +self-projection of her own mind. But in so much as many of these +revelations were professedly Divine answers to her own questions, and +since the answer must ever be adapted not merely to the question +considered in the abstract, but as it springs from its context in the +questioner's mind; we are not wrong, on this score alone, in arguing +from the character of the revelation to the character of the mind to +which it was addressed. Fallible men may often speak and write above or +beside the intelligence of their hearers and readers; but not so He who +reads the heart He has made. Now these revelations were not addressed to +the Church through Mother Juliana; but, as she says, were addressed to +herself and were primarily for herself, though most that was said had +reference to the human soul in general. They were adapted therefore to +the character and individuality of her mind; and are an index of its +thoughts and workings. For her they were a matter of faith; but, as she +tells us, she had no token or outward proof wherewith to convince others +of their reality. Those who feel disposed, as we ourselves do, to place +much confidence in the word of one so perfectly sane and genuinely holy, +may draw profit from the message addressed to her need; but never can it +be for them a matter of faith as in a Divine message addressed directly +or indirectly to themselves. So far as these revelations are a clear and +noble expression of truths already contained implicitly in our faith and +reason, which it brings into more explicit consciousness and vitalizes +with a new power of stimulus, they may be profitable to us all; but they +must be received with due criticism and discernment as themselves +subject to a higher rule of truth--namely, the teaching of the Universal +Church. + +But to determine, with respect to these and kindred revelations, how far +they may be regarded as an expression of the recipient's own mind and +latent consciousness, will need a digression which the general interest +of the question must excuse. + +There is a tendency in the modern philosophy of religion (for example, +in Mr. Balfour's _Foundations of Belief_) to rationalize inspired +revelation and to explain it as altogether kindred to the apparently +magical intuitions of natural genius in non-religious matters; as the +result, in other words, of a rending asunder of the veil that divides +what is called "super-liminal" from "subliminal" consciousness; to find +in prophecy and secret insight the effect of a flash of unconscious +inference from a mass of data buried in the inscrutable darkness of our +forgotten self. Together with this, there is also a levelling-up +philosophy, a sort of modernized ontologism, which would attribute all +natural intuition to a more immediate self-revelation on God's part than +seems quite compatible with orthodoxy. + +But neither of these philosophies satisfy what is vulgarly understood by +"revelation," and therefore both use the word in a somewhat strained +sense. For certainly the first sense of the term implies a consciousness +on the part of the recipient of being spoken to, of being related +through such speech to another personality, whereas the flashes and +intuitions of natural genius, however they may resemble and be called +"inspirations" because of their exceeding the known resources of the +thinker's own mind, yet they are consciously autochthonous; they are +felt to spring from the mind's own soil; not to break the soul's +solitude with the sense of an alien presence. Such interior +illuminations, though doubtless in a secondary sense derived from the +"True Light which enlightens every man coming into this world," +certainly do not fulfil the traditional notion of revelation as +understood, not only in the Christian Church, but also in all ethnic +religions. For common to antiquity is the notion of some kind of +possession or seizure, some usurpation of the soul's faculties by an +external personality, divine or diabolic, for its own service and as its +instrument of expression--a phenomenon, in fact, quite analogous, if not +the same in species, with that of hypnotic control and suggestion, where +the thought and will of the subject is simply passive under the thought +and will of the agent. + +Saints and contemplatives are wont--not without justification--to speak +of their lights in prayer, and of the ordinary intuitions of their mind, +under the influence of grace, as Divine utterances in a secondary sense; +to say, "God said to me," or "seemed to say to me," or "God showed me," +and so on. But to confound these products of their own mind with +revelation is the error only of the uninstructed or the wilfully +self-deluded. Therefore, as commonly understood, "revelation" implies +the conscious control of the mind by another mind; just as its usual +correlative, "inspiration," implies the conscious control of the will by +another will. + +There can be no doubt whatever but that Mother Juliana of Norwich +considered her revelations to be of this latter description, and not to +have been merely different in degree from those flashes of spiritual +insight with which she was familiar in her daily contemplations and +prayers. How far, then, her own mind may have supplied the material from +which the tissues were woven, or lent the colours with which the +pictures were painted, or supplied the music to which the words were +set, is what we must now try to determine. + + +II. + +Taking the terms "revelation" and "inspiration" in the unsophisticated +sense which they have borne not only in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, +but in almost all the great ethnic religions as well, we may inquire +into the different sorts and degrees of the control exercised by the +presumably supernatural agents over the recipient of such influence. For +clearness' sake we may first distinguish between the control of the +cognitive, the volitional, and the executive faculties. For our present +inquiry we may leave aside those cases where the control of the +executive faculties, normally subject to the will and directed by the +mind, seem to be wrested from that control by a foreign agent possessed +of intelligence and volition, as, for example, in such a case as is +narrated of the false prophet Balaam, or of those who at the Pentecostal +outpouring spoke correctly in languages unintelligible to themselves, or +of the possessed who were constrained in spite of themselves to confess +Christ. In these and similar cases, not only is the action involuntary +or even counter to the will, but it manifests such intelligent purpose +as seemingly marks it to be the effect of an alien will and +intelligence. Of this kind of control exercised by the agent over the +outer actions of the patient, it may be doubted if it be ever effected +except through the mediation of a suggestion addressed to the mind, in +such sort that though not free, the resulting action is not wholly +involuntary. Be this as it may, our concern at present is simply with +control exercised over the will and the understanding. + +With regard to the will, it is a commonplace of mystical theology that +God, who gave it its natural and essential bent towards the good of +reason, i.e., towards righteousness and the Divine will; who created +it not merely as an irresistible tendency towards the happiness and +self-realization of the rational subject, but as a resistible tendency +towards its _true_, happiness and _true_ self-realization--that this +same God can directly modify the will without the natural mediation of +some suggested thought. We ourselves, by the laborious cultivation of +virtue, gradually modify the response of our will to certain +suggestions, making it more sensitive to right impulses, more obtuse to +evil impulses. According to mystic theology, it is the prerogative of +God to dispense with this natural method of education, and, without +violating that liberty of choice (which no inclination can prejudice), +to incline the rational appetite this way or that; not only in reference +to some suggested object, but also without reference to any distinct +object whatsoever, so that the soul should be abruptly filled with joy +or sadness, with fear or hope, with desire or aversion, and yet be at a +loss to determine the object of these spiritual passions. St. Ignatius +Loyola, in his "Rules for Discerning Spirits," borrowed no doubt from +the current mystical theology of his day, makes this absence of any +suggested object a criterion of "consolation" coming from God alone--a +criterion always difficult to apply owing to the lightning subtlety of +thoughts that flash across the soul and are forgotten even while their +emotional reverberation yet remains. Where there was a preceding thought +to account for the emotion, he held that the "consolation" might be the +work of spirits (good or evil) who could not influence the will +directly, but only indirectly through the mind; or else it might be the +work of the mind itself, whose thoughts often seem to us abrupt through +mere failure of self-observation. + +Normally what is known as an "actual grace" involves both an +illustration of the mind, and an enkindling of the will; but though +supernatural, such graces are not held to be miraculous or +preternatural, or to break the usual psychological laws of cause and +effect; like the ordinary answers to prayer, they are from God's +ordinary providence in that supernatural order which permeates but does +not of itself interfere with the natural. But over and above what, +relatively to our observation, we call the "ordinary" course, there is +the extraordinary, whose interference with it is apparent, though of +course not absolute or real--since nothing can be out of harmony with +the first and highest law, which is God Himself. And to the category of +the extraordinary must be assigned such inspirations and direct +will-movements as we here speak of. [5] + +Yet not altogether; for in the natural order, too, we have the +phenomenon of instinct to consider--both spiritual and animal. Giving +heredity all the credit we can for storing up accumulated experience in +the nervous system of each species, there remains a host of fundamental +animal instincts which that law is quite inadequate to explain; those, +for example, which govern the multiplication of the species and secure +the conditions under which alone heredity can work. Such cannot be at +once the effect and the essential condition of heredity; and yet they +are, of all instincts, the most complex and mysterious. Indeed, it seems +more scientific to ascribe other instincts to the same known and +indubitable, if mysterious, cause, than to seek explanation in causes +less known and more hypothetical. In the case of many instincts, it +would seem that the craving for the object precedes the distinct +cognition of it; that the object is only ascertained when, after various +tentative gropings, it is stumbled upon, almost, it might seem, by +chance. And this seems true, also, of some of our fundamental spiritual +instincts; for example, that craving of the mind for an unified +experience, which is at the root of all mental activity, and whose +object is ever approached yet never attained; or, again, there is the +social and political instinct, which has not yet formed a distinct and +satisfying conception of what it would be at. Or nearer still to our +theme, is the natural religious instinct which seeks interpretations and +explanatory hypotheses in the various man-made religions of the race, +and which finds itself satisfied and transcended by the Christian +revelation. + +In these and like instances, we find will-movements not caused by the +subjects' own cognitions and perceptions, but contrariwise, giving birth +to cognitions, setting the mind to work to interpret the said movements, +and to seek out their satisfying objects. + +This is quite analogous to certain phenomena of the order of grace. St. +Ignatius almost invariably speaks, not, as we should, of thoughts that +give rise to will-states of "consolation" or "desolation," but +conversely, of these will-states giving rise to congruous thoughts. +Indeed, nothing is more familiar to us than the way in which the mind is +magnetized by even our physical states of elation or depression, to +select the more cheerful or the gloomier aspects of life, according as +we are under one influence or the other; and in practice, we recognize +the effect of people's humours on their opinions and decisions, and +would neither sue mercy nor ask a favour of a man in a temper. In short, +it is hardly too much to say, that our thoughts are more dependent on +our feelings than our feelings on our thoughts. This, then, is one +possible method of supernatural guidance which we shall call "blind +inspiration"--for though the feeling or impulse is from God, the +interpretation is from the subject's own mind. It is curious how St. +Ignatius applies this method to the determining of the Divine will in +certain cases--as it were, by the inductive principle of "concomitant +variation." A suggestion that always comes and grows with a state of +"consolation," and whose negative is in like manner associated with +"desolation," is presumably the right interpretation of the blind +impulse. [6] And perhaps this is one of the commonest subjective +assurances of faith, namely, that our faith grows and declines with what +we know intuitively to be our better moods; that when lax we are +sceptical, and believing when conscientious. + +Another species of will-guidance recognized by saints, is not so much by +way of a vague feeling seeking interpretation, as by way of a sort of +enforced decision with regard to some naturally suggested course of +conduct. And this, perhaps, is what is more technically understood by an +inspiration; as, for example, when the question of writing or not +writing something publicly useful, say, the records of the Kings of +Israel, rises in the mind, and it is decided for and in the subject, but +not by him. Of course this "inspiration" is a common but not essential +accompaniment of "revelation" or "mind-control,"--in those cases, +namely, where the communicated information is for the good of others; +as, also, where it is for the guidance of the practical conduct of the +recipient. Such "inspiration" at times seems to be no more than a strong +inclination compatible with liberty; at other times it amounts to such a +"fixing" of the practical judgment as would ordinarily result from a +determination of the power of choice--if that were not a contradiction. +Better to say, it is a taking of the matter out of the jurisdiction of +choice, by the creation of an _idee fixe_ [7] in the subject's mind. + +Turning now to "revelation" in the stricter sense of a preternatural +enlightenment of the mind, it might conceivably be either by way of a +real accretion of knowledge--an addition to the contents of the mind--or +else by way of manipulating contents already there, as we ourselves do +by reminiscence, by rumination, comparison, analysis, inference. Thus we +can conceive the mind being consciously controlled in these operations, +as it were, by a foreign will; being reminded of this or that; being +shown new consequences, applications, and relations of truths already +possessed. + +When, however, there is a preternatural addition to the sum total of the +mind's knowledge, we can conceive the communication to be effected +through the outer senses, as by visions seen (real or symbolic), or +words heard; or through the imagination--pictorial, symbolic, or verbal; +visual or auditory; or, finally, in the very reason and intelligence +itself, whose ideas are embodied in these images and signs, and to whose +apprehension they are all subservient. + +Now from all this tedious division and sub-division it may perhaps be +clear in how many different senses the words of such a professed +revelation as Mother Juliana has left on record can be regarded as +preternatural utterances; or rather, in how many different ways she +herself may have considered them such, and wished them so to be +considered. Indeed, as we shall see, she has done a good deal more to +determine this, in regard to the various parts of her record, than most +have done, and it is for that reason that we have taken the opportunity +to open up the general question. Such a record might then be, either +wholly or in part: + + (a) The work of religious "inspiration" or genius, in the sense + in which rationalists use the word, levelling the idea down to the same + plane as that of artistic inspiration. + + (b) Or else it might be "inspired" as mystic philosophy or + ontologism uses the expression, when it ascribes all natural insight to + a more or less directly divine enlightenment. + + (c) Or, taking the word more strictly as implying the influence + of a distinct personal agency over the soul of the writer, it might be + that the record simply expresses an attempted interpretation, an + imaginary embodiment, of some blind preternatural stirring of the + writer's affections--analogous to the romances and dreams created in the + imagination at the first awakening of the amatory affections. + + (d) Or, the matter being in no way from preternatural sources, + the strong and perhaps irresistible impulse to record and publish it, + might be preternatural. + + (e) Or (in addition to or apart from such an impulse), it might + be a record of certain truths already contained implicitly in the + writer's mind, but brought to remembrance or into clear recognition, not + by the ordinary free activity of reason, but, as it were, by an alien + will controlling the mind. + + (f) Or, if really new truths or facts are communicated to the mind + from without, this may be effected in various ways: (i) By the way of + verbal "inspiration," as when the very words are received apparently + through the outer senses; or else put together in the imagination. + (ii) Or, the matter is presented pictorially (be it fact or symbol) + to the outer senses or to the imagination; and then described or + "word-painted" according to the writer's own ability. (iii) Or, the + truth is brought home directly to the intelligence; and gets all its + imaginative and verbal clothing from the recipient. + +Many other hypotheses are conceivable, but most will be reducible to one +or other of these. We may perhaps add that, when the revelation is given +for the sake of others, this purpose might be frustrated, were not a +substantial fidelity of expression and utterance also secured. This +would involve, at least, that negative kind of guidance of the tongue or +pen, known technically as "assistance." + +Mother Juliana gives us some clue in regard to her own revelations where +she says: [8] "All this blessed showing of our Lord God was showed in +three parts; that is to say, by bodily sight; and by words formed in my +understanding; and by ghostly sight. For the bodily sight, I have said +as I saw, as truly as I can" (that is, the appearances were, she +believed, from God, but the description of them was her own). "And for +the words I have said them right as our Lord showed them to me" (for +here nothing was her own, but bare fidelity of utterance). "And for the +ghostly sight I have said some deal, but I may never full tell it" (that +is to say, no language or imagery of her own can ever adequately express +the spiritual truths revealed to her higher reason). As a rule she makes +it quite clear throughout, which of these three kinds of showing is +being described. We have an example of bodily vision when she saw "the +red blood trickling down from under the garland," and in all else that +seemed to happen to the crucifix on which her open eyes were set. And of +all this she says: "I conceived truly and mightily that it was Himself +that showed it me, without any mean between us;" that is, she took it as +a sort of pictorial language uttered directly by Christ, even as if He +had addressed her in speech; she took it not merely as _having_ a +meaning, but as designed and uttered to _convey_ a meaning--for to speak +is more than to let one's mind appear. Or again, it is by bodily vision +she sees a little hasel-nut in her hand, symbolic of the "naughting of +all that is made." Of words formed in her imagination she tells us, for +example, "Then He (i.e., Christ as seen on the crucifix) without voice +and opening of lips formed in my soul these words: _Herewith is the +fiend overcome_." Of "ghostly sight," or spiritual intuition, we have an +instance when she says: "In the same time that I saw (i.e., visually) +this sight of the Head bleeding, our good Lord showed a ghostly sight of +His homely loving. I saw that He is to us everything that is comfortable +to our help; He is our clothing, that for love wrappeth us," &c.--where, +in her own words and imagery, she is describing a divine-given insight +into the relation of God and the soul. Or again, when she is shown our +Blessed Lady, it is no pictorial or bodily presentment, "but the virtues +of her blissful soul, her truth, her wisdom, her charity." "And Jesus +... showed me a _ghostly_ sight of her, right as I had seen her before, +little and simple and pleasing to Him above all creatures." + +Just as in the setting forth of these spiritual apprehensions, the words +and imagery are usually her own, so in the description of bodily vision +she uses her own language and comparisons. For example, the following +realism: "The great drops of blood fell down from under the garland like +pellets, seeming as it had come out of the veins; and in coming out they +were brown red, for the Blood was full thick, and in spreading abroad +they were bright red.... The plenteousness is like to drops of water +that fall off the eavings after a great shower of rain.... And for +roundness they were like to the scales of herrings in the spreading of +the forehead," &c. These similes, she tells us, "came to my mind in the +time." In other instances, the comparisons and illustrations of what she +saw with her eyes or with her understanding, were suggested to her; so +that she received the expression, as well as the matter expressed, from +without. + +But besides the records of the sights, words, and ideas revealed to her, +we have many things already known to her and understood, yet "brought to +her mind," as it were, preternaturally. Also, various paraphrases and +elaborate exegeses of the words spoken to her; a great abundance of +added commentary upon what she saw inwardly or outwardly. Now and then +it is a little difficult to decide whether she is speaking for herself, +or as the exponent of what she has received; but, on the whole, she +gives us abundant indications. Perhaps the following passage will +illustrate fairly the diverse elements of which the record is woven: + +With good cheer our Lord looked into His side and beheld with joy +[_bodily vision_]: and with His sweet looking He led forth the +understanding of His creature, by the same wound, into His side within +[_her imagination is led by gesture from one thought to another_]. [9] +And then He showed a fair and delectable place, and large enough for all +mankind that should be saved, and rest in peace and love [_a conception +of the understanding conveyed through the symbol of the open wound in +the Heart_]. And therewith He brought to my mind His dear worthy Blood +and the precious water which He let pour out for love [_a thought +already contained in the mind, but brought to remembrance by Christ_]. +And with His sweet rejoicing Pie showed His blessed Heart cloven in two +[_bodily or imaginative vision_], and with His rejoicing He showed to my +understanding, in part, the Blissful Godhead as far forth as He would at +that time strengthen the poor soul for to understand [_an enlightening +of the reason to the partial apprehension of a spiritual mystery_]. And +with this our Good Lord said full blissfully: "Lo! how I love thee!" +[_words formed in the imagination or for the outer hearing_], as if He +had said: "My darling, behold, and see thy Lord," &c. [_her own +paraphrase and interpretation of the said words_]. + +Rarely, however, are the different modes so entangled as here, and for +the most part we have little difficulty in discerning the precise origin +to which she wishes her utterances to be attributed--a fact that makes +her book an unusually interesting study in the theory of inspiration. + +Thus, in provisionally answering the problem proposed at the beginning +of this article, as to how far Mother Juliana supplied from her own mind +the canvas and the colours for this portrayal of Divine love, and as to +how far therefore it may be regarded as a product of and a key to her +inner self, we are inclined to say that, a comparison of her own style +of thought and sentiment and expression as exhibited in her paraphrases +and expositions of the things revealed to her, with the substance and +setting of the said revelations, points to the conclusion that God spoke +to her soul in its own language and habitual forms of thought; and that +if the "content" of the revelation was partly new, yet it was harmonious +with the previous "content" of her mind, being, as it were, a congruous +development of the same--not violently thrust into the soul, but set +down softly in the appointed place already hollowed for it and, so to +say, clamouring for it as for its natural fulfilment. This, of course, +is not a point for detailed and rigorous proof, but represents an +impression that gathers strength the oftener we read and re-read Mother +Juliana's "showings." + +_Jan. Mar._ 1900. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: Prefatory Essay to Walter Hilton's _Scale of Perfection._] + +[Footnote 2: The Protestant editor of the Leicester edition (of 1845), +not understanding that an appreciation of difficulties, far from being +incompatible with faith, is a condition of the higher and more +intelligent faith, would fain credit Mother Juliana with a secret +disaffection towards the Church's authority. How far he is justif may be +gathered from such passages as these: "In this way was I taught by the +grace of God that I should steadfastly hold me fast in the faith, as I +had before understood." "It was not my meaning to take proof of anything +that belongeth to our faith, for I believed truly that Hell and +Purgatory is for the same end that Holy Church teacheth." "And I was +strengthened and learned generally to keep me in the faith in every +point ... that I might continue therein to my life's end." "God showed +full great pleasaunce that He hath in all men and women, that mightily +and wisely take the preaching and teaching of Holy Church; for it is His +Holy Church; He is the ground; He is the substance; He is the teaching; +He is the teacher," &c.] + +[Footnote 3: _Ancren Riwle_.] + +[Footnote 4: It is clear from many little touches and allusions that +throughout the "showings" Mother Juliana considers herself to be gazing, +not on a vision of Calvary, but on the illuminated crucifix hung before +her by her attendants, in which crucifix these appearances of bleeding, +suffering, movement, and speech take place. All else is shrouded in +darkness. Yet she never loses the consciousness that she is in her bed +and surrounded by others. Notice, for instance: "After this, I saw with +bodily sight in the face _of the crucifix that hung before me_," &c. +"The cross that stood before my face, methought it bled fast." "This +[bleeding] was so plenteous, to my sight, that methought if it had been +so in nature and substance" (i.e., in reality and not merely in +appearance), "it should have made the bed all a-blood, and have passed +over all about." "For this sight I laughed mightily, and made them to +laugh that were about me." Evidently she is quite awake, is well +conscious of her state and surroundings, and distinguishes appearance +from reality, shadow from substance. There is no dream-like illusion in +all this. Appearances presented to the outer senses are commonly spoken +of as "hallucinations;" but it seems to me that this word were better +reserved for those cases where appearance is mistaken for reality; and +where consequently there is illusion and deception. Mother Juliana is +aware that the crucifix is not really bleeding, as it seems to do, and +she explicitly distinguishes such a vision from her later illusory +dream-presentment of the Evil One. This dream while it lasted was, like +all dreams, confounded with reality; whereas the other phenomena, even +if made of "dream-stuff," were rated at their true value. Hence it seems +to me that if such things have any outward independent reality, to see +them is no more an hallucination than to see a rainbow. Even if they are +projected from the beholder's brain, there is no hallucination if they +are known for such; but only when they are confounded with reality, as +it were, in a waking-dream. As we are here using the word, an experience +is "real" which fits in with, and does not contradict the totality of +our experiences; which does not falsify our calculation or betray our +expectancy. If I look at a fly through a magnifying medium of whose +presence I am unconscious, its size is apparent, or illusory, and not +real; for being unaware of the unusual condition of my vision, I shall +be thrown out in my calculations, and the harmony of my experiences will +be upset by seeming contradictions. If, however, I am aware of the +medium and its nature, then I am not deceived, and what I see is +"reality," since it is as natural and real for the fly to look larger +through the optician's lense, as to look smaller through the optic +lense. I cannot call one aspect more "real" than the other, for both are +equally right and true under the given conditions. For these reasons I +should object to consider Mother Juliana's "bodily showings" as +hallucinations, so far as the term seems to imply illusion.] + +[Footnote 5: For those therefore who make an act of faith in the +absolute universality and supremacy of the laws of physics and +chemistry, and find in them the last reason of all things, these +phenomena are interesting only as studies in the mechanics of illusion.] + +[Footnote 6: It was largely by this method, supplemented no doubt by +that of reasoned discussion, that St. Ignatius guided himself in +determining points connected with the constitution of his Order, +according to the journal he has left us of his "experiences," which is +simply a record of "consolations" and "desolations."] + +[Footnote 7: i.e., A kinaesthetic idea, as it is called, an idea of +something to be done in the given conditions.] + +[Footnote 8: P. 272 in Richardson's Edit., from which I usually quote as +being the readiest available.] + +[Footnote 9: On another occasion, by looking down to the right of His +Cross, He brought to her mind, "where our Lady stood in the time of His +Passion and said: 'Wilt Thou see her?'" leading her by gesture from the +seen to the not seen.] + + + +XIV. + + +POET AND MYSTIC. + +A biographer who has any other end in view, however secondary and +incidental, than faithfully to reproduce in the mind of his readers his +own apprehension of the personality of his subject, will be so far +biassed in his task of selection; and, without any conscious deviation +from truth, will give that undue prominence to certain features and +aspects which in extreme cases may result in caricature. A Catholic +biographer of Coventry Patmore would have been tempted to gratify the +wish of a recent critic of Mr. Champneys' very efficient work, [1] and +to devote ten times as much space as has been given to the account of +his conversion, and a good deal, no doubt, to the discussion and +correction of his eccentric views in certain ecclesiastical matters; +thus giving us the history of an illustrious convert, and not that of a +poet and seer whose conversion, however intimately connected with his +poetical and intellectual life, was but an incident thereof. On the +other hand, one less intelligently sympathetic with the more spiritual +side of Catholicism than Mr. Champneys, would have lacked the principal +key to the interpretation of Patmore's highest aims and ideals, towards +which the whole growth and movement of his mind was ever tending, and by +which its successive stages of evolution are to be explained. Again, +with all possible respect for the feelings of the living, the biographer +has wisely suppressed nothing needed to bring out truthfully the +ruggednesses and irregularities that characterize the strong and +somewhat one-sided development of genius as contrasted with the regular +features and insipid perfectness of things wrought on a small scale. If +idealizing means the filing-away of jagged edges--and surely it does +not--Mr. Champneys has left us to do our own idealizing. The faults that +marred Purcell's _Life of Manning_ are here avoided, and yet truth is no +whit the sufferer in consequence. + +In speaking of Patmore as a thinker and a poet, we do not mean to +dissociate these two functions in his case, but only to classify him +(according to his own category) with those "masculine" poets whose power +lies in a beautiful utterance of the truth, rather than in a truthful +utterance of the beautiful. + +We propose, however, to occupy ourselves with the matter rather than the +mode of Patmore's utterance; with that truth which he conceived himself +to have apprehended in a newer and clearer light than others before him; +and this, because he does not stand alone, but is the representative and +exponent of a certain school of ascetic thought whose tendency is +diametrically contrary to that pseudo-mysticism which we have dealt with +elsewhere, and have ascribed to a confusion of neo-platonic and +Christian principles. This counter-tendency misses the Catholic mean in +other respects and owes its faultiness, as we shall see, to some very +analogous fallacies. If in our chapter on "The True and the False +Mysticism," it was needful to show that the principles of Christian +monasticism and contemplative life, far from in any way necessarily +retarding, rather favour and demand the highest natural development of +heart and mind; it is no less needful to assign to this thought its true +limits, and to show that the noblest expansion of our natural faculties +does not conflict with or exclude the principles of monasticism. I think +it is R.H. Hutton who remarks that it is not "easy to give us a firm +grasp of any great class of truths without loosening our grasp on some +other class of truths perhaps nobler and more vital;" and undoubtedly +Patmore and his school in emphasizing the fallacies of neo-platonic +asceticism are in danger of precipitating us into fallacies every whit +as uncatholic. It is therefore as professedly formulating the principles +of a certain school that we are interested in the doctrine of which +Patmore constitutes himself the apostle. + + Lights are constantly breaking in upon me [he + writes] and convincing me more and more that the + singular luck has fallen to me of having to write, for + the first time that any one even attempted to do so + with any fulness, on simply the greatest and most + exquisite subject that ever poet touched since the + beginning of the world. + + The more I consider the subject of the marriage of + the Blessed Virgin, the more clearly I see that it is the + _one_ absolutely lovely and perfect subject for poetry. + Perfect humanity, verging upon, but never entering the + breathless region of the Divinity, is the real subject of + _all_ true love-poetry; but in all love-poetry hitherto, an + "ideal" and not a reality has been the subject, more + or less. + +Taking the "Angel of the House" as representing the earlier, and the +"Odes" the later stage of the development which this theme received +under his hands, it seems as though he passes from the idealization and +apotheosis of married love to the conception of it as being in its +highest form, not merely the richest symbol, but even the most +efficacious sacrament of the mystical union between God and the soul. He +is well aware--though not fully at first--that these conceptions were +familiar to St. Bernard and many a Catholic mystic; it was for the +poetic apprehension and expression of them that he claimed originality; +or, at least, for their unification and systematic development. "That +his apprehensions were based generally--almost exclusively, on the +fundamental idea of nuptial love must," as Mr. Champneys says, "be +admitted." This was the governing category of his mind; the mould into +which all dualities naturally fell; it was to his philosophy what love +and hate, light and dark, form and matter, motion and atoms, have been +to others. + + It was, at all events, the predominance of this conception + which bound together his whole life's work, + rendering coherent and individualizing all which he + thought, wrote, or uttered, and those who study + Patmore without this key are little likely to understand + him. + +And it is the persistent and not always sufficiently restrained use of +this category that made much of his writing just a trifle shocking to +sensitive minds. + +These latter will have "closed his works far too promptly to discover +that far from gainsaying the Catholic instinct which prefers virginity +to marriage" (not a strictly accurate statement) he makes virginity a +condition of the idealized marriage-relation, and finds its realization +in her who was at once matron and virgin. Following the fragmentary +hints to be found here and there in patristic and mystical theology, he +assumes that virgin-spousals and virgin-birth were to have been the law +in that Paradise from which man lapsed back into natural conditions +through sin; that in the case of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph the +paradisaic law was but resumed in this respect. Accordingly, he writes +of Adam and Eve in "The Contract," + + Thus the first Eve + With much enamoured Adam did enact + Their mutual free contract + Of virgin spousals, blissful beyond flight + Of modern thought, with great intention staunch, + Though unobliged until that binding pact. + +To their infidelity to this contract he ascribes the subsequent +degradation of human love through sensuality; and all the sin and +selfishness thence deriving to our fallen race: + + Whom nothing succour can + Until a heaven-caress'd and happier Eve + Be joined with some glad Saint + In like espousals, blessed upon Earth, + And she her fruit forth bring; + + No numb chill-hearted shaken-witted thing, + 'Plaining his little span. + But of proud virgin joy the appropriate birth, + The Son of God and Man. + +The rationalistic objection to this suppression of what seems to be of +the essence or integrity of matrimony is obvious enough, and yet finds +many a retort even in the realm of nature, where the passage to a higher +grade of life so often means the stultifying of functions proper to the +lower. As to the pre-eminence of that state in which the spiritual +excellencies of marriage and virginity are combined, Catholic teaching +is quite clear and decided; in this, as in other points, Patmore's +untaught intuitions, and instincts--his _mens naturaliter +catholica_--had led him, whither the esoteric teaching of the Church had +led only the more appreciatively sympathetic of her disciples, from time +to time, as it were, up into that mountain of which St. Ambrose says: +"See, how He goes up with the Apostles and comes down to the crowds. For +how could the crowds see Christ save in a lowly spot? They do not follow +Him to the heights, nor rise to sublimities"--a notion altogether +congenial to Patmore's aristocratic bias in religion as in everything +else. Undoubtedly it was this mystical aspect of Catholic doctrine that +appealed to his whole personality, offering as it did an authoritative +approval, and suggesting an infinite realization, of those dreams that +were so sacred to him. As far as the logic of the affections goes, it +was for the sake of this that he held to all the rest; for indeed the +deeper Catholic truths are so internetted that he who seizes one, drags +all the rest along with it under pain of self-contradiction. + +No one knew better than Patmore the infinite insufficiency of the +highest created symbols to equal the eternal realities which it is their +whole purpose to set forth; he fully realized that as the lowliest +beginnings of created love seem to mock, rather than to foreshadow, the +higher forms of which they are but the failure and botched essay, so the +very highest conceivable, taken as more than a metaphor, were an +irreverent parody of the Divine love for the human soul. It is not the +_same_ relationship on an indefinitely extended scale, but only a +somewhat _similar_ relationship, the limits of whose similarity are +hidden in mystery. But when a man is so thoroughly in love with his +metaphor as Patmore was, he is tempted at times to press it in every +detail, and to forget that it is "but one acre in the infinite field of +spiritual suggestion;" that, less full and perfect metaphors of the same +reality, may supply some of its defects and correct some of its +redundancies. We should do unwisely to think of the Kingdom of Heaven +only as a kingdom, and not also as a marriage-feast, a net, a treasure, +a mustard-seed, a field, and so forth, since each figure supplies some +element lost in the others, and all together are nearer to the truth +than any one: and so, although the married love of Mary and Joseph is +one of the fullest revealed images of God's relation to the soul, we +should narrow the range of our spiritual vision, were we to neglect +those supplementary glimpses at the mystery afforded by other figures +and shadowings. + +And this leads us to the consideration of a difficulty connected with +another point of Patmore's doctrine of divine love. He held that the +idealized marriage relationship was not merely the symbol, but the most +effectual sacrament and instrument of that love; "yet the world," he +complains, "goes on talking, writing, and preaching as if there were +some essential contrariety between the two," the disproof of which "was +the inspiring idea at the heart of my long poem (the 'Angel')." Now, +although in asserting that the most absorbing and exclusive form of +human affection is not only compatible with, but even instrumental to +the highest kind of sanctity and divine love, Patmore claimed to be at +one, at least in principle, with some of the deeper utterances of the +Saints and Fathers of the Christian Church; it cannot be denied that the +assertion is _prima facie_ opposed to the common tradition of Catholic +asceticism; and to the apparent _raison d'etre_ of every sort of +monastic institution. + +It must be confessed that, in regard to the reconciliation of the claims +of intense human affection with those of intense sanctity, there have +been among all religious teachers two distinct conceptions struggling +for birth, often in one and the same mind, either of which taken as +adequate must exclude the other. It would not be hard to quote the +utterances of saints and ascetics for either view; or to convict +individual authorities of seeming self-contradiction in the matter. The +reason of this is apparently that neither view is or can be adequate; +that one is weak where the other is strong; that they are both imperfect +analogies of a relationship that is unique and _sui generis_--the +relationship between God and the soul. Hence neither hits the centre of +truth, but glances aside, one at the right hand, the other at the left. +Briefly, it is a question of the precise sense in which God is "a +jealous God" and demands to be loved alone. The first and easier mode of +conception is that which is implied in the commoner language of saints +and ascetics--language perhaps consciously symbolic and defective in its +first usage, but which has been inevitably literalised and hardened when +taken upon the lips of the multitude. God is necessarily spoken of and +imagined in terms of the creature, and when the analogical character of +such expression slips from consciousness, as it does almost instantly, +He is spoken of, and therefore thought of, as the First of Creatures +competing with the rest for the love of man's heart. He is placed +alongside of them in our imagination, not behind them or in them. Hence +comes the inference that whatever love they win from us in their own +right, by reason of their inherent goodness, is taken from Him. Even +though He be loved better than all of them put together, yet He is not +loved perfectly till He be loved alone. Their function is to raise and +disappoint our desire time after time, till we be starved back to Him as +to the sole-satisfying--everything else having proved _vanitas +vanitatum_. Then indeed we go back to them, not for their own sakes, but +for His; not attracted by our love of them, but impelled by our love of +Him. + +This mode of imagining the truth, so as to explain the divine jealousy +implied in the precept of loving God exclusively and supremely, is, for +all its patent limitations, the most generally serviceable. Treated as a +strict equation of thought to fact, and pushed accordingly to its utmost +logical consequences, it becomes a source of danger; but in fact it is +not and will not be so treated by the majority of good Christians who +serve God faithfully but without enthusiasm; whose devotion is mainly +rational and but slightly affective; who do not conceive themselves +called to the way of the saints, or to offer God that all-absorbing +affection which would necessitate the weakening or severing of natural +ties. In the event, however, of such a call to perfect love, the logical +and practical outcome of this mode of imagining the relation of God to +creatures is a steady subtraction of the natural love bestowed upon +friends and relations, that the energy thus economized may be +transferred to God. This concentration may indeed be justified on other +and independent grounds; but the implied supposition that, the highest +sanctity is incompatible with any pure and well-ordered natural +affection, however intense, is certainly ill-sounding, and hardly +reconcilable with the divinest examples and precepts. + +The limitations of this simpler and more practical mode of imagining the +matter are to some extent supplemented by that other mode for which +Patmore found so much authority in St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Teresa, +and many another, and which he perhaps too readily regarded as +exhaustively satisfactory. + +In this conception, God is placed, not alongside of creatures, but +behind them, as the light which shines through a crystal and lends it +whatever it has of lustre. In recognizing whatever true brilliancy or +beauty creatures possess as due to His inbiding presence, the love which +they excite in us passes on to Him, through them. As He is the primary +Agent and Mover in all our action and movement, the primary Lover in all +our pure and well-ordered love; and we, but instruments of His action, +movement, and love; so, in whatever we love rightly and divinely for its +true merit and divinity, it is He who is ultimately loved. Thus in all +pure and well-ordered affection it is, ultimately, God who loves and God +who is loved; it is God returning to Himself, the One to the One. +According to this imagery, God is viewed as the First Efficient and the +ultimate Final Cause in a circular chain of causes and effects of which +He is at once the first link and the last--a conception which, in so far +as it brings God inside the system of nature as part thereof, is, like +the last, only analogously true, and may not be pressed too far in its +consequences. + +In this view, to love God supremely and exclusively means practically, +to love only the best things in the best way, recognizing God both in +the affection and in its object. God is not loved apart from creatures, +or beside them; but through them and in them. Hence if only the +affection be of the right kind as to mode and object, the more the +better; nor can there be any question of crowding other affections into +a corner in order to make more room for the love of God in our hearts. +The love of Him is the "form," the principle of order and harmony; our +natural affections are the "matter," harmonized and set in order; it is +the soul, they are the body, of that one Divine Love whose adequate +object is God in, and not apart from, His creatures. + +It would not perhaps be hard to reconcile this view with some utterances +in the Gospel of seemingly opposite import; or to find it often implied +in the words and actions of Catholic Saints; but to square it with the +general ascetic traditions of the faithful at large is exceedingly +difficult. Patmore would no doubt have allowed the expediency of +celibacy in the case of men and women devoted to the direct ministry of +good works, spiritual and corporal: a devotion incompatible with +domestic cares; he could and did allow the superiority of voluntary +virginity and absolute chastity over the contrary state of lawful use; +but he could hardly have justified--hardly not have condemned those who +leave father, friend, or spouse, not merely externally in order to be +free for good works, but internally in order that their hearts may be +free for the contemplation and love of God viewed apart from creatures +and not merely in them. He might perhaps say that, as we cannot go to +God through all creatures, but only through some (since we are not each +in contact with all), we must select according to our circumstances +those which will give the greatest expansion and elevation to our +natural affections; and that for some, the home is wisely sacrificed for +the community or the church. Yet this hardly consists with the +pre-eminence he gives to married love as the nearest symbol and +sacrament of divine. + +Both these modes of imagining the truth, whatever their inconveniences, +are helpful as imperfect formulations of Catholic instinct; both +mischievous, if viewed as adequate and close-fitting explanations. +Patmore was characteristically enthusiastic for his own aspect of the +truth; and characteristically impatient of the other. Thus, of a Kempis +he says: + +There is much that is quite unfit for, and untrue of, people who live in +the ordinary relations of life. I don't think I like the book quite so +much as I did. There is a hot-house, egotistical air about much of its +piety. Other persons are, ordinarily, the appointed means of learning +the love of God; and to stifle human affections must be very often to +render the love of God impossible. + +In other words, the further he pushed the one conception the further he +diverged from a Kempis, whose asceticism was built almost purely on the +other. + +Most probably a reconciliation of these two conceptions will be found in +a clear recognition of the two modes in which God is apprehended and +consequently loved by the human mind and heart; the one concrete and +experimental, accessible to the simplest and least cultured, and of +necessity for all; the other, abstract in a sense--a knowledge through +the ideas and representations of the mind, demanding a certain degree of +intelligence and studious contemplation, and therefore not necessary, at +least in any high degree, for all. The difference is like that between +the knowledge of salt as tasted in solution and the knowledge of it as +seen apart in its crystallized state; or between the knowledge and love +of a musical composer as known in his compositions, and as known in +himself, from his compositions. The latter needs a not universal power +of inference which the most sympathetic musical expert may entirely +lack. + +Of these two approaches to Divine love and union, the former is +certainly compatible with, and conducive to, the unlimited fulness of +every well-ordered natural affection; but the latter--a life of more +conscious, reflex, and actual attention to God--undoubtedly does require +a certain abstraction and concentration of our limited spiritual +energies, and can only be trodden at the cost of a certain inward +seclusion of which outward seclusion is normally a condition. +Instinctively, Catholic tradition has regarded it as a vocation +apart--as, like the life of continence, a call to something more than +human, and demanding a sacrifice or atrophy of functions proper to +another grade of spirituality. Even what is called a "life of thought" +makes a similar demand to a great extent; it involves a narrowing of +other interests; a departure from the conditions of ordinary practical +life. The "contemplative life" is inclusively all this and more; it is a +sort of anticipation of the future life of vision. Still, though for a +few it may be the surest or the only approach to sanctity, yet there is +no degree of Divine love that may not be reached by the commoner and +normal path; there have been saints outside the cloister as well as +inside. One could hardly offend the first principles of the Gospel more +grievously than by making intelligence, culture, and contemplative +capacity conditions of a nearer approach to Christ. + +It seems to us then that Patmore failed to get at the root of the +neglected truth after which he was groping, and thereby fell into a +one-sidedness just as real as that against which his chief work was a +revolt and protest. + +As a convert, Patmore is most uninteresting to the controversialist. His +mind was altogether concrete, affirmative, and synthetic, with a +profound distrust of abstract and analytical reasoning. As we have said, +Christianity and, later, Catholicism appealed profoundly to his +intellectual imagination in virtue of some of their deeper tenets, for +whose sake he took over all the rest _per modum unius_. + +The idea [of the Incarnation] no sooner flashed upon me as a possible +reality than it became, what it has ever since remained, ... the only +reality worth seriously caring for; a reality so clearly seen and +possessed that the most irrefragable logic of disproof has always +affected me as something trifling and irrelevant. + +Again: "Christianity is not an 'historical religion,' but a revelation +which is renewed in every receiver of it." "My heart loves that of whose +existence my intellect allows the probability, and my will puts the seal +to the blessed compact which produces faith"--an ingenious application +of his favourite category. + +Of the efforts of Manning and de Vere to proselytize him, he says: + +Their position seemed to me to be so logically perfect that I was long +repelled by its perfection. I felt, half unconsciously, that a living +thing ought not to be so spick and span in its external evidence for +itself, and that what I wanted for conviction was not the sight of a +faultless intellectual superficies, but the touch and pressure of a +moral solid. + +Whatever some may think or have thought of his theology, none who knew +him could have any doubt as to the robust and uncompromising character +of his faith. It was because he felt so sure of his footing that he +allowed himself a liberty of movement perplexing to those whose position +was one of more delicate balance. He had a ruthlessness in tossing aside +what might be called "non-essentials," that was dictated not so much by +an under-estimate of their due importance, as by an impatience with +those who over-estimated them, confounding the vessel with its contained +treasure. + +When he says: "I believe in Christianity as it will be ten thousand +years hence," it would be a grave misinterpretation to suppose that he +implied any lack of belief in the Christianity of to-day. It is but +another assertion of his claim to be in sympathy with the esoteric +rather than the exoteric teaching of the present; to be on the mount +with the few and not on the plain with the many. For as the glacier +formed on the mountain slips slowly down to the plain, so, he held, the +esoteric teaching of to-day will be the popular teaching of future ages. +However little we may relish this distinction between "aristocratic" and +vulgar belief; however strongly we may hold that best knowledge of +God--that, namely, which is experimental and tactual rather than +intellectual or imaginative--is equally accessible to all; yet just so +far as there is question of the intellectual and imaginative forms in +which the faith is apprehended, the distinction does and must exist, not +only in religion but in every department of belief, as long as there are +different levels of culture in the same body of believers. It is, after +all, a much more superficial difference than it sounds--a difference of +language and symbolism for the same realities. Where language fits +close, as it does to things measurable by our senses, divergency makes +the difference between truth and error; but where it is question of the +substitution of one analogy or symbol for another, the more elegant is +not necessarily the more truthful; nor when we consider the infinite +inadequacy of even the noblest conceivable finite symbolism to bring God +down to our level, need we pride ourselves much for being on a mountain +whose height is perceptible from the plain but imperceptible from the +heavens. + +Hence to say that the distinction between esoteric and exoteric teaching +means that the Church has two creeds, one for the simple, another for +the educated, is a thoughtless criticism which overlooks the necessarily +symbolic nature of all language concerning the "eternities," and +confounds a different mode of expression with a difference of the facts +and realities expressed. + +Matthew Arnold, too, believed in the Catholicism of the future; but in +how different a sense! What he hoped for was, roughly speaking, the +preservation of the ancient and beautiful husk after the kernel had been +withered up and discarded; what Patmore looked forward to was the +expansion of the kernel bursting one involucre after another, and ever +clamouring for fairer and more adequate covering. With one, the language +of religion was all too wide; with the other, all too narrow, for its +real signification. Arnold belongs to the first, Patmore to the last of +those three stages of religious thought of which Mr. Champneys writes: + +The first is represented by those whose creed is so simple as to afford +little or no ground for contention; the second by such as in their +search for greater precision enlarge the domain of dogma, but fail to +pass beyond its mere technical aspect; the third consists of those who +rise from the technical to the spiritual, and without repudiating or +disparaging dogma, use it mainly as a guide and support to thought which +transcends mere definition. + + +_Dec._ 1900. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: _Coventry Patmore_. By Basil Champneys. Geo. Bell and Sons, +1900.] + + + +XV. + + +TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE. + +Dealing as both do so largely with the inner life of English Catholic +society, it is hardly possible to avoid comparing and contrasting _One +Poor Scruple_ [1] with _Helbeck of Bannisdale_,--one the work of a +Catholic who knows the matter she is handling, almost experimentally; +the other the work of a gifted outsider whose singular talent, careful +observation, and studious endeavour to be fair-minded, fail to save her +altogether from that unreality and _a priori_ extravagance which +experience alone can correct. To the non-Catholic, Mrs. Humphrey Ward's +book will appear a marvel of insight and acute analysis; for it will fit +in with, and explain his outside observation of those Catholics with +whom he has actually come in contact, far better than the preposterous +notions that were in vogue fifty years ago. It represents them not as +monstrously wicked and childishly idolatrous; but as narrow, +extravagant, out-of-date, albeit, well-meaning folk--more pitiable than +dangerous. + +Formerly when they lived secret and unknown, anything might safely be +asserted about them; nothing was too wild or improbable. In those days +"Father Clement" was the issue of a superhuman effort at charity and +fairness; and the author almost seemed to think an apology was needed +for such temerarious liberalism. But when Catholics began to breathe a +little more freely and to creep out of their burrows somewhat less +nervously; when, in fact, they were seen to be, at least in outward +semblance, much as other men; some regard had to be paid to statements +that could be checked by observation; and the Papist's disappointing +ordinariness had to be attributed to dissimulation or to be otherwise +interpreted into accord with the preposterous principles by which their +lives were thought to be governed. + +Mrs. Humphrey Ward represents the furthest advance of this reform. She +at least has spared no pains to acquaint herself with facts, to gather +information, to verify statements. She is never guilty of the grotesque +blunders that other high-class novelists fall into about Catholic +beliefs, practices, and habits, simply because they are dealing with +what is to their readers a _terra incognita,_ and can, therefore, afford +to be loose and inaccurate. An artistic conscientiousness which values +truth and honesty in every detail, saves her from this too common snare. +But it does not and cannot save her in the work of selection, synthesis, +and interpretation of instances, which has to be guided, not by +objective facts, but by subjective opinions and impressions. History +written in a purely positivist spirit, _ad narrandum_, and in no sense +_ad docendum_, is a chimerical notion by which Renan beguiled himself +into thinking that his _Vie de Jesus_ was a bundle of facts and nothing +more. And Mrs. Humphrey Ward is no less beguiled, if she is unaware that +in threading together, classifying and explaining the results of her +conscientious observation and inquiry, she is governed by an _a priori_ +conception of Catholicism hardly different from that which inspired the +author of "Father Clement." Hence, to us Catholics, though her evident +desire to be critical and impartial is gratifying, yet her failure is +none the less conspicuous. Dr. Johnson once observed, that what might be +wonderful dancing for a dog would be a very poor performance for a +Christian; and so, to us, "Helbeck" as a presentment of Catholic life is +wonderful as coming from an outsider, and, perhaps, especially from Mrs. +Humphrey Ward, but in itself it is grotesque enough--not through any +culpable infidelity to facts, but through lack of the visual power, the +guiding idea, whereby to read them aright. + +In _One Poor Scruple_, Mrs. Wilfrid Ward brings to bear upon a somewhat +similar task, an equal fidelity of observation supplemented by a +first-hand, far wider, and more intimate experience of Catholics and +their ways, and, above all, by that key which a share in their faith and +beliefs alone furnishes to the right understanding of their conduct. +Here too, no doubt, a contrary bias is to be suspected, nor is a purely, +"positive" treatment of the subject conceivable or desirable. The view +of an insider is as partial as the view of an outsider, though less +viciously so; nor can we get at truth by the simple expedient of fitting +the two together. The best witness is the rare individual who to an +inside and experimental knowledge, adds the faculty of going outside and +taking an objective and disinterested view. In truth this needs an +amount of intellectual self-denial seldom realized to any great degree; +but we venture to say that Mrs. Wilfrid Ward proves herself very worthy +of confidence in this respect. There is certainly no artistic idealizing +of Catholics, such as we are accustomed to in books written for the +edification of the faithful. There is the same almost merciless realism +which we find in "Helbeck" in dealing with certain trivialities and +narrownesses of piety--defects common to all whom circumstances confine +to a little world, but more incongruous and conspicuous as contrasted +with the dignity of Catholic ideals. Without conscious departure from +truth, Mrs. Humphrey Ward is evidently influenced in her selection and +manipulation of facts by the impression of Catholicism she already +possesses and wants to illustrate and convey; but Mrs. Wilfrid Ward has, +we think, risen above this weakness very notably, and should accordingly +merit greater attention. + +It may well be that this judicial impartiality may meet with its usual +reward of pleasing neither side altogether. Some will complain that she +brings no idealizing love to her subject, and does little to bring out +the greatness and glory of her religion. Yet this would be a hasty and +ill-judging criticism; for our faith is no less to be commended for the +restraint it exercises over the multitude of ordinary men and women, +than for the effect it produces in souls of a naturally heroic type. +That it should bring a certain largeness into the smallest life, that it +should impart a strange stability to a naturally unstable and frivolous +character; that it should check the worldly-minded with a sense of the +superior claims of the other world--all this impresses us, if not with +the sublimity or mystic beauty, at least with the solid reality and +penetrating power of the Catholic faith. + +The most loyal and deep-seated love needs not to shut its eyes to all +defects and limitations, but can face them unchilled; and similarly +there is often more faith and reverence and quiet enthusiasm in this +seemingly cold and critical attitude towards the cause or party we love, +than in the extravagant idealism that depends for its maintenance on an +ignoring of things as they are. + +Nothing perhaps is more unintelligible to the Protestant critic of +Catholicism, nothing more needs to be brought out prominently, than the +firm hold our religion can exercise over souls that are naturally +irreligious. + +This very phrase "naturally irreligious" will fall with a shock on +sensitive Protestant ears; yet we use it advisedly. While all men are +capable of faith and of substantial fidelity to the law of God, it is +undeniable that but few are by natural inclination "religious" in the +common acceptation of the term. As there is a poetic or mystical +temperament, so also there is a religious temperament--not quite so +rare, but still something exceptional. + +We find it so in all ages, ancient and modern; in all religions, +Christian and non-Christian--nay, even amid agnostics and unbelievers we +often detect the now aimless, unused faculty. But most men have, +naturally, no ardent spiritual sympathy with holiness, or mysticism, or +heroism; their interests are elsewhere; and even where there are latent +capacities of that kind, they are not usually developed until life's +severest lessons have been learnt. Thus the young, who have just left +the negative faith and innocence of the nursery behind them and stand +inexperienced on the threshold of life, are not normally religious; +whereas we naturally expect those who have passed through the ordeal, +and been disillusioned, to begin to think about their souls, since there +is nothing else left to think about. + +Now, the Catholic religion clearly recognizes these facts of human +nature, and accommodates herself to them. However frankly it may be +acknowledged that a religious temperament--a certain complexus of +mental, moral, and even physical dispositions--is a condition favourable +to heroic sanctity, it must be emphatically denied that to be +"religious," in the Protestant sense of the word, is requisite for +salvation. And this denial the Church enforces by her recognition of the +"religious state" [2] as an extraordinary vocation. The purpose of +"orders" and "congregations" is to provide a suitable environment for +people of a religious temperament whose circumstances permit them to +attend to its development in a more exclusive and, as it were, +professional way. Not, indeed, that all religious-minded persons do, or +ought to, enter into that external state of life; nor that all who so +enter are by temperament and sympathy fitted for it, but that the +institution points to the Church's recognition of what is technically +called the "way of perfection" as something exceptional and +super-normal. + +But the Church has a wider vocation than to provide hot-houses for the +forcing of these rare exotics, whom the rough climate of a worldly life +would either stunt or kill. Her first thought is for the multitudes of +average humanity, who are not, and cannot be, in intelligent sympathy +with many of the commands she lays upon them. They are but as children +in religious matters--however cultivated they may chance to be in other +concerns. From such souls God requires faith, and obedience to the +commandments--a due, which, in certain rare crises, may mean heroism and +martyrdom; but He does not expect of them that refinement of sanctity, +that sustained attention to divine things, which depends so largely on +one's natural cast of mind and disposition; and may even be found where +the martyr's temper is altogether wanting. We recognize that there is +certain serviceable, fustian, every-day piety, where, together with a +great deal of spiritual coarseness, insensibility to venial sin and +imperfection, there exists a firm faith that would go cheerfully to the +stake rather than deny God, or offend Him in any grave point that might +be considered a _casus belli_. And on the other hand a certain nicety of +ethical discernment and delicacy of devotion, an anxiety about points of +perfection, is a guarantee rather of the quality of one's piety than of +its depth or strength. The saint is usually one whose piety excels both +in quality and strength; the martyr is often enough a man of many +imperfections and sins, veiling an unsuspected, deep-reaching faith. The +day of persecution has ever been a day of revelation in this respect--a +day when the seemingly perfect have been scattered like chaff before the +wind, while the once thoughtless and careless have stood stubborn before +the blast. + +Protestantism of the Calvinistic or Puritan type shows little +consciousness of the distinction we are insisting upon. It is disposed +to draw a hard-and-fast line between the "converted" and the reprobate. +Those who are not religious-minded, or who do not take a serious turn, +are scarcely recognized as "saved" although they may not be convicted of +any very flagrant or definite breach of the divine law. Their morality +or their "good works" go for little if they do not experience that sense +of goodness, or of being saved, which is called faith. Much stress is +laid on "feeling good" and little value allowed to what we might call an +unsympathetic and grudging keeping of God's law--however much more it +may cost, from the very fact that it is in some way unsympathetic, and +against the grain. The service of fear and reverence, which Catholicism +regards as the basis and back-bone of love, is held to be abject and +unworthy--almost sinful. + +Hence it befalls that no place is found in the Protestant heaven for the +great majority of ordinary people who do not feel a bit good or +religious, who rather dislike going to church and keeping the +commandments, and yet who keep them all the same, because they believe +in God and fear His judgments and honour His law, and even love Him in +the solid, undemonstrative way in which a naughty and troublesome child +loves its parents. + +That such a character as Madge Riversdale's should cover a small, firm +core of faith and fear under a cortex of worldliness and frivolity; that +religion should have such a hold on one so entirely irreligious by +nature, is something quite inconceivable to a mind like, let us say, +Mrs. Humphrey Ward's; and yet absolutely intelligible to the ordinary +Catholic. + +The Church to us, is not what it is to the Protestant--a sort of pasture +land in which we are at liberty to browse if we are piously disposed. It +is not merely a convenient environment for the development of the +religious faculty. She stands to us in the relation of shepherd, with a +more than parental authority to feed and train our souls through infancy +to maturity; that is, from the time when we do not know or like what is +good for us, to the time when we begin to appreciate and spontaneously +follow her directions. Just then as a child, however naturally +recalcitrant and ill-disposed, retains a certain fundamental goodness +and root of recovery so long as it acknowledges and obeys the authority +of its father and mother; so the ordinary unreligious Catholic, who has +been brought up to believe in the divine authority of the Church, finds +therein all the protection that obedience offers to those who are +incapable of self-government. "In Madge's eyes the woman who married an +innocent divorcee was no more than his mistress." Had Madge been a pious +Protestant she naturally might have examined the question of divorce on +its own merits; she might have weighed the pros and cons of the problem; +she might have consulted God in prayer, and have listened to this +clergyman on one side; and to that, on the other: but eventually she +would have been thrown upon herself; she would have had no one whose +decision she was bound to obey. But wild and lawless as she is, yet +being a Catholic there is one voice on earth which she fears to +disbelieve or disobey. Looked at even from a human standpoint, the +consensus of a world-wide, ancient, organized society like the Roman +Church cannot but exert a powerful pressure on the minds of its +individual members. It would need no ordinary rebellion of the will for +a thoughtless girl to shake her mind so free of that influence as to +live happily in the state of revolt. But where in addition to this the +Church is viewed as speaking in the name of God, and as so representing +Him on earth that her ban or blessing is inseparable from His, it is +obvious that such a belief in her claims will give her a power for good +over the unreligious majority analogous to that possessed by a parent +over an untrained child--a power, that is, of discipline and external +motive which serves to supplement or supply for the present defect of +internal motive. + +Thus it is that the Church reckons among her obedient children thousands +of very imperfect and non-religious people for whom Protestantism can +find no place among the elect. + +Again, the solid faith of men with so little intellectual or emotional +interest in religion as Squire Riversdale or Marmaduke Lemarchant is +something very puzzling to the Protestant critic who, for the reasons +just insisted on, can have nothing corresponding to it in his own +experience. It is a psychological state of which his own religious +system takes no account. Where there is no intermediating Church, the +soul is either in direct and mystical union with God or else wholly +estranged and indifferent. A man is either serious and religious-minded, +or he is nothing. Like an untutored child, if he is not naturally good, +there is no one to make him so. But when the Church is acknowledged as +our tutor under God, as empowered by Him to lead us to Him; a middle +condition is found of those who are not naturally disposed to religion, +and yet who are submissive to that divine authority whose office it is +to shape their souls to better sympathies. Riversdale is a far truer +type of the Catholic country squire of the old school than the somewhat +morbid and impossible Helbeck of Bannisdale. With her preconceived +notions, Mrs. Humphrey Ward could not imagine any alternative between +'religious' and 'irreligious' in the Puritan sense. If Helbeck was to be +a good Catholic at all he must of necessity be fanatically devoted to +the propagation of the faith and offer his fortune and energies to the +service of an unscrupulous clergy only too ready to play upon his +credulous enthusiasm. His is represented as being naturally a religious +and mystical soul, but blighted and narrowed through the influence of +Catholicism. We are made to feel that the only thing the matter with him +is his creed--"all those stifling notions of sin, penance, absolution, +direction, as they were conventionalized in Catholic practice and +chattered about by stupid and mindless people." + +On the other hand, in Squire Riversdale and Marmaduke Lemarchant there +is by nature nothing but healthy humanity, no mystic or religious strain +whatever; they are not semi-ecclesiastics like Helbeck; and yet we feel +that their prosaic lives are governed, restrained, and rectified by a +deep-rooted faith in the authority of the Catholic Church. "The +qualities most obvious are not those of the mystic, but of the manly +out-of-door sportsman who may seem to be nothing more than a bluff +Englishman who rides to the hounds and does his ordinary duties. Yet one +of these red-coated cavaliers would, I have not the least doubt, if +occasion called for it, show himself capable of the very highest +heroism. Men of action, I should say, and not of reflection--a race of +few words but of brave deeds." + +It was just men of this unromantic type, men of solid but unostentatious +faith, given wholly to the business of this life save for one sovereign +secret reserve, who in time of persecution stood fast "ready any day to +be martyred for the faith and to regard it as the performance of a +simple duty and nothing to boast of." And if there is in the type a +certain narrowness of sympathy and lack of intelligent interest which +offends us, we may ask whether, with our human limitations, narrowness +is not to some extent the price we pay for strength; whether where +decision of judgment and energy of action is demanded, as in times of +persecution, width of view and multiplicity of sympathies may not be a +source of weakness. Contrast, for example, the character of Mark Fieldes +with that of Marmaduke Lemarchant, and it will be clear that the +strength and straightness of the latter is closely associated with the +absence of that versatility of intellect and affection which make the +former a more interesting but far less lovable and estimable +personality. To see all sides and issues of a question, is a +speculative, but not always a practical advantage; to have many +diversified tastes and affections helps to enlarge our sympathies, but +not to concentrate our energies. + +Of course great minds and strong hearts can afford to be comprehensive +without loss of depth and intensity; but our present interest is with +ordinary mortals and average powers. A man who has all his life +unreflectingly adopted the traditional principle that death is +preferable to dishonour, that a lie is essentially dishonourable, will +be far more likely to die for the truth, than one who has philosophized +much about honour and veracity, and whose resolution is enfeebled by the +consciousness of the weak and flimsy support which theory lends to these +healthy and universally received maxims. And similarly those who have +received the faith by tradition, who for years have assumed it in their +daily conduct as a matter of course, in whom therefore it has become an +ingrained psychological habit, who hold it, in what might be condemned +as a narrow, unintellectual fashion, are just the very people who will +fight and die for it, when its more cultivated and reflective professors +waver, temporize, and fall away. Taking human nature as it is, who can +doubt but that this is the way in which the majority are intended to +hold their religious, moral, philosophical, and political convictions; +that reflex thought is, must, and ought to be confined to a small +minority whose function is slowly to shape and correct that great body +of public doctrine by which the beliefs of the multitude are ruled? We +do not mean to say that such prosaic "narrowness" as we speak of, is +essential to strength; but only that a habit of theoretical speculation +and a continual cultivation of delicate sensibility is a source of +enervation which needs some compensating corrective. This corrective is +found in the exalted idealism which characterizes the great saints and +reformers, such as Augustine, or Francis, or Teresa, or Ignatius--souls +at once mystical and energetically practical to the highest degree. It +is something of this temper which is parodied in Alan Helbeck. But the +Church's mission is not merely to those rare souls whose sympathy with +her own mind and will is intelligent and spontaneous; but at least as +much to the multitudes who have to be guided more or less blindly by +obedience to tradition and authority, or else let wander as sheep having +no shepherd. These considerations explain why _One Poor Scruple_ seems +to us so far truer a presentment of Catholic life than _Helbeck of +Bannisdale_--the difference lying in the incommunicable advantage which +an insider possesses over an outsider in understanding the spirit and +principles by which the members of any social body are governed. Of all +religions, Catholicism which represents the accumulated results of two +thousand years' worldwide experience of human nature applied to the +principles of the Gospel, is least likely to be comprehended by an +outsider, however observant and fair-minded. + +To those for whom the lawfulness of re-marriage for an innocent divorcee +is, like the rest of their religious beliefs, a matter of opinion, the +scruple of a character like Madge Riversdale is unthinkable and +incredible. Such women do not trouble their heads about theological +points; still less, make heroic sacrifices for their private and +peculiar convictions. But those for whom the Church is a definite +concrete reality--almost a person--governing and teaching with divine +authority, will easily understand the firm grip she can and does exert +on those who have no other internal principle of restraint; who would +shake themselves free if they dared. Let those who despise the results +of such a constraint be consistent and abolish all parental and tutorial +control; all educative government of whatsoever description; nay, the +imperious restraint of conscience itself, which is often obeyed but +grudgingly. + +While some features of this portrait of Catholic life are common to all +its phases, others are peculiar to the aspect it presents in England, +where Catholics being a small and weak minority are, so to say, +self-conscious in their faith--continually aware that they are not as +the rest of men; disposed therefore to be apologetic or aggressive or +defensive. Again, the circumstance of their long exclusion from the +social and intellectual life of their country is accountable for other +undesirable peculiarities which Mrs. Wilfrid Ward sees no reason to +spare. + +We have not, however, attempted anything like a literary estimate of +this interesting, altogether readable work, but have only endeavoured to +draw attention to an important point, which, whether intentionally or +unintentionally, it illustrates very admirably. + +_May_, 1899. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: _One Poor Scruple._ By Mrs. Wilfrid Ward. London: Longmans, +1899.] + +[Footnote 2: We do not mean to imply that there is any close +etymological relation between these two uses of the term.] + + + +XVI. + + +A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS. + +The appearance of a work by the Hon. W. Gibson on _The Abbe de +Lamennais, and the Catholic Liberal Movement in France_, invites us to a +new attempt to grapple with a problem which has so far met with no +satisfactory solution, and probably never will. Up to a certain point we +seem to follow more or less intelligently the working of the restless +soul of De Lamennais; but at the last and great crisis of his life we +find all our calculations at fault; "we try to understand him; we wish +that penetrating into the inmost recesses of his wounded soul, we could +force it to yield up its secret, and once more sympathize with him, +perhaps console him; but we cannot. He is an enigma, as impenetrable as +the rocks on his native shore." + +From whatever point of view the story of his life is regarded, it +presents itself as a tragedy. The believing Catholic sees there the ruin +of a vocation to such a work as only a few souls in the history of the +Church are called to accomplish--a ruin desperate and deplorable in +proportion to the force of the talents and energies diverted from the +right path. The non-Catholic or unbeliever cannot fail to be moved by +contemplating the fruitless struggles of a mind so keen, a heart so +enthusiastic in the cause of light and liberty--struggles ending in +failure, perplexity, confusion, and misery. But while we allow a large +element of mystery in his character which will never be eliminated, yet +as we return time after time to gaze upon the picture of his life, as a +whole, and in its details, the seemingly discordant items begin quietly +to drop into their places one after another, and to exhibit unnoticed +connections; and the idea of his distinctive personality begins to shape +itself into a coherent unity. + +It is not our purpose here to summarize Mr. Gibson's admirable work, or +to give even an outline of so well-known a history; but rather to +attempt some brief criticism of the man himself, and incidentally of his +views. + +Temperament and early education are among the principal determinants of +character; and certainly when we contrast Feli with his brother Jean, +who presumably received the same home-training, we see how largely he +was the creature of temperament. Jean was by nature the "good boy," +tractable and docile; Feli, the unmanageable, the lawless, the violent. +While Jean was dutifully learning his lessons to order, Feli, the +obstreperous, imprisoned in the library, was feeding his tender mind +with Diderot, Montaigne, Pascal, Voltaire, Rousseau, and similar diet, +and at twelve exhibited such infidel tendencies as made it prudent to +defer his first Communion for some ten years. + +From first to last, whether we consider his childish waywardness and +outbreaks of violent passion, which persevered in a less childish form +through manhood; or the fits of intense depression and melancholy, +alternating with spells of high nerve-tension and feverish excitement; +or the restlessness and impatient energy which showed themselves always +and everywhere, and at times drove him like a wild man into the woods, +"seeking rest and finding none;" or the prophetic, not to say, the +fanatical strain which breaks out in so much of his writing, especially +in the _Paroles d'un Croyant_,--in all alike there is evident that +predominance of the imaginative and emotional elements which, combined +with intellectual gifts, constitute genius as commonly understood. For +such a character the training which would suffice for half a dozen good +little Jeans would be wholly inadequate. So much fire and feeling ill +submits to the yoke of self-restraint in matters moral or intellectual. +The mind is apt to be fascinated by the brilliant pictures of the +imagination and to become a slave to the tyranny of a fixed idea; while +the strength of passionate desire paralyzes the power of free +deliberation. It is precisely this self-restraint, the fruit of a +careful education given and responded to, that we miss in De Lammenais +both in his moral character and in his mind. Peace and tranquillity of +soul are essential to successful thinking, more especially in +philosophy; and in proportion as a brilliant imagination is a help, it +is also a danger if let run riot. At times, wearied out with himself, he +seems to have felt the need of retreat and quiet; but he was almost as +constitutionally incapable of keeping still, as certain modern statesmen +in their retirement from public life. We smile when we hear him in the +violent first fervour of his conversion, talking about becoming a +Trappist, and, later, a Jesuit. He knew himself better when he shrank so +long and persistently from the yoke of priesthood, and when, having +yielded against his truer instincts to the indiscreet zeal of pious +friends, he experienced an agony of repugnance at his first Mass. With +different antecedents he might have profited by the yoke, but as things +stood it could but gall him. + +In spite of Mr. Gibson's contention to the contrary, it can hardly be +maintained that De Lamennais was well educated in the strict sense of +the expression. The evidence he adduces points to a marvellous diversity +of interests, and even to close and careful reading. But on the whole he +was self-taught, and a self-taught man is never educated. Without +intercourse with other living minds, education is impossible. This is +indeed hoisting De Lammenais with his own petard. For, according to +"Traditionalism," the mind is paralyzed by isolation, and can be duly +developed only in society. An overweening self-confidence and slight +regard for the labours of other thinkers usually characterizes +self-taught genius. This it was that led him to cut all connection with +the philosophy of the past, and to attempt to build up, single-handed, a +new system to supplant that which had been the fruit of the collective +mind-labour of centuries. "I shall work out," he writes calmly to the +Abbe Brute, "a new system for the defence of Christianity against +infidels and heretics, a very simple system, in which the proofs will be +so rigorous that unless one is prepared to give up the right of saying +_I am_, it will be necessary to say _Credo_ to the very end." Only a man +with a very slight and superficial acquaintance with the endeavours of +previous apologists, and the extreme difficulty of the problem, could +speak with such portentous self-confidence. And the result bears out +this remark. For grand and imposing as is the structure of the _Essai +sur l'Indifference,_ it rests on fallacies so patent that none but a man +of no philosophical training could have failed to perceive them. Here it +is that the self-taught man comes to grief and often misses the mere +truisms of traditional teaching. + +Doubtless ecclesiastical philosophy and theology was then more than ever +painfully fossilized, and altogether lifeless and out of sympathy with +the spirit of the age. It needed to be quickened, adapted and applied to +modern exigencies. The undue intrusion of metaphysics into the domain of +positive knowledge needed checking; the value of _consensus communis_ as +a criterion required to be insisted on, defended, and exactly defined. +With characteristic impetuosity, De Lamennais, like Comte, must bundle +metaphysics out of doors altogether as a merely provisional but illusory +synthesis, necessary for the human intellect in its adolescence, but to +be discarded in its maturity; and thereupon he proceeds to erect his +system of Traditionalism mid-air, quite unconscious that in clearing +away metaphysics he has deprived the structure of its only possible +foundation. But this is the man all over. Because there is a truth in +Traditionalism, therefore, it is the whole and only truth; because +metaphysics alone can do little, it is therefore unnecessary and +worthless. Had he spent but a fraction of the time and trouble he gave +to the elaboration of his own system, in a liberal and critical study of +that which he desired to supersede, his genius might have accomplished a +work for the Church which is still halting badly on its way to +perfection. One feels something like anger in contemplating such +hot-headed zeal standing continually in its own light, and frustrating +with perverse ingenuity the very end which it was most desirous to +realize. For no one can deny that from his first conversion to his +unhappy death De Lamennais was dominated by the highest and noblest and +most unselfish motives; that he was a man of absolute sincerity of +purpose. + +His earliest enthusiasm was for the defence and exaltation of the +Catholic Faith, for the liberation of the Church from the bonds of +nationalism and Erastianism. Even those who repudiate altogether the +extreme Ultramontanism of De Maistre and De Lamennais must allow their +conception to be one of the boldest and grandest which has inspired the +mind of man. He realized more vividly than many that the cause of the +Church and of society, of Catholicism and humanity, were one and the +same. It was the very intensity and depth of his convictions that made +him so importunate in pressing them on others, so intolerant of delay, +so infuriated by opposition. For indeed nothing is more common than to +find a thousand selfishnesses co-existing and interfering with a +dominant unselfishness, lessening or totally destroying its fruitfulness +for good. A man who is unselfish enough to devote his fortune to charity +will not necessarily be free from faults which may more than undo the +good he proposes. + +The same hastiness of thought which moved him to a wholesale, +indiscriminate condemnation of metaphysics, led him to conclude that +because hitherto no happy adjustment of the relations between Church and +State had been devised, there could be no remedy save in their total +severance. Doubtless such a severance would be better, if Gallicanism +were the only alternative; or if the Church's liberty and efficiency +were to be seriously curtailed. A superficial glance might fancy a +fundamental discrepancy in this matter, as well as in the questions of +toleration, and of the freedom of the press, between the official +teaching of Gregory XVI. and Pius IX., and that of Leo XIII. But a +closer inspection shows no alteration of principle, and only a +recognition of altered circumstances, either necessitating a connivance +at inevitable evils, or totally changing the aspect of the question. But +De Lamennais should have learnt from his own teaching that liberty does +not mean the independence of isolation, but the full enjoyment of all +the means necessary for perfect self-development; that it does not mean +the weakness of dissociation, but the strength of a perfectly organized +association for mutual help and protection. And this holds good, not for +individuals alone, but for societies, and for Church and State. Aiming +at one common end, the perfection of humanity, they cannot but gain by +association and lose by dissociation. Each is weaker even, in its own +sphere, apart from the other. It is an unreal abstraction that splits +man into two beings--a body and a soul; that draws a clean, +hard-and-fast line between his temporal and eternal welfare; that +commits the former interest to one society, the latter to another, +absolutely distinct and unconnected. But all this holds true only in the +hypothesis of a nation of Christians or Theists. + +When a large fraction of the community has ceased to believe in +Christianity and the Church, the demands of justice and reason are +different. It may well be allowed that, to determine the exact relation +of the Catholic Church and Christian State, and the law of their +organization into one complex society, is a problem for whose perfect +solution we must wait the further development of the ideas of +ecclesiastical and civil society. But to wait for growth of subjective +truth was just what De Lamennais could not do. He saw that past +solutions of the problem had been unsuccessful; that in most cases the +Church was eventually drawn into bondage under the State as its creature +and instrument in the cause of tyranny and oppression; that it was +insensibly permeated with the local and national spirit, differentiated +from Catholic Christendom, and severed from the full influence of its +head, the Vicar of Christ. The independence of the Church he rightly +judged to be the great safeguard of the people against the tyranny of +their temporal rulers. In the face of that world-wide spiritual society, +whose voice was at once the voice of humanity and the voice of God, he +felt that "iniquity would stop its mouth," and injustice be put to +shame. Yet all this seemed to him impossible so long as the Church +depended on the State for temporalities, and because he could devise no +form of association that would be guarantee against all abuses, he +therefore insisted on total, severance, not merely as expedient for the +present pressure, but as a divine and eternal principle. + +When, therefore, it seemed to him that Gregory XVI. had condemned +Ultramontanism, it was, to De Lamennais, as though he had condemned the +cause of the Church and of humanity, and thrown the weight of his +authority into that of Gallicanism. Here again we see how his mental +intensity and impatience reduced him to the dilemma which found solution +in his apostasy. Holding as he did to the Papal infallibility in a form +far more extreme than that subsequently approved by the Vatican Council, +he was bound in consistency to accept the Pope's decision as infallible +in respect to its expediency and in all its detail. Thus it seemed to +him that the ideal for which he had lived was shattered by a +self-inflicted blow. The infallible voice of humanity had declared +against the cause of humanity. He found himself compelled, in virtue of +his principles, to choose between two alternatives. Either the cause of +humanity, as he conceived it, was not the cause of God; or else the Pope +was not the Vicar of Christ and the divinely-appointed guardian of that +cause. But of the two denials the former was now to him the least +tolerable. "Catholicism," he said, "was my life, because it was that of +humanity." _Sacramenta, propter homines_; the Church was made for man, +and not man for the Church. Given the dilemma, who shall blame his +choice? But the dilemma was purely subjective and imaginary. Though +truths are never irreconcilable, the exaggerations of truth may well +be so. + +Had he possessed that intellectual patience in perplexity, without which +not only faith, but true science, is impossible, he would have been +driven not to apostasy, but to a careful re-sifting of his views, +issuing, perhaps, in a reconciliation of apparently adverse positions, +or at all events in a confession of subjective, uncertainty and +confusion. Faith, in the wider sense of the word, would have bid him to +believe, without seeing, what we have lived to see under Leo XIII. + +This seems to be the intellectual aspect of his defection, though of +course there were many accelerating causes at work. Perhaps if Gregory +XVI. had met his appeal with a few words of simple explanation and +advice, instead of with that mysterious reticence which is falsely +supposed to be the soul of diplomacy, the issue might have been as happy +as it was miserable. De Lamennais himself, in his _Affaires de Rome_, +makes the same remark in so many words. Again, the illiberal and +ungenerous persecution of his triumphant adversaries, who endeavoured to +goad him into some open act of rebellion in order to bring him under +still heavier condemnation, can scarcely have failed to embitter and +harden a soul naturally disposed to pessimism and melancholy. Nor can we +omit from the influences at work upon him, that dramatic instinct which +makes a mediocre and colourless attitude impossible for those who are +strongly under its influence. Perhaps no nation is more governed by it +than the French, with their partiality for _tableaux_ and _sensation_; +and in De Lamennais its presence was most marked, as the pages of his +_Paroles_ will witness. In the _Too Late_ with which he received the +overtures of Pius IX.; in the studied sensationalism of his funeral +arrangements, and in many other minute points, we are made sensible that +if his life culminated in a tragedy, the tragic aspect of it was not +altogether displeasing to him. Still it would be a grievous slur on so +great a character to suppose that such a weakness could have had any +considerable part in his steady and deliberate refusal to see a priest +at the last. This is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that he +believed he could not be absolved without accepting the condemnation of +his own views, and so abandoning the cause of humanity. While under the +spell of his imaginary dilemma, he was constrained to follow the rule +for a perplexed conscience, and to choose what seemed to him the less of +two evils. + +After his ideal had been destroyed, and the Church could no longer be +for him the Saviour of the Nations, he threw himself without reserve +into the cause of humanity and liberty. But his aims were now almost +entirely destructive and revolutionary. His enthusiasm was rather a +hatred of the things that were, than an ardent zeal for the things that +ought to be; and the bitter elements in his character become more and +more accentuated as he finds himself gradually thrust aside and +forgotten--cast off by the Church, ignored by the revolution. Even his +friends, with one or two exceptions, dropped off one by one; some +fleeing like rats from a sinking ship, others perplexed at his obstinacy +or offended by his violence; others removed by death or distance; and we +see him in his old age poor and lonely, and intensely unhappy. + +When dangerously ill in 1827, he exclaimed, on being told that it was a +fine night, "For my peace, God grant that it may be my last." The prayer +was not heard, for, as he felt on his recovery, God had a great work for +him to do. How that work was done we have just seen. Feli de Lamennais, +who would have been buried as a Christian in 1827, was buried as an +infidel in 1854. + +It is vain to contend that he was not a man of prayer. That he had a +keen discernment in spiritual things is evident from his _Commentary on +the Imitation_ and his other spiritual writings, as well as from the +testimony of his young disciples at La Chenaie, to whom he was not +merely a brilliant teacher, a most affectionate friend and father, but +also a trusted guide in the things of God. Yet this would be little had +we not also assurance of his personal and private devoutness. + +All this would make his unfortunate ending a stumbling-block to those +who cannot acquiesce in the fact that in every soul tares and wheat in +various proportions grow side by side, and that which growth is to be +victorious is not possible to predict with certainty; who deem it +impossible that one who ends ill could ever have lived well; or that one +who loses his faith, or any other virtue, could ever at any time have +really possessed it. There is indeed some kind of double personality in +us all which is perhaps more observable in strongly-marked characters +like De Lamennais, where, so to say, the bifurcating lines are produced +further. Proud men have occasional moods of genuine humility; and +habitual bitterness is allayed by intervals of sweetness; and +conversely, there are ugly streaks in the fairest marble. + +And as to the fate of that restless soul, who shall dare to speak +dogmatically? We cling gladly to the story of the tear that stole down +his face in death, and would fain see in it some confirmation of the +view according to which the soul receives in that crucial hour a final +choice based on the collective experience of its mortal life. We would +hope that as there is a baptism of blood or of charity, so there may +perhaps be some uncovenanted absolution for one who so earnestly loved +mankind at large, and especially the poor and the oppressed; who in his +old age and misery was found by their sick-bed; who willed to be with +them in his death and burial. And yet we feel something of that +agonizing uncertainty which forced from the aged Abbe Jean the bitter +cry, "Feli, Feli, my brother!" + +_Jan._ 1897. + + + +XVII. + + +LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST. + +"What pains me most," writes the late Sir Joseph Crowe in the +_Nineteenth Century_ for October, 1896, "is to think that the art of Fra +Filippo, the loose fish, and seducer of holy women, looks almost as +pure, and is often quite as lovely as that of Fra Giovanni Angelico of +Fiesole." And indeed, if the fact be admitted, it cannot but be a shock +to all those high-minded thinkers who have committed themselves +unreservedly to the view that personal sanctity and elevation of +character in the artist is an essential condition for the production of +any great work of art, and especially of religious art. As regards the +fact, we need not concern ourselves very long. If Rio and others, +presumably biassed by the same theory, are inclined to see Lippi's moral +depravity betrayed in every stroke of his brush, yet the more general +and truer verdict accords him a place among the great masters of his +age, albeit beneath Angelico and some others. Beyond all doubt it must +be allowed that even in point of spirituality and heavenliness of +expression, he stands high above numbers of artists of pure life and +blameless reputation; and this fact leaves us face to face with the +problem already suggested as to the precise connection between high +morality and high art--if any. + +Plainly a good man need not be a good artist. Must a good artist be a +good man? I suppose from a vague feeling in certain minds that it ought +to be so, there rises a belief that it must be so, and that it is so; +and from this belief a disposition to see that it is so, and to read +facts accordingly. Prominent among the advocates of this view is Mr. +Ruskin in his treatment of the relation of morality to art. He holds +"that the basis of art is moral; that art cannot be merely pleasant or +unpleasant, but must be lawful or unlawful, that every legitimate +artistic enjoyment is due to the perception of moral propriety, that +every artistic excellence is a moral virtue, every artistic fault is a +moral vice; that noble art can spring only from noble feeling, that the +whole system of the beautiful is a system of moral emotions, moral +selections, and moral appreciation; and that the aim and end of art is +the expression of man's obedience to God's will, and of his recognition +of God's goodness." [1] + +But a man who can characterize a vulgar pattern as immoral, plainly uses +the term "morality" in some transcendental, non-natural sense, and +therefore cannot be regarded as an exponent of the precise theory +referred to. Still, as this larger idea of morality includes the lesser +and more restricted, we may consider Mr. Ruskin and his disciples among +those to whom the case of Lippo Lippi and many another presents a +distinct difficulty. "Many another," for the principle ought to extend +to every branch of fine art; and we should be prepared to maintain that +there never has been, or could have been, a truly great musician, or +sculptor, or poet, who was not also a truly good man. In a way the +position is defensible enough; for one can, in every contrary instance, +patch up the artist's character or else pick holes in his work. Who is +to settle what is a truly great work or a truly good man. But a position +may be quite defensible, yet obviously untrue. Again, if by great art we +mean that which is subordinated to some great and good purpose, we are +characterizing it by a goodness which is extrinsic to it, and is not the +goodness of art itself, as such. If the end of fine art is to teach, +then its goodness must be estimated by the matter and manner of its +teaching, and a "moral pocket-handkerchief" must take precedence of many +a Turner. Yet it would even then remain questionable whether a good and +great moral teacher is necessarily a good man. In truth, a good man is +one who obeys his conscience, and whose conscience guides him right. If, +in defect of the latter condition, we allow that a man is good or +well-meaning, it is because we suppose that his conscience is erroneous +inculpably, and that he is faithful to right order as far as he +understands it. But one who sees right and wills wrong is in no sense +good, but altogether bad. Allowing that for the solution of some +delicate moral problems a certain height of tone and keenness of insight +inseparable from habitual conscientiousness is necessary, yet mere +intellectual acumen, in the absence of any notably biassing influence, +suffices to give us as great a teacher as Aristotle, who, if exonerated +from graver charges, offers no example of astonishing elevation of heart +at all proportioned to the profundity of his genius. We do not deny that +in the case of free assent to beliefs fraught with grave practical +consequences, the moral condition of the subject has much to do with the +judgments of the intellect. But first principles and their logical +issues belong to the domain of necessary truth; while in other matters a +teacher may accept current maxims and sentiments with which he has no +personal sympathy, and weave from all these a whole system of excellent +and orthodox moral teaching. And if one may be a good moralist and a bad +man, why _a fortiori_ may one not be a good artist and a bad man? If +vice does not necessarily dim the eye to ethical beauty, why should it +blind it to aesthetic beauty? In order to get at a solution we must fix +somewhat more definitely the notion of fine art and its scope. + +I think it is in a child's book called _The Back of the North Wind_, +that a poet is somewhat happily and simply defined as a person who is +glad about something and wants to make other people glad about it too. +Yet mature reflection shows two flaws in this definition. First of all, +the theme of poetry, or any other fine art, need not always be gladsome, +but can appeal to some other strong emotion, provided it be high and +noble. The tragedian is one who is thrilled with awe and sorrow, and +strives to excite a like thrill in others. Again, though the craving for +sympathy hardly ever fails to follow close on the experience of deep +feeling; and though, as we shall presently see, fine art is but an +extension of language whose chief end is intercommunion of ideas, yet +this altruist end of fine art is not of its essence, but of its +superabundance and overflow. Expression for expression's sake is a +necessity of man's spiritual nature, in solitude no less than in +society. To speak, to give utterance to the truth that he sees, and to +the strong emotions that stir within his heart, is that highest +energizing in which man finds his natural perfection and his rest. His +soul is burdened and in labour until it has brought forth and expressed +to its complete satisfaction the word conceived within it. Nor is it +only within the mind that he so utters himself in secret self-communing; +for he is not a disembodied intelligence, but one clothed with body and +senses and imagination. His medium of expression is not merely the +spiritual substance of the mind, but his whole complex being. Nor has he +uttered his "word" to his full satisfaction till it has passed from his +intellect into his imagination, and thence to his lips, his voice, his +features, his gesture. And when the mind is more vigorous and the +passion for utterance more intense, he will not be at rest while there +is any other medium in which he can embody his conception, be it stone, +or metal, or line, or colour, or sound, or measure, or imagery, which +under his skilled hand can be made to shadow out his hidden thought and +emotion. We cannot hold with Max Mueller and others, who make thought +dependent and consequent on language. + +For it is evident, on a moment's introspection, that thought makes +language for itself to live in, just as a snail makes its own shell or a +soul makes its own body. Who has not felt the anguish of not being able +to find a word to hit off his thought exactly?--which surely means that +the thought was already there unclothed, awaiting its embodiment. As the +soul disembodied is not man, so thought not clothed in language is not +perfect human thought. Its essence is saved, but not its substantial, or +at least its desirable, completeness. A man thinks more fully, more +humanly, who thinks not with his mind alone, but with his imagination, +his voice, his tongue, his pen, his pencil. If, therefore, solitary +contemplative thought is a legitimate end in itself; if it is that +_ludus_, or play of the soul, which is the highest occupation of man, a +share in the same honour must be allowed to its accompanying embodiment; +to the music which delights no ear but the performer's; to poetry, to +painting, to sculpture done for the joy of doing, and without reference +to the good of others communicating in that joy. And if the Divine +Artist, whose lavish hand fills everything with goodness; who pours out +the treasures of His love and wisdom in every corner of our universe; of +whose greatness man knows not an appreciable fraction; who "does all +things well" for the very love of doing and of doing well; who utters +Himself for the sake of uttering, not only in His eternal, co-equal, +all-expressive Word, but also in the broken, stammering accents of a +myriad finite words or manifestations--if this Divine Artist teaches us +anything, it is that man, singly or collectively, is divinest when he +finds rest and joy in utterance for its own sake, in "telling the glory +of God and showing forth His handiwork," or, as Catholic doctrine puts +it, in praise; for praise is the utterance of love, and love is joy in +the truth. + +As most of the useful arts perfect man's executive faculties, and thus +are said to improve upon, while in a certain sense they imitate nature; +so the fine arts extend and exalt man's faculty of expression, or +self-utterance, regarded not precisely as useful and _propter aliud_; +but as pleasurable and _propter se_. Even the most uncultivated savage +finds pleasure in some discordant utterance of his subjective frame of +mind; and it is really hard to find any tribe so degraded as to show no +rudiment of fine art, no sign of reflex pleasure in expression, and of +inventiveness in extending the resources nature has provided us with for +that end. + +The artist as such aims at self-expression for its own sake. It is a +necessity of his nature, an outpouring of pent-up feeling, as much as is +the song of the lark. Of course we are speaking of the true creative +artist, and not of the laborious copyist. If he subordinates his work as +a means to some further end; if his aim is morality or immorality, truth +or error, pleasure or pain; if it is anything else than the embodiment +or utterance of his own soul, so far he is acting riot as an artist, but +as a minister of morality, or truth, or pleasure, or their contraries. +If we keep this idea steadily in view, we can see how much truth, or how +little, is contained in the various theories of fine art which have been +advanced from the earliest times. We can see how truly art is a [Greek: +mimaesis] an imitating of realities; not that art-objects are, as Plato +supposes, faint and defective representations, vicegerent species of the +external world, whose beauty is but the transfer and dim reflection of +the beauty of nature. Were it so, then the mirror, or the camera, were +the best of all artists. As expression, fine art is the imitation of the +soul within; of outward realities as received into the mind and heart of +the artist, in their ideal and emotional setting. The artist gives word +or expression to what he sees; but what he sees is within him. His work +is self-expression. We can from this infer where to look for a solution +of the controversy between idealism and realism. We can also see how, +owing to the essential disproportion between the material and sensible +media of expression which art uses, and the immaterial and spiritual +realities it would body forth, its utterances must always be symbolic, +never literal. We can see how needlessly they embarrass themselves who +deny the name of fine art to any work whose theme is not beautiful, or +which is not morally didactic. Finally, we can see that if fine art be +but an extension of language, there can be no immediate connection +between art as art, and general moral character; no more reason for +supposing that skilful and beautiful self-utterance is incompatible with +immorality, than that its absence is incompatible with sanctity. + +Yet, as a matter of fact, and rightly, we judge of art not merely as +art, or as expression; but we look to that which is expressed, to the +inner soul which is revealed to us, to the "matter" as well as to the +"form." And it maybe questioned whether our estimate of a work is not +rather determined in most cases by this non-artistic consideration. +Obviously it is possible in our estimate of a landscape, to be drawn +away from the artistic to the real beauty; from its merits as a "word," +or expression, to the merits of the thing signified. And still more +naturally is our admiration drawn from the artist's self-utterance, to +the self which he endeavours to utter, and we are brought into sympathy +with his thought and feeling. Much of the fascination exercised over us +by art, which precisely as art is rude and imperfect in many ways, is to +be ascribed to this source. Though here we must remember that the soul +is often more truly and artistically betrayed by the simple lispings of +childhood than by the ornate and finished eloquence of a rhetorician. + +It is in regard to the matter expressed, rather than to the mode of +expression, that we have a right to look for a difference between such +men as Lippo Lippi and Fra Angelico. According to a man's inner tone and +temperament and character, will be the impression produced upon him by +the objects of his contemplation. These will determine him largely in +the choice of his themes, and in the aspect under which he will treat +them. Obviously in many cases there are noble themes of art for whose +appreciation no particular delicacy of moral or religious taste is +required. There is no reason why such a subject as the Laocoon should +make a different impression on a saint and on a profligate. It appeals +to the tragic sense, which may be as highly developed in one as in the +other. But if the Annunciation be the theme, we can well understand how +differently it will impress a man of lively and cultured faith, a +contemplative and mystic, with an appreciative and effective love of +reverence and purity; and another whose faith is a formula, whose life +is impure, frivolous, worldly. Why then is there not a more distinctly +marked inferiority in the religious art of Lippi to that of Angelico? +Why does it look "almost as pure," and "often quite as lovely"? Two very +clear reasons offer themselves in reply. First of all, the art of such a +man as Angelico falls far more hopelessly short of his ideal. Most of +the beauties which such a soul would find in the contemplation of Mary, +or of Gabriel, are spiritual, moral, non-aesthetic, and can embody +themselves in form and feature only most imperfectly. Given equal skill +in expression, equal command of words, one man can say all that he +feels, and more, while another is tortured with a sense of much more to +be uttered, were it not unutterable. Perhaps it is in some hint of this +hidden wealth of unuttered meaning that skilled eyes find in Angelico +what they can never find in Lippi. A second reason might be found in the +external influence exerted on the artist by society, its requirements, +fashions, and conventions. It is plain that Lippi, left to himself, +would never have chosen religious themes as such: it is equally plain, +that having chosen them, he would naturally try to emulate and eclipse +what was most admired in the great works of his predecessors and +contemporaries. It would need little more than a familiar acquaintance +with the great models, together with the artist's discriminating +observance, for a man of Lippi's talent to catch those lines and shades +of form and feature which hint at, rather than express, the inward +purity, the reverence, the gentleness, with which he himself was so +little in sympathy. + +No doubt, were two such men equally skilled in all the arts of +expression, in language, in verse, in song and music, in sculpture and +painting, and acting, their general treatment of religious themes would +be more glaringly different; but within the comparatively narrow limits +of painting, we cannot reasonably expect more than we actually find. + +The saint, as such, and the artist, as such, are occupied with different +facets of the world; the former with its moral, the latter with its +aesthetic beauty. Even were the artist formally to recognize that all the +beauty in nature is but the created utterance of the Divine thought and +love, and that the real, though unknown, term of his abstraction is not +the impersonal symbol, but the person symbolized; yet it is not enough +for sanctity or morality to be attracted to God viewed simply as the +archetype of aesthetic beauty. On the other hand, one may be drawn, +through the love of moral beauty in creatures, of justice, and mercy, +and liberality, and truthfulness, to the love of God as their archetype, +and yet be perfectly obtuse to aesthetic beauty; and thus again we see +that high aestheticism is compatible with low morality, and conversely. +Doubtless when produced to infinity, all perfections are seen to +converge and unite in God, but short of this, they retain their +distinctness and opposition. At the same time, it cannot for a moment be +denied that keenness of moral, and of aesthetic perception, act and react +upon one another. He gains much morally whose eyes are opened to the +innumerable traces of the Divine beauty with which he is surrounded, and +there are aesthetic joys which are necessarily unknown to a soul which is +selfish and gross--still more to a soul from which the glories of +revealed religion are hidden, either through unbelief or sluggish +indifference. Yet, on the whole, it may be said that sanctity is +benefited by art more than art is by sanctity, especially where we deal +with so limited a medium of expression as painting. And so it seems to +us that, after all, there is nothing to surprise or pain us in the fact +that "the art of a Fra Filippo, the loose fish, looks almost as pure, +and is often quite as lovely as that of Fra Giovanni Angelico of +Fiesoli." + +_Dec._ 1896. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: Vernon Lee, _Belcaro_.] + + + +XVIII. + + +THROUGH ART TO FAITH. + +There are few books more difficult to estimate than those in which M. +Huysman sets forth the story of a conversion generally supposed to bear +no very distant resemblance to his own. It would be easy to find +excellent reasons for a somewhat sweeping condemnation of his work, and +others as excellent for a most cordial approval; and, indeed, we find +critics more than usually at variance with one another in its regard. To +be judged justly, these books must be judged slowly. The source of +perplexity is to be found in the fact that the author, who has recently +passed from negation to Catholicism, carries with him the language, the +modes of thought, the taste and temper of the literary school of which +he was, and, in so many of his sympathies, is still a pupil, a school +which regards M. Zola as one of its leading lights. _En Route_, and its +sequels, portray in the colours of realism, in the language of +decadence, the conversion of a realist, nay, of a decadent, to mysticism +and faith. "The voice indeed is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are +the hands of Esau," and according as the critic centres his attention +too exclusively on one or the other, such will his judgment be. + +That his works have commanded attention, and awakened keen interest +among members of the most varying and opposite schools of thought, is an +undeniable fact which at all events proves them to be worth careful +consideration. + +The story of a soul's passage from darkness to light, of its wanderings, +vacillations, doubts, and temptations, must necessarily exercise a +strong fascination over all minds of a reflective cast: "The development +of a soul!" says Browning, "little else is worth study. I always thought +so; you, with many known and unknown to me, think so; others may one day +think so." [1] It is from this attraction of soul to soul that the +_Pilgrim's Progress_, together with many kindred works, derives its +spell; and indeed it is to this that all that is best and greatest in +art owes its power and immortal interest. Here, however, is one reason +why _The Cathedral_ [2] can never be so attractive as _En Route_, +ministering as it does but little to that deepest and most insatiable +curiosity concerning the soul and its sorrows. It portrays but little +perceptible movement, little in the way of violent revulsion and +conflict; the spiritual growth which it registers is mostly underground, +a strengthening and spreading of the roots. It deals with a period of +quiet healing and convalescence after a severe surgical operation; with +the "illuminative" stage of conversion--for there is scarcely any doubt +that the three volumes correspond to the "purgative," "illuminative," +and "unitive" ways respectively. + +Between pulling down and building up--both sensational processes, +especially the former--there intervenes a sober time of planning and +surveying, a quiet taking of information before entering on a new +campaign of action. When the affections have been painfully and +violently uprooted from earth, then first is the mind sufficiently free +from the bias of passion and base attachments to be instructed and +illuminated with profit in the things concerning its peace, and to be +prepared for the replanting of the affections in the soil of Heaven. The +arid desert, with its seemingly aimless wanderings, intervenes between +the exodus from Egypt and the entrance into the Land of Promise. + +Dealing with this stage of the process of conversion, _The Cathedral_ is +comparatively monotonous and barren of spiritual incident. What removes +it still further from all chances of anything like popularity in this +country is the extent to which it is occupied with matters of purely +archaeological and artistic interest, and more especially with the +mystical symbolism of the middle ages as chronicled in every detail of +the great Cathedral of Chartres. Little as may be the enthusiasm for +such lore in France, it is far less in England, where the people have +for three centuries been out of all touch with the Catholic Church, and +therefore with whatever modicum of mediaevalism she still preserves as +part of her heritage from the past. Architecturally we appreciate our +dismantled cathedrals to some extent, but their symbolism is far less +understood than even the language and theology of the schools, while the +study of it meets as much sympathy as would the study of heraldry in a +modern democracy. Yet we may say that the bulk of the book consists of +an inventory of every symbolic detail in architecture, in sculpture, in +painting, in glass-colouring, to be found at Chartres; to which is added +a careful elaboration of the symbolism of beasts, flowers, colours, +perfumes, all very dreary reading for the uninitiated, and to be +criticized only by the expert. + +Little scope as the plan of the book offers for any variety or display +of character, being mainly occupied with erudite monologue, put +sometimes into the mouth of Durtal, sometimes into that of the Abbe +Plomb, yet the personalities of these two, as well as those of Geversin, +Madame Bavoil, and Madame Mesurat, stand out very vividly, and make us +wish for that fuller acquaintance with them which a little more movement +and incident would have afforded. + +But what will give most offence, and tend to alienate a certain amount +of intelligent and valuable sympathy, is the violence, and even the +coarseness, with which the author, or at least his hero, handles, not +only the opinions, but the very persons of those from whom he differs; +the intemperance of his invective, the narrow intolerance and absolute +self-confidence with which he sits in judgment on men and things. + +As a matter of fact, this is rather a defect of style and expression +than of the inner sentiment. It is part and parcel of the realist temper +to blurt out the thought in all the clothing or nakedness with which it +first surges up into consciousness, before it has been submitted to the +censorship of reason; in a word, to do its thinking aloud, or on paper; +to give utterance not to the tempered and mature judgment--the last +result of refinement and correction, but to display the whole process +and working by which it was reached. As it is part of M. Zola's art to +linger lovingly over each little horror of some slaughter-house scene, +until the whole lives for us again as in a cinematograph, so M. Huysman, +engaged in the portrayal of a spiritual conflict, spares us no link in +the chain of causes by which the final result is produced; he bares the +brain, and exposes its workings with all the scientific calmness of the +vivisector. + +Whether we like or dislike this realism, we must allow for it in forming +our judgment on these volumes, nor must we treat as final and approved +opinions what are often the mere spontaneous suggestions and first +thoughts of the mind, the oscillations through which it settles down to +rest. Over and over again we shall find that Durtal subsequently raises +the very objection to his own view that was on our lips at the first +reading of it. + +But even making such allowance, it none the less remains a matter of +regret that one who, with perhaps some justice, considers that in point +of art-appreciation "the Catholic public is still a hundred feet beneath +the profane public," and chides them for "their incurable lack of +artistic sense," who speaks of "the frightful appetite for the hideous +which disgraces the Church of our day," who himself in many ways, in a +hundred passages of sublime thought, of tender piety, of lyrical poesy, +has proved beyond all cavil his delicacy of sentiment, his exquisite +niceness in matters of taste, his reverence for what is chaste and +beautiful, should at times be so deplorably unfaithful to his better +instincts, so forgetful of the close and inseparable alliance between +restraint and elegance. What can be weaker or uglier, more unbecoming an +artist, more becoming a fish-wife, than his description of Lochner's +picture of the Virgin: "The neck of a heifer, and flesh like cream or +hasty-pudding, that quivers when it is touched;" or of the picture of +St. Ursula's companions, by the same hand: "Their squab noses poking out +of bladders of lard that did duty for their faces;" not to speak of the +characterization of a "Sacred Heart" too revolting to reproduce? Surely +when, after having reviled M. Tissot almost personally, he describes his +works as painted with "muck, wine-sauce, and mud," it is difficult not +to answer with a _tu quoque_ as far as this word-painting is +concerned--difficult not to see here some morbid and "frightful appetite +for the hideous" struggling with the healthy appetite for better things. + +However lame and ridiculous an artist's utterance may be, yet there is a +certain reverence sometimes due to what he is endeavouring to say, and +even to his desire to say it. We do not think it very witty or tasteful +or charitable to laugh at a man because he stammers; still less do we +overwhelm him with the coarsest abuse. One may well shudder at most +presentments of the Sacred Heart, but even apart from all consideration +for the artist, a certain reverence for the idea there travestied and +unintentionally dishonoured, should forbid our insulting what after all +is so nearly related to that idea, and in the eyes of the untaught very +closely identified with it. + +But an occasional trespass of this kind, however offensive, is not +enough to detract materially from the value of so much that is +meritorious; nor again will that outspoken treatment of delicate topics +(less observable in _The Cathedral_ than in _En Route_), which makes the +book undesirable for many classes of readers, prevent its due +appreciation on the part of others--unless we are going to put the +Sacred Scriptures on the Index. In this vexed question, M. Huysman takes +what seems the more robust and healthy view, but he appears to be quite +unaware how many difficulties it involves; and consequently lashes out +with his usual intemperance against the contrary tradition, which is +undeniably well represented. It is not as though the advocates of the +"flight" policy in regard to temptations against this particular virtue +were ignorant of the general principle which undoubtedly holds as +regards all other temptations, and bids us turn and face the dog that +barks at our heels. This counsel is as old as the world. But from the +earliest time a special exception has been made to it in the one case of +impurity by those who have professedly spoken in the light of experience +rather than of _a priori_ inference. Both views are encompassed with +difficulty, nor does any compromise suggest itself. + +What seems to us one of the most interesting points raised by the story +of Durtal's spiritual re-birth and development is the precise relation +between the Catholic religion and fine art. + +God has not chosen to save men by logic; so neither has He chosen to +save them by fine art. If the "election" of the Apostolic Church counted +but few scribes or philosophers among its members--and those few +admitted almost on sufferance--we may also be sure that the followers of +the Galilean fishermen were not as a body distinguished by a fastidious +criticism in matters of fine art. In after ages, when the Church +asserted herself and moulded a civilization more or less in accordance +with her own exigencies and ideals, it is notorious how she made +philosophy and art her own, and subjected them to her service; but +whether in so doing she in any way departed from the principles of +Apostolic times is what interests us to understand. + +There is certainty no more unpardonable fallacy than that of "Bible +Christians," who assume that the Church in the Apostolic age had reached +its full expansion and expression, and therefore in respect of polity, +liturgy, doctrinal statement and discipline must be regarded as an +immutable type for all ages and countries; from which all departure is +necessarily a corruption. They take the flexible sapling and compare it +with aged knotty oak, and shake their heads over the lamentable +unlikeness: "That this should be the natural outgrowth of that! _O +tempora, O mores!_" + +Like every organism, in its beginning, the Church was soft-bodied and +formless in all these respects; but she had within her the power of +fashioning to herself a framework suited to her needs, of assuming +consistency and definite shape in due time. The old bottles would not +serve to hold the new wine, but this did not mean that new bottles were +not to be sought. Because the philosophy, the art, the polity of the age +in which she was born were already enlisted in the service of other +ideas and inextricably associated with error in the minds of men, it was +needful for her at first to dissociate herself absolutely from the use +of instruments otherwise adaptable in many respects to her own ends, and +to wait till she was strong enough to alter them and use them without +fear of scandal and misinterpretation. + +The Church is many-tongued; but though she can deliver her message in +any language, yet she is not for that reason independent of language in +general. There is no way to the human ear and heart but through language +of some kind or another. It is not her mission to teach languages, but +to use the languages she finds to hand for the expression of the truths, +the facts, the concrete realities to which her dogmas point. This does +not deny that one language may not be more flexible, more graphic than +any other, more apt to express the facts of Heaven as well as those of +earth. It only denies that any one is absolutely and exclusively the +best. + +It is no very great violence to include rhetoric, music, painting, +sculpture, architecture, ritual, and every form of decorative art in the +category of language and to bring them under the same general laws, +since even philosophy may to a large extent be treated in the same way. +Christ has not commissioned His Church to teach science or philosophy, +nor has He given her an infallible _magisterium_ in matters of fine art. +She uses what she finds in use and endeavours with the imperfect +implements, the limited colours, the coarse materials at her disposal to +make the picture of Christ and His truth stand out as faithful to +reality as possible; and--to press the illustration somewhat crudely--as +what is rightly black, in a study in black and white, may be quite +wrongly black in polychrome; so what the Church approves according to +one convention, she may condemn according to another. May we not apply +to her what Durtal says of our Lady: "She seems to have come under the +semblance of every race known to the middle ages; black as an African, +tawny as a Mongolian;"--"she unveils herself to the children of the soil +... these beings with their rough-hewn feelings, their shapeless ideas, +hardly able to express themselves"? The more we study the visions and +apparitions with which saints have been favoured and the revelations +which have been vouchsafed to them, the more evident is it that they are +spoken to in their own language, appealed to through their own imagery. +Indeed, were it not so, how could they understand? Our Lady is the +all-beautiful for every nation, but the type of human beauty is not the +same for all. The Madonna of the Ethiopian might be a rather terrifying +apparition in France or Italy. + +There is no art too rough or primitive, or even too vulgar, for the +Church to disdain, if it offers the only medium of conveying her truth +to certain minds. Though custom has made it classical, her liturgical +language, whether Latin or Greek, when first assumed, was that of the +mob--about as elegant as we consider the dialects of the peasantry. She +did not use plain-chaunt for any of those reasons which antiquarians and +ecclesiologists urge in its favour now-a-days, but because it was the +only music then in vogue. Even to-day the breeziest popular melodies in +the East are suggestive of the _Oratio Jeremiae_. Her vestments (even +Gothic vestments!) were once simply the "Sunday best" of the fashion of +those days. If to-day these things have a different value and +excellence, it is in obedience to the law by which what is "romantic" in +one age becomes "classical" in the next, or what is at first useful and +commonplace becomes at last ceremonial and symbolic; and by which the +common tongue of the vulgar comes by mere process of time to be archaic +and stately. To "create" ancient custom and ritual on a sudden, or to +resuscitate abruptly that which has lapsed into oblivion, is, to say the +least, a very Western idea, akin to the pedantry of trying to restore +Chaucer's English to common use. _Nascitur non fit_, is the law in all +such matters. + +While we assert the Church's independence of any one in particular of +these means of self-expression, her indifference to style and mode of +speech so long as substantial fidelity is secured, we must not deny that +some of them are, of their own nature, more apt to her purpose than +others and allow a fuller revelation of her sense; and that in +proportion as her influence is strong in the world she tends to modify +human thought and language, to leaven philosophy and fine art, so as to +form by a process of selection and refusal, and in some measure even to +create, an ever richer and more flexible medium of utterance. + +In this sense we can with some caution speak of "Catholic art" in music, +architecture, and painting, so far, that is, as we can determine the +extent and nature of the Church's action, and therefore the tendency of +her influence in the way of stimulus and restraint with regard to +subject and treatment. We do not unjustly discern an author's style as a +personal element distinct from the language and phraseology of which no +item is his own. The manner in which he uses that language, his +selections and refusals make, in union with the borrowed elements, a +tongue that may be called his, in an exclusive sense. The Church, too, +has her style, which, though difficult to discern amid her use of a +Pentecostal variety of languages, is no doubt always the same--at least +in tendency. + +Salvation-Army worship is certainly not of the Church's style, but I do +not think, were there no absolute irreverence and scandal to be feared, +that she would hesitate to use such a language, were it the only one +understood by such a people. St. Francis Xavier's "catechisms" were +often hardly less uncouth. Still, her whole tendency would be towards +restraint, order, and exterior reverence. Again, the stoical coldness +and formalism of a liturgical worship, centered round no soul-stirring +mystery of Divine love where there can be feeling so strong as to need +the restraint of liturgy and ritual, has still less of the Church's +style about it. For she is human, not merely in her reason and +self-restraint, but in the fulness of her passion and enthusiasm; and +restraint is only beautiful and needful where there is something to +restrain. + +We are now in a position to consider the surface objection that will +present itself to many a reader concerning Durtal's conversion. "He has +been converted," it will be said, "by a fallacy. He has identified the +Catholic religion with the cause of plain-chaunt and Gothic +architecture, and of all that is, or that he considers to be, best in +art. He has laid hold not of Catholicism, but of its merest accessories, +which it might shake off any day, and him along with them. Indeed, he +scarcely makes any pretence at being in sympathy with the Catholicism of +to-day, which he regards as almost entirely philistine and degenerate, +if we except La Trappe and Solesmes and a few other corners where the +old observances linger on. 'It was so ugly, so painfully adorned with +images, that only by shutting his eyes could Durtal endure to remain in +Notre Dame de la Breche.' Yes, but what sort of convert is this who is +so insensible to substantials, so morbidly sensitive about mere +accidentals? We come to the Church for the true faith and the +sacraments, not for 'sensations.' In fine, Durtal has not observed the +route prescribed by the apologetics for reaching the door of the +sheep-fold, but has climbed over in his own way, like a thief and a +robber; he has not (as a recent critic says of him) _tombe entre les +bras maternals de l'Eglise selon toutes les regles_." + +Without for a moment denying one of the legitimate claims of scientific +apologetic, we may at once dismiss the idea that it pretends to +represent a process through which the mind of the convert to +Christianity either does or ought necessarily to pass. Its sole purport +is to show that if it is not always possible to synthetize Christianity +with the current philosophy, science, and history of the day, at least +no want of harmony can be positively demonstrated. As secular beliefs +and opinions are continually shifting, so too apologetic needs continual +adjustment: and as that of a century back is useless to us now, so will +ours be in many ways inadequate a century hence. It is fitting for the +Church at large that she should in each age and country have a suitable +apologetic, taking cognizance of the latest developments of profane +knowledge. It is needful for her public honour in the eyes of the world +that she should not seem to be in contradiction with truth, but that +either the apparent truth should be proved questionable, or else that +her own teaching should be shown to be compatible with it. But in no +sense is such apologetic always a necessity for the individual, still +less a safe or adequate basis for a solid conversion, which in that case +would be shaken by every new difficulty unthought of before. + +Our subjective faith in the Church must be like the faith of the +disciples of Christ, an entirely personal relation; an act of implicit +trust based on no lean argument or chain of reasoning, but on the +irresistible spell, the overmastering impression created upon us by a +character manifested in life, action, speech, even in manner; as +impossible to state in its entirety and as impossible to doubt as are +our reasons for loving or loathing, for trusting or fearing. + +No doubt we hear of men of intellect and learning "reading" or +"reasoning" themselves into the Church; but others as able have read and +reasoned along the same line, and yet have not come; for in truth, +reason at the most can set free a force of attraction created by motives +other than reason. + +What this attraction is in each case is impossible to specify +accurately--"Ask me and I know not," one might say, "do not ask me and I +know." Each soul is hooked with its own bait, called by its own name, +drawn in its own way; and as the attractiveness of Christ is virtually +infinite in its multiformity, so is that of His Church, nor is there a +more unpardonable narrowness than that of insisting that others shall be +drawn in the same way as we ourselves, or not at all. + +Let it also be noticed that a very prolonged and minute intimacy is not +always necessary in order that we should feel the spell of personality. +Much depends on our own gifts of sympathy, insight and apprehension, on +the simplicity and strength of the personality in question, on the +nature of the incidents by which it is disclosed to us. We know one man +in a moment, another only after years of intimacy, while others in +regard to the same individuals might experience the converse. We must +not then suppose that because in one case the impression is the result +of slowly-accumulated observations, and in another the work of an +instant, it is less trustworthy in the latter instance than in the +former. It may be, or it may not be. St. Augustine needed years to feel +the spell that one word, nay, one glance from Christ cast upon St. +Peter. Nor again is it always in some striking and notable crisis that a +character reveals itself abruptly, but often in the merest nuance--a +manner, an intonation, something quite unintentional, unpremeditated. We +know well, if we know ourselves at all, how irresistible is the +impression created on us at times by such trifles, and yet how more than +reasonable it often is. + +Who shall say, then, that to an eye and heart attuned to quick sympathy, +any indication is too small to betray the inward spirit and character of +the Catholic Church, or to magnetize a soul and render it restless, +until it obeys her attraction and rests in union with her? + +To a sensitively artistic temperament such as Durtal's, the indications +of the Church's "style," revealed in her influence upon art, in her +creations, in her selections and refusals, would be eloquent of her +whole character and ethos; it would be to him what the very tone of +Christ's voice was to the Baptist, or what His glance was to Peter, or +what His silence was to Pilate. We have known too many instances of +deep-seated and entire conviction, based on seemingly as little or less, +to wish for one moment to indulge in any foolish rationalizing or to +question the possibility or probability of God's drawing souls to +Himself by such methods. + +We must, however, remember that it is not merely by the Church's +mediaeval art that Durtal is attracted, but still more by that mysticism +which created it, and by which it was served and fostered in return. +Mysticism must necessarily excite the sympathy of one who is in devout +pursuit of the highest and most spiritual forms of aesthetic beauty. +Whatever be the long-sought and never-to-be-forgotten definition of the +Beautiful, of this much at least a mere process of induction will assure +us, that men count things beautiful in the measure that they are +released from the grossness, formlessness, and heaviness of matter, and +by their delicacy, shapeliness, and unearthliness, betray the influence +of that principle which is everywhere in conflict with matter and is +called spirit. Man at his best is most at home, where at his worst he is +least at home, namely, in the world of those super-realities which are +touched and felt by the soul, but refuse to be pictured or spoken in the +language of the five senses. A hard, "common-sense," labour-and-wages +religion, such as is consonant with the utilitarianism of a commercial +civilization, could never appeal to a temperament like Durtal's. + +Doubtless Catholic Christianity admits of being apprehended under the +narrower and grosser aspect, which however inadequate and unworthy, is +not absolutely false. The Jews were suffered to believe not merely that +God rewards the just and punishes the wicked--which is eternally +true--but that He does so in this life, which is true only with +qualification; and that He rewards them with temporal prosperity and +adversity--which is hardly true at all. Catholic truth, in itself the +same, can only be received according to the recipient's capacity and +sensitiveness. What one age or country is alive to, another may be dead +to; nor can we pretend that here all is progress and no regress, unless +we are prepared to say that in no respect have we anything to learn from +the past. The Ignatian meditation on the "Kingdom of Christ" evoked +heroic response in an age impregnated with the sentiments of chivalry, +but to-day it needs to be adapted to a great extent, and some have +vainly hoped to gather grapes from a thistle by substituting a parable +drawn from some soul-stirring commercial enterprise--a colossal +speculation in cheese. + +Whatever signs there may be of a reaction, yet the whole temper and +spirit of our age is unfavourable to that mysticism which is the very +choicest flower of the Catholic religion. The blame is not with the +seed, but with the soil. Even where least of all we should look for such +indifference, among those who have built up the sepulchres and shrines +of the great masters of mysticism, we sometimes observe a profound +distrust for what is esteemed an unpractical, unhealthy kind of piety, +while every preference is given to what is definite and tangible in the +way of little methods and industries, multitudinous practices, lucrative +prayers, in a word, to what a critic already quoted describes as _les +petitesses des cerveaux etroits et les anguleuses routines_. [3] + +It is one of the narrownesses of Durtal himself to ascribe all this to +the wilful perversity of a person or persons unknown, and not to see in +it the inevitable result of the vulgarizing tendency of modern life upon +the masses. Things being as they are, surely it is better that the +Church should do the little she can than do nothing at all. The +"meditative mind" is incompatible with the rush and worry of a busy +life, especially where educational methods substitute information for +reflection, and so kill the habit, and eventually the faculty, of +thought in so many cases. But if the higher prayer is impossible, the +lower is possible and profitable. Again, if the liturgical sense has in +a great measure become extinct among the faithful owing to the +unavoidable disuse of the public celebration of the Church's worship, it +is well that they should be allowed devotions accommodated to their +limited capacity. As the Church would never dream of expecting a keen +sympathy with her higher dogmas, her mystical piety, her artistic +symbolism, her transcendent liturgy, on the part of a newly-converted +tribe of savages, so neither is she impatient with the civilized +Philistine, but is willing to speak to him in a language all his own, +hoping indeed to tune his tongue one day to something less uncouth. None +can sympathize more cordially than the writer does with Durtal in his +horror of unauthorized devotions, of insufferable vernacular litanies, +of nerveless and sickly hymns, of interminable "acts of consecration" +void of a single definite idea, more especially when these things are +brought into the very sanctuary itself, with stole and cope and every +apparent endeavour to fix the responsibility on the Universal Church. +But if the Church is willing to go in rags to save those who are in +rags, she is only using her invariable economy. We know well the sort of +robe that befits her dignity, and no doubt it is this contrast that +makes the trial of her present humiliation more difficult for us to +bear. + +We do not for a moment allow that the difference between bad taste and +good is merely relative, or that a language or art which is externally +vulgar can ever be the adequate and appropriate expression of the +Catholic religion, whose tendency when unimpeded is ever to refine and +purify. But it is perhaps another narrowness to suppose that a reform +can only be effected by a return to the past, to mediaeval symbolism and +music and architecture. No effort of the kind has ever met with more +than seeming success. What is consciously imitated from the past is not +the same as that natural growth which it imitates, and which was as +congenial to those days as it is uncongenial to ours. It is all the +difference between the Mass ceremonial in a Ritualist church and in a +Catholic church--the historical sense is violated in one case and +satisfied in the other. + +What is once really dead can never revive in the same form--at best we +get a cast from the dead face. No doubt the old music and the old +symbolism always will have a beauty of antiquity that can never belong +to the new; but it was not this beauty--the beauty of death, of autumn +leaves, that made them once popular, but the beauty of fresh green life +and flexibility. The effort to make antiquity popular is almost a +contradiction in terms. What we may hope for at most is an improvement +in the aesthetic tastes of the Catholic public which comes from freer and +healthier surroundings, from saner ideas and wider opportunities of +education and liberal culture. When they begin to speak a richer +language, the Church will take that language and find in it a fuller +expression of her mind than she can in the present _patois_; she will be +able again to say to them in other words, as yet unknown, what she said +to the middle ages in Gregorian chaunt and Gothic cathedral. She, who in +virtue of her Pentecostal gift of tongues, speaks in sundry times and +divers manners, may in due season find words as eloquent of her heart +and mind as those which she spoke to Durtal in the aisles of Chartres +and in the cadences of Solesmes. + +_July_, 1898. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: Introduction to Sordello.] + +[Footnote 2: _The Cathedral_. By M.T.K. Huysman. Translated by +Clare Bell.] + +[Footnote 3: R. P. Pacher, S.J., _De Dante a Verlaine_.] + + + +XIX. + + +TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. + +The paradoxes of one generation are the common-places of the next; what +the savants of to-day whisper in the ear, the Hyde Park orators of +to-morrow will bawl from their platforms. Moreover, it is just when its +limits begin to be felt by the critical, when its pretended +all-sufficingness can no longer be maintained, that a theory or +hypothesis begins to be popular with the uncritical and to work its +irrevocable ill-effects on the general mind. In this, as in many other +matters, the lower orders adopt the abandoned fashions of their betters, +though with less of the well-bred taste which sometimes in the latter +makes even absurdity graceful. In this way it has come to pass that at +the very moment in which a reaction against the irreligious or +anti-religious philosophy of a couple of generations ago is making +itself felt in the study, the spreading pestilence of negation and +unbelief has gained and continues to gain possession of the street. Some +fifty years ago religion and even Christianity, seemed to the sanguine +eyes of Catholics so firmly rooted in England that the recovery of the +country to their faith depended almost entirely on the settlement of the +Anglo-Roman controversy; to which controversy they accordingly devoted, +and, in virtue of the still unexhausted impetus of that effort, do still +devote their energies, almost exclusively. But together with a dawning +consciousness that times and conditions have considerably changed, there +is growing up in certain quarters a feeling that we too shall have to +make some modifications in order to adapt ourselves to the altered +circumstances. It is becoming increasingly evident that even could the +said Anglo-Roman controversy be settled by some argument so irresistibly +evident as to leave no _locus standi_ to the opponents of the Petrine +claims, yet the number of those Anglicans who admit the historical, +critical, philosophical, and theological assumptions upon which the +controversy is based and which are presumed as common ground, is so +small and dwindling that, were they all gained to the Church, we should +be still a "feeble folk" in the face of that tidal wave of unbelief +whose gathering force bids fair to sweep everything before it. Also the +lingering impression left from "Tractarian" days as to the intellectual +pre-eminence of the Catholicizing party in the Anglican Church, which +pre-eminence might make amends for their numerical insignificance, is +gradually giving way to the recognition of the sobering fact that at +present that party in no exclusive sense represents the cultivated +intellect of the country. It is no disrespect to that party to say that +while scholarship and intelligence are therein well represented by +scattered individuals, yet it is cumbered, like most religious movements +after they have streamed some distance from their source, with a +majority of those whose adhesion has little or no pretence to an +intellectual basis; and whose occasional accession to the Catholic +Church is almost entirely their own gain. + +To give the last decisive push to those who are already toppling over +the border-line that divides England from Rome, to reap and gather-in +the harvest already ripe for the sickle, is a useful, a necessary, and a +charitable work; one that calls for a certain kind of patient skill not +to be underestimated; but there is a wider and perhaps more fruitful +field whose soil is as yet scarcely broken. It may even be asserted with +only seeming paradox that the best religious intelligence of the country +is to be found in the camp of negation rather than in that of +affirmation; among Broad Churchmen, Nonconformists, Unitarians, and +Positivists, rather than among those who seek rest in the unstable +position of a modified Catholicism. The very instability and difficulty +of that position elicits much ingenuity from its theological defenders, +though it also divides their counsels not a little; nor do we quarrel +with them for affirming instead of denying, but for not affirming +enough. But this attempt at compromise, this midway abortion of the +natural growth of an idea, even were it justifiable as sometimes happens +when legitimate issues are obscured through failure of evidence, repels +the great multitude of religious thinkers who are not otherwise +sufficiently drawn towards Catholicism to care to examine these claims. +To say that there is no logical alternative between Rome and Agnosticism +is a sufficiently shallow though popular sophism. At most it means that +from certain given premisses one or other of those conclusions must +follow syllogistically--a statement that would be more interesting were +the said premisses indisputable and admitted by all the world. Still it +may be allowed that a criticism of these premisses, which is a third +alternative, opens up to religious thought a number of roads, all of +which lead away from, rather than towards the extreme Anglican position, +and hence that the more searching religious intelligence of the country +is as adverse to that position--and for the same reasons--as it is to +our own. And by the "religious intelligence" I mean all that +intelligence that is interested in the religious problem; be that +interest hostile or friendly; be it, in its issue, negative or +constructive. For it must not be forgotten that the enemies of a truth +are as interested in it as its friends; or that the friendliest +interest, the strongest "wish to believe," may at times issue in +reluctant negation. So far then as the great mass of religious +intelligence in this country is not "Anglo-Catholic" in its sympathies; +and so far as it is chiefly on the "Anglo-Catholic" section that we make +any perceptible impression, the conversion of England, for what depends +on our own efforts, does not seem to be as imminent a contingency as it +would appear to be in the eyes of those foreign critics for whom Lord +Halifax is the type of every English Churchman and the English Church +co-extensive with the nation--save for a small irreclaimable residue of +Liberals and Freemasons. + +Those who, influenced by such considerations, would have us extend our +efforts from the narrowing circle of Anglo-Catholicism to the +ever-widening circle of doubt and negation, are not always clear about +the practically important distinction to be drawn between the active +leaders of doubt, and those who are passively led; the more or less +independent few, and the more or less dependent many; between the man of +the study and the man of the street--a distinction analogous to that +between the _Ecclesia docens_ and _Ecclesia discens_, and which +permeates every well-established school of belief, whether historical, +ethical, political, or religious. + +Dealing first with the latter, that is, with those who are led; we are +becoming more explicitly conscious of the fact that in all departments +of knowledge and opinion the beliefs of the many are not determined by +reasoning from premisses, but by the authority of reputed specialists in +the particular matter, or else by the force of the general consent of +those with whom they dwell. There may be other non-rational causes of +belief, but these are the principal and more universal. And when we say +they are non-rational causes, we do not mean that they are +non-reasonable or unreasonable. They provide such a generally +trustworthy, though occasionally fallible, method of getting at truth, +as is sufficient and possible for the practical needs of life--social, +moral, and religious. There is an inborn instinct to think as the crowd +does and to be swayed by the confident voice of authority. If at times +it fail of its end, as do other instincts, yet it is so trustworthy in +the main that to resist it in ordinary conditions is always imprudent. +That our eyes sometimes deceive us would not justify us in always +distrusting their evidence. If a child is deceived through instinctively +trusting the word of its parents, the blame of its error rests with +them, not with it. And so, whatever error the many are led into by +obeying the instinct of submission to authority or to general consent, +is their misfortune, not their fault. Of course there are higher +criteria by which the general consent and the opinion of experts can be +criticized and modified; but such criticism is not obligatory on the +many who have neither leisure nor competence for the task. For here, as +elsewhere, a certain diversity of gifts results in a natural division of +labour in human society; those who have, giving to those who have not; +some ministering spiritual, others temporal benefits to their +neighbours. Not that a man can save another's soul for him any more than +he can eat his dinner for him, but he can minister to him better food or +worse. + +The Mussulman child, then, may be bound, during his intellectual +minority, to accept the religious teaching of its parents, just as is +the Christian child. That one, in obeying this natural but fallible +rule, is led into error, the other into, truth, only verifies the +principle that right faith is a gift of God,--a grace, a bit of good +fortune. None of those who are not professedly teachers of religion and +experts, can be morally bound to a criticism above their competence, or +to more than an obedience to those ordinary causes of assent to whose +influence they are subjected by their circumstances. The ideal of a +Catholic religion is to provide, by means of a divinely guided body of +authorities and experts, an universal, international, inter-racial +consensus regarding truths that are as obscure as they are vital to +individual and social happiness; and thus to afford a means of sure and +easy guidance to those uncritical multitudes whose necessary +preoccupations forbid their engaging in theology and controversy. This +ideal was sufficiently realized for practical purposes in the "ages of +faith," when the whole public opinion of Europe, then believed to be +coterminous with civilization, was Catholic; when dissent needed as much +independence of character, as in so many places, profession does now. +And surely it is a narrow-hearted criticism to prefer the primitive +conditions in which none but those strong enough to face persecution +could reap the benefits of Christianity. The weak and dependent are ever +the majority, and if Christianity had been intended to pass them by or +sift them out, "its province were not large," nor could it claim to be +the religion of humanity. The Christian leaven was never meant to be +kept apart, but to be hidden and lost in that unleavened mass which it +seeks slowly to transform into its own nature. The majority, in respect +to religion and civilization, are like unwilling school-boys who need to +be coerced for their own benefit, to be kept to their work till they +learn (if they ever do) to like it, and to need no more coercion. The +support that Catholic surroundings give to numbers, who else were too +weak to stand alone, cannot be overvalued, although it may weaken a few +who else had exerted themselves more strenuously, or may foster +hypocrisy in secret unbelievers who would like to, but dare not +withstand public opinion. + +Now it is the gradual decay of this support--of this non-rational yet +most reasonable cause of belief, that is rendering the religious +condition of the man in the street so increasingly unsatisfactory. Not +only is there no longer an agreement of experts, and a consequent +consensus of nations, touching the broad and fundamental truths of +Christianity, but what is far more to the point, the knowledge of this +Babylonian confusion has become a commonplace with the multitudes. No +doubt there are yet some shaded patches where the dew still struggles +with the desiccating sun--old-world sanctuaries of Catholicism whose +dwellers hardly realize the existence of unbelief or heresy, or who give +at best a lazy, notional assent to the fact. But there are few regions +in so-called Christendom where the least educated are not now quite +aware that Christianity is but one of many religions in a much larger +world than their forefathers were aware of; that the intellect of +modern, unlike that of mediaeval Europe, is largely hostile to its +claims; that its defenders are infinitely at variance with one another; +that there is no longer any social disgrace connected with a +non-profession of Christianity; in a word, that the public opinion of +the modern world has ceased to be Christian, and that the once +all-dominating religion which blocked out the serious consideration of +any other claimant, bids fair to be speedily reduced to its primitive +helplessness and insignificance. The disintegrating effect of such +knowledge on the faith of the masses must be, and manifestly is, simply +enormous. Not that there is any rival consensus and authority to take +the place of dethroned Catholicism. Even scepticism is too little +organized and embodied, too chaotic in its infinite variety of +contradictory positions, to create an influential consensus of any +positive kind against faith. Its effect, as far as the unthinking masses +are concerned, is simply to destroy the chief extrinsic support of their +faith and to throw them back on the less regular, less reliable causes +of belief. If in addition it teaches them a few catchwords of +free-thought, a few smart blasphemies and syllogistic impertinences, +this is of less consequence than at first sight appears, since these are +attempted after-justifications, and no real causes of their unbelief. +For they love the parade of formal reason, as they love big words or +technical terms, or a smattering of French or Latin, with all the +delight of a child in the mysterious and unfamiliar; but their pretence +to be ruled by it is mere affectation, and the tenacity with which they +cling to their arguments is rather the tenacity of blind faith in a +dogma, than of clear insight into principles. + +And this brings us to the problem which gave birth to the present essay. + +The growing infection of the uneducated or slightly educated masses of +the Catholic laity with the virus of prevalent unbelief is arousing the +attention of a few of our clergy to the need of coping with what is to +them a new kind of difficulty. Amongst other kindred suggestions, is +that of providing tracts for the million dealing not as heretofore with +the Protestant, but with the infidel controversy. While the danger was +more limited and remote it was felt that, more harm than good would come +of giving prominence in the popular mind to the fact and existence of so +much unbelief; that in many minds doubts unfelt before would be +awakened; that difficulties lay on the surface and were the progeny of +shallow-mindedness, whereas the solutions lay deeper down than the +vulgar mind could reasonably be expected to go; that on the whole it was +better that the few should suffer, than that the many should be +disturbed. The docile and obedient could be kept away from contagion, or +if infected, could be easily cured by an act of blind confidence in the +Church; while the disobedient would go their own way in any case. Hence +the idea of entering into controversy with those incompetent to deal +with such matters was wisely set aside. But now that the prevalence and +growth of unbelief is as evident as the sun at noon--now that it is no +longer only the recalcitrant and irreligious, but even the religious and +docile-minded who are disturbed by the fact, it seems to some that, a +policy of silence and inactivity may be far more fruitful in evil than +in good, that reverent reserve must be laid aside and the pearls of +truth cast into the trough of popular controversy. + +But to this course an almost insuperable objection presents itself at +first seeming. Seeing that, the true cause of doubt and unbelief in the +uncritical, is to be sought for proximately in the decay of a popular +consensus in favour of belief, and ultimately in the disagreements and +negations of those who lead and form public opinion, and in no wise in +the reasons which they allege when they attempt a criticism that is +beyond them; what will it profit to deal with the apparent cause if we +cannot strike at the real cause? In practical matters, the reasons men +give for their conduct, to themselves as well as to others, are often +untrue, never exhaustive. Hence to refute their reasons will not alter +their intentions. To dispel the sophisms assigned by the uneducated as +the basis of their unbelief, is not really to strike at the root of the +matter at all. Besides which, the work is endless; for if they are +released from one snare they will be as easily re-entangled in the next; +and indeed what can such controversy do but foster in them the false +notion that, belief in possession may be dispossessed by every passing +difficulty, and that their faith is to be dependent on an intellectual +completeness of which they are for ever incapable. Indeed the +unavoidable amount of controversy of all kinds, dinned into the ears of +the faithful in a country like this, favours a fallacy of +intellectualism very prejudicial to the repose of a living faith founded +on concrete reasons, more or less experimental. + +As far as the many are concerned, much the same difficulty attends the +preservation of their faith in these days, as attended its creation in +the beginnings of Christianity, before the little flock had grown into a +kingdom, when the intellect and power of the world was arrayed against +it, when it had neither the force of a world-wide consensus nor the +voice of public authority in its favour. In those days it was not by the +"persuasive words of human wisdom" that the crowds were gained over to +Christ, but by a certain _ostensio virtutis_, by an experimental and not +merely by a rational proof of the Gospel--a proof which, if it admitted +of any kind of formulation, did not compel them in virtue of the +logicality of its form. Further, when the conditions and helps needed by +the Church in her infancy, gave way to those belonging to her +established strength, it was by her ascendency over the strong, the +wealthy, and the learned, that she secured for the crowd,--for the weak +and the poor and the ignorant,--the most necessary support of a +Christianized, international public opinion, and thereby extended the +benefit of her educative influence to those millions whom disinclination +or weakness would otherwise have deterred from the profession and +practice of the faith. + +If the Church of to-day is to retain her hold of the crowd in modernized +or modernizing countries, it must either be by renewing her ascendency +over those who form and modify public opinion, who even in the purest +democracy are ever the few and not the many; or else by a reversion to +the methods of primitive times, by some palpable argument that speaks as +clearly to the simplest as to the subtlest, if only the heart be right. +An outburst of miracle-working and prophecy is hardly to be looked for; +while the argument from the tree's fruits, or from the moral miracle, is +at present weakened by the extent to which non-Christians put in +practice the morality they have learnt from Christ. Other non-rational +causes of belief draw individuals, but they do not draw crowds. + +If we cannot see very clearly what is to supply for the support once +given to the faith of the millions by public opinion, still their +incapacity for dealing with the question on rational grounds will not +justify us altogether in silence. For in the first place it is an +incapacity of which they are not aware, or which at least they are very +unwilling to admit. A candidate at the hustings would run a poor chance +of a hearing who, instead of seeming to appeal to the reason of the mob +should, in the truthfulness of his soul, try to convince them of their +utter incompetence to judge the simplest political point. Again, though +unable to decide between cause and cause, yet the rudest can often see +that there is much to be said on both sides--though what, he does not +understand; and if this fact weakens his confidence in the right, it +also weakens it in the wrong; whereas had the right been silent, the +wrong, in his judgment, would thereby have been proved victorious. This +will justify us at times in talking over the heads of our readers and +hearers, and in not sparing sonorous polysyllables, abstruse +technicalities, or even the pompous parade of syllogistic arguments with +all their unsightly joints sticking out for public admiration. Some +hands may be too delicate for this coarse work; but there will always be +those to whom it is easy and congenial; and its utility is too evident +to allow a mere question of taste to stand in the way. + +Moreover, it must be remembered that while many of the class referred to +are glad to be free from the pressure of a Christianized public opinion, +and are only too willing to grasp at any semblance of a reason for +unbelief; others, more religiously disposed, are really troubled by +these popular, anti-Christian difficulties, the more so as they are +often infected with the fallacy, fostered by ceaseless controversy, +which makes one's faith dependent on the formal reason one can give for +it. + +Though this is not so, yet moral truthfulness forbids us to assent to +what we, however falsely, believe to be untrue. Hence while the virtue +of faith remains untouched, its exercise with regard to particular +points may be inculpably suspended through ignorance, stupidity, +misinformation, and other causes. + +In the interest of these well-disposed but easily puzzled believers of +the ill-instructed and uncritical sort, a series of anti-agnostic tracts +for the million would really seem to be called for. Yet never has the +present writer felt more abjectly crushed with a sense of incompetence +than when posed by the difficulties of a "hagnostic" greengrocer, or of +a dressmaker fresh from the perusal of "Erbert" Spencer. Face to face +with chaos, one knows not where to begin the work of building up an +orderly mind; nor will the self-taught genius brook a hint of possible +ignorance, or endure the discussion of dull presuppositions, without +much pawing of the ground and champing on the bit: "What I want," he +says, "is a plain answer to a plain question." And when you explain to +him that for an answer he must go back very far and become a little +child again, and must unravel his mind to the very beginning like an +ill-knit stocking, he looks at once incredulous and triumphant as who +should say: "There, I told you so!" Yet the same critical incompetence +that makes these simple folk quite obtuse to the true and adequate +solution of their problems (I am speaking of cases where such solutions +are possible), makes them perfectly ready to accept any sort of +counter-sophistry or paralogism. A most excellent and genuine "convert" +of that class told me that he had stood out for years against the +worship of the Blessed Virgin, till one day it had occurred to him that, +as a cause equals or exceeds its effect, so the Mother must equal the +Son. Another, equally genuine, professed to have been conquered by the +reflection that he had all his life been saying: "I believe in the Holy +Catholic Church," and he could not see the use of believing in it if he +didn't belong to it. If their faith in Catholicism or in any other +religion depended on their logic, men of this widespread class were in a +sorry plight. Like many of their betters, these two men probably +imagined the assigned reasons to be the entire cause of their +conversion, making no account of the many reasonable though non-logical +motives by which the change was really brought about. Hence to have +abruptly and incautiously corrected them, would perhaps but have been to +reduce them to confusion and perplexity, and to "destroy with one's +logic those for whom Christ died." + +That we do not sufficiently realize the dialectical incompetence of the +uneducated is partly to be explained by the fact that they often get +bits of reasoning by rote, much as young boys learn their Euclid; and +that they frequently seem to understand principles because they apply +them in the right cases, just as we often quote a proverb appropriately +without the slightest idea of its origin or meaning beyond that it is +the right thing to say in a certain connection. As we ascend in the +scale of education, there is more and more of this reasoning by rote, so +that critical incompetence is more easily concealed and may lurk +unsuspected even in the pulpit and the professorial chair, where logic +alone seems paramount. The "hagnostic" greengrocer, in all the +self-confidence of his ignorance, is but the lower extreme of a class +that runs up much higher in the social scale and spreads out much wider +in every direction. + +But when we have realized more adequately how hopelessly incompetent the +multitude must necessarily be in the problems of specialists, we shall +also see that it is only by inadequate and even sophistical reasoning +that most of their intellectual difficulties can be allayed; that the +full truth (and the half-truth is mostly a lie) would be Greek to them. +If, then, _Tracts for the Million_ seem a necessity, they also seem an +impossibility; for what self-respecting man will sit down to weave that +tissue of sophistry, special-pleading, violence, and vulgarity, which +alone will serve the practical purpose with those to whom trenchency is +everything and subtlety nothing? Even though the means involve a +violation of taste rather than of morals, yet can they be justified by +the goodness of the end? Fortunately, however, the difficulty is met by +a particular application of God's universal method in the education of +mankind. In every grade of enlightenment there are found some who are +sufficiently in advance of the rest to be able to help them, and not so +far in advance as practically to speak a different language. What is a +dazzling light for those just emerging from darkness, is darkness for +those in a yet stronger light. A statement may be so much less false +than another, as to be relatively true; so much less true than a third, +as to be relatively false. For a mind wholly unprepared, the full truth +is often a light that blinds and darkness; whereas the tempered +half-truth prepares the way for a fuller disclosure in due time, even as +the law and the prophets prepared the way for the Gospel and Christ, or +as the enigmas of faith school us to bear that light which now no man +can gaze on and live. Thus, though we may never use a lie in the +interest of truth, or bring men from error by arguments we know to be +sophistical, yet we have the warrant of Divine example, both in the +natural and supernatural education of mankind, for the passive +permission of error in the interest of truth, as also of evil in the +interest of good. Since then there will ever be found those who in all +good faith and sincerity can adapt themselves to the popular need and +supply each level of intelligence with the medicine most suited to its +digestion, all we ask is that a variety of standards in controversial +writings be freely recognized; that each who feels called to such +efforts should put forth his very best with a view to helping those +minds which are likest his own; that none should deliberately condescend +to the use of what from his point of view would be sophistries and +vulgarities, remembering at the same time that the superiority of his +own taste and judgment is more relative than absolute, and that in the +eyes of those who come after, he himself may be but a Philistine. + +We conclude then that all that can be done in the way of _Tracts for the +Million_ should be done; that seed of every kind should be scattered to +the four winds, hoping that each may find some congenial soil. + +But even when all that can be done in this way to save the masses from +the contagion of unbelief has been done, we shall be as far as ever from +having found a substitute for the support which formerly was lent to +their faith by a Christianized public opinion. Can we hope for anything +more than thus to retard the leakage? The answer to this would take us +to the second of our proposed considerations, namely, our attitude +towards those who form and modify that public opinion by which the +masses are influenced for good or for evil. But it is an answer which +for the present must be deferred. [1] + +_Nov._ 1900. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: The Introduction to the First Series of these essays +attempts to deal with this further question.] + + + +XX. + + +AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. + + + "A man that could look no way but downwards, with a + muck-rake in his hand" and "did neither look up nor regard, + but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and the dust + of the floor.... Then said Christiana, 'Oh, deliver me + from this muck-rake.'"--Bunyan. + + +Naturalism includes various schools which agree in the first principle +that nothing is true but what can be justified by those axiomatic truths +which every-day experience forces upon our acceptance, not indeed as +self-evident, but as inevitable, unless we are to be incapacitated for +practical life. It is essentially the philosophy of the unphilosophical, +that is, of those who believe what they are accustomed to believe, and +because they are so accustomed; who are incapable of distinguishing +between the subjective necessity imposed by habits and the objective +necessity founded in the nature of things. It is no new philosophy, but +as old as the first dawn of philosophic thought, for it is the form +towards which the materialistic mind naturally gravitates. Given a +population sufficiently educated to philosophize in any fashion, and of +necessity the bent of the majority will be in the direction of some form +of Naturalism. Hence we find that the "Agnosticism" of Professor Huxley +is eminently suited to the capacity and taste of the semi-educated +majorities in our large centres of civilization. Still it must not be +supposed that the majority really philosophizes at all even to this +extent. The pressure of life renders it morally impossible. But they +like to think that they do so. The whole temper of mind, begotten and +matured by the rationalistic school, is self-sufficient: every man his +own prophet, priest, and king; every man his own philosopher. Hence, he +who poses as a teacher of the people will not be tolerated. The theorist +must come forward with an affectation of modesty, as into the presence +of competent critics; he must only expose his wares, win for himself a +hearing, and then humbly wait for the _placet_ of the sovereign people. +But plainly this is merely a conventional homage to a theory that no +serious mind really believes in. We know well enough, that the opinions +and beliefs of the multitude are formed almost entirely by tradition, +imitation, interest, by in fact any influence rather than that of pure +reason. Taught they are, and taught they must be, however they repudiate +it. But the most successful teachers and leaders are those who contrive +to wound their sense of intellectual self-sufficiency least, and to +offer them the strong food of dogmatic assertion sugared over and +sparkling with the show of wit and reason. + +Philosophy for the million may be studied profitably in one of its +popular exponents whose works have gained wide currency among the class +referred to. Mr. S. Laing is a very fair type of the average +mind-leader, owing his great success to his singular appreciation of the +kind of treatment needed to secure a favourable hearing. We do not +pretend to review Mr. Laing's writings for their own sake, but simply as +good specimens of a class which is historically rather than +philosophically interesting. + +We have before us three of his most popular books: _Modern Science and +Modern Thought_ (nineteenth thousand), _Problems of the Future_ +(thirteenth thousand), _Human Origins_ (twelfth thousand), to which we +shall refer as M.S., P.F., H.O., in this essay; taking the +responsibility of all italics on ourselves, unless otherwise notified. + +Mr. Laing is not regretfully forced into materialism by some mental +confusion or obscurity, but he revels in it, and invites all to taste +and see how gracious a philosophy it is. There is an ill-concealed +levity and coarseness in his handling of religious subjects which +breaks, + + At seasons, through the gilded pale, + +and which warns us from casting reasons before those who would but +trample them under foot. It is rather for the sake of those who read +such literature, imprudently perhaps, but with no sympathy, and yet find +their imagination perplexed and puzzled with a swarm of minute +sophistries and difficulties, collectively bewildering, though +contemptible singly, that we think it well to form some estimate of the +philosophical value of such works. + +Nothing in our study of Mr. Laing surprised us more than to discover [1] +that he had lived for more than the Scriptural span of three-score and +ten years, a life of varied fortunes and many experiences. It seems to +us incredible that any man of even average thoughtfulness could, after +so many years, find life without God, without immortality, without +definite meaning or assignable goal, "worth living," and that "to be +born in a civilized country in the nineteenth century is a boon for +which a man can never be sufficiently thankful." [2] [Thankful to whom? +one might ask parenthetically.] In other words, he is a bland optimist, +and has nothing but vials of contempt to pour upon the pessimists, from +Ecclesiastes down to Carlyle. Pessimism, we are told confidentially, is +not an outcome of just reasoning on the miserable residue of hope which +materialism leaves to us, but of the indisposition "of those digestive +organs upon which the sensation of health and well-being so mainly +depends." "It is among such men, with cultivated intellects, sensitive +nerves, and bad digestion, that we find the prophets and disciples of +pessimism." [3] The inference is, that men of uncultivated intellects, +coarse nerves, and ostrich livers will coincide with Mr. Laing in his +sanguine view of the ruins of religion. The sorrowing dyspeptic asks in +despair: "Son of man, thinkest thou that these dry bones will live +again?" "I'm cock-sure of it," answers Mr. Laing, and the ground of his +assurance is the healthiness of his liver. + +Carlyle, who in other matters is, according to Mr. Laing, a great +genius, a more than prophet of the new religion, on this point suddenly +collapses into "a dreadful croaker," styling his own age "barren, +brainless, soulless, faithless." [4] But the reason is, of course, that +"he suffered from chronic dyspepsia" and was unable "to eat his three +square meals a day." A very consistent explanation for an avowed +materialist, but slightly destructive to the value of his own +conclusions, being a two-edged sword. Indeed he almost allows as much. +"For such dyspeptic patients there is an excuse. Pessimism is probably +as inevitably their creed, as optimism is for the more fortunate mortals +who enjoy the _mens sana in corpore sano_." [5] However, there are some +pessimists for whom indigestion can plead no excuse, [6] but for whose +intellectual perversity some other cosmic influence must be sought +"behind the veil, behind the veil,"--to borrow Mr. Laing's favourite +line from his favourite poem. These are not only "social swells, +would-be superior persons and orthodox theologians, but even a man of +light and learning like Mr. F. Harrison." "Religion, they say, is +becoming extinct.... Without a lively faith in such a personal, +ever-present deity who listens to our prayers, ... there can be, they +say, no religion; and they hold, and I think rightly hold, that the only +support for such a religion is to be found in the assumed inspiration of +the Bible and the Divinity of Christ." "Destroy these and they think the +world will become vulgar and materialized, losing not only the surest +sanction of morals, but ... the spiritual aspiration and tendencies," &c. +[7] "To these gloomy forebodings I venture to return a positive and +categorical denial ... Scepticism has been the great sweetener of modern +life." [8] How he justifies his denial by maintaining that morality can +hold its own when reduced to a physical science; that the "result of +advancing civilization" and of the materialistic psychology is "a +clearer recognition of the intrinsic sacredness and dignity of every +human soul;" [9] that Christianity without dogma, without miracles [or, +as he calls it, "Christian agnosticism"], shall retain the essential +spirit, the pure morality, the consoling beliefs, and as far as possible +even the venerable form and sacred associations of the old faith, may +appear later. At present we are concerned directly with pointing out how +Mr. Laing's optimism at once marks him off from those men who, whether +believing or misbelieving or unbelieving, have thought deeply and felt +deeply, who have seen clearly that materialism leaves nothing for man's +soul but the husks of swine; who have therefore boldly faced the +inevitable alternative between spiritualistic philosophy and hope, and +materialism with its pessimistic corollary. That a man may be a +materialist or atheist and enjoy life thoroughly, who does not know? but +then it is just at the expense of his manhood, because he lives without +thought, reflection, or aspiration, _i.e.,_ materialistically. Mr. Laing +no doubt, as he confesses, has lived pleasantly enough. He has found in +what he calls science an endless source of diversion, he betrays himself +everywhere as a man of intense intellectual curiosity in every +direction, and yet withal so little concerned with the roots of things, +so easily satisfied with a little plausible coherence in a theory, as +not to have found truth an apparently stern or exacting mistress, not to +have felt the anguish of any deep mental conflict. His intellectual +labours have been pleasurable because easy, and, in his own eyes, +eminently fruitful and satisfactory. He has adopted an established +cause, thrown himself into it heart and soul; others indeed had gone +before him and laboured, and he has entered into their labours. Indeed, +he is frank in disclaiming all originality of discovery or theory; [10] +he has not risked the disappointment and anxiety of improving on the +Evolution Gospel, but he has collected and sorted and arranged and +published the evidence obtained by others. This has always furnished him +with an interest in life; [11] but whether it be a rational interest or +not depends entirely on the usefulness or hurtfulness of his work. He +admits, however, that though life for him has been worth living, "some +may find it otherwise from no fault of their own, more by their own +fate." [12] But all can lead fairly happy lives by following his +large-type platitudinous maxim, "Fear nothing, make the best of +everything." [13] In other words, the large majority, who are not and +never can be so easily and pleasantly circumstanced as Mr. Laing, are +told calmly to make the best of it and to rejoice in the thought that +their misery is a necessary factor in the evolution of their happier +posterity. This is the new gospel: _Pauperes evangelizantur_--"Good +news for the poor." [14] "Progress and not happiness" is the end we are +told to make for, over and over again; but, progress towards what, is +never explained, nor is any basis for this duty assigned. Indeed, duty +means nothing for Mr. Laing but an inherited instinct, which if we +choose to disobey or if we happen not to possess, who shall blame us or +talk to us of "oughts"? + +And now to consider more closely the grounds of Mr. Laing's very +cheerful view of a world in which, for all we know, there is no soul, no +God, and certainly no faith. Since of the two former we know and can +know nothing, we must build our happiness, our morality, our "religion," +on a basis whereof they form no part. He believes that morality will be +able to hold its own distinct, not only from all belief in revelation, +in a personal God, and in a spiritual soul, but in spite of a philosophy +which by tracing the origin of moral judgments to mere physical laws of +hereditary transmission of experienced utilities, robs them of all +authority other than prudential, and convicts them of being illusory so +far as they seem to be of higher than human origin. + +Herein, as usual, he treads in the steps of Professor Huxley, "the +greatest living master of English prose" (though why his mastery of +prose should add to his weight as a philosopher, we fail to see). "Such +ideas _evidently_ come from education, and are not the results either of +inherited instinct [15] or of supernatural gift.... Given a being with +man's brain, man's hands, and erect stature, _it is easy to see_ how ... +rules of conduct ... must have been formed and fixed by successive +generations, according to the Darwinian laws." [16] + +He tells us: "We may read the Athanasian Creed less, but we practise +Christian charity more in the present than in any former age." [17] +"Faith has diminished, charity increased." [18] + +Of moral principles, he says: "Why do we say that ... they carry +conviction with them and prove themselves?... Still, there they are, and +being what they are ... it requires no train of reasoning or laboured +reflection to make us _feel_ that 'right is right,' and that it is +_better_ for ourselves and others to act on such precepts ... rather +than to reverse these rules and obey the selfish promptings of animal +nature." [19] "It is _clearly_ our highest wisdom to follow right, not +from selfish calculation, ... but because 'right is right.' ... For +practical purposes it is comparatively unimportant how this standard got +there ... as an absolute imperative rule." [20] As to the apprehended +ill effect of agnosticism on morals, he says: "The foundations of +morals [21] are fortunately built on solid rock and not on shifting sand. +It may truly be said in a great many cases that, as individuals and +nations become more sceptical, they become more moral." [22] "_If there +is one thing more certain than another_ in the history of evolution, it +is that morals have been evolved by the same laws as regulate the +development of species." [23] + +These citations embody Mr. Laing's opinions on this point, and show very +clearly his utter incapacity for elementary philosophic thought. Here, +as elsewhere, as soon as he leaves the bare record of facts and embarks +in any kind of speculation, he shows himself helpless; however, he tries +to fortify his own courage and that of his readers, with "it is clear," +"it is evident," "it is certain." + +To say that "right is right," sounds very oracular; but it either means +that "right" is an ultimate spring of action, inexplicable on +evolutionist principles, or that right is the will of the strongest, or +an illusory inherited foreboding of pain, or a calculation of future +pleasure and pain, or something which, in no sense, is a true account of +what men _do_ mean by right. To say that moral principles "carry +conviction with them, and prove themselves" _(i.e._, are self-evident), +unless, as we suspect, it is mere verbiage conveying nothing particular +to Mr. Laing's brain, is to deny that right has reference to the +consequences of action as bearing on human progress and evolution, which +is to deny the very theory he wishes to uphold. No intuitionist could +have spoken more strongly. Then we are assured that we "feel" rightness, +or that "right is right"--apparently as a simple irresoluble quality of +certain actions--and with same breath, that "it is _better_ for +ourselves and others to act on these rules," where he jumps off to +utilitarianism again; and then we are forbidden to "obey the selfish +impulses of our animal nature"--a strange prohibition for one who sees +in us nothing but animal nature, who denies us any free power to +withstand its impulses. Then it is "clearly our highest wisdom to follow +right"--an appeal to prudential motives--"not from any selfish +calculations"--a repudiation of prudential motives--"but because 'right +is right'"--an appeal to a blind unreasoning instinct, and a prohibition +to question its authority. We are told that for practical purposes it +matters little whence this absolute imperative rule originates. Was +there ever a more unpractical and short-sighted assertion! Convince men +that the dictates of conscience are those of fear or selfishness, that +they are all mere animal instincts, that they are anything less than +divine, and who will care for Mr. Laing's appeal to blind faith in the +"rightness of right"? + +As long as Christian tradition lives on, as it will for years among the +masses, the effects of materialist ethics will not be felt; but as these +new theories filter down from the few to the many, they will inevitably +produce their logical consequences in practical matters. No one with +open eyes can fail to see how the leaven is spreading already. Still the +majority act and speak to a great extent under the influence of the old +belief, which they have repudiated, in the freedom of man's will and the +Divine origin of right. It is quite plain that Mr. Laing has either +never had patience to think the matter out, or has found it beyond his +compass. Having thus established morality on a foundation independent of +religion and of everything else, making "right" rest on "right," he +assumes the prophetic robe, and on the strength of his seventy years of +experience and philosophy poses as a _Cato Major_ for the edification of +the semi-scientific millions of young persons to whom he addresses his +volumes. We have a whole chapter on Practical Life, [24] on +self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, full of portentous +platitudes and ancient saws; St. Paul's doctrine of charity, and all +that is best in the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, is liberated +from its degrading association with the belief in a God who rewards and +punishes.[25] We are "to act strenuously in that direction which, after +_conscientious_ inquiry, seems the best, ... and trust to what religious +men call Providence, and scientific men Evolution, for the result," and +all this simply on the bold assertion of this sage whose sole aim is "to +leave the world a little better rather than a little worse for my +individual unit of existence." [26] + +And here we may inquire parenthetically as to the motive which urges Mr. +Laing to throw himself into the labours of the apostolate and to become +such an active propagandist of agnosticism. We are told[27] that the +enlightened should be "liberal and tolerant towards traditional opinions +and traditional practices, and trust with cheerful faith to evolution to +bring about _gradually_ changes of form," &c.; that the influence of the +clergy is "on the whole exerted for good," and it is frankly +acknowledged that Christianity has been a potent factor in the evolution +of modern civilization. It has, however, nearly run its course, and the +old order must give place to the new, _i.e._, to agnosticism. But even +allowing, what we dare say Mr. Laing would not ask, that the speculative +side of the new religion is fully defined and worked out, and ready to +displace the old dogmatic creeds, yet its practical aspect is so vague +that he writes: "I think the time is come when the intellectual victory +of agnosticism is so far assured, that it behoves thinking men to _begin +to consider_ what practical results are likely to follow from it." [28] +In the face of this confession we find Mr. Laing industriously +addressing himself to "those who lack time and opportunity for +studying," [29] to the "minds of my younger readers, and of the working +classes who are striving after culture," [30] "to what may be called the +semi-scientific readers, ... who have already acquired some elementary +ideas about science," "to the millions;" [31] and endeavouring by all +means in his power to destroy the last vestige of their faith in that +religion which alone provides for them a definite code of morality +strengthened by apparent sanctions of the highest order, and venerable +at least by its antiquity and universality. [32] And while he is thus +busily pulling down the old scaffolding, he is calmly _beginning_ to +consider the practical results. This is his method of "leaving the world +a little better than he found it." He professes to understand and +appreciate "In Memoriam." Has he ever reflected on the lines: "O thou +that after toil and storm," [33] when the practical conclusion is-- + + Leave thou thy sister, when she prays, + Her early Heaven, her happy views; + Nor thou with shadowed hint infuse + A life that leads melodious days. + Her faith through form is pure as thine, + Her hands are quicker unto good; + O sacred be the flesh and blood, + To which she links a truth divine. + +On his own principles he is convicted of being a lover of mischief. No, +one is sorely tempted to think that these men are well aware that the +moral sense which sound philosophy and Christian faith have developed, +is still strong in the minds and deeper conscience of the +English-speaking races, and that were they to present materialism in all +its loathsome nudity to the public gaze, they would be hissed off the +stage. And so they dress it up in the clothes of the old religion just +for the present, with many a quiet wink between themselves at the +expense of the "semi-scientific" reader. + +We have already adverted to Mr. Laing's utter incapacity for anything +like philosophy, except so far as that term can be applied to a power of +raking together, selecting, and piling up into "a popular shape" the +scraps of information which favour the view whose correctness he was +convinced of ere he began. A few further remarks may justify this +somewhat severe estimate. After stating that in the solution of life and +soul problems, science stops short at germs and nucleated cells, he +proceeds with the usual tirade against metaphysics: "Take Descartes' +fundamental axiom: _Cogito ergo sum_.... Is it really an axiom?... If +the fact that I am conscious of thinking proves the fact that I exist, +is the converse true that whatever does not think does not exist?... +Does a child only begin to exist when it begins to think? If _Cogito +ergo sum_ is an institution to which we can trust, why is not _Non +cogito ergo non sum?_" [34] Here is a man posing before the gaping +millions as a philosopher and a severe logician, who thinks that the +proposition, "every cow is a quadruped," is disproved by the evident +falsehood of, "what is not a cow is not a quadruped," which he calls +"the converse." He sums up magnificently by saying: "These are questions +to which no metaphysical system that I have ever seen, can return the +semblance of an answer;" giving the impression of a life devoted to a +deep and exhaustive study of all schools of philosophy. Mr. Laing here +surely is addressing his "younger readers." + +He tells us elsewhere [35] that, "when analyzed by science, spiritualism +leads straight to materialism;" free-will "can be annihilated by the +simple mechanical expedient of looking at a black wafer stuck on a white +wall;" that if "Smith falls into a trance and believes himself to be +Jones, he really is Jones, and Smith has become a stranger to him while +the trance lasts.... I often ask myself the question, If he died during +one of these trances, which would he be, Smith or Jones? and I confess +it takes some one wiser than I am to answer it." Without pretending to +be wiser than Mr. Laing, we hope it will not be too presumptuous for us +to suggest that if Smith dies in a trance _believing_ himself to be +Jones, he is under a delusion, and that he really is Smith. Else it +would be very awkward for poor Jones, who in nowise believes himself to +be Smith. Mr. Laing would have to break it gently to Jones, that, "in +fact, my dear sir, Smith borrowed your personality, and unfortunately +died before returning it; and as to whether you are yourself or Smith, +as to whether you are alive or dead, 'I confess it takes some one wiser +than I am to decide.'" That a man's own name, own surroundings, own +antecedents, are all objects of his thought, and distinguished from the +_self, ego,_ or _subject_ which contemplates them, has never suggested +itself to Mr. Laing. That though Smith may mistake every one of these, +yet the term "I" necessarily and invariably means the same for him, the +one central, constant unity to which every _non-ego_ is opposed. And +this from a man who elsewhere claims an easy familiarity with Kant. +"Again what can be said of love and hate if under given circumstances +they can be transformed into one another by a magnet?" What indeed? And +how is it that the gold-fish make no difference in the weight of the +globe of water? + +His conclusion to these inquiries is: "When Shakespeare said, 'We are +such stuff as dreams are made of,' he enumerates what has become a +scientific fact. The 'stuff' is in all cases the same--vibratory motions +of nerve particles." [36] Thus knowledge, self-consciousness, +free-choice, is as much a function of matter as fermentation, or +crystallisation--a mode of motion, not dissimilar from heat, perhaps +transformable therewith. + +Recapitulating this farrago of nonsense on p. 188, he adds a new +difficulty which ought to make him pause in his wild career. "What is +the value of the evidence of the senses if a suggestion can make us see +the hat, but not the man who wears it; or dance half the night with an +imaginary partner? Am I 'I myself, I,' or am I a barrel-organ playing +'God save the Queen,' if the stops are set in the normal fashion, but +the 'Marseillaise' if some cunning hand has altered them without my +knowledge? These are questions which I cannot answer." He cannot answer +a question on which the value of his whole system of physical philosophy +depends; uncertain about his own identity, about the evidence of his +senses, he would make the latter the sole rule and measure of certitude, +and deny to man any higher faculty by which alone he can justify his +trust in his cognitive faculties. Another instance of his absolute +ignorance of common philosophic terminology is when he asserts that +according to theology we know the dogmas of religion by "intuition." [37] + +This doctrine rests on Cardinal Newman's celebrated theory of the +"Illative Sense." Surely a moment's reflection on the meaning of words, +not to speak of a slight acquaintance with the book referred to, would +have saved him from confounding two notions so sharply distinguished as +"intuition" and "inference." Again, "There can be no doubt there are men +often of great piety and excellence who have, or fancy they have, a sort +of sixth sense, or, as Cardinal Newman calls it, an 'illative sense,' by +which they see by intuition ... things unprovable or disprovable by +ordinary reason." [38] Can a man who makes such reckless travesties of a +view which he manifestly has never studied, be credited with +intellectual honesty? + +Doubtless, the semi-scientific millions will be much impressed by the +wideness of Mr. Laing's reading and his profound grasp of all that he +has read, when they are told casually that "space and time are, ... to +use the phraseology of Kant, 'imperative categories;'" [39] but perhaps +to other readers it may convey nothing more than that he has heard a dim +something somewhere about Kant, about the categories, about space and +time being schemata of sense, and about the _categorical imperative._ +It is only one instance of the unscrupulous recklessness which shows +itself everywhere. Akin to this is his absolute misapprehension of the +Christian religion which he labours to refute. He never for a moment +questions his perfect understanding of it, and of all it has got to say +for itself. Brought up apparently among Protestants, who hold to a +verbal inspiration [40] and literal interpretation of the Scriptures, +who have no traditional or authoritative interpretation of it, he +concludes at once that his own crude, boyish conception of Christianity +is the genuine one, and that every deviation therefrom is a "climbing +down," or a minimizing. He has no suspicion that the wider views of +interpretation are as old as Christianity itself, and have always +co-existed with the narrower. + +He regards the Christian idea of God as essentially anthropomorphic. +Indeed, whether in good faith or for the sake of effect, he brings +forward the old difficulties which have been answered _ad nauseam_ with +an air of freshness, as though unearthed for the first time, and +therefore as setting religion in new and unheard-of straits. So, at all +events, it will seem to the millions of his young readers and to the +working classes. + +Let us follow him in some of his destructive criticism, or rather +denunciations, in order to observe his mode of procedure. "The +discoveries of science ... make it impossible for _sincere_ men to +retain the faith," &c., [41] therefore all who differ from Mr. Laing are +insincere. "It is _absolutely certain_ that portions of the Bible are +not true; and those, important portions." [42] This is based on two +premisses which are therefore absolutely certain, (i) Mr. Laing's +conclusions about the antiquity of man--of which more anon; (43) his +baldly literal interpretation of the Bible as delivered to him in his +early "infancy. On p. 253, we have the ancient difficulty from the New +Testament prophecy of the proximate end of the world, without the +faintest indication that it was felt 1800 years ago, and has been dealt +with over and over again. Papias [44] is lionized [45] in order to upset +the antiquity of the four Gospels--which upsetting, however, depends on +a dogmatic interpretation of an ambiguous phrase, and the absence of +positive testimony. Here again there is no evidence that Mr. Laing has +read any elementary text-book on the authenticity of the Gospels. He is +"perfectly clear" as to the fourth Gospel being a forgery; again for +reasons which he alone has discovered. [46] Paul is the first inventor +of Christian dogma, without any doubt or hesitation. But the undoubted +results of modern science ... shatter to pieces the whole fabric. _It is +as certain as that_ 2 + 2 = 4 that the world was not created in the +manner described in Genesis." + +As regards harmonistic difficulties of the Old and New Testaments, he +assumes the same confident tone of bold assertion without feeling any +obligation to notice the solutions that have been suggested. It makes +for his purpose to represent the orthodox as suddenly struck dumb and +confounded by these amazing discoveries of his. He sees discrepancies +everywhere in the Gospel narrative, e.g.: [47] + + "Judas' death is _differently_ described." "Herod is introduced by + Luke and not mentioned by the others." "Jesus carried His own Cross in + one account, while Simon of Cyrene bore it in another. Jesus gave no + answer to Pilate, says Matthew; He explains that His Kingdom was not + of the world, says John. Mary His Mother sat _(sic)_ at the foot of + the Cross, according to St. John; it was not His Mother, but Mary the + mother of Salome _(sic)_ 'who beheld Him from afar,' according to Mark + and Matthew. There was a guard set to watch the tomb, says Matthew; + there is no mention of one by the others." + +At first we thought Mr. Laing must have meant _differences_ and not +discrepancies; but the following paragraph forbade so lenient an +interpretation. "The only other mention of Mary by St. John, who +describes her as sitting _(sic)_ by the foot of the Cross, is +apocryphal, being directly contradicted by the very precise statement [48] +in the three other Gospels, that the Mary who was present on that +occasion was a different woman, the mother of Salome." Even his youngest +readers ought to open their eyes at this. Similarly he thinks the +omission of the Lord's Prayer by St. Mark tells strongly against its +authenticity. [49] + + +II. + +We must now say something about the great facts of evolutionary +philosophy which have shattered dogmatic Christianity to pieces, and +have made it impossible for any sincere man to remain a Christian. To +say that Mr. Laing is absolutely certain of the all-sufficiency of +evolutionism to explain everything that is knowable to the human mind, +that he does not hint for a moment that this philosophy is found by the +"bell-wethers" of science to be every day less satisfactory as a +complete _rationale_ of the physical cosmos; is really to understate the +case for sheer lack of words to express the intensity of his conviction. +His fundamental fact is that, however theologians may shuffle out of the +first chapter of Genesis by converting days into periods, when we come +to the story of the Noachean Deluge, we are confronted with such a +glaring absurdity that we must at once allow that the Bible is full of +myths. For history and science show that man existed probably two +hundred thousand years ago, at all events not less than twenty thousand; +also that five thousand B.C., a highly organized civilization existed in +Egypt, whose monuments of that date give evidence to the full +development of racial and linguistic differences as now existing among +men; that this plants the common stem from which these have branched +off, in an indefinitely remote pre-historic period; that to suppose that +the present races and tongues are all derived from one man (Noe), who +lived only two thousand B.C., is a monstrous impossibility; still more +so, to believe that the countless thousands of species of animals which +populate the world were collected from the four quarters of the globe, +were housed and fed in the Ark, landed on Mount Ararat, and thence +spread themselves out over the world again regardless of interjacent +seas. Hence the Bible story of human origins is a mere myth; man has not +fallen, but has risen by slow evolution from some ancestor common to him +and apes, at a remote period, long sons prior even to the miocene +period, which shows man to have been then as obstinately differentiated +from the apes as ever. Therefore "all did not die in Adam," and seeing +this is the foundation of the dogmatic Christianity invented by Paul, +the whole thing collapses like a house of cards. [45] + +And indeed, given that the Bible means what Mr. Laing says it means, and +that science has proved what he says it has proved, that the two results +are incompatible, few would care to deny. As regards the latter +condition, let us see some of his reasonings. We are told that "modern +science shows that uninterrupted historical records, confirmed by +contemporary monuments, carry history back at least one thousand years +before the supposed creation of man ... and show then no trace of a +commencement, but populous cities, celebrated temples, great engineering +works, and a high state of the arts and of civilization already +existing." [46] Strange to say, Mr. Laing developes a sudden reverence +for the testimony of _priests_ at the outset of his historical +inquiries, and finds that history begins with "priestly organizations;" +[47] that the royal records are "made and preserved by special castes of +priestly colleges and learned scribes, and that they are to a great +extent precise in date and accurate in fact." Of course this does not +include Christian priests, but the priests of barbarous cults of many +thousand years ago, who, as well as their royal masters, are at once +credited with all the delicacy of the accurate criticism which we boast +of in these days--how vainly, God knows. We are told one moment that +Herodotus "was credulous, and not very critical in distinguishing +between fact and fable," that his "sources of information were often not +much better than vague popular traditions, or the tales told by guides;" +[48] and yet we are to lay great stress on his assertion that the +Egyptian priests told him "that during the long succession of ages of +the three hundred and forty-five high priests of Heliopolis, whose +statues they showed him in the Temple of the Sun, there had been no +change in the length of human life or the course of nature." [49] A +valuable piece of evidence _if_ Herodotus reports rightly, and _if_ the +priest was not like the average guide, and _if_ the statues answered to +real existences, and _if_ each of the three hundred and forty-five high +priests made a truthful assertion of the above to his successor for the +benefit of posterity. + +Manetho's History is, however, the chief source of our information as to +the antiquity of Egyptian civilization. He was commissioned to compile +this History by Ptolemy Philadelphus, "from the most authentic temple +records and other sources of information," [50] whose infallibility is +taken for granted. He was "eminently qualified for such a task, being," +as Mr. Laing will vouch, [51] "a learned and judicious man, and a priest +of Sebbenytus, one of the oldest and most famous temples." Let us by all +means read Manetho's History; but where is it? It is "unfortunately +lost, ... but fragments of it have been preserved in the works of +Josephus, Eusebius, Julius Africanus, and Syncellus.... With the curious +want of critical faculty of almost all the Christian Fathers" [52] (so +different from the learned, judicious, upright priests of the sun), +"these extracts, though professing to be quotations from the same book, +contain many inconsistencies and in several instances they have been +obviously tampered with, especially by Eusebius, in order to bring their +chronology more in accordance with that of the Old Testament, ... but +there can be _no doubt_ that his original work assigned an antiquity to +Menes of over 5500 B.C." [53] "On the whole, we have to fall back on +Manetho as the only authority for anything like precise dates and +connected history." + +Manetho, however, needed confirmation against the aspersions of the +orthodox, who thought he might be deficient in critical delicacy, and +prone to exaggerate as even later historians had done. Their casuistic +minds also suggested that his list comprised Kings who had ruled +different provinces simultaneously. But this "effugium" was cut off by +the witness of contemporary monuments and manuscripts. "This has now +been done to such an extent that it may be fairly said that Manetho is +confirmed, and it is fully established, as a fact acquired by science, +that nearly all his Kings and dynasties are proved by monuments to have +existed, and that, successively." [54] + +What is needed for the validity of this argument is a concurrence, which +could not possibly be fortuitous, between the clear and undoubted +testimony of Manetho and of the monuments. But first of all, what sort +of probability is there left of our possessing anything approximately +like the results of Manetho: and if we had them, of their historical +accuracy? Secondly, is it at all credible that so fragmentary and +fortuitous a record as survives in monuments (allowing again their very +dubious historical worth) should just happen to coincide with the +surviving fragments of our patch-work Manetho, king for king and dynasty +for dynasty, as Mr. Laing would have us believe? On the contrary, +nothing would throw more suspicion on the interpretation of these +monuments than the assertion of such an improbable coincidence. What, +then, is the force of this argument from Egyptology? _If_ the records +from which Manetho compiled were historically accurate; _if_ he was +perfectly competent to understand them; _if_ he was scrupulously honest +and critical; _if_ from the tampered-with fragments in the Christian +Fathers we can arrive at a reliable and accurate knowledge of his +results; and _if_ the Bible in the original text--whatever that may +be--undoubtedly asserts that man was not created till 4000 B.C., then +according to certain Egyptologists (Boeck), Menes reigned fifteen +hundred years previously, and according to others (Wilkinson), one +thousand years subsequently. Similarly as to the argument from +coincidence: _if_, as before, we possess Manetho's genuine list intact, +and _if_ we have the clear testimony of the monuments giving a precisely +similar record, this coincidence, apart from all independent value to be +given to Manetho or to the monuments, is an effect demanding a cause, +for which the most probable is the objective truth from which both these +veracious records have been copied. But the monuments are not written in +plain English, and need a key; and we must be first assured that +Manetho's list has not been used for this purpose. We are told; for +example, [55] that the name "Snefura," deciphered on a tablet found at +the copper-mines of Wady Magerah, is the name of a King of the third +dynasty, who reigned about 4000 B.C. Now _if_ there were no doubt about +the reading of this name on the tablet, and _if_ his date and dynasty +were as plainly there recorded, and _if_ all this tallies exactly with +equally precise particulars in Manetho's list, it would indeed be a +remarkable coincidence and would imply some common source, whether +record or fact. But if having credited Manetho with the record of such a +name and date, one tortures a hieroglyph into a faintly similar name, +and concludes at once that the same name must be the same person, and +that therefore this is the oldest record in the world, the confirmation +is not so striking. That it is so in this instance we do not affirm; but +we should need the assertion of a man of more intellectual sobriety than +Mr. Laing to make it worth the trouble of investigating. + +Passing over the confirmation which he draws from the "known rate of the +deposit of Nile mud of about three inches a century," which would give a +mild antiquity of twenty-six thousand years to pottery fished up from +borings in the mud, since he admits that "borings are not _very_ +conclusive," we may notice how he deals with evidence from Chaldea on +much the same principles. Here, again, the source had been till lately +only "fragments quoted by later writers from the lost work of Berosus. +Berosus was a _learned priest_ of Babylon, who ... wrote in Greek a +history of the country from the most ancient times, compiled from the +annals preserved in the temples and from the oldest traditions." [56] +Still this "learned priest," though antecedently as competent a critic +as Manetho, is so portentously mythical in his accounts, that "no +historical value can be attached to them," which must be regretted, +since he pushes history back a quarter of a million years prior to the +Deluge, and the Deluge itself to about half a million years ago. Here, +therefore, we are thrown solely upon the independent value of the +monumental evidence, and must drop the argument from coincidence. This +evidence, we are told, "is not so conclusive as in the case of Egypt, +where the lists of Manetho, &c.... The date of Sargon I. [57] (3800 B.C.) +rests mainly on the authority of Nabonidus, who lived more than three +thousand years later, and may have been mistaken." "The probability of +such a remote date is enhanced _by the certainty_ that a high +civilization existed in Egypt as long ago as 5000 B.C." If the evidence +for the antiquity of Chaldee civilization is "less conclusive" than that +for Egyptian, and rests on it for an argument _a pari_, it cannot be +said in any way to strengthen Mr. Laing's position. + +These strictures are directed chiefly to showing Mr. Laing's incapacity +for anything like coherent reasoning in historical matters. Subsequently +he uses these most lame and impotent conclusions as demonstrated +certainties, without the faintest qualification, and builds up on them +his refutation of dogmatic Christianity. + +However, it is only in his more recent work on _Human Origins_ that he +thus comes forward as an historian, in preparation for which he seems to +have devoted himself to the study of cuneiform and hieroglyphs and +mastered the subject thoroughly and exhaustively, before bursting forth +from behind the clouds to flood the world with new-born light. + +It is deep down in the bowels of the earth, at the bottom of a +geological well, that he has found not only truth but, also man--among +the monsters, + + Dragons of the prime + Who tare each other in their slime, + +and has hauled him up for our inspection. Mr. Laing is before all else +an evolutionist, with an unshaken belief in spontaneous generation. He +is quite confident that force and atoms will explain everything. He +seems to mean force, pure and simple, without any intelligent direction; +atoms, ultimate, homogeneous, undifferentiated. No doubt, if the +subsequent evolution depends on the _kind_ and _direction_ of force, or +on the _nature_ of the atoms; then there is a remoter question for +physics to determine; but if, as he implies, force and atoms are simple +and ultimate, then evolution is as fortuitous as a sand-storm, or more +so. All prior to force and atoms is "behind the veil." "The material +universe is composed of ether, matter, and energy." [58] Ether is a +billion times more elastic than air, "almost infinitely rare," [59] its +oscillations must be at least seven hundred billions per second, "it +exerts no gravitating or retarding force;" in short, Mr. Laing has to +confess some uncertainty about his original dogma as to the triple +constituents of the universe, and say "that it may be _almost doubted_ +whether such an ether has any real material existence, and is anything +more than a sort of mathematical [why 'mathematical'?] entity." [60] "It +is clear that matter really does consist of minute particles which do +not touch," and even these we must conceive of as "corks as it were +floating in an ocean of ether, causing waves in it by their own proper +movement," [61]--an explanation which loses some of its helpfulness when +we remember that the ethereal ocean is only a mathematical entity. "A +cubic centimetre contains 21,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules," +"the number of impacts received by each molecule of air during one +second will be 4,700 millions. The distance traversed between each +impact averages 95/1000000 of a millimetre," and so on with lines of +ciphers to overawe the gaping millions with Mr. Laing's minute certainty +as to the ultimate constitution of matter. [62] + +As to _how_ atoms came into existence, he can only reply, "Behind the +veil, behind the veil;" for it is at this point at last that he becomes +agnostic.[63] The notion of creation is rejected (after Spencer) as +inconceivable, because unimaginable, as though the origination of every +change in the phenomenal world were not just as unimaginable; we see +movement _in process_, and we see its results, but its inception is +unimaginable, and its efficient cause still more so. + +The evolution of man is practically taken for granted, the only question +being the _when_. + +We have the old argument from embryonic transformism brought forward +without any hint that later investigation tends to show differentiation +further and further back, prior to segmentation and, according to some, +in the very protoplasm itself. Nothing could be more inaccurate than to +say "every human being passes through the stage of fish and reptile +before arriving at that of a mammal and finally of man." [64] All that +can be truly said is that the embryonic man is at certain stages not +superficially distinguishable from the embryonic fish--quite a different +thing, and no more significant than that the adult man possesses organs +and functions in common with other species of the animal genus. + +Mr. Laing's own conclusions from skulls and human remains which he takes +to be those of tertiary man, show man to be as obstinately unlike the +"dryopithecus" as ever, in fact, the reputedly oldest skulls [65] are a +decided improvement on the Carnstadt and Neanderthal type. Even then man +seems to have been the same flint-chipping, tool-making, speaking animal +as now. So convinced is he of this essential and ineradicable difference +in his heart, that seeing traces of design in palaeolithic flint flakes, +and so forth, he has "not the remotest doubt as to their being the work +of human hands,"--"as impossible to doubt as it would be if we had found +clasp-knives and carpenters adzes." [66] Perhaps Professor Boyd-Dawkins, +who credits the "dryopithecus" with these productions, is a more +consistent evolutionist; but at present Mr. Laing is defending a thesis +as to _man's_ antiquity. Yet he has just said that these flint +instruments are "_only one step_ in advance of the rude, natural stone +which an _intelligent_ orang or chimpanzee might pick up to crack a +cocoa-nut with." Truly a very significant step, though it be only one. +How hard this is to reconcile with what Mr. Laing ascribes to dogs and +ants elsewhere, or with what he says on page 173, "These higher apes +remain creatures of very considerable intelligence.... There is a +chimpanzee now in the Zoological Gardens ... which can do _all but_ +speak" [either it speaks, or it does not. It is precisely a case of the +"only one step" quoted above. Here if anywhere a "miss is as good as a +mile"], "which understands almost every word the keeper says to it, and +when told to sing will purse out its lips and try to utter connected +notes." [How on earth do we know what it is trying to do?] "In their +native state they (apes) form societies and obey a chief." [The old +fallacy of metaphors adverted to in relation to ants and dogs.] Yet "no +animal has ever learned to speak," "no chimpanzee or gorilla has ever +been known to fashion any implement." [67] Their nearest approach to +invention is in the building of huts or nests, in which they "are very +inferior to most species of birds, to say nothing of insects." On the +other hand, "as regards tool-making, no human race is known which has +not shown some faculty in this direction." [68] "The difference is a very +fundamental one," and "may be summed up in the words 'arrested +development.'" Words, indeed! but what do they mean? They mean that +these animals have not developed the faculties of speech and +tool-making, which would have been most useful to them in the struggle +for existence, the reason being _that they did not_; and this reason is +exalted into a cause or law of "arrested development." Who or what +arrested it? The advantage of the term is that it implies that they were +on the point of developing, that they could "all but speak," were +"trying to utter connected notes," were "but one step" behind flint +axes, when some cosmic power said, "Hitherto shalt thou come and no +further." + +If the dog had organs of speech or an instrument like the hand by which +to place himself in closer relation to the outer world, he would +doubtless be on a footing of mental equality with man, according to Mr. +Laing. [69] The elephant's trunk accounts for his superior sagacity, and +the horse suffers by his hoof-enclosed forefoot. [70] "Given a being +with man's brain, man's hand, and erect stature, _it is easy to see_ how +intelligence _must_ have been gradually evolved." [71] Now honestly it +seems to us that many animals are as well provided as man is with a +variety of flexible organs of communication with the outward world (for +example, the antennae of insects, the prehensile tails of some monkeys, +whose hands are as lithe as man's and articulated bone for bone and +joint for joint). But letting this pass, we thought evolutionists +allowed that structure is determined by function, rather than the +converse; and so the confession that "it is not so easy to see how this +difference of the structure arose," [72] surprises us, coming from Mr. +Laing; though why this difference should exist at all, on evolution +principles, is a far greater difficulty. Yet he confesses that "the +difference in structure between the lowest existing race of man and the +highest existing ape, [73] is too great to admit of one being possibly +the direct descendant of the other." The ape, then, is not a man whose +development is arrested. "The negro in some respects makes a slight +approximation, ... still he is essentially a man, and separated by a wide +gulf from the chimpanzee or gorilla. Even the idiot is ... an arrested +man and, not an ape." [74] + +Nearly all these (higher intellectual and moral) faculties appear in a +rudimentary state in animals.... Still there is this wide distinction +that even in the highest animals these faculties remain rudimentary and +seem incapable of progress, while even in the lowest races of man they +have reached a much higher level [75] and seem capable of almost +unlimited development. [76] Why does he not seek out the reason of this, +or is he satisfied with the _words_ "arrested development"? If I find a +child who can repeat a poem of Tennyson's, am I to be puzzled because it +cannot originate one as good, or go on even to something better? Am I to +ascribe to it a rudimentary but arrested poetic faculty? Surely the same +poem proceeding from the lips of the poet and of the child he has +taught, are essentially different effects, though outwardly the same. If +there were a true living germ, it would most certainly develope. If the +savage developes through contact with the civilized man after centuries +of degradation, why have not domesticated dogs, who are, according to +Laing, their intellectual and moral equals, developed long ago? + +However, as "evolution has become the axiom of science and is admitted +by every one who has the slightest pretensions to be considered a +competent authority," [77] it is preposterous to suppose man an +exception, whatever be the difficulties. [78] And so Mr. Laing, assuming +axiomatically that man and the ape have a common ancestor, is interested +to make the differences between them deeply marked, and that, as far +back as he can, for thereby "Human Origins" are pushed back by hundreds +of thousands of years. If miocene man is as distinct from the ape as +recent man, the inference is that we are then as far from the source as +ever. Hence it is to geology he looks for the strongest basis of his +position. One thought till lately that geology was a tentative science, +hardly credited with the name of science, but Mr. Laing wisely and +boldly classes it among the "exact sciences," whose subject-matter is +"flint instruments, incised bones, and a few rare specimens of human +skulls and skeletons, the meaning of which has to be deciphered by +skilled experts." [79] "The conclusions of geology," up to the Silurian +period, "are approximate facts, not theories." [80] + +If he means that the only legitimate data of geologists are facts of +observation, classified and recorded, well and good; but to deny that +they deal largely in hypotheses, and use them constantly as the +premisses for inferences which are equally hypothetical, is palpably +absurd. First of all we are to "assume the principle of uniformity" +which Lyell is said to have established on an unassailable basis and to +have made the fundamental axiom of geological science. He "has shown +conclusively that while causes identical with ... existing causes will, +_if given sufficient time_, account for all the facts hitherto observed, +there is not a single fact which _proves_ the occurrence of a totally +different order of causes." [81] This, however, is (1) limited to the +period of geology which gives record of organic life, and not to the +earlier astronomical period; nor (2) does it exclude changes in +temperature, climate, distribution of seas and lands; nor (3) does it +"_affirm positively_ that there may not have been in past ages +explosions more violent than that of Krakatoa; lava-streams more +extensive than that of Skaptar-Jokul, and earthquakes more powerful than +that which uplifted five or six hundred miles of the Pacific coast of +South America six or seven feet." [82] Now, seeing that all these +cataclysms have occurred within the brief limits of most recent time, +compared with which the period of pretended uniformity is almost an +eternity, what sort of presumption or probability is there that such +occurrences should have been confined to historical times; and is not +the presumption all the other way? Again, it is largely on the +supposition of this antecedently unlikely uniformity, that Mr. Laing +argues to the antiquity of life on earth; whereas Lyell's conclusion +warrants nothing of the kind, being simply: that present causes, "_given +sufficient time_," would produce the observed effects. [83] + +Our tests of geologic time are denudation and deposition. We are told +"the present rate of denudation of a continent is known with +_considerable accuracy_ from careful measurements of the quantity of +solid matter carried down by rivers." [84] Now it is a considerable tax +on our faith in science to believe that the _debris_ of the Mississippi +can be so accurately gauged as to give anything like approximate value +to the result of one foot of continental denudation in 6,000 years. We +cannot of course suppose this to be the result of 6,000 years registered +observations, but an inference from the observations of some +comparatively insignificant period; and we have also to suppose that the +very few rivers which have been observed form a sufficient basis for a +conclusion as to all rivers. In fact, a more feebly supported +generalization from more insufficient data it is hard to conceive. To +speak of it as "an _approximation_ based on our knowledge of the time in +which similar results on a smaller scale have been produced by existing +natural laws within the historical period," [85] is a very inadequate +qualification, especially when we have just been told that "here, at any +rate, we are on comparatively certain ground, ... these are measurable +facts which have been ascertained by competent observers." [86] + +Assuming this rate of denudation as certain, and also the estimate of +the known sedimentary strata as 177,000 feet in depth, we are to +conclude that the formation took 56,000,000 years. A mountain mass which +ought to answer to certain fault 15,000 high, and therefore is presumed +to have vanished by denudation, points to a term of 90,000,000 years as +required for the process. [87] + +"Reasoning from these _facts_, assuming the rate of change in the forms +of life to have been the same formerly, Lyell concludes that geological +phenomena postulate 200,000,000 years at least," [88] "to account for +the undoubted facts of geology since life began." [89] On the other +hand, mathematical astronomy, [90] on theories which Mr. Laing complains +of as wanting the solidity of geological calculations (yet which do not +involve more, but fewer assumptions), cannot allow the sun a past +existence of more than 15,000,000 years. [91] "It is evident that there +must be some fundamental error on one side or the other," [92] "for the +laws of nature are uniform, and there cannot be one code for +astronomers, and one for geologists." But while modestly relegating this +slight divergency among the "bell-wethers of science" (bell-wethers, I +presume, because the crowd follow them like sheep), to the "problems of +the future," Mr. Laing is quite confident that we should "distrust these +mathematical calculations," and rely on conclusions based on +_ascertained facts_ and undoubted deductions from them, rather than on +abstract and doubtful theories, "which would so reduce geological time +as to negative the idea of uniformity of law and evolution, and +introduce once more the chaos of catastrophes and supernatural +interferences."[93] As regards the ice-age, Mr. Laing is professedly +interested in putting it as far back as possible, since "a short date +for that period shortens that for which we have positive proof of the +existence of man, and ... a very short date ... brings us back to the +old theories of repeated and recent acts of supernatural interference." +[94] Strange, that in the same page he should refer to Sir J. Dawson as +an "extreme instance" of one who approaches the question with +"theological prepossessions;" and of course in complete ignorance of Mr. +Laing's indubitable conclusions about the antiquity of Egyptian +civilization. Unfortunately, even the best scientists have not that +perfect freedom from bias, which gives Mr. Laing such a towering +advantage over them all. "An authority like Prestwich," who "cannot be +accused of theological bias," influenced, however, by a servile +astronomical bias, "reduces to 20,000 years a period to which Lyell and +modern geologists assign a duration of more than 200,000 years;" [95] +which "shows in what a state of uncertainty we are as to this vitally +important problem;" for this time assigned by Prestwich "would be +clearly insufficient to allow for the development of Egyptian +civilization, as it existed 5,000 years ago, from savage and semi-animal +ancestors; as is _proved_ to be the case with the horse, stag, elephant, +ape," and so on. [96] Now Prestwich, we are told elsewhere, is "the +first living authority on the tertiary and quaternary strata." [97] If, +then, astronomical prepossession can reduce 200,000 to 20,000 years, the +sin of theology, which reduces 20,000 to 7,000 is comparatively venial. +Prestwich's two objections are (1) the data of astronomy, and (2) "the +difficulty of conceiving that man could have existed for 80,000 or +100,000 years without change and without progress." The former is "only +one degree less mischievous than the theological prepossession." +However, Prestwich has some "facts" as well as prepossessions, such as +"the rapid advance of the glaciers of Greenland,"[98] which does not +accord with the generalization from the Swiss glaciers;[99] and the +quicker erosion of river valleys, due to a greater rainfall; facts +which, however, are met by "a _minute description_ of the successive +changes by which in post-glacial time the Mersey valley and estuary were +brought into their present condition, with an estimate of the time they +may have required;" which is "in round numbers 60,000 years," as opposed +to Prestwich's 10,000 or 8,000. [100] The 200,000 years for the ice-age +depends chiefly on Croll's theory of secular variation of the earth's +orbitular eccentricity; but we are told it is open to the "objection +that it requires us to assume a periodical succession of glacial epochs" +of which two or three "must have occurred during each of the great +geological epochs. [101] This is opposed to geological evidence." "'Not +proven' is the verdict which most geologists would return." "The +confidence with which Croll's theory was first received has been a good +deal shaken." "We have to fall back, therefore, on the geological +evidence of deposition and denudation ... in any attempt to decide +between the 200,000 years of Lyell and the 20,000 years of +Prestwich." [102] + +As to his arguments based on ancient human remains, their value depends +first on the accuracy of his geological conclusions, and then on +preclusion of all possibility of the conveyance of the remains from +upper strata to lower; on the certainty, moreover, of traces of design +in many of the would-be miocene or tertiary flint instruments (which +Prestwich is doubtful about).[103] He takes care not to tell us that the +Carstadt skull which gives name to a race, is a very doubtfully genuine +relic of one hundred and thirty years old, whose history is most +dubious. His evidence for the absence of the slightest approximation to +the simian type even in the oldest relics is cheering to the theologian, +though it loses its value when we know it is in the interests of his +foregone conclusions as to the unspeakable antiquity of man. The Nampe +image, the oldest relic yet discovered, "revolutionizes our conception +of this early palaeolithic age," being a "more artistic and better +representation of the human form than the little idols of many +comparatively modern and civilized people," very like those in Mexico, +"believed to be not much older than the date of the Spanish +conquest"--"and in truth, I believe, contemporaneous." [104] + +As to his treatment of the Bible, it evinces everywhere the crudest +anthropomorphic method of interpretation such as we should expect to +find in a child or very ignorant person. In truth, Mr. Laing is in a +perfectly childish state of mind both as regards the Christian religion +and as regards philosophy, sciences, and all the subjects he dabbles +with. + +For our own part we have at most a general idea as to what exactly the +Church does teach or may teach with regard to the interpretation of the +Scripture. That she has so far acquiesced in the larger interpretation +of Genesiacal cosmogony, that now the literal six-day theory would be +very unsafe, forbids us to judge any present interpretation of other +parts by the number, noise, or notoriety of its adherents. The +universality of the Deluge is by no means the only tolerable +interpretation now; though the doctrine of a partial deluge would have +been most unsafe a century ago. All this does not mean giving up the +inspiration of the record, but determining gradually what is meant by +inspiration and the record. What could be less important to Christian +dogma than the date of the Deluge or of Adam's creation? If it were +proved that the original text _in this point_ had been hopelessly +corrupted, as the discrepancies between the LXX. numbers and the Hebrew +hint to be true to some extent, it would not touch the guaranteed +integrity of Christian dogma. If Christ is the "son" of David, and +Zachaeus is "son" of Abraham, what period may not an apparent single +generation stand for, especially in regard to the earlier Patriarchs? As +far as the prophetic import of the Deluge is concerned, a very small +local affair might be mystically large with foreshadowings, as we see +with regard to the enacted prophecies of the later prophets. For the +rest, we are quite weary of Mr. Laing, and are content to have shown +that everywhere he is the same biassed, inconsequent, untrustworthy +writer. His only power is a certain superficial clearness of diction and +brilliancy of style, and this is brought to bear on a mass of +information drawn confessedly from the labours of others, and selected +in the interest of a foregone conclusion, without a single attempt at a +fair presentment of the other side. + +Here, then, we have a very fair specimen of the pseudo-philosophy which +is so admirably adapted to captivate the half-informed, wholly unformed +minds of the undiscriminating multitudes who have been taught little or +nothing well except to believe in their right, duty, and ability to +judge for themselves in matters for which a life-time of specialization +were barely sufficient. A congeries of dogmatic assertions and negations +raked together from the chief writers of a decadent school, discredited +twenty years ago by all men of thought, Christian or otherwise; a show +of logical order and reasoning which evades our grasp the instant we try +to lay critical hands on it; a profuse expression of disinterested +devotion to abstract truth, an occasional bow to conventional morality, +a racy, irreverent style, an elaborate display of miscellaneous +information; good paper, large type, cheap wood-cuts, and the work is +done. + +_Oct. Nov._ 1895. + + + +[Footnote 1: M.S. 319.] + +[Footnote 2: Ibid. 319.] + +[Footnote 3: M.S. 229, 230.] + +[Footnote 4: P.F. 279.] + +[Footnote 5: P.F. 280] + +[Footnote 6: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 7: P.F. 281, 282.] + +[Footnote 8: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 9: Ibid. 210.] + +[Footnote: 10 M.S. Preface] + +[Footnote 11: "These subjects ... have been to me the solace of a long +life, the delight of _many quiet days_, and the soother of many troubled +ones ... a source of enjoyment. + + "'The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, + The guardian of my heart, and soul + Of all my moral being.'" (H.O. 3.)] + +[Footnote: 12 M.S. 319.] + +[Footnote: 13 Ibid. 320.] + +[Footnote: 14 Cf. Ibid. 104, 282.] + +[Footnote 15: This expression seems inconsistent with his here and +elsewhere explicit maintenance of the hereditary transmission of +gathered moral experiences. He means here to exclude innate ideas of +morality as explained by Kant and by other intuitionists.] + +[Footnote 16: M.S. 180.] + +[Footnote 17: M.S. 285.] + +[Footnote 18: M.S. 216.] + +[Footnote 19: M.S. 294.] + +[Footnote 20: M.S. 298, 299.] + +[Footnote 21: P.F. 297. "The truth is that morals are built on a far +surer foundation than that of creeds, which are here to-day and gone +to-morrow. They are built on the solid rock of experiences, and of the +'survival of the fittest,' which in the long evolution of the human race +from primeval savages, have by 'natural selection' and 'heredity' become +almost instinctive." (How careless is this terminology. In the previous +page he denies morality to be a matter of hereditary instinct.)] + +[Footnote 22: P.F. 206.] + +[Footnote 23: Ibid. 207.] + +[Footnote 24: P.P. 204.] + +[Footnote 25: M.S. Preface.] + +[Footnote 26: H.O. 3.] + +[Footnote 27: P.P. 3.] + +[Footnote 28: "The simple undoubting faith which for ages has been the +support and consolation of a large portion of mankind, especially of the +weak, the humble, the unlearned, who form an immense majority, cannot +disappear without a painful wrench, and leaving for a time a great blank +behind." (M.S. 284.)] + +[Footnote 29: xxxiii.] + +[Footnote 30: M.S. 261.] + +[Footnote 31: P.F. 176.] + +[Footnote 32: P. 177.] + +[Footnote 33: P.F. 192.] + +[Footnote 34: P. 245.] + +[Footnote 35: P.F. 222.] + +[Footnote 36: Thus he assumes Mr. Spurgeon's definition of inspiration +as the basis of operations (See H.O. 189), and says, "It is perfectly +obvious that for those who accept these confessions of faith ... all the +discoveries of modern science, from Galileo and Newton down to Lyall and +Darwin, are simple delusions."] + +[Footnote 37: M.S. 215.] + +[Footnote 38: Ibid. 251.] + +[Footnote 39: "The _simplest straightforward evidence_ of the _earliest_ +Christian writer who gives any account of their origin, viz., Papias." +(P.F. 236.) "What does Papias say? Practically this: that he preferred +oral tradition to written documents.... This is a _perfectly clear_ and +_intelligible_ statement made apparently in good faith without any +dogmatic or other prepossession.... It has always seemed to me that all +theories ... were comparatively worthless which did not take into +account _the fundamental fact_ of this statement of Papias." (238.) "The +_clear_ and _explicit_ statement of Papias." (250.)] + +[Footnote 40: PP. 258--260.] + +[Footnote 41: P. 262.] + +[Footnote 42: P.F. 266.] + +[Footnote 43: With regard to this "very precise statement," it is +noticeable that Matthew speaks of "Mary the mother of James and Joses;" +Mark, of "Mary the mother of James the less and of Joseph and Salome," +but not "of Salome." If Mr. Laing's precise mind had looked for a moment +at the text he was criticizing he would have seen that Salome is a +common name in the nominative case. St. Luke does not give the names of +the women at all. These points are trifling in themselves, but important +as evidencing Mr. Laing's standard of intellectual conscientiousness.] + +[Footnote 44: P.F. 235] + +[Footnote 45: M.S. 332 ff.] + +[Footnote 46: H.O. 2.] + +[Footnote 47: H.O. 8.] + +[Footnote 48: H.O. II] + +[Footnote 49: H.O. 9 and 199.] + +[Footnote 50: H.O. 10.] + +[Footnote 51: This seems, later, to be an inference, not an assertion. +"Manetho was a learned priest of a celebrated temple, who _must have +had_ access to all the temples and royal records and other literature of +Egypt, and who _must have been_ also conversant with foreign literature +to have been selected as the best man to write a complete history of his +native country." (H.O. 22.)] + +[Footnote 52: He seems to think that Josephus was a Christian, and +Syncellus a "Father." We might mention that from the fragments of +Africanus' _Pentabiblion Chronicon_, preserved in Eusebius, the author +places the Creation at 5499 B.C., which is certainly hardly compatible +with his giving such fragments of Manetho as would place Menes one year +before that date. If we know nothing of Manetho's results except through +these "orthodox" sources, it is inconceivable that Mr. Laing's version +of them should have any historical basis whatever. It comes in fine to +this, that because their report of Manetho does not give Mr. Laing what +he wants, they have been tampered with.] + +[Footnote 53: H.O. 11.] + +[Footnote 54: H.O. 22.] + +[Footnote 55: H.O. 17.] + +[Footnote 56: H.O. 42.] + +[Footnote 57: "There can be no doubt, moreover, that this Sargon I. is a +perfectly historical personage. _A statue of him has been found at +Agade."_ (H.O. 55.)] + +[Footnote 58: M.S. 50.] + +[Footnote 59: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 60: P.F. 28.] + +[Footnote 61: M.S. 61.] + +[Footnote 62: "Matter is made of molecules; molecules are made of atoms; +atoms are little magnets which link themselves together and form all the +complex creations of an ordered cosmos [an ordered order] by virtue of +the attractive and repulsive forces which are the result of polarity." +(P.F, 223.)] + +[Footnote 63: We suppose he has a right to call himself _agnostic_ as +being a disciple of Professor Huxley, who, we believe, started or +revived the term in our own times. Of course he is also a dogmatic +materialist, and by no means an "agnostic" in the wider sense of general +scepticism.] + +[Footnote 64: M.S. 171.] + +[Footnote 65: "Not only have no missing links been discovered, but the +oldest known human skulls and skeletons, which date from the glacial +period and are probably at least one hundred thousand years old, show no +very decided approximation towards any such pre-human type. On the +contrary," &c. (M.S. 181.) He replies (H.O. 373) that "five hundred +thousand years prior to these men of Spy and Neanderthal, the human race +has existed in higher physical perfection, nearer to the existing type +of modern man," (Cf. P.F. 158.)] + +[Footnote 66: M.S. 112, 114.] + +[Footnote 67: P.F. 154.] + +[Footnote 68: P.F. 154.] + +[Footnote 69: M.S. 175.] + +[Footnote 70: The horse "may be taken as the typical instance of descent +by progressive specialization. What is a horse? It is essentially an +animal specialized for ... the rapid progression of a bulky body over +plains or deserts" [a definition which applies equally to the camel, +&c.]. It commenced existence as a "pentadactyle plantigrade bunodont." +For some indefined reason "the first step was to walking on the toes +instead of on the flat of the foot, ... which became general in most +lines of their descendants. For galloping on hard ground _it is evident_ +that one strong and long toe, protected by a solid hoof, was more +serviceable than four short and weak toes." [But why should it gallop +more than other animals; or why on the _hard_ ground in the deserts and +plains; or would not _four_ strong and long toes have been better than +one?] "The coalescence of the toes is the fundamental fact in the +progress ... by which the primitive bunodont was converted into the +modern horse." But we thought evolution was a change from the +homogeneous, incoherent to the heterogeneous and coherent: surely the +change from five toes to one must have been a misfortune on the whole, +if the flexibility of the human hand accounts for man's intellect. The +advantages of a convenient gallop over occasional oases of hard ground +in the desert would hardly balance that of being able to climb trees. +(P.F. 143.)] + +[Footnote 71: Cf. P.F. 151.] + +[Footnote 72: M.S. 180.] + +[Footnote 73: "A wide gap which has never been bridged over." (Huxley, +P.F. 150.)] + +[Footnote 74: But cf. M.S. 181. "Attempt after attempt has been made to +find some fundamental characters in the human brain, on which to base a +generic distinction between man and the brute creation." (P.F. 149.)] + +[Footnote 75: Cf. "It is probable, therefore, that this (drill-friction) +was the original mode of obtaining fire, but if so it must have required +a good deal of intelligence and observation, for the discovery is by no +means an obvious one." (M.S. 204.)] + +[Footnote 76: P.F. 153.] + +[Footnote 77: P.F. 135.] + +[Footnote 78: "The inference, therefore, to be drawn alike from the +physical development of the individual man and from the origin and +growth" [as though he had explained their origin] "of all the faculties +which specially distinguish him from the brute creation, ... all point to +the conclusion that he is the product of evolution." (M.S. 210.) "Man +... whose higher faculties of intelligence and morality are _so clearly_ +... the products of evolution and education." (M.S. 182.)] + +[Footnote 79: H.O. 260.] + +[Footnote 80: M.S. 48.] + +[Footnote 81: P.F. 17.] + +[Footnote 82: P.F. 17, 18. "The conclusion is therefore certain that the +land at this particular spot must have sunk twenty feet, and again risen +as much so as to bring the floor of the temple to its present position, +&c. Similar proofs may be multiplied to any extent.... In fact the more +we study geology the more we are impressed with the fact that the normal +states of the earth is and always has been one of incessant changes." +(M.S. 35--9.)] + +[Footnote 83: i.e., Lyell says: Present causes could give these effects, +given the time. Laing says: Therefore, since they have given these +effects, we must suppose the time.] + +[Footnote 84: P.F. 18] + +[Footnote 85: P.F. 74.] + +[Footnote 86: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 87: P.F. 20.] + +[Footnote 88: M.S. 34, 41.] + +[Footnote 89: P.F. 6.] + +[Footnote 90: P.F. 23.] + +[Footnote 91: M.S. 46.] + +[Footnote 92: P.F. 24.] + +[Footnote 93: P.F. 32.] + +[Footnote 94: P.F. 66.] + +[Footnote 95: "Thus giving to palaeolithic man no greater antiquity than +perhaps about 20,000 to 30,000 years, while, should he be restricted to +the so-called post-glacial period, the antiquity need not go back +further than from 10,000 to 15,000 years before the time of neolithic +man." (57.)] + +[Footnote 96: P.F. 67.] + +[Footnote 97: M.S. 109.] + +[Footnote 98: Prestwich evinces the same recalcitrance according to the +_Nineteenth Century_, December 4, 1894, p. 961, being one of the +geologists of high standing "who have lately come to believe in some +sudden and extensive submergence of continental dimensions in very +recent times."] + +[Footnote 99: 74.] + +[Footnote 100: P.F. 84.] + +[Footnote 101: P.F. 69, 70.] + +[Footnote 102: P.F. 70.] + +[Footnote 103: H.O. 364.] + +[Footnote 104: H.O. 388.] + + + +XXI. + + +"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." + +Some twelve years since we read Mr. Tylor's well-known and able work on +_Primitive Culture_, and were much impressed with the evident +fair-mindedness and courageous impartiality which distinguished the +author so notably from the Clodds, the Allens, the Laings, and other +popularizers of the uncertain results of evolution-philosophy. For this +very reason we made a careful analysis of the whole work, and more +particularly of his "animistic" hypothesis, and laid it aside, waiting, +according to our wont, for further light bearing upon a difficulty +wherewith we felt ourselves then incompetent to deal. This further light +has been to some extent supplied to us by Mr. Andrew Lang's _Making of +Religion_, which deals mainly with that theory of animism which is +propounded by Mr. Tylor, and unhesitatingly accepted, dogmatically +preached, and universally assumed, by the crowd of sciolists who follow +like jackals in the lion's wake. Without denying the value of our +conceptions of God and of the human soul, Mr. Tylor believes that these +conceptions, however true in themselves, originated on the part of +primitive man in fallacious reasoning from the data of dreams and of +like states of illusory vision. He assumes, perhaps with some truth, +that the distinction between dream and reality is more faintly marked in +the less developed mind; in the child than in the adult, in the savage +than in the civilized man. Hence a belief arises in a filmy phantasmal +self that wanders abroad in sleep and leaves the body untenanted, and +meets and converses with other phantasmal selves. Nor is it hard to see +how death, being viewed as a permanent sleep, should be ascribed to the +final abandonment of the body by its "dream-stuff" occupant. Whether as +dreaded or loved or both, this ever-gathering crowd of disembodied +spirits wins for itself a certain _cultus_ of praise and propitiation, +and reverence, and is humoured with food-offerings and similar +sacrifices. Nor is it long before the form of an earthly polity is +transferred to that unearthly city of the dead, till for one reason or +another some jealous ghost gains a monarchic supremacy over his +brethren, and thus polytheism gives place to monotheism. It need not be +that this supreme deity is always conceived as a defunct ancestor, once +embodied, but no longer in the body. Rather it would seem that the +primitive savage, having once arrived at the conception of a ghost, +passes by generalization to that of incorporeal beings unborn and +undying, of spirits whose presence and power is revealed in stocks and +stones, or in idols shaped humanwise--spirits who preside over trees, +rivers, and elements, over species and classes and departments of +Nature, over tribes and peoples and nations; until, as before, the +struggle for existence or some other cause gives supremacy to some one +god fittest to survive either through being more conceivable, or more +powerful, or in some other way more popular than the rest of the +pantheon. + +Again, it is assumed that the gods of primitive man are non-ethical, +that they do not "make for righteousness;" that they are at most jealous +powers to be feared and propitiated. When the savage speaks of a god as +good, he only means "favourable to me," "on my side;" he does not mean +"good to me if I am good." God is conceived first as power and force; +then as non-moral wisdom, or cunning, and only in the very latest +developments as holy and just and loving. + +Starting with the assumptions of evolutionists, the theory is plausible +enough. Nor is it inconceivable that God, without using error and evil +directly as a means to truth and good, should passively permit error for +the sake of the truth that He foresees will come out of it. Astrology +was not incipient astronomy; nor was alchemy primitive chemistry; the +end and aim in each case was wholly different. Yet the pseudo-science +gave birth to the true; as false premisses often lead by bad logic to +sound conclusions. Totemism, "a perfectly crazy and degrading belief," +says Mr. Lang, "rendered possible--nay, inevitable--the union of hostile +groups into large and relatively peaceful tribal societies.... We should +never have educated the world thus; and we do not see why it should have +been thus done. But we are very anthropomorphic, and totally ignorant of +the conditions of the problem." In like manner it might have been, that +God willed to let men wander through the slums and backways of animism +into the open road of theism. + +But our concern is not with what might have been, but with what was. + +Mr. Lang contends, first, that belief in spirits and in a circumambient +spiritual world, more probably originated in certain real or imaginary +experiences of supernormal phenomena, than in a fallacious explanation +of dreams; then, that belief in a supreme god is most probably not +derived from or dependent upon belief in ghosts. + +Consistently with the whole trend of his thought in his recent work +connected with psychical research, in _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, in +_Cock-Lane and Common-Sense_, Mr. Lang begins by entering a protest +against the attitude observed towards the subject by contemporary +science, especially by anthropology, which, as having been so lately "in +the same condemnation," might be expected to show itself superior to +that injustice which it had itself so much reason to complain of. Yet +anthropology, abandoning the first principles of modern science, still +refuses to listen to the facts alleged by psychical research, and +justifies its refusal on Hume's oft-exploded fallacy, namely, on an _a +priori_ conviction of their impossibility and therefore of their +non-occurrence. + +However wide the range of experience upon which physical generalizations +are based, it can never be so wide as on this score alone to prove the +inherent possibility of exceptions; more especially when we consider the +confinement of the human race to what is relatively a momentary +existence on a whirling particle of dust in a sandstorm. There may +indeed be abundant evidence of a certain impetus or tendency enduring +from a comparatively distant and indefinite past and making for an +equally indefinite future; but there is not, cannot be evidence against +the possibility of interference from other laws whose paths, at points +unknown and incalculable, intersect those followed by the (to us) +ordinary course of events. + +And in this wholesome agnosticism we are confirmed when we see that +while some animals are deprived of certain senses which we possess, and +all of them of the gift of reason, others are apparently endowed with +senses unknown to us, and are taught by seeming instincts which surpass +what reason could effect; whence we may infer that the likelihood of our +being _en rapport_ with the greater part of the _possible_ phenomena +amidst which we live, or of our possessing all possible senses or the +best of those possible, is infinitely small. What a magician a man with +eyes would be among a race of sightless men; or a man with ears among a +deaf population! How studiously would the scientists explain the effects +of sight as produced by subtilty of hearing; and those of hearing as due +to abnormal sensitiveness in some other respect! + +But though there be no _a priori_ impossibility in deviations from the +beaten track, yet there is a certain _a priori_ improbability which may +seem to justify those who refuse to go into alleged instances of the +supernormal. There is a story against Thomas Aquinas, that on being +invited by a frisky brother-monk to come and see a cow flying, or some +such marvel, he gravely came and saw not, but expressed himself far more +astounded at the miracle that a religious man should say "the thing +which was not." This is certainly a glorious antithesis to Hume's +position. Whether we take it to illustrate the Saint's extreme lack of +humour, or a subtler depth of humour veiled under stolidity, or his +rigorous veracity, or his guileless confidence in the veracity of +others, we certainly cannot approve it as an example of the attitude we +ought to observe with regard to every newly recounted marvel. Truly +there might be more liberality, more enlightenment, more imagination in +such a ready credulity, than in the wall-eyed, ear-stopping scepticism +of popular science; but the mere inner possibility of a recounted marvel +does not oblige us to search into the matter unless the evidence offered +bear some reasonable proportion to the burden it has to support. That +this is the case as regards crystal-gazing, telepathy, possession, and +kindred manifestation, is what Mr. Lang contends; nor would he have any +quarrel with the anthropologists were they not fully impressed with the +importance of similar or even weaker cumulative evidence for conclusions +which happen to be in harmony with their preconceived hypotheses. Where +such evidence exists it must be faced, and at least its existence must +be explained. + +True criticism should either account for the seeming breach of +uniformity, by reducing it to law; or else should show how the assertion +if false ever gained credence; but in no case is it scientific to put +aside, on an _a priori_ assumption, evidence that is offered from all +sides in great abundance. Psychic research is daily applying to that +tangled mass of world-wide evidence ancient and modern for the existence +of an X-region of experience, those same critical and historical +principles which created modern science. Men who, as often as not, have +no religion or no superstition themselves, see that both religion and +superstition are universal phenomena, and cannot be neglected by those +who would study humanity historically and scientifically. Even if there +be nothing in hallucinations, apparitions, scrying, second-sight, +poltergeists, and the rest, there is a great deal in the fact that +belief in these things is as wide and as old as the world; it is a fact +to be explained. "Each man," says Meister, "commonly defends himself as +long as possible from casting out the idols which he worships in his +soul; from acknowledging a master-error, and admitting any truth that +brings him to despair;" and indeed a system as complete and compact as +that of Mr. Spencer or Mr. Tylor is apt to become an intellectual idol +forbidding under pain of infidelity all inquiries that might cause it to +totter on its throne, or which might unravel in an instant what has been +woven by years of hard and honest thought. Few of us are in a position +to cast stones on this score; still, recognizing the weakness more +clearly in others than in ourselves, we are justified in reckoning with +it, and in discounting for the unwillingness of men of science to listen +to facts inconsistent with long-cherished theories, and for their +tendency to accumulate and magnify evidence on the other side. "If the +facts not fitting their theories are little observed by authorities so +popular as Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer; if _instantiae contradictoriae_ +are ignored by them, or left vague; if these things are done in the +green tree, we may easily imagine what shall be done in the dry. But we +need not war with hasty _vulgarisateurs_ and headlong theorists." + +We cannot for a moment question the sincerity of purpose and honesty of +intention of many of the leaders of modern scientific enlightenment, +whatever we may think of the said crowd of _vulgarisateurs_--those +camp-followers who bring disgrace on every respectable cause. But beside +wilful bias and unfairness, there is unconscious bias from which none of +us are free, but from which we need to be delivered by mutual criticism; +for, however much a man can see of himself, he can never get behind his +own back. Of such unwitting dishonesty men of thought are abundantly +guilty, when deeming themselves to be governed only by reason, they are +in fact slaves to some intellectual fashion of the day. Not one of them +in a thousand would dare to appear in public with the clothes of last +century, or to face the laughter of a crowd of his compeers. Hence a +certain indocility and rigidness of mind which they only escape who live +out of the fashion or have strength to lead it or to live above it. +Simple, whether from greatness or littleness, they escape the narrowing +influence inseparable from being identified, even in their own mind, +with a school or coterie; and can afford to say things as they see them. + +Contemporary fashion says at present that there are to be no miracles, +nothing supernormal; whatever cannot be reduced in any way to known laws +and causes can be flatly denied, for the supposition of unknown causes +and laws is rank heresy. Until more recent years, it was not permitted +to listen to or show any disposition to investigate the narratives of +phenomena which have since been "explained" and reduced to such +legalized causes as hysteria or hypnotism, and even (of late) to +thought-transference. But since this happy reconciliation has been +effected, such stories are allowed to be believed on ordinary evidence, +although the accounts of other "unclassed" supernormal marvels coming +from the same lips with the same attestation are still brushed aside as +traveller's tales, or as the puerilities of hagiography--not worth a +thought. One would think that some kind of apology or reparation were +due to ecclesiastical tradition, which was credited with wholesale lying +so long as its recorded wonders were classed among impossibilities by +the intellectual fashion-mongers, but it seems we have only partly +escaped the reproach of knavery to incur that of wholesale folly for not +having seen that these apparent miracles were but forms of hysteria or +hypnotism. + +Yet what is hysteria and what does it really explain? [1] Surely the +etymology throws no light on the subject! Is it then merely a name for +the unknown cause of phenomena every whit as strange as those which were +held incredible till their like had been actually witnessed and forced +upon the unwilling eyes of science beyond all possibility of denial? Is +it that science blindly refused even to weigh the evidence for abnormal +facts till the same or similar had become matters of personal +observation? Is it that every reported breach of her assumed +uniformities is incredible, because impossible, until the possibility +has been proved by some fact which is then named, erected into a class, +a cause, a law, and used to explain away similar facts formerly denied, +and is thus taken into that bundle of generalizations called the "laws +of nature"? The ancients assumed all heavenly motion to be circular of +necessity, and where facts gave against them, they patched the matter up +with an epicycle or two. Are not hysteria, hypnotism, and +thought-transference of the nature of epicycles? It is now confessed +that the mind can so affect and dominate the body as to produce blisters +and wounds by mere force of suggestion and expectancy; that a like +"faith" can cure, not only such ailments as are clearly connected with +the nerves, but others where such connection is not yet traceable. And +this is supposed to tell in some way against like marvels reported by +hagiology, as though they were explained by being observed and named. +Yet what did that supposed marvellousness consist in, except in a +seeming revelation of the power and superiority of mind over matter, and +of things unseen over things seen and palpable; and in proving that +there were more wonders in heaven and earth than were dreamt of by a +crude and self-satisfied materialism? They were taken as evidence of a +circumambient X-region where the laws of mechanics were set at defiance +and where the fetters of time and place were loosened or cast aside. +Such an X-region being supposed by every supernatural religion and +denied by most of those who deny religion, and on the same grounds, its +establishment by any kind of experiment is rightly considered in some +sort to make for religion. Indeed, it is just on this account that the +evidence for it is so opposed by those who are pre-occupied by the +anti-religious bias of contemporary science. But unless hysterical +effects can be shown to be ultimately due, not to mind, but to matter +acting on matter, according to methods approved by materialism, hysteria +remains a word-cause and no more, like the meat-cooking quality of the +roasting-jack. + +Hypnotism is a kindred cause in every way. It means sleep-ism; yet +manifestly it deals with characteristics which are utterly unlike those +of sleep; and it is precisely these that need to be explained away in +conformity with received laws, unless we are to find in these phenomena +evidence of such modes of being and operation as every kind of religion +postulates. "Possession" is of course a fable; the superabundant +world-wide, world-old evidence for the phenomenon was thrust aside +without a glance, till hypnotic experiments brought to light what is +called "alternating personality." As though this name had explained +everything in accordance with materialism, forthwith it was permitted to +believe the aforesaid evidence, provided one laughed loudly enough at +the theory of "possession." It is allowed that the hypnotic patient may +in some sense be said to be "possessed" by the hypnotiser for the time +being; nay, even a certain chronic possession of this kind is +observable. But an invisible hypnotiser and possession by a disembodied +spirit is still out of fashion, notwithstanding all Mrs. Piper's efforts +and Dr. Hodgson's audacious declaration of his not very willing belief +that those who speak through her "are veritably the personalities they +claim to be, and that they have survived the change we call death." + +Thought-transference, however, promises to be a potent and popular +solvent of psychic problems. Thought-transference was a supremely +ludicrous supposition till comparatively recently; nor could there be +any credible testimony for what was known antecedently to be quite +impossible. But some way or other, facts which demanded a name were +forced upon the direct observation of science, and so Mr. F. Podmore has +written a book in which, assuming thought-transference to be a +scientifically recognized possibility, he proceeds to reduce many of the +marvels collected by the S.P.R. to that simple and obvious cause, and to +reject the residue on the sound old principle that what is known to be +impossible cannot be true. Hallucinations, solitary and collective, and +other perplexing instances are tortured into cases of thought-transfer +with an ingenuity which we should smile at in a mediaeval scholastic +explaining the universe by the four elements and the four temperaments. +But is not thought-transference itself lamentably unscientific? No; +because we see that unconnected magnets affect one another +sympathetically; and the brain being a sort of magnet may well affect +distant brains. Thought is a kind of electricity, and electricity, if +not exactly a fluid, yet may some day be liquefied and bottled. At all +events, science has seen something very remotely analogous to +thought-transference and every whit as unintelligible and antecedently +incredible till observed; and therefore it is permissible to listen to +the evidence for it, and forced thereto, to accept the fact. + +But have we really disposed of ghosts if we prove the appearance to be +caused by a subjective modification of the perceiver's sensorium and not +by a modification of the external medium--the air or the ether? Since it +is a question of a spiritual substance independent of spatial dimensions +and relations, said to be present only so far and where its effects and +manifestations are present, what does it matter whether it reports +itself by an effect outside or inside the percipient--whether it be a +"vision sensible to feeling, as to sight," or but "a false creation +proceeding from a heat-oppressed brain"? Is not this very distinction of +outside and inside in the matter of perceptions open to no slight +ambiguity? The savage, familiar with the electric sparks caused by the +friction of deer-skins, ascribes the _aurora borealis_ to the friction +of a jostling herd of celestial deer. "Nonsense," says science, after +centuries of false hypotheses, "it is nothing more nor less than +electricity." This is very much the way she is dealing with the +supernormal at present; brushing aside as wholly nonsensical, beliefs +that envelope a core of useful fact in a wrapping of crude explanation, +and then receiving the same facts as new discoveries, because she has +fitted them into an involucre more to her own liking, though perhaps but +little less crude. "Not deer-skin," says science, "but amber; not +miracle, but faith-cure; not prophetic insight, but thought-transference; +not apparition, but hallucination." And so with the rest. + +Considering then the bias of the dominant scientific school, which makes +it refuse even to examine the carefully gathered evidence of the S.P.R.; +we need not wonder if the reports of travellers concerning the existence +of like phenomena among savages and barbarians all over the world are +dismissed with a certain _a priori_ superciliousness. Yet surely, on +evolutionist principles, the only possible clue to the mode in which +belief in spirits and in God may have originated with "primitive man," +is the mode in which those beliefs are actually now sustained, and, so +to say, "proved" by the most primitive specimens of existing humanity; +by, for example, those bushmen of Australia whose facial angle and +cerebral capacity is supposed to leave no room for much difference +between their mind and that of the higher anthropoids. Doubtless it is +hard to get anything like scientific evidence out of people so +uncultivated, whose language and modes of conception are so alien to our +own. Individual travellers, moreover, have been the victims of their own +credulity, stupidity, self-conceit, and prejudice. "But the best +testimony of the truth of the reports as to the actual belief in the +facts, is the undesigned coincidence of the evidence from all quarters. +When the stories brought by travellers, ancient and modern, learned and +unlearned, pious or sceptical, agree in the main, we have all the +certainty that anthropology can offer." + +From this ever-growing mass of evidence, it would appear that the +universal belief among savages in a spirit-world is mainly strengthened +and sustained, not by the phenomena of dreaming but by what Mr. Spencer +would call "alleged" supernormal manifestations, such as those of +clairvoyance, crystal-gazing, apparitions, miracles, prophecies, +possession, and the like. For belief in such marvels exists beyond +doubt, and furnishes a very obvious and logical basis for the further +belief in the invisible causes of these visible effects; nor should we +have recourse to an hypothetical and more indirect explanation of belief +in a spirit-world when an actual and direct explanation is at hand. If +we see the branch growing out of the tree, we need not inquire what +trunk it sprang from, unless we have strong evidence that it is only a +graft. All investigation tends to show that savages believe in spirits +and in the spirit-world because they witness, or firmly believe they +witness, supernormal phenomena. + +Besides this, it must be allowed that together with the _normal_ +phenomena of dreaming, there are abnormal dreams which even to +cultivated minds seem at times as supernormal as second-sight or +prophecy. But it is not on supernormal, but on normal dreams that +animists base their explanation. We need not deny that dreams and +delirium may have given palpable shape to the conception of a ghost, and +may also have helped forward the notion of a spirit by furnishing +something intermediary between the grossness of our waking +sense-experiences, and the altogether elusive and difficult thought of +unembodied will and intelligence independent of space and time. + +In the main then it seems more plausible to maintain that the idea of +unembodied or disembodied spirits was shaped by that instinctive law of +our mind which makes us argue from the nature of effects to the nature +of the agency. The first impulse would be to ascribe every intelligent +effect to some human agency, but other circumstances would subsequently +incline the savage reluctantly to divest the agent of one or more of the +limitations of humanity, and to clothe him with preter-human attributes. +Nearly all the supernormal phenomena believed in by primitive man--so +far as we can judge of him from contemporary savagery--would suggest the +agency of an invisible man; clairvoyance, and other manifestations of +preternatural knowledge, would suggest independence of the senses in the +acquisition of knowledge; every kind of "miracle" would bespeak an +extension of power over physical nature beyond human wont; while all +these together would point to that freedom from the trammels of space +and time, which is of the very essence of immaterial or spiritual +subsistence. Thus, by a gradual process of dehumanization, the mind +would be instinctively led from the notion of a man magnified in all +excellences and refined from all limitations, to the conception of +spirit. But coexistently with this progress of the reason, the +imagination would ever strain to clothe the thought in bodily form as +far as possible, and would cling to the notions suggested by dreams and +waking hallucinations, while language, after its wont, would speak of +the spirit as the _umbra_, the _imago_, the shadow, the breath, the +attenuated replica of the body. Thus we find among all men, savage and +civilized, a certain unsteadiness in their notion of spirit, whether +created or divine--a continual tendency to corruption and +anthropomorphism, due to the conflict between reason and imagination, +resulting so often in the domination of the latter. + +For this view of the subject it is not necessary that we should admit +the preternatural character of the phenomena which form the +subject-matter of psychical research, but only that we should +acknowledge the hardly disputable fact that belief in such marvels is +universal and persistent among savages--a fact which science is bound by +its own principles to explain, and not to ignore. Whether, as Mr. Lang +seems inclined to think, among much illusion, chicanery, and ignorance, +there may not be truth enough to make the inference of an X-world +legitimate, whether the said universality, persistence, and +recrudescence of this seeming credulity can be accounted for in any +other satisfactory way, is a further consideration. If in some dim +fashion the Northern Indians anticipated modern science in their +explanation of the _aurora borealis_, connecting it with familiar +electric manifestations, may it not be, asks Mr. Lang, that in their +inference from supernormal facts which experimental science refuses to +hear of or to examine, they have again been sagaciously beforehand? +Doubtless their explanation is crude and inadequate in both cases; but +is it much more so than that offered by supposing electricity to be a +fluid subject to currents; or by assigning many inexplicable psychic +phenomena to "hysteria"--a mere word-cause? + +The supposition is somewhat favoured if we give ear to that crowd of +witnesses whose combined evidence, duly discounted and tested, makes it +clear that even among those who ought to have been civilized out of all +belief in aught behind the veil, the very same superstitions break out, +or creep in, time after time, with new names perhaps, new clothes, new +faces, but in substance identical with those held by what we esteem the +most benighted races. + +Further, it is evident that savages pay attention--over-attention, no +doubt--to these supernormal phenomena, being free from hostile +philosophic bias in the matter, and bent the other way; and that in +consequence they have everywhere observed, classified, and systematized +them in their own rude, simple way, and have thus forestalled what the +S.P.R., in the teeth of science, is now endeavouring to do +scientifically. With us, moreover, it is mere chance that reveals a +"medium," or hypnotic subject here and there: but with savages they are +sought out diligently, and all who have any latent aptitude that way are +detected and utilized; and thus the field of their experience is +considerably widened. + +But besides all this, it seems more than plausible to suppose that among +primitive and undeveloped races such preternatural phenomena either +occur, or seem to occur, much more frequently and extensively; and that +apparently supernormal faculties are more often developed. + +Nor can this be explained solely on the score of their readier credulity +and their lack of criticism; for there is good evidence to show that the +development of the rational and self-directive faculties is at the +sacrifice of those instinctive and intuitional modes of operation which +do duty for them while man is yet in a state of pupilage. Memory, for +example, is fresher and more assimilative in childhood, but deteriorates +very often as the higher faculties come into use; and indeed we cannot +fail to see how the introduction of printing, writing, and mnemonic arts +and artifices of all kinds, has lowered the average power of civilized +memory, and made the ordinary feats of more primitive times seem to us +magical and incredible. We also notice the high development of hearing, +sight, and other forms of perception among savages who live by their +five senses rather than by their wits. When we descend to the +animal-world we are confronted by cognitive faculties whose effects we +see, but of whose precise nature we can form no conjecture whatever. +That which guides the migratory birds in their wanderings, and simulates +polity in the bee-hive and ant-hill, is not reason, but is something for +practical purposes far better than reason. Putting a number of these and +of similar considerations together seems to suggest that development in +the direction of self-instruction (which is reason) and self-management +and independence, is loss as well as gain. + +What we gain is no doubt our own in a truer sense than that we had when +we hung upon Nature's breast, and were guided passively by instincts and +intuitions to purposes that reason can never reach to. + +By far the most wonderful and seemingly intelligent work of the soul is +that by which it builds up, nourishes, repairs, developes, and finally +reproduces the body it dwells in. Yet in all this it is almost as +passive and unconscious as a vegetable. The effect is (as far as our +comprehension of it goes) altogether preternatural and inexplicable; yet +it is far less _our_ effect than what we do by reason and by taking +thought. What we pay for in dignity we lose in efficiency. While Nature +carries us in her arms we move swiftly enough, but when she sets us on +our feet to learn independence and self-rule, we cut a sorry figure. In +our helplessness she does all for us as though we were yet part of her; +but in the measure that we are weaned and begin to fend for ourselves as +responsible agents, we are deprived of the aids and easements befitting +the childhood of our race. + +If this be true, if man in his primitive state possessed intuitive +powers which have sunk into abeyance, either through the diversion of +psychic energy to the development of other powers, or through desuetude, +or as the instincts of the new-born babe are lost when their brief +purpose is fulfilled; if the occasional recrudescence of these powers +among civilized peoples is really a survival of an earlier state; then +indeed we can understand that the evidence, or apparent evidence, for +the existence of an X-region, or spirit-world, may have been +immeasurably more abundant in the infancy of the human race, than it is +now even among contemporary savages. + +Put it how we will, it cannot be denied that belief in divination, in +diabolic possession, and in magic, has largely contributed to belief in +spirits; and that to ignore this contribution by throwing the whole +burden on ordinary dreams is unscientific. During sleep Mr. Tylor +himself is as much a prey to delusion as the most primitive savage; but +the criteria by which on waking we condemn _most_ of our dreams as +illusions, seem really as accessible and obvious to the child or savage +as to the philosopher; though the former through carelessness or poverty +of language will perhaps say: "I saw," instead of: "I dreamt I saw." +Children will speak as it were historically of even their day-dreams +and imaginings, not from any untruthfulness or wish to deceive, but from +that romancing tendency rightly reprehended in their elders, who should +be alive to the conventional value of language. But the first and most +natural use of speech is simply to express and embody the thought that +is in us, not to assert, or affirm, or to instruct others. The child's +romancing is not intended as assertion, although so taken by prosaic +adults. It is from the same instinct which lies at the back of his +eternal monologue, of the "Let's pretend" by which he is for the moment +transformed into a soldier, or a steam-engine, or a horse. Eye-reading +without articulation is impossible for the beginner, and thought that is +not talked and acted is impossible for the child. Yet deeply as the +child is wrapped up in his dreams, there is nothing more certain than +that he is as clear as any adult as to the difference between romance +and fact; and so it is no doubt with the savage, who can hardly be +denied to have at least as much reason as an average child. + +Closer study of the savage points to the conclusion that the civilized +man falls into the same error in his regard as many adults do with +respect to children, whom they fail hopelessly to interpret through lack +of imagination, and to whom they are but tedious and ridiculous when +they would fain be instructive and amusing; forgetting that the +difference between the two stages of life is rather in the size of the +toys played with, than in the way they are regarded. So too we are apt +to look on foreign, and still more on savage language, symbolism, ways, +and customs, as indicative of a far more radical difference and greater +inferiority of mental constitution and ethical instincts than really +exists. Mr. Kidd, in his book on Social Evolution, has contended with +some plausibility that the brain-power of the Bushman and of the Cockney +is much on a par at starting, and that the subsequent divergence is due +chiefly to education and moral training; and certainly much of the +evidence brought forward in Mr. Lang's volume seems to look that way. If +the aboriginal Australian has a faith in the immortality of the soul and +in a supreme God, the rewarder of righteousness, if he summarizes the +laws of God under the precept of unselfishness; if in all this he is but +a type of the universal savage, surely it were well if some of the +missionary zeal which is devoted to supplying the heathen with Bibles +which they cannot understand, were turned to the work of bringing our +own godless millions up to their religious level. + +But this takes us to the second and still more interesting part of _The +Making of Religion_, which we shall have to discuss in the next section. +At present we only wish to insist that it is a mistake to assume that +because savages and children are, when compared with ourselves, so +little, therefore their thoughts and ideas can be understood with little +difficulty. Contrariwise, as the apparent difference in life and +language is greater, the deeper and more patient investigation will it +need to detect that radical sameness of mental and moral constitution +which binds men together far more than diversity of education and +environment can ever separate them. It is, therefore, exceedingly +unlikely that either the child or the savage should, by failing to +distinguish between dream and reality, introduce into his whole life +that incoherence which is just the distinguishing characteristic of +dreaming and lunacy. And, as a fact, do we really find the savage as +depressed, on waking, by a dreamt-of calamity as by a real one; or as +elated after a visionary scalping of foes as after a real victory? Does +he on waking look for the said scalps among his collection of trophies, +and is he perplexed and incensed at not finding them? Even if, like +ourselves, he has occasionally a very vivid and coherent dream +reconcilable with his waking circumstances, will he not judge of it by +the vast majority of his dreams which are palpable illusions, and not by +the few exceptional cases? If at times we ourselves doubt whether we +witnessed something or dreamt it, yet we do so not because the seeming +fact is one which makes for the existence of another world of a +different order to this, but for the very contrary reason. If the savage +only dreamt of the dead, he might find in this an evidence of their +survival, but he dreams far more often of the living, and that, with +circumstances which make the illusion manifest on waking. Seeing the awe +and terror which all men have of the supernatural region, we ought, on +the animistic hypothesis, to find among savages a great reluctance to go +to bed--"to sleep! Perchance to dream--aye, there's the rub!" But we do +not. Finally, just as the Chinese, who are supposed to mistake epilepsy +for possession, have, unfortunately for the supposition, got two +distinct words for the two phenomena, so it will doubtless be found that +there is no savage who has not some word to express illusion; or whose +language does not prove that he knows dreams are but dreams. We may well +doubt if even animals on waking are affected by their dreams as by +realities, or if a dog ever bit a man for a kick received in a dream. In +short the dream-theory of souls is plausible only in the gross, but +melts away under closer examination bit by bit. + +Whether the S.P.R. will ever succeed in bottling a ghost, and in +submitting it to the tests necessary to convince science, matters +little. The real fruit of its labours will be to "convince men of sin," +to convict science of being unscientific, and criticism of being +uncritical--of being biassed by fashion to the extent of refusing to +examine evidence which must be either admitted or explained away. +Scepticism and credulity alike are hostile both to science and religion, +and it is the common interest of these latter to secure a full +recognition, on the one side of the principle of faith, that with God +all things are possible; and on the other, of the principle of science +which is: to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. +Credulity tends to make the actual co-extensive with the possible; while +scepticism would limit the possible to the known actual. The true mind +would be one in which faith and criticism were so tempered as to secure +width without slovenliness, and exactitude without narrowness. + +II. + +How, apart from the imperfect lingering tradition of some primitive +revelation, the belief in a surviving soul originates with contemporary +savages, or might have originated among still ruder past races, is a +question of some interest, not only for its own sake, but for the sake +of whatever little light it may throw upon the more vital question as to +the value of that belief. Had the doctrine of souls no other origin than +a false inference from the ordinary phenomena of sleeping and dreaming; +were it in no sense an instinctive belief, suggested perhaps and +confirmed by supernormal facts, it would still have interest for the +anthropologist as one of those almost necessary and universal errors +through which the human mind struggles to the truth, such as the errors +of astrology or alchemy; but it would in no way contribute to the +argument for immortality _ex consensu hominum_--an argument of much +avail when it is a case of man's instinctive judgments and primary +intuitions, which are God-given, but of ever less value in proportion as +there is a question of deductions, inferences, and self-formed +judgments. Even if we discard the dream-theory altogether, we get no +support from the consensus of savages as to the soul's survival, unless +we have reason to think that the facts on which their inference rests +are truly, and not only apparently, supernormal, and are, moreover, such +as leave no other inference possible. + +We know only too well that there are universal fallacies as well as +universal truths of the human mind. For the practical necessities of +life the imagination stands to man in good stead, but as the inadequate +instrument of speculative thought its fertile deceitfulness is betrayed +in his very earliest attempts at philosophy; nor are his subsequent +efforts directed to anything else than the endeavour to correct and +allow for its refractions and distortions, to transcend its narrow +limitations, to force it to express, meanly and clumsily, truths which +otherwise it would entirely obscure and deny. There might well be facts, +nay, there are undoubtedly facts, which to the untutored mind +necessarily and always seem altogether supernormal, but which science +rightly explains to be, however unusual, yet natural, and in no way +outside the ordinary laws. So far as the marvels of sorcerers and +medicine-men are the work of chicanery, they will lack that persistence +and ubiquity which justifies the investigation of other marvels for +whose universality some basis must be sought in the uniform nature of +things. Cheats will not always and everywhere hit on the same plan, nor +will the independent testimony of false witnesses be found agreeing. + +But if besides facts and appearances that science can really explain +away, there be a residue which takes us into a region wherein science as +yet has set no foot, then we may indeed be on our way to a confirmation +of the usually accepted arguments for immortality by which the +positivist may be met upon his own ground. In truth, metaphysical, +moral, and religious arguments, however much they may avail with +individuals who are subjectively disposed to receive them, cannot in +these days influence the crowd of men who need some sort of violence +offered to their intellect if they are to accept truths against which +they are biassed. The temper of the majority is positivist; it will +believe what it can see, touch, and handle, and no more. If then the +natural truth of the independent existence of spirits can be inade +experimentally evident--and _a priori_, why should it not?--men may not +like it, but they will have either to accept it, or to deny all that +they accept on like evidence. Such unwilling concession would of itself +make little for personal religion in the individual; but its widespread +acceptance could not fail to counteract the ethics of materialism, and +so prepare the way for perhaps a fuller return to religion on the part +of the many. + +It is the belief, and perhaps the hope, of not a few men of light and +learning that a comparison of the results of the S.P.R. investigations +with those of anthropology touching the beliefs and superstitions of +savages and ruder races, may point to an order of facts which, with +reference to the admissions of existing science, are rightly called +supernormal, and yet which are in another sense strictly normal, namely, +with reference to that science of experimental psychology which, amid +the usual storm of ridicule and jealousy, is slowly struggling into +existence--ridicule from all devout slaves of the intellectual fashion +of the times; jealousy from the neighbour sciences of mental physiology +and neurology, which it declares bankrupt in the face of +newly-discovered liabilities. + +So far this gathered evidence seems, in the eyes of some of its +interpreters, to point to a close connection, if not of being, at least +of influence, between soul and soul, such as binds each atom of matter +to every other; a connection which increases as we descend from the +above-ground level of full consciousness, through ever lower strata of +subconsciousness, to those hidden depths of unconscious operation from +which the most unintelligibly intelligent effects of the soul +proceed--as though, in the darkness, it were taught by God, and guided +blindfold by the hand of its Maker. In other words, the individuation of +souls is conceived to be somewhat like that of the separate branches of +the same tree which, traced downwards, run into a common root, from +whence they are differenced by every hour of their growth, yet not +disconnected, as though each several consciousness sprang from some +unconscious psychic basis common to all, wherein, like forgotten +memories, the experiences of all are buried, at a depth far beyond the +reach of all normal powers of reminiscence, yet through which terminus +of converging souls thoughts can, in our intenser moments, pass from +mind to mind,--reverberated as it were from the base, and thence caught +by the one consciousness altogether resonant to that particular +vibration. How far such an interpretation may favour pantheism, or +imperil personality, or involve a doctrine of "pre-existence," or of +innate ideas, is not for us here to discuss. If we are to judge it +fairly, it must be simply as a provisional working-hypothesis +explanatory of certain observations, and apart from all other +psychological theories with which it may seem in conflict. Truth will in +the end adjust itself with truth, but nothing is to be hoped from forced +and premature adjustments. + +Mr. Lang's second and principal contention is that even if we allow the +animistic account of the belief in spirits, in no sense can we admit +that process by which belief in God is supposed to be a later +development of the belief in spirits, as though inequality among spirits +had given rise to aristocracy, and aristocracy to monarchy. + +By God here we understand: "a primal eternal Being, author of all +things, the father and the friend of man, the invisible omniscient +guardian of morality," a definition which, while it fixes the high-water +mark of monotheism, yet only states with formidable distinctness what, +according to Mr. Lang, is found confusedly in the apprehension of the +rudest savages. There are two senses in which we can understand an +evolution of this idea of God; first, as Mr. Tylor understands it, in +the sense of a development by accretion from a simple germ, from the +idea of a phantasm nowise a god, to that of a spirit still lacking +divinity, thence to that of a Supreme Spirit in whom first the essential +definition of God is somewhat fulfilled. Secondly, it can be understood +strictly as a mere unfolding of the contents of a confused apprehension; +so that there is an advance only in point of coherence and distinctness. +Thus understood, the entire religious history of the race, as also of +the individual, viewed from its mental side, consists in an evolution of +the idea of God and culminates in a face-to-face seeing of God. + +From the evidence amassed, or perhaps rather, sampled, by Mr. Lang it +would seem that, what we account the lowest races are in possession of a +confused idea of God, whencesoever derived, which is in substantial +agreement with the reflex conception contained in the above definition; +and that there is no existing series of intellectual stages whereby this +can be seen, as it were, in the act of growing out of previous simpler +ideas. Evolution in the direction of greater clearness and distinctness +is to be observed, as well as a downward process of obscuration and +confusion: but for a substantial development of the idea of God from an +idea of "not God" there is no proof forthcoming so far. + +On the animistic hypothesis we should be prepared to find the notion of +God, as above stated, to be of very late development and accepted only +by races fairly advanced in culture. We should, _a priori_, deem it +impossible to discover more among the lower savages than a rude religion +of ghost-worship, without any consciousness of a moral Supreme Being, +the father and friend of man. Whatever might seem to suggest the +contrary, would be explainable by some infiltration of more civilized +beliefs. + +Armed with this hypothesis the eye is quick "to see that it brings with +it the power of seeing," and to impose its own forms and schemata on the +phenomena offered to its observation. The "animist" ill-acquainted with +the savage's language and modes of thought; excluded from those inner +"mysteries" which figure in nearly every savage religion; confounding +the symbolism, the popular mythology, and also the corruptions, +distortions, and abuses which are the parasites of all religion, with +the religion itself, can easily come away with the impression that there +is nothing but ghost-worship, priestcraft, and superstition, no +conception whatever of a personal "Power that makes for Righteousness." +If Protestants have almost as crude an idea of the religion of their +Catholic fellow-Christians with whom they live side by side, and +converse in the same language, if they are so absolutely dominated by +their own form of religious thought, as to be as helpless as idiots in +the presence of any other, can we expect that the ordinary British +traveller, "brandishing his Bible and his bath," strong in the smug +conviction of his mental, moral, and religious preeminence, will be a +very sympathetic, conscientious, and reliable interpreter of the +religion of the Zulu or the Andamanese? + +The fact is that without a preliminary hypothesis he would see nothing +at all except dire confusion. But an assumption such as that of +"animism," has the selective power of a magnet, drawing to itself all +congruous facts and little filings of probability, until it so bristles +over with evidence that a hedge-hog is easier to handle. + +But before discussing the relation of this assumption to existing facts +and so bringing it to an _a posteriori_ test, let us examine its _a +priori_ supports. + +First of all, as Mr. Lang points out, it takes for granted that the +savage can have no idea of the Creator until he conceive Him as a +spirit. "God is a spirit," has been dinned into our ears from childhood; +and hence we conclude that he who has no notion of a spirit can have no +notion of God; and that the idea of God is of later growth than that of +a ghost. In truth, he who ascribes to God a body does not know _all_ +about Him; but which of us knows _all_ about God? The point is, not +whether the savage can know the metaphysics of divinity, but whether he +can conceive a primal eternal moral being, author of all things, man's +father and judge--a conception which abstracts entirely from the +question of matter and spirit. We ourselves, like the savage, +necessarily speak of God and imagine Him humanwise,--although our +instructed reason, at times, corrects the error of our fancy,--and +perhaps only "at times,"--only when we leave the ground of spontaneous +thought, to walk on metaphysical stilts--nor while that childish image +remains uncorrected and we neither affirm nor deny to Him a body, can +our notion be called false, however obscure it be and inadequate. If the +savage has no notion of spirit, yet he may have, and often seems to have +a very true, though of course infinitely imperfect, notion of God; nay, +perhaps a truer notion than those who affirm, without any sense of using +analogy, that God is a spirit. For if His spirituality is insisted on, +it is rather to exclude from Him the grossness and limitation of matter, +and to ascribe to Him a transcendental degree of whatever perfection our +notion of spirit may involve, than to classify Him, or to predicate of +Him that finite nature which we call a spirit. God is neither a spirit +nor a body; but rather like Ndengei of the Fijians: "an impersonation of +the abstract idea of eternal existence;" one who is to be "regarded as a +deathless _Being_, no question of 'spirit' being raised;" so that the +first intuition of the unsophisticated mind is found to be in more +substantial agreement with the last results of reflex philosophical +thought, than those early philosophizings which halt between the +affirmation and denial of bodily attributes, unable to prescind from the +difficulty and unable to solve it. The history of the Jews, nay, the +history of our own mind proves to demonstration that the thought of God +is a far easier thought and a far earlier, than that of a spirit. Our +mind, oar heart, our conscience, affirm the former instinctively, while +the latter does continual violence to our imagination, except so far as +spirit is misconceived to be an attenuated phantasmal body. Not only, +therefore, does the savage imagine God and speak of Him humanwise, as we +all do; but if he does not actually believe Him to be material, he at +least will be slow in mastering the thought of His spirituality. + +Another assumption underlying the animistic hypothesis, and also +borrowed from Christian teaching, is that the savage regards the soul or +ghost as the liberated and consummated man, and that therefore he will +place God rather in the category of disembodied than of embodied men. +Yet not only the Greek and Roman, but even the Jew, looked on the shade +of the departed as a mere fraction of humanity, as a miserable residue +of man, helpless and hopeless, and withal disposed to be mischievous and +exacting, and therefore needing to be humoured in various ways. Nay, +even Christianity with its dogma of the bodily resurrection, denies that +Platonic doctrine which views the body as the prison rather than as the +complement and consort of the soul; although it holds the soul to be of +an altogether higher, because spiritual, order. But to the primitive +savage, who everywhere regards death as non-natural, as accidental and +violent, the surviving spirit, however uncertain-tempered and +incalculable in its movements, however much to be feared and +propitiated, does not command reverence as a being of a superior order. +At best it is: "Alas! poor ghost!" Better a live dog than a dead lion; +better the meanest slave that draws breath, than the monarch of Orcus. +Surely it is not in the region of shadows that the savage will look for +the great "all-father;" but in the world of solid, tangible realities. + +Again, it is assumed that progress in one point is progress in all; that +because we surpass all other races and generations in physical science +and useful arts, we surpass them in every other way; and that they must +be far behind us in ethical and religious conceptions, as they are in +inventions and the production of comforts. To find our own theism and +morality among savages is therefore impossible; for as the crooked stick +is unto the steam-plough, so is the god of the savage unto the God of +Great Britain. Yet when we consider how closely religious and ethical +principles are intertwined, and how glaringly untrue it is to say that +industrial civilization makes for morality,--for purity or self-denial, +or justice, or truth, or honour: how manifestly it is accompanied with a +deterioration of the higher perceptions and tastes, we must surely pause +before taking it for granted that the course of true religion has been +running smoothly parallel to that of commerce. + +In a thoughtful essay, entitled _The Disenchantment of France_, Mr. F.W. +Myers points out the goal towards which "progress" is leading us, +through the destruction of those four "illusions" which formerly gave +life all its value and dignity,--namely, belief in religion; devotion to +the State--whether to the prince or to the people; belief in the +eternity and spirituality of human love; belief in man's freedom and +imperishable personal unity. "I cannot avoid the conclusion," he says, +"that we are bound to be prepared for the worst. Yet by the worst I do +not mean any catastrophe of despair, any cosmic suicide, any world-wide +unchaining of the brute that lies pent in man. I mean merely the +peaceful, progressive, orderly triumph of _l'homme sensuel moyen_; the +gradual adaptation of hopes and occupations to a purely terrestrial +standard; the calculated pleasures of the cynic who is resolved to be a +dupe no more." + +In other words, if we accept this very temperate and reluctant +conclusion, we must confess that the one-sided progress, with whose +all-sufficiency we are so thoroughly satisfied, is making straight for +the extermination, not only of religion, but of morality in any received +sense of the term. + +But when Mr. Lang, who has no hypothesis of his own as to the origin of +belief in God, brings the animistic theory to an _a posteriori_ test, he +finds it encumbered with still greater difficulties; for nothing is as, +_a priori_, it ought to be. + +While Mr. Tylor asserts "that no savage tribe of monotheists has ever +been known," but that all ascribe the attributes of deity to other +beings than the Almighty Creator, it appears in fact that many of the +rudest savages "are as monotheistic as some Christians. They have a +Supreme Being, and the 'distinctive attributes of deity' are not by them +assigned to other beings further than as Christianity assigns them to +angels, saints, the devil," &c. Catholics at least will readily +understand how hastily and unjustly the charge of polytheism is made by +the protestantized mind against any religion which believes in a +Heavenly Court as well as in a Heavenly Monarch. "Of the existence of a +belief in a Supreme Being" amongst the lowest savages, "there is as good +evidence as we possess for any fact in the ethnographic region. It is +certain that savages, when first approached by curious travellers and +missionaries, have again and again recognized our God in theirs." + +If, therefore, belief in God grew out of belief in ghosts, it must have +been in some stage of culture lower than any of which we have experience +so far; and at some period which belongs to the region of hypothesis and +conjecture. There are no known tribes where ghosts are worshipped and +God is not known, or where the supposed process of development can be +watched in action. Nor is it only that links are missing, but one of the +very terms to be connected, namely, a godless race, is conjectural. +Still more unfortunate is it for the animists that evidence points to +the fact that advance in civilization often means the decay of +monotheism, and that the ruder races are the purer in their religious +and ethical conceptions. Once more, all facts are against the theory +that tribes transfer their earthly polity to the heavenly city; for +monotheism is found where monarchy is unknown. "God cannot be a +reflection from human kings where there are no kings; nor a president +elected out of a polytheistic society of gods, where there is as yet no +polytheism; nor an ideal first ancestor where men do not worship their +ancestors." To the substantiating of these facts Mr. Lang then applies +himself, and shows us how among the Australians, Red Indians, Figians, +Andamanese, Dinkas, Yao, Zulus, and all known savages there lives the +conception of a Supreme Being (not necessarily spirit) who is variously +styled Father, Master, Our Father, The Ancient One in the skyland, The +Great Father. He shows us, moreover, that this deity is the God of +conscience, a power making for goodness, a guardian and enforcer of the +interests of justice and truth and purity; good to the good, and froward +with the froward. + +But surely, it will be said, all this is too paradoxical, too violently +in conflict with what is notorious concerning the religion and morality +of savages. + +The reason of this seeming contradiction is, however, not altogether +difficult. It is to be found partly in the fact that religion, like +morality, being counter to those laws which govern the physical world +and the animal man,--to the law of egoism and competition and struggle +for existence; to the law that "might is right,"--tends from the very +nature of the case towards decay and disintegration. The movement of +material progress is in some sense a downhill movement. No doubt it +evokes much seeming virtue, such as is necessary to secure the end; but +the motive force is one with regard to which man is passive rather than +active, a slave rather than a master, as a miser is in respect to that +passion which stimulates him to struggle for gain. Religion and morality +are uphill work, needing continual strain and attention if the motive +force is to be maintained at all. Huxley, in one of his later +utterances, allowed this with regard to morality; and it is not less but +more true with regard to faith in the value of unseen realities. Even if +belief in a moral God be as natural to man as are the promptings of +conscience, it ought not to surprise us that it should be as universally +stifled, neglected, seemingly denied, as conscience is. It is not +usually in old age and after years of conflict with the world that +conscience is most sensitive and faithful to light, but rather in early +childhood. And similarly the sense of God and of His will is apparently +more strong and lively in the childhood of races than after it has been +stifled by the struggle for wealth and pre-eminence-- + + When yet I had not walked above + A mile or two from my first love: + But felt through all this fleshly dress + Bright shoots of everlastingness. [2] + +Degradation may almost be considered a law of religion and morality +which needs some kind of violent counteraction, some continual +intervention and providence, if it is to be kept in check. After all, +this is only a dressing-up of the old platitude that a holy life means +continual warfare and straining of the spirit against the flesh, of the +moral order against the physical order, of altruism or the true egoism +against selfishness or the false egoism. Of course an ideal civilization +would help and not hinder religion; but the chances against civilization +being ideal are so large as to make it historically true that, advance +in civilization does not always mean advance in religion and morality, +and often means decay. + +Far from animism being the root of theism, more often it is rather the +ivy that grows up about it, hides it and chokes it. Just because the +demands of religion and morality are so burdensome to men, they will +ever seek short-cuts to salvation; and the intercession of presumably +corruptible courtiers will be secured to win the favour, or avert the +displeasure, of the rigorously incorruptible and inexorable King, who is +"no respecter of persons." Except among Jews and Christians, the Supreme +Being is nowhere worshipped with sacrifice--that service of +food-offering being reserved for subordinate deities susceptible to +gentle bribery. The great God of conscience is naturally the least +popular object of cultus; though, were the animists right, He should be +the most popular, seeing He would be the latest development demanded and +created by the popular mind. But contrariwise, He tends to recede more +and more into the background, behind the ever-multiplying crowd of +patron-spirits, guardians, family-gods; till, as in Greece and Rome, He +is almost entirely obscured, "an unknown God ignorantly worshipped"--the +End, as usual, being forgotten and buried in the means. All this process +of degradation will be hastened by the corruption of priests whose +avarice or ambition, as Mr. Lang says, will tempt them to exploit the +lucrative elements in religion at the expense of the ethical; to +whittle-away the decrees of God and conscience to suit the wealthy and +easy-going; to substitute purchasable sacrifice, for obedience; and the +fat of rams, for charity. We need only look to the history of Israel and +of the Christian Church to see all these tendencies continually at work, +and only held in check by innumerable interventions of Divine +Providence, and of that Spirit which is always striving with man. + +Scant, however, as may be the amount of direct worship accorded to the +Supreme God, compared with that received by subordinate spiritual +powers, yet it is _sui generis_, and of an infinitely higher order. The +familiar distinction of _latria_ and _dulia_ seems to obtain everywhere; +as also that between _Elohim_ and _Javeh_, that is, between supernal +beings in general, and the Supreme Being who is also supernal. Yet so +excessive in quantity is the secondary cultus compared with the primary, +that an outsider may well be pardoned for thinking that there is nothing +beyond what meets the eye on every side. As has been said, the Supreme +Being alone is usually considered above the weakness of caring for +sacrifice, or for external worship in "temples made with hands." His +name is commonly tabooed, only to be whispered in those mysteries of +initiation which are met with so universally. Outside these mysteries He +may only be spoken of in parables and myths, grotesque, irreverent, +designed to conceal rather than to reveal. But rarely is there an image +or an altar to this unknown God. + +It is easy for those who recognize no other religion among savages +behind the popular observances and cults which are so much to the front, +to believe that early religion is non-ethical. For indeed, for the most +part, all this secondary cultus is directed to the mitigation of the +moral code and the substitution of exterior for interior sacrifice. It +is the result of an endeavour to compound with conscience; and to hide +away sins from the all-seeing eye. Again it is chiefly in the secrecy of +the mysteries that the higher ethical doctrine is propounded--a doctrine +usually covering all the substantials of the decalogue; and in some +cases, approaching the Christian summary of the same under the one +heading of love and unselfishness. As for the corrupt lives of savages, +if it proves their religion to be non-ethical, what should we have to +think of Christianity? We cry out in horror against cannibalism as the +_ne plus ultra_ of wickedness., but except so far as it involves murder, +it is hard to find in it more than a violation of our own convention, +while a mystical mind might find more to say for it than for cremation. +Certainly it is not so bad as slander and backbiting. Human sacrifice +offered to the Lord of life and death at His own behest, is something +that did not seem wicked and inconceivable to Abraham. Head-hunting is +not a pretty game; nor is scalping and mutilation the most generous +treatment of a fallen foe; yet war has seen worse things done by those +who professed an ethical religion. + +But, chief among the causes why savage religion has been so +misrepresented, is the almost universal co-existence of a popularized +form of religion addressed to the imagination, with that which speaks to +the understanding alone. As has already been said, man's imagination is +at war with his intelligence when supersensible realities, such as God +and the soul, are in question. Without figures we cannot think; yet the +timeless and spaceless world can ill be figured after the likeness of +things limited by time and space. This mental law is the secret of the +invariable association of mythology with religion. Setting aside the +problem as to how the truths of natural religion (_sc._ that there is a +God the rewarder of them that seek Him) are first brought home to man, +it is certain that if he does not receive them embedded in history or +parable, in spoken or enacted symbolism, he will soon fix and record +them in some such language for himself. Christ recognized the necessity +of speaking to the multitude in parables, not attempting to precise or +define the indefinable; but contenting Himself with: "The Kingdom of +Heaven is _like_," &c. "I am content," says Sir Thomas Browne, "to +understand a mystery without a rigid definition, in an easie and +Platonick description," and it is only through such easie and Platonick +descriptions that spiritual truth can slowly be filtered into the +popular mind. Still when we consider how prone all metaphors are to be +pressed inexactly, either too far, or else not far enough, how abundant +a source they are of misapprehension, owing to the curiosity that will +not be content to have the gold in the ore, but must needs vainly strive +to refine it out, we can well understand how mythology tends to corrupt +and debase religion if it be not continually watched and weeded; and +how, being, from the nature of the case, ever to the front, ever on +men's lips and mingling with their lives, it should seem to the outsider +to be not the imperfect garment of religion, but a substitute for it. +Yet in some sense these mythologies are a safeguard of reverence in that +they provide a theme for humour and profanity and rough handling, which +is thus expended, not on the sacred realities themselves, but on their +shadows and images. Among certain savages God's personal name is too +holy to be breathed but in mysteries; yet His mythological substitute is +represented to be as grotesque, freakish, and immoral as the Zeus of the +populace. We can hardly enter into such a frame of mind, though possibly +the irreverences and buffooneries of some of the miracle-plays of the +middle ages are similarly to be explained as the rebound from the strain +incident to a continual sense of the nearness of the supernatural; and +perhaps the _Messer Domeniddio_ of the Florentines stood rather for a +mental effigy that might be played with, than for the reasoned +conception of the dread Deity. If we possessed a minutely elaborated +history of the Good Shepherd and His adventures, or of the Prodigal's +father, or of the Good Samaritan, interspersed with all manner of +ludicrous and profane incidents, and losing sight of the original +purport of the figure, we should have something like a mythology. Were +it not stereotyped as part of an inspired record, the mere romancing +tendency of the imagination would easily have added continually to the +original parable, wholly forgetful of its spiritual significance. + +It is part of the very economy of the Incarnation to meet this weakness, +to provide for this want of the human mind; to satisfy the imagination +as well as the intelligence. Here Divine truth has received a Divine +embodiment, has been set forth in the language of deeds, in a real and +not in a fictitious history. Sacrifice and sacrament, and every kind of +natural religious symbolism, has been appropriated and consecrated to +the service of truth and to the fullest utterance of God that such weak +accents will stretch to. Here the channel of communication between +Heaven and earth is not of man's creation but of God's; or at least is +of God's composition. This is the great difference between the ethnic +religions and a religion that professes to be revealed--that is, spoken +by God and put into language by Him. The latter is, so to say, cased in +an incorruptible body, its very expression being chosen and sealed for +ever with Divine approval, and rescued from the fluent and unstable +condition of religions whose clothes are the works of men's hands. Here +it is that Catholic Christianity stands out as altogether catholic and +human, adapted as it is to the world-wide cravings of the religious +instinct; satisfying the imagination and the emotions, no less than the +intellect and the will; and yet saving us from the perils of the +myth-making tendency of our mind. + +The same thought is pressed upon us when we view the collective evidence +as to the universal demand for a mediatorial system--for intercessors, +and patrons, for a heavenly court surrounding the Heavenly Monarch; a +demand often created by and tending to a degradation of purer religion, +yet most surely embodying and expressing a spiritual instinct which is +only fully explained and satisfied by the Catholic doctrine of the +communion of saints and souls in one great society, labouring for a +conjoint salvation and beatitude. We Catholics know well enough that the +degraded and superstitious will pervert saint-worship as they pervert +other good things to their own hurt and to God's dishonour, but we also +know that of itself the doctrine of the Heavenly Court is altogether in +the interests of the very highest and purest religion. In all this +matter, needless to say, Mr. Lang is not with us; but the affinities of +Catholicism with universal religion, which he marks to our prejudice, +are really in some sort proof of our contention that the Church is the +divinely conceived fulfilment of all man's natural religious instincts, +providing harmless and healthy outlets for humours otherwise dangerous +and morbid; never forgetful of man's double nature and its claims, +neither wearying him with an impossible intellectualism--a religion of +pure philosophy--not suffering him to be the prey of mere imagination +and sentiment, but tempering the divine and human, the thought and the +word, so as to bring all his faculties under the yoke of Christ. + +Mr. Lang's concern is with the universality of belief in God the +Rewarder, not with its origin nor even its value; though he seems at +times to imply that the solution may be found in a primitive revelation +of some sort. For ourselves, accordant as such a notion would be with +popular Christian tradition, we do not think that the adduced evidence +needs that hypothesis; but is explained sufficiently by "the hypothesis +of St. Paul," which, as Mr. Lang admits, "seem not the most +unsatisfactory." The mere verbal tradition of a primitive "deposit" not +committed to any authorized guardians would, to say the least, be a +hazardous and conjectural way of accounting for the facts; nor is there +any evidence offered to show that such religious beliefs are held, as +the Catholic religion is, on the authority of antiquity, interpreted by +a living voice. The substance of this elementary religion--the existence +of God the Rewarder of them that seek Him--is naturally suggested to the +simple-minded by the data of unspoilt conscience, confirmed and +supplemented by the spectacle of Nature. That the truth would be +borne-in on a solitary and isolated soul we need not maintain; for in +solitude and isolation man is not man, and neither reason nor language +can develop aright. Further we may allow that as Nature or God provides +for society, and therefore for individuals, by an equal distribution of +gifts and talents, giving some to be politicians, others poets, others +philosophers, others inventors, so He gives to some what might be called +natural religious genius or talent or spiritual insight, for the benefit +of the community. Thus whatever be true of the individual savage, we +cannot well suppose that any tribe or people, taken collectively, should +fail to draw the fundamental truths of religion from the data of +conscience and nature. In this sense no doubt they would become +traditional--the common property of all--so that the innate facility of +each individual mind in regard to them would be stimulated and +supplemented by suggestion from without. + +How far God can be said actually to "speak" to the soul through +conscience or through Nature so as to make faith, in the strict sense of +reliance on the word of another, possible, is for theologians to +discuss. If besides expressing these truths in creation or in +conscience, He also expresses in some way His intention to reveal them +to the particular soul, we have all that is requisite. In what way, or +innumerable ways He makes His voice heard in every human heart day by +day, and causes general truths to be brought near and recognized and +received as a particular message, each can answer best for himself. + +But undoubtedly the results of comparative religion are, so far, almost +entirely favourable to the doctrine of God's all-saving will; and in +many other points confirmatory of received beliefs. Even where, for +example, in the question of the origin and meaning of sacrifice, they +seem to necessitate a modification of the somewhat elaborate _a priori_ +definition, popular in some modern schools (though not in them all), yet +that modification is altogether favourable to the sounder conception of +the Eucharistic Sacrifice as a food-offering complementary to the +Sacrifice of the Cross. Above all it is in bringing out the unity of +type between natural ethnic religions, and that revealed Catholic +religion which is their correction and fulfilment, that the studies of +Mr. Lang and Mr. Jevons are of such service. The militant Protestant +delights to dwell on the analogies between Romanism and Paganism; we too +may dwell on them with delight, as evidence of that substantial unity of +the human mind which underlies all surface diversities of mode and +language, and binds together, as children of one family, all who believe +in God the Rewarder of them that seek Him, who is no respecter of +persons. What man in his darkness and sinfulness has feebly been trying +to utter in every nation from the beginning, that God has formulated and +written down for him in the great Catholic religion of the Word made +Flesh-- + + Which he may read that binds the sheaf + Or builds the house, or digs the grave, + And those wild eyes that watch the wave + In roarings round the coral reef. + +True, even could it be established beyond all doubt that belief in the +one God were universal among rude and uncultivated races, this would not +add any new proof to the truth of religion, unless it could be shown +that it was really an instinctive, inwritten judgment, and not one of +those many natural fallacies into which all men fall until they are +educated out of them. Still, for those who do not need conviction on +this point, it is no slight consolation to be assured that simplicity +and savagery do not shut men out from the truths best worth knowing; +that even where the earthen vessel is most corrupted, the heavenly +treasure is not altogether lost; that it is only those who deliberately +go in search of obscurities who need stumble. It was not the crowds of +pagandom that St. Paul censured, but the philosophers. God made man's +feet for the earth, and not for the tight-rope. Whatever be the truth +about Idealism, man is by nature a Realist; and similarly he is by +nature a theist, until he has studiously learnt to balance himself in +the non-natural pose. + +Will a man be excused for deliberately dashing his foot against a stone +because forsooth he has persuaded himself with Zeno, that there is no +such thing as motion; or with Berkeley, that the externality of the +world is a delusion; or will he be pardoned in his unbelief because he +could not justify by philosophy the truth which conscience and nature +are dinning into his ears: that there is a God the Rewarder of them that +seek Him? + +_Sept. Oct._ 1898. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: "A hysterical fit indicates a lamentable instability of the +nervous system. But it is by no means certain _a priori_ that every +symptom of that instability, without exception, will be of a +degenerative kind. The nerve-storm, with its unwonted agitations, may +possibly lay bare some deep-lying capacity in us which could scarcely +otherwise have come to light. Recent experiments on both sensation and +memory in certain abnormal states have added plausibility to this view, +and justify us in holding that in spite of its frequent association with +hysteria, ecstasy is not necessarily in itself a morbid symptom." +(F.W.H. Myers, _Tennyson as a Prophet_.)] + +[Footnote 2: _The Retreat_. By Henry Vaughan.] + + + +XXII. + + +ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. + +Much as we may think of the abstract and objective value of the treatise +_De vera religione_, which forms the usual introduction to those _cursus +theologici_ whose multiplication of late has been so remarkable, it can +hardly be denied that its cogency is much diminished for the large +number of those thinkers who repudiate the philosophical presuppositions +upon which that treatise rests. As long as negation halted before that +minimum of religious truth which is in some way accessible to +reason,--before belief in God and in immortality; as long as the +principles and methods of proof by which "natural theology" reached its +conclusion were admitted even by those who denied those conclusions, an +apologetic such as we are speaking of had an undoubted practical +value--not indeed as sufficing to bring conviction to the unwilling or +ill-disposed, not as a cause of faith, but as removing an obstacle which +existed in the supposed incompatibility of revealed truth with these +same rational principles and processes. + +Apart from this preparation of the intellect, to which perhaps the name +"apologetic" should be more strictly reserved, a prior and more +important need was the disposing of the will and affections to the +acceptance of the truth. For, in a very real sense, love is the root of +faith; and the wish that a thing should be true, not only stimulates the +mind to inquire and investigate, but also creates a fear of +self-deception and a spirit of incredulity which is the fruitful parent +of intellectual difficulties. + +Such an appeal to the affections is really outside the province of +theological science and belongs rather to the rhetorician, the poet, or +the prophet. Yet it was a work at all times needful for the extension +and maintenance of the faith, in even a greater degree than the more +dispensable preparation of the intellect. For the great multitude of men +who are innocent of any really independent thought, who professedly or +unconsciously take all their beliefs from some individual or society, +there is really no need of scientific apologetic--the sole need being to +win or maintain their confidence, their loyalty, their reverence, in +regard to some teacher or leader, to Christ or the Church. + +It was only towards the close of last century when scepticism was +beginning to reach the very root from which the Christian apologetic +sprang, and the former philosophic methods had themselves fallen in +disrepute, that the necessity of accommodating the remedy to the disease +began to be recognized here and there, and of framing an argument that +would appeal to the perverse and erratic mind of the day, rather than to +an abstract and perfectly normal mind, which, if it existed, would "need +no repentance." That a given medicine is the best, avails nothing if it +be not also one which the patient is willing to take. If a man has +closed his teeth against everything that savours of scholasticism, we +must either abandon him or else see if there be any among the methods he +will submit to, which may in any wise serve our purpose. And, indeed, +among the jangle of philosophies there is surely in all something that +is a common heritage of the human mind, a unity which a little skill can +detect lurking under that diversity of form which unfortunately it is +the delight of most men to emphasize. To suppose that Christianity is +pledged to more than this common substratum which none deny, except +through verbal confusion, that there is no road to faith but through +what is peculiar to scholasticism, or that my first step in converting a +man to Christ must be to convert him to Aristotle, is about as +intelligent as to suppose that because the Church has adopted Latin as +her official language she means to discredit every other. + +It was then with a view of meeting the exigencies of the world as it is, +not as it might or ought to have been, that such a work as the _Genie du +Christianisme_ strove to find an apologetic in what previously had been +regarded as outside the domain of theology and more properly the concern +of the preacher. The beauty, the solace, the adaptation to our higher +needs of Christian teaching had been one thing; its truth, quite +another. By dilating eloquently on the first, men might be won to the +love of such an ideal, to wish that it might be true; and then disposed +to profit by the distinct and independent labours of the apologist whose +theme was, not the utility or beauty of the Catholic religion, but +solely its truth. + +But now that the "scholastic" [1] apologetic was in disgrace with all +but those who stood least in need of it, some more acceptable method had +to be sought out, and amongst many others there was that of +Chateaubriand, which strove to find an argument for the intellect in the +very appeal which Christianity made to the will and affections. Because +a religion is fair and much to be desired, because, if true, it would +give unity and meaning to man's higher cravings, and turn human life +from a senseless chaos into an intelligible whole, therefore, and for +this reason, it _is_ true. + +It is hardly wonderful that such a method should incur the charge of +sentimentalism. "It would be so nice to believe it, therefore it must be +true," sounds like a shameless abandonment of reasonableness. The fact +that a belief is "consoling," quite independently of its truth or +falsehood, creates a bias towards its acceptance. That it is pleasant to +believe oneself very clever and competent will incline one to that +belief until something important depends, not on our thinking ourselves +so, but on our being so. Before an examination, the wish to succeed will +make me sceptical about my prospects, much as I should like to think +them the brightest; afterwards, when self-deception can only console and +can do no harm, I shall be credulous of any flattery that is offered me. +In one case, my interest depends upon the facts, and therefore the wish +to believe makes me critical and even sceptical; in the other, on my +belief concerning the facts, and the wish to believe, makes me +uncritical and credulous. + +It was seemingly a bold and hazardous venture to justify this same +credulity, and to affirm that an argument could be drawn from the wish +to believe in just those cases where its influence would seem most +suspicious; yet this was practically what the new apologetic amounted +to. It was an argument from the utility of beliefs to their truth; from +the fact that certain subjective convictions produced good results, to +the correspondence of such convictions with objective reality. The +advantages to the individual and to society of a firm belief in God the +righteous Judge, in the sanction of eternal reward and penalty, in the +eventual adjustment of all inequalities, in the reversible character of +sin through repentance, in the divine authority of conscience, of +Christianity, of the Catholic Church, are to a great extent independent +of the truth of those beliefs. No amount of hypnotic suggestion will +enable a man to subsist upon cinders, under the belief that they are a +very nutritious diet; for the effect depends upon their actual nature, +and not wholly upon his belief concerning their nature; but the salutary +fear of Hell or hope of Heaven, depends not on the existence of either +state, but on our belief in its existence. The fact that the denial of +these and many similar beliefs would bring chaos into our spiritual and +moral life, that it would extinguish hopes which often alone make life +bearable, that it would issue for society at large in such a grey, +meaningless, uninspired existence as Mr. F. W. Myers prognosticates in +his admirable essay on "The Disillusionment of France," [2] all this and +much more makes it our interest, if not our duty, to cling to such +convictions at all costs. "If these things are not true, it might be +said, then life is chaos; and if life be chaos, what does truth matter? +Why may not such useful illusions and self-deceptions be fostered? If we +are dreaming, let our dreams be the pleasantest possible!" + +Nor can it be urged that though some part of our interest thus depends +on the beliefs, rather than on their being true, yet the consequences of +self-deception are so momentous, as to create a spirit of criticism to +balance or over-balance the said bias of credulity. For though the +consequences of denial are disastrous if the beliefs are true, yet if +they are false, the ill-consequences of belief are almost insignificant. +It is sometimes said too hastily that if religion be an illusion, then +religious people lose both this life and the next; and it is assumed +that an unrestrained devotion to pleasure would secure a happiness which +faith requires us to forego. But unless we take a gross, and really +unthinkable view of the homogeneity of all happiness, and reduce its +differences to degree and quantity, the shallowness of the preceding +objection will be apparent. It is only through restraint that the higher +kinds of temporal happiness are reached, and as confusions are cleared +away in process of discussion, it becomes patent that such restraint +finds its motive directly or indirectly in religion. When the religious +influence with which irreligious society is saturated, has exhausted +itself, and idealism is no more, the unrestrained egoistic pursuit of +enjoyment must tend to its steady diminution in quantity, and its +depreciation in kind. The sorrow and pain entailed by fidelity to the +Christian ideal is, on the whole, immeasurably less in the vast majority +of cases than that attendant on the struggles of unqualified +selfishness, while the capacities for the higher happiness are steadily +raised and largely satisfied by hope and even by some degree of present +fruition. Even vice would be in many ways sauceless and insipid in the +absence of faith. Who does not remember the old cynic's testimony (in +the "New Republic") to the piquancy lent by Christianity to many a sin, +otherwise pointless. If the moralist distinguishes between actions that +are evil because they are forbidden, and those that are forbidden +because they are evil, the libertine has a counter-distinction between +those that are forbidden because they are pleasant, and those that are +pleasant because they are forbidden. St. Paul himself is explicit enough +as to this effect of the law. + +Look at it how we will, even were religion unfounded our life would on +the whole gain in fulness far more than it would lose, by our believing +in religion. Hence some of our more thoughtful agnostics, however unable +themselves to find support in what they deem an illusion, are quite +willing to acknowledge the part religion has played in the past in the +evolution of rational life, and to look upon it as a necessary factor in +the earlier stages of that process whose place is to be taken hereafter +by some as yet undefined substitute. If indeed Nature thus works by +illusions and justifies the lying means by the benevolent end, it is +hard to believe in a moral government of the universe, or to hope that +an "absolute morality"--righteousness for its own sake--will be the +outcome of such disreputable methods. But till the illusion of "absolute +morality" is strong enough to take care of itself, and has passed from +the professors to the populace, it is plainly for the interest and +happiness of individuals and of society to hold fast to religion. + +Undoubtedly then the advantages resulting from a belief in religion, +whether valid or illusory, are such as to incline not only the higher +and more unselfish minds, but even those which are more prudential and +self-regarding, to wish to hold that belief--to be unwilling to hear +arguments against it. But among the former class will be found many +intellectually conscientious and even scrupulous persons, whom the +recognition of this inevitable bias will drive to an extreme of caution. +Not so much because the facts believed-in are of such intense moment, +but rather because the belief itself, whether true or false, is so +consoling and helpful, that there seems to them a danger of +self-deception just proportioned to their wish to believe. + +It were then no small rest and relief to such, could it be shown that +what they deem a reason for doubt, is really a reason for belief; that +the welcome which all that is best in them gives to a belief, affords +some sort of philosophical justification thereof. + +This particular argument had undoubtedly a more favourable hearing in +the age of Chateaubriand, when unbelief stopped short at the threshold +of what was called "Natural Religion," and the apologist's task was +confined to the establishment of revelation. "It is now pretty generally +admitted," says the author of _Contemporary Evolution_, "with regard to +Christianity and theism that the arguments really telling against the +first, are in their logical consequences fatal also to the second, and +that a _Deus Unus, Remunerator_ once admitted, an antecedent probability +for a revelation must be conceded." + +Given an intelligent and benevolent author of the universe, it is not +perhaps very difficult to show that any further religious belief +approximates to the truth in the measure that it satisfies the more +highly developed rational needs of mankind. It is not seriously denied +any longer that religion is an instinct with man, however it may be +lacking in some individuals or dormant in others. We have savages at +both ends of the scale of civilization, but man is none the less a +political creature; nor does the existence of idiots and deaf mutes and +criminals at all affect the fact that he is a reasoning and speaking and +ethical animal. As soon as he wakes to consciousness, he feels that he +is part of a whole, one of a multitude; and that as he is related to his +fellow-parts--equals or inferiors--so also is he related to the Whole +which is above him and greater than all put together. Religion, taken +subjectively, in its loosest sense, is a man's mental and moral attitude +in regard to real or imaginary superhuman beings--a definition which +includes pantheism, polytheism, monotheism; moral, non-moral, and +immoral religions; which prescinds from materialist or spiritualist +conceptions of the universe. And by a religion in the objective sense, +so far as true or false can be predicated of it, we mean a body of +beliefs intended to regulate and correct man's subjective religion. It +is to such systems and their parts that we think the above test of +"adaptability" maybe applied as we have stated it. + +We must of course assume that our distinction of higher from lower +states of rational development is valid; that we can really attach some +absolute meaning to the terms "progress" and "decline;" that there is +some vaguely conceived standard of human excellence which such terms +refer to. Else we are flung into the very whirlpool of scepticism. +Measured back from infinity it may be infinitesimal, but measured +forward from zero, the difference of mental and, partly, of moral +culture between ourselves and the aborigines of Australia is +considerable, and is really to our advantage. Now if a given religion or +religious belief suggests itself more readily, or when suggested +commends itself more cordially in the measure that men's spiritual needs +are more highly developed; if, furthermore, it tends to make men still +better and to raise their desires still higher so as to prepare the way +for a yet fuller conception of religious truth, it may be said to be +adapted to human needs; and it is from such adaptability that we argue +its approach to the truth. We say "its approach," for all our ideas of +the Whole, of the superhuman, of those beings with which religion deals, +are necessarily analogous and imperfect. What is admitted by all with +regard to the strict mysteries of the Christian faith is in a great +measure to be extended to the central or fundamental ideas of all +religion. They are at best woefully inadequate, and if the unity between +the parts of an idea be organic and not merely mechanical, they must be +regarded as containing false mingled with true.[3] Still some analogies +are less imperfect, less mingled with fallacy than others, and there is +room for indefinite approximation towards an unattainable exactitude. +For example, assuming theism, as we do in the argument under +consideration, it is evident that man conceives the superhuman object of +his fear and worship more truly as personal than as impersonal; as +spiritual than as embodied; as one or few than as many; as infinite than +as finite; as creator than as maker; as moral than as non-moral or +immoral; as both transcendent and immanent than as either alone. If then +it appears that as man's intelligence and morality develop in due +proportion, he advances from a material polytheistic immoral conception +of the All, to a spiritual and moral monotheism, it may be claimed that +the latter is a less inadequate conception. And similarly with regard to +other dependent religious beliefs which usually radiate from the central +notion. It will be seen that we do not argue from the self-determined +wishes or desires of any individual or class of individuals to their +possible fulfilment,--to the existence in Nature of some supply +answering to that demand; we do not argue that because many men or all +men desire to fly, flying must for that reason alone be possible. We +speak of the needs of man's nature, not of this individual's nature; of +needs consequent on what man is made, and not on what he has made +himself; of those wants and exigencies which if unsatisfied or +insatiable must leave his nature not merely negatively imperfect and +finite, but positively defective and as inexplicable as a lock without a +key--not necessarily, of needs felt at all times by every man, but of +those which manifest themselves naturally and regularly at certain +stages of moral and social development; just as the bodily appetites +assert themselves under certain conditions not always given. + +Now there is one form in which this argument from adaptability is +somewhat too hastily applied and which it is well to guard against. Were +we to find a key accommodated to the wards of a most complicated lock, +we should be justified in concluding, with a certainty proportioned to +the complexity of the lock, that both originated with one and the same +mind; and so, it is urged, if a religion, say Christianity, answers to +the needs of human nature, we may conclude that it is from the Author of +human nature with a certainty increasing as it is seen to answer to the +higher and more complex developments of the soul. + +Now if, like the key in our illustration, the religion in question were +something given _in rerum natura_ independent of human origination in +any form, this argument would be practically irresistible. That besides +those beliefs which lead man on to an ever fuller understanding of his +better self, and stimulate and direct his moral progress, Christianity +imposes others more principal, of which man as yet has no exigency, and +which hint at some future order of existence that new faculties will +disclose--all this, in no wise makes the argument inapplicable. The +whole system of beliefs is accepted for the sake, and on the credit, of +that part which so admirably unlocks the soul to her own gaze. "Now are +we the sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what we shall be;" if +besides satisfying our present ideal of religion, Christianity hints at +and prepares us for such a transition as that from merely organic to +sensitive life, or from this, to rational life, it rather adds to than +detracts from the force of the argument. + +Yet all this supposes that Christianity is something found by man +outside himself, with whose origination he had nothing to do; but, if +this be established, its supernatural origin, and therefore, supposing +theism, its truth, is already proved, and can only receive confirmation +from the argument of adaptability. If the Book of Mormon really came +down from Heaven, my conviction that polygamy is not for the best, would +seem a feeble objection against its claims. That the Judaeo-Christian +religion is supernatural and is from without, not only with respect to +the individual but to the race; that it is an external, God-given rule, +awakening, explaining, developing man's natural religious instinct, +correcting his own clumsy interpretations thereof, is just what gives it +its claim to pre-eminence over all, even the most highly conceived, +man-made interpretations of the same instinct. + +Yet though claiming to be a God-made interpretation, it is confessedly +through human agency, through the human mind and lips of the prophets +and of Christ that this revelation has come to us. Moreover, it +involves, though it transcends, all those religious beliefs of which +human nature seems exigent and which are, absolutely speaking, +attainable by what might be called the "natural inspiration" of +religious genius. Viewing the whole revelation in itself, its +adaptability is evident only in respect to that part which might have +originated with those minds through which it was delivered to us. If the +beliefs proposed seem to have anticipated moral and intellectual needs +not felt in the prophet's own age or society, this might be paralleled +from the inspiration of genius in other departments, and could not of +itself be regarded as establishing the _ab extra_ character of the +revelation. + +Plainly, then, so far as a religion claims to be from outside, its +adaptability to our religious and moral instincts may confirm but cannot +establish its Divine origin, which, given theism, is equivalent to its +truth. For to show that it is from outside, is to show that it is from +God. + +It is only therefore with regard to man-made interpretations of our +spiritual instincts, to the natural inspirations of religious genius, to +the intuitions and even the reasoned inferences of the conscientious and +clean-hearted, that the argument from adaptability can have any +independent value. It is now no longer as one who argues from a +comparison of lock and key to their common authorship; but rather we +have a self-conscious lock, pining to be opened, and from a more or less +imperfect self-knowledge dreaming of some sort of key and arguing that +in the measure that its dream is based on true self-knowledge there must +be a reality corresponding to it--a valid argument enough, supposing the +locksmith to act on the usual lines and not to be indulging in a freak. + +Such, in substance, is the argument from adaptability founded on the +assumption of theism and applied to the criticism or establishment of +further religious beliefs. It is indeed somewhat stronger when we +remember that the self-consciousness, with which we fictitiously endowed +the lock, plays chief part in the very design and structure of man; that +his self-knowledge, his moral and religious instincts, his desire and +power of interpreting them, are all from the Author of his nature. + +Of this difference Tennyson takes note in applying the argument from +adaptability to the immortality of the soul: + + Thou wilt not leave us in the dust; + Thou madest man, he knows not why; + He thinks he was not made to die, + And Thou hast made him, Thou art just. + +But so far as the argument presupposes theism it cannot be made to +support or even confirm theism. If, then, we want to make the argument +absolutely universal with regard to religious beliefs--theism included +and not presupposed--and so to make it available for apologetic purposes +in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, we must inquire +whether any basis can be found for it in non-theistic philosophy; +whether, prescinding from Divine governance and from an intelligent +purpose running through nature, the adaptability of a belief to the +higher needs of mankind can be considered in any way to prove its truth. +So far we have only shown that such a conclusion results from a clearer +insight into the theistic conception. Can we show that it springs, +co-ordinately with theism, from some conception prior to both? + + +II. + +If what is usually understood by "theism" be once granted as a +foundation, it is easy to raise thereon a superstructure of further +religious beliefs by means of the argument drawn from their adaptability +to the higher needs of mankind. However individuals may fail, yet it +must be allowed that on the whole the human mind progresses, or tends to +progress, from a less to a more perfect self-knowledge, to a fuller +understanding of its own origin, its end and destiny, and of the kind of +life by which that end is to be reached,--that is, if once we admit that +man is a self-interpreting creature, and the work of an intelligent +Creator. So far however as the Christian creed exceeds man's natural +exigencies and aspirations, it plainly cannot be subjected to this +criterion; and so far as it includes (while it transcends) the highest +form of "natural religion," the argument from adaptability holds of it +only if we suppose Christianity to be a natural product of the human +mind, thus destroying its claim to be from without and from above. But +if from other reasons we know Christianity to be a God-made and not a +man-made religion, then, though its divinity and truth is already +proved, yet it is in some sort confirmed and verified by its +adaptability to the demands of our higher nature. In a word, this +particular argument holds strictly only for man's own guesses at +religious truth,--for "natural" religions; but for Christianity, only so +far as we deny it to be supernatural as to its content and mode of +origination. + +But so far as this argument presupposes theism, it cannot be made to +support or even confirm theism; if then we wish to make it available for +apologetic purposes in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, +we must now inquire whether, prescinding from divine governance and from +finality in nature, the adaptability of a belief (say, in God, or in +future retribution) to the needs of mankind, can be considered in any +way as a proof of its truth; whether that argument can find any deeper +mental basis than theism; whether it can be rested on anything which in +the order of our thought is prior to theism so as to support or at least +to confirm theism itself. + +Our present endeavour is to show that though this argument rests more +easily and securely on theism, yet it need not rest upon it; but +springs, co-ordinately with theism, from _any_ conception of the world +that saves us from mental and moral chaos. Hence it confirms theism and +is confirmed by theism; but each is strictly independent of the other +and rests on a conception prior to both; they diverge from one and the +same root and then intertwine and support one another. + +By prescinding from theism I do not mean to exclude or deny it; for it +is, as I have just said, bound up with the same conception from which +the "argument from adaptability" is drawn. I only mean that I do not +need to build upon it as on a prior conception; that I can put it aside. +Indeed, of these two off-shoots, theism is less near to the common root, +as will appear later. + +Our limited mind cannot take in at once all the consequences or +presuppositions of a thought; for this would be to know everything; but +as with our outward eye we take in the circle of the horizon bit by bit, +so with our mind when we turn to one aspect of an idea we lose sight of +another. Hence in studying some complex organism or mechanism I may be +clear about the bearing of any part on its immediately neighbouring +parts, and yet may have no present notion of the whole; or may prescind +entirely from the question of its origin or its purpose. Thus our +thoughts are always unfinished and frayed round the edges, and we do not +know how much they involve and drag along with them. We can think of the +mechanism, and the organism, and the design, without thinking of the +mechanist, or the organizer, or the designer; and so in all cases where +two ideas are connected without being actually correlative. What is +commonly called a philosophical proof consists simply in showing us the +implications of some part of the general conception of things that we +already hold. It is to force us either to loosen our hold on that part +or else to admit all that it entails by way of consequences or +presuppositions; and so to bring our thoughts into consistency one way +or the other. But until something sets our mind in motion it can rest +very comfortably in partial conceptions, without following them out to +their results. + +Now as we can understand a mechanism to the extent of seeing the bearing +of part upon part, and even of all the parts upon the work it does, +without going on to think about the designer or his design; and without +explicitly considering it as designed; so we can and do think of the +world and recognize order in it, and see the bearing of part upon part +without going back to God or forward to God's purposes. Indeed, so far +as we use the argument from design to prove the existence of God, it +means that we first apprehend this order and regular sequence of events, +and then, as a second and distinct step, put it down to design. For +although God is the prior cause of design and of all creation, yet +design and creation is the prior cause of our knowing God, The +conception of a rational and moral world leads us to the conception of a +rational and moral origin, i.e., to theism. Further, it is plain that +this same order and regularity is recognized by many who refuse to see +design in it, and who invent other hypotheses to account for it; and of +one of these hypotheses we shall presently speak at length. + +Now, if I take any single organism and study it carefully, simply as a +biologist or physiologist, I shall recognize in it certain regularities +of structure and function and development, upon which I can found +various arguments and predictions. I can argue from its general +characteristics, to the nature of its environment and habits and modes +of life; or from its earlier stages, to what it will be when more fully +developed; and these arguments will be quite unaffected by any theory I +may hold as to the origin of these changes, and as to the causes of +these adaptations. The order and regularity on which my predictions are +based is an admitted fact. Theism or materialism are only theories by +which that fact is explained. Now, for mind in the abstract, theism is +really as much a presupposition of that fact, as the predicted truth is +a consequence of it. Both are logically connected with it, and yet +neither is derived from it through the other. + +If, however, we cannot thus observe and calculate on certain +regularities and tendencies in the world as we know it, then, not only +is the appearance of design and finality an illusion, not only is that +particular argument for theism cut away, but with it goes all scientific +certainty, all that stands between us and the most hopeless mental and +moral scepticism. + +It is not our immediate concern to prove the value of the "argument from +adaptability," but simply to show that it is logically (though not +really) unaffected by the question of theism and finality and design. As +long as we admit those same effects and consequences of which design is +one explanation, but of which others are _prima facie_ conceivable; as +long as we hold that the world works on the whole as though it were +designed; that the present anticipates and prepares for the future; that +the future and absent can be predicted from the present, so long do we +hold all upon which the "argument of adaptability" is strictly based. +And indeed, as has been said, if once it be admitted that the general +progressive tendency on the part of living things is towards a greater +harmony and correspondence with surrounding reality, then that argument +is a more immediate inference from the existence of an orderly world, +than is theism. + +Though both are strictly independent deductions from the same principle +(i.e., from an orderly world), yet theism and the argument from +adaptability when once deduced, confirm one another. For it is not hard +to show that theism is better adapted to man's higher needs, than +atheism or polytheism or pantheism; while if theism be once granted, +then, as we said in the last section, the argument from adaptability is +much more easily established. + +There have been at various times several philosophies or attempted +explanations of the world, which have either denied or prescinded from +theism and finality. These two conceptions may be considered as one; for +by finality we mean the intelligent direction of means towards a +preconceived end; and therefore to admit a pervading finality, is to +imply a theistic origin and government of the universe. + +Perhaps, the best and most finished attempt to explain the world +independently of finality is the philosophy of Evolution, so widely +popularized in our own day; and since it is in the region of organic +existence, that finalism looks for its chief basis, it is especially by +Darwinistic Evolution that its force is supposed to be destroyed. + +Any form of "monism" gets rid of finality more easily than does any form +of dualism; and again, any form of materialism, more easily than +idealism; and therefore as monistic and materialistic (at least in some +sense of the term), popular Evolutionism is the best plea for +non-finalist philosophy. We propose therefore briefly to examine this +philosophy, so far as it claims to be such, and to see whether it in any +way touches the validity of the argument from adaptability. + +Evolution may be considered both as an empirical fact and as an +aetiological theory or philosophy. Considered as a fact, it is the +statement of observed processes, and belongs to positive science like +the observed courses of the planets, or any other observed regularities +and uniformities. Science professes to have found everywhere as far as +its experience has extended--in astronomy, geology, physiology, biology, +psychology, ethics, sociology--a uniform process of change from the +simple to the complex, from the indefinite and unstable to the stable +and definite; and with this statement, so far as it can be verified, the +positivist should rest content, seeking no theory, and drawing no +generalization. But, the mind cannot hold together such collected facts +without some binding theory, nor even observe a single fact without some +preconception to give meaning to its suggested outlines: for what we +really get from our senses bears but a slight ratio to what we fill in +with our mind. Hence, answering to this supposed, but far from proven, +universality of Evolution as a fact,[4] we have a certain philosophy of +Evolution which takes us out of the sphere of facts into that of +hypotheses and generalizations, and tries to give meaning and unity to +the positive information that physical science has collected and +classified; to finish, as it were, the suggested curves; to fill up the +lacunae of observation; to extend to the whole world what is known of +the part; and perhaps to erect into a cause what is only an orderly +statement of facts. Undoubtedly it is this last fallacy that makes it +more easy for evolutionists to dispense with or ignore finality. Law in +its first sense is an expression of effectual human will. Call Evolution +a law and the popular mind will soon vaguely conceive it as a rule or +uniformity resulting from some kind of unconscious will-power at the +back of everything; and this Will-Power stops the gap created in our +thought by the exclusion of theism and finality. This confusion is +furthered still more by not distinguishing between the cause of a fact +and the cause of our knowledge of the fact. If I act in willing +conformity with the civil law, I also act in obedience to it, in some +way coerced by its authority and its sanctions. The law is really a +cause of my action; because it represents the fixed will and effectual +power of the ruler. But when this conception and name is transferred by +analogy to physical uniformities of action, an event which conforms to +the observed law or regularity of sequence, is not really caused by the +law unless we suppose that law to be representative of something +equivalent to a fixed will from which it originates. Yet we say loosely, +such an event happens _in consequence of_ the law of attraction; meaning +only, _in conformity with_ the law, so as to verify the law, to follow +from it logically. Thus again the law comes to be mistaken for an +effectual power of some kind, whereas it is merely a sort of regularity +that might result either from an intelligent will or from something +equivalent. But in thus adroitly slipping-in the conception of a +governing force or tendency, or even in openly asserting it, with +Schopenhauer or Hartmann, and in explaining the graduated resemblances +of species by the origin of one from the other, and in extending this +mode of Evolution in all directions from the known to the unknown so as +to make it pervade the universe, we at once cease to be faithful +positivists and, becoming philosophers, must submit to philosophic +criticism, since these problems cannot be settled merely by an appeal to +facts. Thus when Professor Mivart speaks of Evolution as "the continuous +progress of the material universe by the unfolding of latent +potentialities in harmony with a preordained end," the latent +potentialities, the preordained end, the procession of one species from +another, the extension of this law to every difference of time and +place--all are matters of hypothesis or intuition; but by no means of +exterior observation. + +The most that observation gives us is the very imperfect suggestion of +the track that such a movement would have left behind it, not unlike the +scraps that boys litter along the road in a paper-chase. Similarly, if +in the case of organic Evolution we deny all latent potentialities and +preordained ends and throw the whole burden on accidental variations and +natural selection; if we regard the whole process as no more intelligent +or designed than that by which water seeks and finds its own level; yet +as in the case of water we must perforce introduce "a gravitating +tendency," so in the case of living organisms a "persisting" or +"struggling tendency," as an hypothesis to give unity to our facts or to +account for their uniformity. But these tendencies are as little matter +of observation as the aforesaid latent potentialities or preordained +ends. In fine, Evolution, whatever form it take, gets rid of theism and +finality only by slipping into their place some tendency or indefinable +power which it considers adequate to account for the facts to be +explained. + +Let us now see if there be room in this philosophy for our argument from +adaptability, and whether it will allow us to infer that because belief +in theism and in future retribution are beliefs postulated by our higher +moral aspirations, therefore they answer to reality more or less +approximately; whether, in short, under certain conditions (specified in +our last essay) the wish to believe may be a valid reason for believing. + +Now Evolution as a philosophy or explanatory hypothesis owes its +popularity to its apparent simplicity. Wrapped in its wordy envelope, +the notion as formulated by Spencer needs no subtilty of apprehension, +but only a dictionary. Nor is the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection +more difficult. + +Other things equal, the simpler hypothesis is to be preferred to the +less simple where no proof can be had of either. But none the less, the +simpler may be false and the other true. Cheapness is no proof of +goodness. We are naturally impatient of troublesome and complex +theories; but what we gain in the simplicity of an hypothesis, we +commonly lose in the difficulty of getting the facts to square with it. +It is a simple theory that circular motion is the most perfect, and that +the planets being the most perfect bodies must move with the most +perfect motion; but so many epicycles must be introduced to explain +apparent exceptions that the modern astronomical hypothesis, however +more complex in statement, is on the whole welcomed as a simplification. +So we are disposed to think it is with regard to the popular form of +Evolutionism. Its simplicity in statement is more than cancelled by its +difficulty in application; and at last we are driven to conceive it in a +form which at once deprives it of its title to popularity. So far as it +is simple it is fallacious and proves incoherent on closer inspection, +when we try to translate its terms into clear and distinct ideas; but +when we get it into intelligible form it is no simpler than the theistic +hypothesis which it wants to displace, except inasmuch as it prescinds +from the question of origin and last end. But in this, its only +intelligible form, it leaves the argument from adaptability intact, and +even requires theism as its rational complement. + +This is what we must now endeavour to show. We cannot illustrate our +contention better than from the popular simplification of Ethics +introduced by Bentham. Taking pleasure as a simple and ultimate notion +he affirms that our conduct is always determined by a balance of +pleasure on one side or the other. The problem of practical ethics is to +construct a calculus of pleasures, a sort of ready-reckoner whereby men +may be able to invest in the most profitable course of action. "When we +have a hedonistic calculus with its senior wranglers," says Mr. Bain, +"we shall begin to know whether society admits of being properly +reconstructed." [5] It is assumed that pleasures differ only in quantity, +i.e., in intensity, extent, and duration, just as warmth does, which may +be of high or low temperature; diffused over a greater or less extent of +body; and that, for a shorter or a longer time. On this assumption +pleasure is every bit as mathematically measurable as is warmth, the +whole difficulty being due to its subjective and therefore inaccessible +nature. Simple in statement, this theory proves in application +infinitely complex, and indeed on closer inspection breaks up into a +mere verbal fallacy--as Dr. Martineau, amongst others, has shown in his +_Types of Ethical Theory_. For "pleasure," though one simple word, has +an endless variety of meanings, not indeed wholly disconnected, but +bound together only by a certain kind of analogy. The eye, the ear, the +palate, the mind, the heart, have each their proper pleasure; which is +nothing else than the resultant of their perfect operation in response +to the stimulus of some all-satisfying object--a fact which may be +expressed differently by different philosophies, but with substantial +identity of meaning. But not till we find some common measure for sound +and colour and flavour and thought and affection, will it be possible to +compare in any hedonistic scales the pleasures they produce. Yet colour +is to the eye what music is to the ear; and therefore the one word +pleasure is used not unreasonably of both. + +Quite similar seems to us the fallacy to which Evolution owes its +seeming simplicity and its popularity. The word "existence" or "life" +(which is the existence of organic beings, about which we are chiefly +concerned), is taken as having one homogeneous meaning, like "heat" or +"warmth;" the only difference being quantitative--a difference of +intensity, of breadth, of duration; not a difference of kind such as +would destroy all common measure. Life is something which we predicate +of the most diversely organized beings, and therefore would seem to be +something the same in all, which they secure in a diversity of ways. + +Thus Darwin defines the general good or welfare which should be the aim +of our conduct as "the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in +full health and vigour with all their faculties perfect;" upon which Mr. +Sidgwick remarks[6] with justice: "Such a reduction of the notion of +'well-being' to 'being' (actual and potential) would be a most important +contribution from the doctrine of Evolution to ethical science. But it +at least conflicts in a very startling manner with those ordinary +notions of progress and development" in which "it is always implied that +certain forms of life are qualitatively superior to others, +independently of the number of individuals, present or future, in which +each form is realized.... And if we confine ourselves to human beings, +to whom alone the practical side of the doctrine applies, is it not too +paradoxical to assert that 'rising in the scale of existence' means no +more than 'developing the capacity to exist'? A greater degree of +fertility would thus become an excellence outweighing the finest moral +and intellectual endowments; and some semi-barbarous races must be held +to have attained the end of human existence more than some of the +pioneers and patterns of civilization." Nor is it only in the region of +ethics but in every region that this false simplification is fertile in +paradoxes; and yet if it be disowned, the charm to which Evolution owes +its popularity is gone. + +It would be indeed a short cut to knowledge if we might believe life to +be, as this theory imagines it, a simple, self-diffusing force with an +irrepressible tendency to spread itself in all directions, like fire in +a prairie. True we should not have altogether got rid of innate +tendencies, but we should have reduced them to one, namely, to the +struggling, or persisting, or self-asserting tendency; a simplification +like that offered by the matter-and-force theory of Buchner. + +This flame of life once kindled (we are told) endeavours to subdue all +things to itself, and all that we find in the way of variety of organic +structure and function has been shaped and determined by its +struggle--much as a river channels a way for its waters in virtue of its +own onward force, checked and determined by the nature of the obstacles +it has to encounter. Every organism is related to life as the +candlestick to the candle; it is simply a device for supporting and +spreading as much life as is possible with the surrounding conditions. +Often, when conditions are favourable, the simplest contrivance will be +more effectual, more life-producing than the most complex in less +favourable conditions. Where food is not present the animal that can +move about in search of it will survive, and the stationary animal +perish; and likewise those that can escape their foes will live down +those rooted in one spot. And if to motion we add perception and +intelligence, and associative instincts and the rest, we increase the +appliances for dealing with difficulties; and therewith the means of +survival when such difficulties exist. Still, in the hypothesis we are +dealing with, all these contrivances--movement, consciousness, +intelligence, will, society--are distinct from life and ministerial to +it; they are instruments by which it is preserved, increased, and +multiplied--like those contrivances by which heat or electricity is +generated, sustained, and transmitted; with this difference, that no one +has designed these life-machines, but they are simply the result of +life's innate tendency to struggle and spread. A great deal of the form +and movement of the inorganic world is due simply to the stress of +gravitation and not to design, and so we are asked to believe that the +human and every other organism has been shaped and quickened by the +action of as blind a power; that it is in some sense a casual result. + +Now if seeing and hearing and thinking do not constitute life, but are +only chance discoveries helpful to life; if we do not live in order to +eat and to see and to think, but only think, see, and eat in order to +live, we ask ourselves, what then is this life which is none of these +things and to which they are all subordinate? And when once we begin +subtracting those functions which minister to life and which life has +selected for its own service, we find there is absolutely nothing left +to serve. Taking the very earliest forms, if we subtract movement, +nutrition, growth, generation, we find there is nothing over called +"life" distinct from these. This is the first and fundamental +incoherence of the theory; life has simply no meaning apart from those +functions which we speak of as ministering to life; unless we mean by +life the mere cohering together of the bodily organism--an end more +effectually secured without any such complex apparatus, by a stone or by +an elementary atom. + +If existence in that sense, be the force or principle whose persistence +and self-assertion is the cause of all evolution, it is impossible to +conceive how primordial atoms, which are assumed to be indestructible +and constant in quantity, should trouble themselves to struggle at all; +since the amount of that kind of existence can neither be lessened nor +increased. And as motion is also assumed to be a constant quantity, it +is plain that what struggles to be and to multiply, must be some special +collocation and grouping of atoms with some correspondingly particular +determination of motion, called "life;" but what "life" is, apart from +the means it is supposed to have selected for itself, does not appear. + +Another difficulty attendant on this false simplification is the +complete subversion of that scale of dignity or excellence upon which we +range the various kinds of living creatures, putting ourselves at the +top--not merely in obedience to a pardonable vanity, but, as has +hitherto been supposed, in obedience to a trustworthy intuition which, +without attempting to apply a common measure to things incommensurable, +judges life to be higher than death; consciousness than unconsciousness; +mind than mere sensation; and in general, what includes and surpasses, +than what is included and surpassed. We see that the organic world +presupposes the ministry of the inorganic; and the animal world, that of +the plant world; and that the human world depends on the ministry of all +three; and our whole conception of this world as "cosmos" is simply the +filling in of this hierarchic framework. Yet this old structure falls to +pieces under the new simplification. If "life" (as vaguely conceived) be +the first beginning and the last end (or rather result) of the whole +process of evolution, if it be the _summum bonum_, then the "highest" +creature means, the most life-producing. + +Now if we put "money" instead of "life," and begin to classify men by +this standard, we see how it inverts the old-world ideas of social +hierarchy. True it is, the man of letters or of high artistic gifts +can produce a certain amount of money, but has little chance against +the inventor of a new soap or a patent pill. Honesty at once becomes +the worst policy, and a thousand other maxims have to be reformed. Yet +this is a trifling _boule-versement_ compared with that which would +have to be introduced into our scientific classification were +"life-productivity" (in the vague) taken as the criterion of excellence. + +For we cannot any longer determine the rank of an animal by its organic +complexity, since, _ceteris paribus_, this is a defect rather than +otherwise. + +To secure life more simply is better than to secure the same amount by +means of complex apparatus. Of course when the favouring conditions are +altered, then any apparatus that makes life still possible is an +advantage; but till that crisis arises it is only an encumbrance. When +life can be secured only at the cost of greater labour and exertion and +cunning, it is well to be capable of these things, but surely those +animals are more to be envied that have no need of these things. It is +only on the hypothesis of an unkindly environment that complexity of +organization is an excellence. + +Furthermore, although these accidental variations allow certain +creatures to survive in crises of difficulty, yet they also make the +conditions of their survival more complicated and hard to secure. All +that differentiates man from an amoeba has enabled him to get safe +through certain straits where the lower forms of life were left behind +to perish; but it has also made it impossible for him to live in the +simpler conditions he has escaped from; like a parvenu whose luxurious +habits have gradually created a number of new necessities for him, which +make a return to his original poverty and hardships quite impracticable. +If the development of lungs has allowed animals to come out of the water +into the air, it has also prevented their going back again. Furthermore, +a considerable amount of vital energy is consumed in the production, +support, and repair of all this supplementary, life-preserving +apparatus; just as, much of the national wealth for whose protection +they exist is absorbed by a standing army and other military +preparations. And in fact of two countries otherwise equal in wealth, +that is surely the better off which has no need of being thus armed up +to the teeth. Thus man's superior organization may be compared to the +overcoat and umbrella with which one sets out on a threatening morning; +very desirable should it rain, but a great nuisance should it clear up. + +It seems, then, that the highest organism is that which produces or +secures the greatest quantity of life in the simplest manner, and at the +cost of the least complexity of structure and function; while the lowest +is that which yields the least quantity at the greatest cost; and +between these two extremes organisms will be ranked by the ratio of +their complexity to their life-productivity--life being measured +mathematically (as something homogeneous) by its vigour, by its +duration, and by the amount of matter animated, whether in the +individual or in its progeny. It is obvious how, at this rate, our +zoological hierarchy is turned topsy-turvy; and how difficult it will be +to show that man is a better life-machine than, say, a mud-turtle with +its centuries of vital existence. + +It would be a monstrous allegation to say that any evolutionist would +defend these conclusions in all their crudity; but is only by thus +pushing implied principles to their results, that their incoherence can +be made plain. Once more, if this simple uniform thing called life be +the sole cause, determining organic Evolution and selecting accidental +variations, just in so far as they favour its own maintenance and +multiplication, then every organ, appliance, and faculty by which man +differs from the simplest bioplast, is merely a life-preserving +contrivance. To speak human-wise, Nature in that case has but one +end--animal life; and chooses every means solely with a view to that +end. She does not care about pain or pleasure, or consciousness, or +knowledge, or truth, or morality, or society, or science, or religion, +for their own sakes; she cares for life only, and for these so far +as--like horns and teeth and claws--they are conducive to life. +Evolution therefore is governed by a blind non-moral principle--as blind +and ruthless as gravitation. This being so, the mind is for the sake of +the body, and not conversely. Evolution is not making for truth and +righteousness as for greater or even as for co-ordinate ends; but simply +for life, to which sometimes truth and righteousness, but just as often +illusion and selfishness, are means. There is nothing therefore in this +process of Nature to make us trust that our mind really makes for truth +as such, or that it has any essential tendency to greater correspondence +with reality, beyond what subserves to fuller animal existence. The fact +that a certain belief makes animal life possible is no proof of its +truth, but only of its expediency. The extent to which many pleasures +depend on illusion is proverbial; and pleasure is almost the note of +vital vigour, according to this philosophy. + +Plainly, our argument from the adaptability of a belief to man's higher +moral needs, vanishes into thin air as soon as the key to the order of +nature is thus sought in a blind non-moral tendency, and when that which +is lowest is put at the top, and everything above it made to minister to +it. + +But then it is not only this particular argument that perishes, but all +possibility of arguing at all, all faith in our mental faculties, except +so far as they minister to the finding of food and the propagation of +life. Thus the very attempt to prove such a system of Evolution is a +contradiction, since it cuts away all basis of proof. On this I need not +dwell longer, since it has been worked out so fully and clearly by +others. We get rid of the argument from adaptability, by a conception of +the order of Nature that reduces us to mental and moral chaos. + +In its semblance of simplicity this form of Evolution-philosophy shows +itself kin to those other old-world attempts to dispense with a +governing mind, and to educe the existing cosmos from the blind strife +of primordial atoms. It has indeed a more plausible basis, seeing how +many things, too quickly attributed to design in a theological age, can +really be explained by the struggle for existence. But in trying to make +an occasional and partial cause universal and ultimate, it has +undertaken the impossible task of bringing the greater out of the less; +which really means bringing their difference out of nothing--and this is +creation with the First Cause left out; that is, spontaneous creation. +It is from first to last an "aggregation" theory, and has to face the +insupportable burdens which such a theory brings with it. Haunted by a +false analogy drawn from the political organism whose members are +intelligent and self-directive, and who put themselves under an +intelligent government to be marshalled and directed to one common +end--haunted by this anthropomorphic conception, it tries to explain how +independent and indestructible units, void of all intelligence, come +together into polities with no assignable government; and how these +groups or polities, which are nothing separate from the sum of their +components, are aggregated to one another in like manner; until at last +we come to the highest organism, which again is only the sum of its +ultimate atoms, and its activity the sum of their activities--the whole +distinction between highest and lowest organism being such as exists +between a society of two and a highly complex civilized state. And all +this political life is the spontaneous work of unintelligent units; that +is to say, we have results exceeding the highest ever attained by human +intelligence, long before intelligence or sentience has yet been +evolved. + +Nobody will care to support "Pangenesis" as a theory of generation. To +suppose that there is a mysterious power which breaks a little fraction +off each of the bioplasts of which we are asserted to be the sum; that +having collected these fractions it arranges them all in the right order +within the compass of a single germ, and from that germ reproduces the +parent organism, is an hypothesis compared with which the creation of +the world in its entirety six thousand years ago, including the fossils +and remains of aeonian civilizations, is lucid and intelligible. This is +no hyperbole. For if once we allow creation at all, the creation of the +world at any stage of Evolution is just as conceivable as the creation +of primordial atoms. If any living thing were now created (e.g., a +grain of corn or a full ear) it would bear in itself the apparent +evidence of having _grown_ to its present state _ab ovo_; or the _ovum_ +itself would seem to ground a similar false inference of having come +from a parent. Strange as such an idea may be, it is easy and pellucid +compared with the hypothesis of Pangenesis--still more when we remember +that this complex germ, which is a lion or a horse in small--itself the +elaboration of aeons of Evolution--can replicate itself with ease and +rapidity, reproducing in adjacent pabulum a "cosmos" which differs in +degree, not in kind, from that described in the story of the Six Days. +Yet the more we look into it, the more clear is it that Pangenesis (and +not Polarigenesis or Perigenesis) is the inevitable outcome of the +aggregation-theory of life. + +And therefore to return to our former assertion, whatever we seem to +gain in simplicity of statement by this form of the Evolution theory, we +pay for dearly when we come to its application; nay more, as soon as we +attempt to translate the words into clear and distinct ideas, we are +left with nothing coherent that the mind can get hold of; and it is only +at this price that we can cut away the basis of the "argument from +adaptability," and with it the basis of all reason and morality. We must +therefore go on to examine if there be any alternative form of the same +philosophy more bearable. + +I have forborne all criticism of the supposed _facts_ on which Evolution +is based; as others have dealt frequently with their various weaknesses. +Nor do I think it necessary to deal with the extravagant subordinate +hypotheses by aid of which facts are forced under the main hypothesis, +e.g., those which explain how the horse grew out of the hipparion. The +crudest finalists have been everywhere out-stripped by Evolutionists in +dextrous application of the argument _a posse ad esse_. + + +III. + +Assuming still that the facts collected and arranged by experimental +science in favour of the hypothesis are such as to demand some kind of +Evolution-philosophy; assuming that the very imperfect serial +classification of living things according to their degree of organic +definiteness, coherence, and heterogeneity not merely represents a +variety which has always coexisted since life was possible on this +earth, but rather traces out or hints at the genetic process by which +this variety has been produced, let us see if there be any other +governing principle directing the process, more intelligible than the +persistence of that mere organic life which cannot even be thought of as +distinct from those appliances and functions which it is supposed to +have evolved for its own service by "natural selection." + +Let us admit, what is really evident, that life is nothing distinct from +the sum of those functions which minister to the preservation of life; +and that therefore it is not the same thing in a man and in a +mud-turtle. Man's superior faculties are not merely a more complicated +machinery for producing an identical effect which the mud-turtle +produces more simply and abundantly, but rather by their very play +_constitute_ an entirely different and higher kind of life. When Hume, +in his _Treatise on Human Nature_, says: "Reason is and ought to be the +slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to +serve and obey them," he implies that the exercise of reason is no +constituent factor of human life, but something outside it, subordinate +to it, whereas that life itself consists in passion, or pleasurable +sensation, of which man, in virtue of his reason and other advantages, +secures more than do his fellow-animals. This is just the conception of +life which we have seen to be incoherent on close inspection; and if it +be so, then the evolutionary process is a struggle not for bare life or +existence, but for the prevalence of the _higher kinds_ of life and +existence; and intelligence and morality are not only co-operative as +instruments in maintaining and extending human life, but are themselves +the principal elements of that complex life. True, the mind does +minister to the body and preserve it; but still more does the body +minister to the mind; or rather, each ministers to that whole in which +the play of the mind is the principal function and the play of the body +subordinate. If, then, we hold to the verdict of our common sense, and +regard our mental life not as subordinate to our sensitive and vegetal +life, but as co-ordinate and even superior, we must (so to speak) view +it as no less "for its own sake," as no less an "end in itself" than +they are, but rather much more; we must regard evolution as making for +the life of truth and the life of righteousness even more principally +than for bare existence or animal vitality. It is now no longer mere +life that tries to assert itself, and in the struggle shapes things to +what they are; but it is the very highest kind of life, that is trying +to come to the birth. Nature inherently tends to the higher through the +lower forms of life, and these minister to the higher and receive in +return from them the means of a yet more efficacious ministry. + +In this conception, every function of the organism has two aspects, +under one of which it is its own end and exists for its own sake as an +element of the life of the whole; under the other it is ministerial, +serving other functions above and below it, as it in return is served by +them. Correspondence with the environment is, similarly, not merely a +condition of life, but also that wherein vitality principally consists. +"Living" is spontaneous self-adaptation to surrounding reality, taken in +the very widest sense. The more diverse and multiform this adaptability, +the fuller and higher is the life; and thus our ordinary common-sense +classifications are justified. Each new manifestation of life means some +new correspondence with surrounding reality as we piss from mere +vegetation, and then add local movement, and one sense after another, +till we come finally to intelligence and the life of reason and +right-doing, which again, consists in self-conformation to things as +they really are. In all this we are in agreement with common sense and +common language, which identify the fullest life with the fullest +activity; all activity being of the nature of response to stimulus, that +is, correspondence to reality. As soon as consciousness supervenes on +the lower forms of life it is evident that the pleasures of sight, +hearing, taste, mind, and affection all depend on, and consist in, the +consciousness of this successful accommodation of the subject to the +object; and that all pain and disease is simply the felt failure of such +adaptation. What was anciently and very wisely called the "natural +appetite" of living creatures is in this view nothing else but their +response to the modifying attraction exerted upon them by the objective +Reality which presses upon them on every side, and tends to draw them +into conformity with itself so far as they have latent capacity for such +a correspondence. It is the light that makes (or rather elicits) sight; +and it is sound that develops the sense of hearing: and it is the ideas +embodied in Nature that call our intellect into play. Hence it follows +that, desire for truth and justice, for society and for religion, which +assert themselves as invariably in the soul of man at certain stages of +progress, as the desire for mere life asserts itself from the first, is +simply the felt result of the as yet unsuccessful endeavour of Nature to +draw man into a fuller kind of correspondence with herself. + +Thus conceived, the course of evolution is comparable, not as before, to +the gradual unveiling of a blank canvas, revealing simply a greater +extent of the same appearance, but to the gradual unveiling of a picture +whose full unity of meaning is held in suspense till the disclosure is +completed. We do not now interpret the higher by the lower, but the +lower by the higher; the beginning by the end. This may seem perilously +near to finalism, yet it is no more necessarily so, than the process of +photography; we only need a self-adaptive tendency in life-matter +responsive to the stimulating-tendency of the environment. Not, of +course, that this bundle of words really explains anything, but that +like other formulae of the kind, it prescinds from the question of ends +and origins, by making a statement of what happens serve as a cause of +what happens, and calling it a Law or a Tendency, or a Latent +Potentiality--thus filling the gap which mere agnosticism creates in our +thought. + +With this conception of Evolution our ordinary estimates of "higher" and +"lower" are saved; also the value of our mental processes upon which +rests whatever proof the theory may admit of; while the "argument from +adaptability" is provided with a firm basis independent of finality. All +our "natural," as opposed to our personal and self-determined appetites +or cravings,--those which are, so to say, constitutional and inseparable +from our nature in certain conditions, are evidence of the influence of +some reality outside us seeking to draw us into more perfect +correspondence with itself, and whose nature can be more or less dimly +conjectured from the nature of those cravings. What are called "natural +religions" represent man's self-devised attempts to explain the reality +answering to his religious and moral cravings. Revelation is but a +divine interpretation of the same; as though one with dim vision were to +supplement his defect by the testimony of another more clear-sighted. + +It may be practically admitted that no philosophy allows of strict +demonstration, since, being a conception of the totality of things, it +modifies our understanding of every principle by which one might attempt +to prove or disprove it. Eventually it is its harmony with the totality +of things as we perceive them that determines us to accept it, and no +two of us perceive just the same totality, however substantial an +agreement there may be in our experience; yet I think it can hardly be +denied that this conception of evolution is far more in agreement with +the world as most of us know it, and commonly think and speak of it, +than the former; that it not merely satisfies our intellect, but offers +some satisfaction to our whole spiritual nature. "Is it certain," asks +Mr. Bradley, in a fairly similar connection, "that the mere intellect +can be self-satisfied if the other elements of our nature remain +uncontented?" And, again: "A result, if it fails to satisfy our whole +nature, comes short of perfection: and I could not rest tranquilly in a +truth if I were compelled to regard it as hateful.... I should insist +that the inquiry was not yet closed and that the result was but partial. +And if metaphysics" [for which we may substitute: any philosophy, such +a& that of Evolution] "is to stand, it must, I think, take account of +all sides of our being. I do not mean that every one of our desires must +be met by a promise of particular satisfaction; for that would be absurd +and utterly impossible. But if the main tendencies of our nature do not +reach consummation in the Absolute, we cannot believe that we have +attained to perfection and truth."[7] From this point of view there can +be no doubt as to which of these conceptions of Evolution is the more +rational and satisfactory; that which would explain it by a simple +tendency in living matter to persist and spread, and would see in all +organic variety only the selected means to that somewhat colourless end; +or that conception which would explain it by a tendency in living matter +to come into ever fuller correspondence with its environment, seeing in +such spontaneous correspondence the very essence of life, and not merely +a condition of life. + +We need only add a few criticisms on this second conception. + +1. It is true that every creature struggles more intensely and +vigorously for the lower kind of life, or for "mere life," as we might +say, than for any of those things which alone would seem to make life +worth the having. But this only means that to live at all is the most +fundamental condition of living well and fully and enjoyably. The higher +life cannot stand without the lower, which it includes, but the lower is +not therefore the better, nor is it the end for whose sake the higher is +desirable; but conversely. Not until men have got bread enough to eat +will they have leisure or energy to spare for the animal grades of +vitality. When the means of bodily subsistence grow scarce, then the +faculties that were previously set free to seek the bread of a higher +and fuller life are diverted to the struggle for bare animal existence, +and progress is thrown back; but when there is abundance for all, +secured by the labour of a few from whom the remainder can buy, then +fuller life becomes once more possible for that remainder. The struggle +for bodily food gives an advantage to, and "selects" naturally, those +mental and other powers which facilitate its attainment; but just as man +does not only eat and labour in order to live, but also (however it may +shock conventional ethics) lives in order to eat and labour; so the new +energies called forth by competition do not merely secure that grade of +life in whose interests they are evoked and perfected, but extend the +sphere of vitality, in so much as their own play adds a new element to +life and gives it a new form. + +The part played by struggle and competition in this process of Evolution +is naturally exaggerated by those who deny any latent tendency other +than that of mere persistence in being; who repudiate an internal +expansiveness towards fuller kinds of existence, drawn out or checked by +the environment. + +Competition plays a prominent part when there is question of the lower +grades of life, in so far as these depend on a pabulum that is limited +in quantity. In such cases competition, within certain limits, will +secure the bringing-out of latent powers by which the lower level of +life is maintained and a higher level entered upon; the lower being +secured by the superimposition of the higher. + +But how does it do so? Not by creating anything, but by giving the +victory to those individuals who already were ahead of their fellows in +virtue of a fuller development of their nature from within; in clearing +the ground for them and letting them increase and multiply. + +2. Again, we should notice that development in one direction may be at +the cost of development in another. The struggle for any lower form of +existence than that already attained, is inevitably at the cost of the +higher. The degrading effects of destitution are proverbial. Craft, +cruelty, selfishness, and all the vices needed for success in a +gladiatorial contest are often the fruits of such competition. Also, +commercial progress seems on the whole to be at the expense of progress +in art and the higher tastes, sacrificing everything to the production +of the greatest possible quantity of material comforts. If it sharpens +the wits and sensibilities in some directions, it blunts them in others. + +Now, the first sense suggested to us in these days by the word +"progress," is material progress--all that came in with steam; and this +narrow conception vitiates much of our reasoning. It is in this realm +undoubtedly that competition is such a factor of rapid advance; but we +forget that the food of what the best men have ever considered the best +life, is not limited or divisible; but like the light and air is +undiminished how many soever share it. Whatever advance there has been +in the life of the mind and of the higher tastes and sensibilities, +cannot directly be explained by competition, but simply by the quiet +upward working of Nature's inherent forces. We look with scorn at the +unprogressive East, satisfied that there can be no progress, no life +worth living, where there is no rush for dollars. But I think we have +yet to learn the meaning of _ex Oriente lux_. + +Much of our immorality and our social evil comes from the fact that +those who have developed the faculties of a higher grade of life, seek +the lower as an end in itself, and not simply so far as it is a +condition of the higher and no further. The Gospel precept, as usual, +enunciates only the law of reason and nature, when it bids us to "Seek +first the Kingdom of God and its justice," that is, to put our best life +in the front, and to make it the measure and limit of any other quest. +The neglect of this principle gives us high living and plain thinking, +instead of "high thinking and plain living;" and takes the bread out of +the mouths of the poor. The competition for pleasures and luxuries and +amusements, may indeed develop certain industries and cause progress in +certain narrow lines, but it is at the cost of the only progress worth +the name. + +The conflict between this "struggle-theory" and ethics has been freely +acknowledged by Professor Huxley and others; every attempt to educe +unselfishness from selfishness has failed. The moral man even in our day +has rather a bad time of it; what chance would he have had of surviving +to propagate his species in the supposed pre-moral states of human +society? Who can possibly conceive mere rottenness being cured by +progress in rottenness; or a man drinking himself into temperance? On +the other hand, it is at least conceivable that in the wildest savage +there is some little seed of a moral sense--weak, compared with the +lowest springs of action, just because it is the highest and therefore +only struggling into being; and that in the slow lapse of time events +may here and there prove that honesty is the best policy; and that +honesty once tasted may be found not only useful for other things, but +agreeable for itself, and may be cherished and strengthened by social +and religious sanctions. + +There is, however, a reaction on foot which tends to reconcile the +breach between ethics and evolution, by reducing the part played by +competition within reasonable bounds, and making it subservient to the +survival, not of the most selfish, but of the most social individuals. +Definite variations from within, modified between narrow limits by +accidental variation from without, is coming to be acknowledged as the +chief factor of progress. But we should not forget that to allow an +internal principle of orderly development is, not merely to modify the +popular evolution theory by a slight concession to its adversaries; it +is rather to make it no longer the supreme explanation of development, +but at most a slight modification of the more mysterious theory which it +was its boast and merit to have supplanted. According to Geddes and +Foster and others of their school, it is the species-subserving +qualities that Nature selects; and these, in the higher grades of life, +are equivalent to the altruistic, social, and ethical qualities. It is +in virtue of the parental and maternal instincts of self-sacrifice, +self-diffusion, self-forgetfulness in the interests of the offspring, +that species are preserved and prevail. Selfish egoism leads eventually +(as we see in some modern countries where _laizzez-faire_ liberalism +prevails) to social disruption, decadence, and chaos; and this is the +universal law of life in every grade. At first indeed the unit struggles +to live, for life is the condition of propagation; but the root of this +instinct is altruistic; it is the whole asserting itself in the part; +and all "self-regarding" instincts are to be likewise explained as +subordinate to the "other-regarding" instincts. As soon as this +sub-ordination is ignored in practice, regress takes the place of +progress. The transit, we are told, from the unicellular to the +multicellular organism cannot be explained by individualism, but implies +a diminution of the competitive, an increase of the social and +subordinative tendency. The argument from economics to biology and back +again, is said to be nearing exposure; the "progress of the species +through the internecine struggle of its individuals at the margin of +subsistence," is the outgoing idea. Yes, and with it goes out all that +made Evolution a simple and therefore popular explanation of the world; +and there comes in that "organic" conception of the process which +clamours for theism and finalism as its only coherent complement. + +3. But though Evolution so conceived makes the "argument from +adaptability," as well as the arguments for theism, stronger rather than +weaker; we must not shut our eyes to the difficulty created by the fact +(too little insisted upon by Evolutionists) that there is no solid +reason for thinking that progress is all-pervading. We have already said +that progress in commerce may be regress in art or in religion or in +morality. Also, progress in benevolence may co-exist with regress in +fortitude and purity; progress in one point of morality with regress in +another; progress in ethical judgment with regress in ethical practice. +And in every realm, growth and decay, life and death, seem so to +intertwine and oscillate that it is very gratuitous to designate the +total process as being one or the other. Spencer confesses that the +entire universe oscillates between extremes of integration and +disintegration. Why we should consider the universe at present to be +rising rather than falling, waxing rather than waning, one cannot say. +The easier presumption is that it is equally one and the other, and +always has been. Even were we rash enough to pronounce progress to be on +the whole prevalent within the narrow field of our own experience, +surely it were nothing but the inevitable "provincialism" of the human +mind to pass _per saltum_ from that, to a generalization for all +possible experience. Our optimism, our faith that right, truth, and +order will eventually prevail, can find only a delusive basis in actual +experience, and must draw its life from some deeper source. + +Why then should we so presume that our moral and religious ideas are +really progressive and not regressive, as to regard their interpretation +as approximating to the truth? The answer is simply that our argument +from adaptability does not require the assumption in question, but only +that we should be able to distinguish higher from lower tendencies, +progressive from regressive movements, without holding the optimistic +view that on the whole the forward tendency is at present prevailing. It +is not because we live in the nineteenth century that we consider our +moral perceptions truer than those of the ancient Hebrews, but because +we at once comprehend and transcend their ideas (in some respects), as +the greater does the less. In many points surely the relation is +inverted and we feel ourselves transcended (or may at least suspect it), +by those who lived or live in ruder conditions than our own. David has +perhaps taught us more than we could have taught him; and there are +other vices than those proper to semi-barbarism. It is not by reference +to date or country, or grade of material progress, that we assess the +value of moral judgments, but by that subjective standard with which our +own moral attainments supply us in regard to all that is equal or less, +similar or dissimilar. To deny this discernment is to throw the doors +open to unqualified scepticism; to admit it, is all that we need for the +validity of our inference. + +4. If Evolution is really of this oscillatory character; if at all times +much the same processes have been going on in different parts of this +universe as now--one system decaying as another is coming into being; is +it not more reasonable to imagine (for it is only a question of +imagining) that the primordial datum was not uniform nebula, but matter +in all stages of elaboration from the highest to the lowest--the same +sort of result as we should get from a cross-section at any subsequent +moment in the process? What reason is there for assuming primordial +homogeneity, since every backward step would show us, together with the +unravelling of what is now in process of weaving, a counter-balancing +weaving of what is now in process of disintegration? Were this earth +all, we might dream of universal advance by shutting our eyes to a great +many incompatible facts; but when our telescopes show us the +co-existence of integration and disintegration everywhere, what can we +conclude but that in the past as in the future, no alteration is to be +looked for beyond the shifting of the waves' crest from side to side of +the sea of matter--the total ratio of depressions to elevations +remaining exactly constant. + +Were the other view of an original universal homogeneity correct, how +conies it that we have still co-existent every stage of advance from the +lowest to the highest, and that there is not a greater equality?--a +difficulty which does not exist if we suppose things to have been _on +the whole,_ as they are now, from the very first. But whichever view we +take; whether we suppose all things collectively to oscillate between +recurring extremes of "sameness" and "otherness;" or every stage of the +wave of progress from crest to trough, to be simultaneously manifested +in the universe at all times, the old difficulty of "the beginning" will +force itself upon us. A process _ab aeterno_ is at least as unimaginable +as the process of creation _ex nihilo;_ if it be not altogether +inconceivable to boot. And the alternative is, either a primordial state +of homogeneous matter which contains the present cosmos in germ, and +from which it is evolved without the aid of any environment--such a germ +claiming a designer as much as any ready-made perfect world; or else, a +primordial state of things like that which we should get at any +cross-section of the secular process, in which every stage of life and +death, growth and decay, evolution and involution, is represented as +now. This would include fossils and remains of past civilizations +which (in the hypothesis) would never have existed; and would be +in all respects as difficult as the crudest conception of the +creation-hypothesis. And if this absurdity drives us back to +primordial homogeneity, as before, we must remember that here, too, +though not so evidently, we should have all the signs of an antecedent +process that was non-existent. Life and death, corruption and +integration, are parts of one undulatory process. Cut the wave where +you will its curve claims to be finished in both directions and +suggests a before as well as an after. If, in the very nature of +things, the pendulum sways between confusion and order, chaos and +cosmos, each extreme intrinsically demands the other, not only as its +consequent, but as its antecedent; and the first chaos, no less than +any succeeding one, will seem the ruin of a previous cosmos. Therefore +we are driven back upon a process _ab aeterno_ with every stage of +evolution always simultaneously represented in one part or other of +the whole. Whatever mitigation such a conception may offer, surely we +may be excused for still adhering to that simpler explanation which +involves a mystery indeed, but nothing so positively unthinkable as a +process without a beginning. + +5. This same conception of a process without beginning, favours the +notion that since life was possible on our globe all species may well +have co-existed in varying proportions. From the sudden spread of +population through almost accidental conditions, we can imagine how +certain species might have been so scarce as to leave no trace in +geological strata, whereas those which enormously preponderated at the +same time would have done so. A change of conditions might easily cause +the former to preponderate, and their sudden appearance in the strata +would look as though they had then first come into being. In a word, we +can have good evidence for the extinction of species, but scarcely any +for their origination. + +This supposition is not adverse to the derivation of species from a +common stock, but rather favours the notion that as in the case of the +individual the period of plasticity is short compared with that of +morphological stability, so if there was such an arboreal branching out +of species from a common root, it took place rapidly in conditions as +different from ours as those of uterine from extra-uterine life; and +that the stage of inflexibility may have been reached before any time of +which we have record. + +But in truth when we see in the world of chemical substances an +altogether similar sedation of species where there can be no question of +common descent as its cause, we may well suspend our judgment till the +established facts have excluded the many hypotheses other than Evolution +by which they may be explained. + +As long as Evolution claims to be no more than a working scientific +hypothesis, like ether or electric fluid--a sort of frame or subjective +category into which observed facts are more conveniently fitted, it +cannot justly be pressed for a solution of ultimate problems; but when +it claims to be a complete philosophy and as such to extrude other +philosophies previously in possession, it must show that it can rest the +mind where they leave it restless; or that it has proved their proffered +solutions spurious. This, so far, it has absolutely failed to do. At +most it may determine more accurately the way in which God works out His +Idea in Creation. It can stand as long as it is content to prescind from +the question of ends and origins; but then it is no longer a complete +philosophy. As soon as it attempts to solve those problems it becomes +incoherent and unthinkable. Its true complement is theism and finality, +which flow from it as naturally, if not quite so immediately as the +"argument from adaptability." _Deus creavit_ is so far the only +moderately intelligible, or at least not demonstrably unintelligible, +answer given to the problem of _In principio_. + +We have then in this second and soberer form of the philosophy of +Evolution, an attempt to explain the order of the universe without +explicit recourse to the hypothesis of an intelligent authorship and +government of the world: that is to say, independently of theism and +finality; and so far as this explanation admits all the effects and +consequences of an intelligent government, without ascribing them to +that cause, it admits among their number the value of the "argument from +adaptability," and allows us to infer that the postulates of man's +higher moral needs correspond approximately to reality, of which they +are in some sense the product; and that the "wish to believe" is less +likely to be a source of delusion in proportion as the belief in +question is higher in the moral scale. + +But it is also clear how unsuccessful this attempted philosophy is in +many ways; and with what difficulties and mysteries it is burdened. At +best it can prescind from finalism by a confession of incompleteness and +philosophical bankruptcy; by resolutely refusing to face the problem of +the whole--of the ultimate whence and whither. If it would positively +exclude theism or finalism it must ascribe all seeming order and +adaptation to the persistence of some blind force, subduing all things +to itself, to "existence," or to "life" striving to assert and extend +itself. It is this conception that seems best to bring the mystery of +the universe within the comprehension of the popular mind, and is more +in keeping with those "aggregation theories" of our day which regard +dust as the one eternal reality whose combination and disguises delude +us into believing in soul and intelligence and divinity. But on closer +examination the words "life" and "existence" answer to no simple reality +or force which can be regarded as governing nature, and from this +radical fallacy of language a whole brood of further absurdities spring +up which make the popular form of Evolution-philosophy utterly +incoherent. + +_June, Aug. Sept._ 1899. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: This will perhaps be the most convenient term. In the +_Summa of Aquinas_, the elaborate treatise _De vera religione_, called +into existence by more recent exigencies, had no place. Still, in so far +as it is constructed roughly on the same scheme and presupposes the same +philosophy, and (were it not a deepening of the roots rather than an +extension of the branches) might almost be regarded as a development of +scholasticism, it may rightly be called "scholastic" to distinguish it, +say, from such a work as the _Grammar of Assent_.] + +[Footnote 2: _Science and a Future Life_, By F. W. Myers.] + +[Footnote 3: i.e., If an object be adequately and exhaustively +conceived under the predicates A.B.C.D., it is inadequately conceived as +A.B.x.x. But if each of these properties be permeated and modified by +the rest, then A in this object is not as A in any other combination, +but is A as related to and modified by B.C.D.; and similarly, the other +properties are each unique. Hence any part is somewhat falsely +apprehended till the whole be apprehended, when we are dealing with +organic as opposed to mechanical totalities.] + +[Footnote 4: Not that the transmutation of one species into another has +yet been detected in any instance, or perhaps, even were it a fact, +could be detected; but that such a serial graduation has been observed +as might be commodiously explained by that supposition,--and also by +fifty others.] + +[Footnote 5: _Mind_, 1876, p. 185.] + +[Footnote 6: _Mind_, 1876, p. 9.] + +[Footnote 7: _Appearance and Reality_.] + + + +XXIII. + + +IDEALISM IN STRAITS. + +"Can any good come out of Trinity?" is a question that has been asked +and answered in various senses during the recent Catholic University +controversies in Ireland; but for whatever other good Catholics might +look to that staunchly Elizabethan institution, they would scarcely turn +thither for theological guidance. Yet all definition is negative as well +as positive; exclusive as well as inclusive; and we always know our +position more deeply and accurately in the measure that we comprehend +those other positions to which it is opposed. The educative value of +comparing notes, quite apart from all prospect of coming to an +agreement, or even of flaying our adversaries alive, is simply +inestimable; we do not rightly know where we stand, except in so far as +we know where others stand--for place is relative. + +The Donnellan Lecturer for 1897-8 [1] took for his subject the doctrine +of the Blessed Trinity in relation to contemporary idealistic +philosophy. The scope of these lectures is, not to prove the doctrine of +the Trinity philosophically, but to show that the difficulty besetting +the conception of a multiplicity of persons united by a superpersonal +bond, is just the same difficulty that brings idealistic philosophy to a +dead-lock when it endeavours (1) to escape from solipsism, (2) to +vindicate free-will,(3) to solve the problem of evil. He naturally +speaks of Idealism as "the only philosophy which can now be truly called +living," in the sense in which a language is said to live; that is, +which is growing and changing, and endeavouring to bring new tracts of +experience under its synthesis; which is current in universities of the +day. Of the Realism which survives in the seminaries of the +ecclesiastical world he naturally knows nothing; addressing himself to a +wholly different public, he speaks to it on its own assumptions, in its +own mental language; and indeed he knows no other. But having weighed +idealism in the balance of criticism, he finds it far short of its +pretensions to be an adequate accounting for the data of experience; he +finds that it leads the mind in all directions to impassable chasms +which only faith can overleap. It does not demand or suggest the mystery +of the Trinity, but reveals a void which, as a fact that doctrine alone +does fill. The convinced Realist will not be very interested about the +problem of solipsism which for him is non-existent, but the proposed +relief from the difficulties of free-will and of the existence of evil +may be grateful to all indifferently; or at least may suggest principles +adaptable to other systems. In his Trinitarian theology Mr. D'Arcy is in +many points at variance with the later conclusions of the schools; and +in some instances his argument depends vitally on this variance; but not +in the main. For his main point is that as our own personality--the +highest unity of which we have experience--takes under itself unities of +a lower grade; so the doctrine of the Trinity implies what the hiatuses +of philosophy require, namely, that personal unity is not the highest; +that, beyond any power of our present conception, the personally many +can be really (not only morally or socially) _one thing_. "A wonderfully +unspeakable thing it is," says Augustine, "and unspeakably wonderful +that whereas this image of the Trinity" _(sc.,_ the human soul), "is one +person, and the sovereign Trinity itself, three persons, yet that +Trinity of three persons is more inseparable than this trinity" (memory, +understanding, and will) "of one person." This "superpersonal" unity is +of course a matter of faith and not of philosophy, yet it is a faith +without which subjective philosophy must come to a stand-still; it is as +much a postulate of the speculative reason as God and immortality are of +the practical reason. + +"If man is to retain the full endowment of his moral nature, we must +make up our minds to accept for ourselves an incomplete theory of +things." A philosophy which should unify the sum-total of human +experience, including the supernatural facts of Christianity, is +impossible; but even excluding these facts there is always need of some +kind of non-rational assent, which, however reasonable and prudent in +the very interests of thought, is not necessitated by the laws of +thought--is not, in the strictest sense philosophical. Idealism, like +other philosophies, "is not satisfied with an imperfect knowledge of the +greatest things. It must rise to the Divine standpoint and comprehend +the concrete universal," and so, of course, it breaks down. "But it +would surely be a hasty inference," says Mr. D'Arcy, "that philosophy +must needs be exhausted because idealism has done its work and delivered +its message to mankind," that is, has explored another blind alley, and +has arrived at the _cul de sac_. In fact, if idealism is a living +philosophy, it is nevertheless showing signs of age and decay. Ptolemaic +astronomy, as an explanation of planetary movements, proved its +exhaustion by a liberal recourse to epicycles as the answer to all +awkward objections; and philosophies show themselves moribund in an +analogous way, by a monotonous pressing of some one hackneyed principle +to a degree that makes common-sense revolt and fling the whole theory to +the winds--chaff and grain indiscriminately. But philosophy must be +distinguished from philosophies, as religion from religions. The +imperfection of the various concrete attempts to satisfy either +spiritual need, may make the desperate-minded wish to cut themselves +free from all connection with any particular system; but the desire and +effort to have a knowledge of the whole (_i.e._, a philosophy) is as +natural and ineradicable as the desire to live and breathe. In this +general sense, philosophy "takes human experience, sets it out in all +its main elements, and then endeavours to form a plan of systematic +thought which will account for the whole. It has one fundamental +postulate, that there is a meaning, or, in other words, that there is an +all-pervading unity." This "faith" in the ultimate coherence and unity +of everything is the presupposition and motive of the very attempt to +philosophize or to determine the nature of that unity. It is not, +therefore, itself a product of philosophy; it is an innate conviction +that can be denied only from the teeth outwards, but can neither be +proved nor disproved by the finite mind. + +To "explain" is in one way or another to liken the less known to what is +better known; and thus every philosophy is an attempt to express--by +means of sundry extensions and limitations--the universe of our +experience in the terms of some totality with which we are more +familiar; plainly, it is also an endeavour to express the greater in +terms of the less, and must therefore be almost infinitely inadequate +even at the best. At one time the Whole has been conceived as the unity +of a mere aggregate--of a heap of stones; at another, as a mere +sand-storm of fortuitous atoms; there has been the egg-theory, and the +tortoise-theory, and many others, no less grotesque to our seeming. But, +leaving fanciful and poetical philosophies aside, and considering only +those which pretend to be strictly rational, we find the objective +philosophy and the subjective confronting one another; the former +likening the universe to the works of men's hands; the latter likening +it to man himself; the former taking its metaphors from the artificer +shaping his material according to a preconceived plan for a definite +purpose; the latter, from the thinking and willing self considered as +the creator of its own personal experience. + +There is enough uniformity of plan throughout the animal body to make +any one part of the organism a likeness of the whole--the eye, the +heart, or the hand. And so, presumably, there is hardly any unity we can +think of in our own little corner of experience that does not offer some +similitude of the universal unity. But to take this as an adequate +explanation; to force the metaphor to its logical consequences, to the +exclusion of every other reasonable though non-rational assent, is the +commonest but most fatal form of intellectual provincialism and +narrowness. Our mind is essentially limited not merely in that it cannot +know everything, but in that its mode of knowledge is imperfect and +analogical in regard to all that is greater than itself. It is broad +only when conscious of its narrowness. + +The first difficulty into which idealism gets itself is that of +solipsism. According to its rigidly argued principles, "mind is +separated from mind by a barrier which is, not figuratively, but +literally impassable. It is impossible for any _ego_ to leap this +barrier and enter into the experience of any other _ego_." It is not an +abstract self-in-general, but my one solitary concrete self for which +all experience exists. There is no room for any other person. But this +philosophy does not account for our common-sense belief in Nature as +existing independently of self and of other selfs; or in those other +selfs with their several and distinct spheres of experience. + +The unification it effects when treated rigorously as a complete +philosophy leaves out of account the best part of what it was bound to +account for. In spite of idealism, the idealist goes on _believing_ in +other persons or spheres of experience, and in Nature as the experience +of a Divine Person. But since, on his principles, persons are mutually +exclusive, and none can enter the sphere of another's experience, to see +with his eyes, or to feel with his nerves, since, + + Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe + Our hermit spirits dwell and range apart, + +we are thrown back on a disconnected plurality of beings, and God +Himself, viewed as personal (in this sense) is but one among many. +Albeit immeasurably the greatest, He cannot be regarded as the ground of +the possibility and existence of all the rest--the home and bond of +union of all other spirits which in Him live and move and have their +being. + +The belief in the personality of God is all-essential for the +satisfaction of our religious cravings, as a presupposition of trust, +love, prayer, obedience, and such relationships; as bringing out the +transcendence in contrast with the all-pervading immanence of the deity; +as checking the pantheistic perversion of this latter truth by which, in +turn, its own deistic perversion is checked. God is not only in and +through all things; but also outside and above all things; just as +Christ is not only the soul of the Church, but also its Head and Ruler. +Between these two compensating statements the exact truth is hidden from +our eyes. + +But it is not to the conception of the Divine personality and +separateness that we are to look for the missing bond by which the head +and members are to be knit together, and the essential disconnection of +these "spheres of experience" overcome. The ultimate unity is a mystery; +in a word, philosophy, as a quest of that unity, breaks down. The +solution is suggested only by the revelation of a superpersonal unity in +some sense prior to the multiplicity of Divine Persons, a unity in which +they being many are one, and in which we too are, not merged, but +unified without prejudice to our personal distinctness. + +Hence, the writer concludes: "Materialism, when its defect is discovered +and understood, points on to idealism. Idealism, when its defect is +disclosed, points to Christian theism." For those who have not come to +Christian theism by this thorny and circuitous path, the mode in which +the idealist extricates himself from his self-wrought entanglement may +seem of little interest; but inasmuch as they take for granted the +existence of that same multitude of mutually impenetrable personalities +which he, by a revolt of his common-sense against his philosophy is +forced to confess, the problem of the ultimate unity exists for them +also. + +If in its endeavour to vindicate the spirituality of man against the +materialist, idealism tumbles into the slough of solipsism and needs to +be fetched out by the doctrine of the Trinity, it fares much the same +way in its attempted defence of free-will against necessity. That +freedom from determination by the "not-self" which idealism vindicates, +can belong only to the all-inclusive Spirit, outside whose self nothing +exists; it belongs to me only on the supposition that I am the +all-inclusive; and this, as before, is the point at which common-sense +revolts. "Free-will is based on man's consciousness of his moral nature. +It represents not any speculative theory, but one of the great facts +which every theory of things must explain or perish." If we ascribe +freedom to the Absolute and to other spirits (whose existence is forced +on us in spite of Idealism), it is because we first find it in ourselves +as the very essence of our spiritual nature. But if we accept our +freedom as a fact which it is the business of philosophy to explain and +not to deny; on just the same testimony we must accept the fact of the +manifold limitations of our liberty of which we are continually +conscious. Now here it is that the Idealist defence of liberty against +materialism fails by a deplorable _nimis probat_. It can only save our +liberty by denying our limitations; or at least it leaves us facing a +problem which can be solved only by an assumption for which Idealism +offers no philosophical warrant. Hence we are brought back to the +world-old dilemma "between a freedom of God which annihilates man, and a +freedom of man which annihilates God." Idealism has really contributed +nothing to the solution of the difficulty which is persistent as long as +God is known only as a Sovereign and Infinite Personality among a +multitude of finite personalities, and until revelation hints at the +possibility of a higher "unity which transcends personality, by which He +is to be the reconciling principle and home of the multitude of +self-determining agents." "Final reconciliation of the Divine and human +personality is in fact beyond us." + +Similarly, in dealing with problems of moral evil, Idealism leads to an +_impasse_. As long as we keep to the notion of one all-inclusive Spirit, +the Subject of universal experience, it is easy to show that sin is but +relatively evil, that it is, when viewed absolutely, as much a factor of +the universal life as is righteousness; yet surely this is not to +account for so large and obstinate a part of our experience, but to deny +it. Nor can the ethical corollaries of such a view be tolerated for a +moment. That sin is an absolute, eternal, in some sense, irreparable +evil is a conception altogether fundamental to that morality with which +Christianity and modern civilization have identified themselves. It is +but another aspect of the doctrine of freedom and responsibility. Of +physical and necessary evil it is possible to assert the merely negative +or relative character; we can view it as the good in process of making; +or as the good imperfectly comprehended; but if this optimism be +extended to sin it can only be because sin is regarded as necessitated, +_i.e._, as no longer sin. Hence the view in question does not account +for, but implicitly denies the existence of sin. + +Furthermore, the whole tendency of more recent idealism is to explain +moral evil as an offence against man's social nature by which he is a +member of an organism or community. It is the undue self-assertion of +the part against the interests of the whole. Of course the idealist +explains this organic conception with a respect for personality which is +absent from socialistic and evolutionary doctrines of society. But the +notion of sin as a rebellion of one member against all, is common to +both. The latter consider the external life and activity of the unit as +an element in the collective external life of the community--as part of +a common work; the former considers the unity as a free spiritual +agency, an end for itself--whose liberty is curtailed only by the claims +of other like agencies, equal or greater. But by what process, apart +from faith and practical postulates and regulative ideas, can +subjectivism pass to belief in other free agencies outside the thinking +and all-creating self? The result of Mr, D'Arcy's criticism of the +matter is that "it is because the man exists as a member of a spiritual +universe, and must therefore so exert his power of self-determination as +to be in harmony or discord with God above him, and with other men +around him, that the distinction between the good self and the bad self +arises. But in this very conception of a universe of spirits we have +passed beyond the bounds of a purely rational philosophy. Such a +universe is not explicable by reference to the vivifying principle of +the self;" and accordingly we are driven back as before upon the +alternative of philosophical chaos, or else of faith in such a +superpersonal unity as is suggested by the doctrine of the Trinity. + +We have but hinted at the barest outlines of Mr. D'Arcy's argument +which, as against Idealism, is close-reasoned and subtle; and now we +have left but little space to deal with the more really interesting +chapter on the "Ultimate Unity." It is not pretended that we can form +any conception of the precise nature of that unity, but merely that some +such unknown kind of unity is needed to deliver us from the antinomies +of thought. As we could never rise to the intrinsic conception of +personal unity from the consideration of some lower unity, material or +mechanical; so neither can we pass from the notion of personal to that +of superpersonal unity or being. + +This is only a modern and Hegelian setting of the truth that "being" and +"unity" are said analogously and not univocally of God and creatures. +That there are grades of reality; that "substance is more real than +quality and subject is more real than substance," that "the most real of +all is the concrete totality, the all-inclusive universal"--the _Ens +determinatissimum_, is not a modern discovery, but a re-discovery. That +our own personality is the highest unity of which we have any proper +non-analogous notion; that it is the measure by which we spontaneously +try to explain to ourselves other unities, higher or lower, by means of +extensions or limitations; that our first impulse, prior to correction, +is to conceive everything self-wise, be it super-human or infra-human, +is of course profoundly true; but for this reason to make "self" the +all-explaining and only category, to deny any higher order of reality +because we can have no definite conception of its precise nature, is the +narrowness which has brought Idealism into such difficulties. It is +probably in his notion of Divine personality that Mr. D'Arcy comes most +in conflict with the technicalities of later schools. If, as he says, +modern theology oscillates between the poles of Sabellianism and +Tritheism, he himself inclines to the latter pole. Father de Regnon, +S.J., in his work on the Trinity, shows that the Greek Fathers and the +Latin viewed the problem from opposite ends. "How three can be one," was +the problem with the former; "How one can be three," with the latter. +These inclined to an emptier, those to a fuller notion of personality. +Mr. D'Arcy's Trinitarianism is decidedly more Greek than Latin. The more +"content" he gives to Divine personality, the more he is in-danger of +denying identity of nature and operation; as appears later. + +Plainly, the word "person," however analogously applied to God, must +contain something of what we mean when we call ourselves "persons," else +"we are landed in the unmeaning." When Christ spoke of Himself as "I," +the selfness implied by the pronoun must have had some kind of +resemblance to our own; just as when He called God His Father He +intended to convey something of what fatherhood meant for His then +hearers. That He intended to convey what it might come to mean in other +conditions and ages seems very doubtful; and so if the word "person" has +acquired a fuller and different meaning in modern philosophy, we are not +at once justified in applying this fuller conception to the Divine +persons, unless we can show that it is a legitimate development of the +older sense. + +He argues that if the Trinity be the ultimate truth, the Unitarian +suppositions and conclusions of the "natural theologian" are bound to +lead to antinomies and confusions; and he sees in those harmonious +interferences and variations of universal import (which are no less an +essential factor in the evolution of the world than the groundwork of +uniformity and law), evidence of a multi-personal Divine government, of +a division of labour between co-operant agencies. This, of course, goes +beyond the doctrine of "appropriation;" and amounts to a denial of the +singleness of the Divine operation _ad extra_. It seems, in short, to +imply a diversity of nature in each of the persons, over and above the +principle of personal distinctness. Indeed, while it offers a plausible +solution of some minor perplexities, it rather weakens the value of the +general argument. For the notion of a superpersonal unity is needed +chiefly as suggesting a mode in which many mutually exclusive +personalities or "spheres of experience" or lives, may be welded +together into a coherent whole. Even could I reproduce most exactly in +myself the thoughts and feelings of another, it were but a reproduction +or similarity. I can know and feel the like; but I cannot know his +knowing and feel his feeling; for this were to be that other and not +myself. + +That God's knowledge of our thoughts and feelings should be of this +external, inferential kind is as intolerable to our mental needs of +unification as it is to our religious sense, our hope, our confidence, +our love. In Him we live and move and think and feel; and He in us. That +we can say this of no other personality is what constitutes the burden +of our separateness and loneliness. Our experience exists for no other; +but at least it is in some mysterious way shared by That which lies +behind all otherness, not destroying, but fulfilling. "We know not why +it is," says St. Catherine of Genoa, "we feel an internal necessity of +using the plural pronoun instead of the singular." Perhaps it was that +she saw in a purer and clearer light what we only half feel in the +obscurity of our grosser hearts. + +But if God knows our knowing, and feels our feeling, not merely by a +similitude but in itself, it is not because He is transcendent and +"personal," as we understand the word, because He is immanent and +"superpersonal," whatever that may mean. But it is just because +revelation tells us that in God there are three selves or Egos, for each +of whom the experience (i.e., the thought, love, and action) of the +other two exists, not merely similar, but one and the same--the same +thinking, loving, and doing, no less than the same thought, love, and +deed--that we can believe in the possibility of our personal +separateness being at once preserved and overcome in that mysterious +unity. + +That God is love; and that love, which as an affection, produces an +affective unity between separate persons, can as the subsistent and +primal unity produce a substantial and ineffable union of which the +other is a shadow, is a view towards which revelation points. That the +mere affection of love, the moral union of wills, is an insufficient +unification of personalities is implied by the fact that love always +tends to some sort of real union and communication; and still more, that +it springs from a sense of inexplicable identity. + +It is almost a crime in criticism to deal with such a multitude of deep +problems in so brief and hasty an essay. But if we have roughly +indicated the main outlines of the author's position, we shall have done +as much as can be reasonably expected of us; though it is with great +reluctance that we pass over many points, and even whole chapters, +bristling with interest. + +Perhaps the most important feature of the book is the prominence it +gives to the difficulties and insufficiencies of idealism. With those of +realism we are all familiar enough, but so far, idealism has been looked +at one-sidedly as evading, if not solving, some of the antinomies of the +earlier philosophy, while its own embarrassments have been condoned in +hopes of future solution. The solution has not come, and now the hopes +are dead or dying. What we need is a higher synthesis, if such be +possible for the human mind, or else a frank admission that faith, in +some sense or other, is a necessary complement of every philosophy. One +thing is clear, that reconciliation can be effected, if at all, only by +a fair-minded admission of difficulties inseparable from either system, +and by a conscientious criticism of presuppositions. No one can deal +effectually with the idealist position to whom it is simply "absurd" or +"ridiculous;" who has not been to some degree intellectually entangled +in it; whose realism is not more or less of an effort. Else he is +dealing with some man of straw of his own fancy, and will be found, as +so often happens, assuming the truth of realism in every argument he +brings forward. Plainly the best minds of modern times have not been +victimized by a fallacy within the competence of a school-boy. And a +like intellectual self-denial is needed on the part of the idealist, who +is apt to dismiss all realism as crude, uncritical, or barbaric. We have +all our antinomies, our blind alleys, our crudities; and we have all to +fill up awkward interstices with assumptions and postulates. + +However much we may dissent from Mr. D'Arcy's theology in certain +details; however little we personally may labour under the difficulties +of idealism, we cannot too strongly commend the endeavour to meet the +modern mind on its own platform; to speak to the cultivated in their own +language. Belief is caused by the wish to believe; but it is conditioned +by the removal of intellectual obstacles, different for different grades +of intelligence and education. To create the "wish to believe" is +largely a matter of example, of letting Christianity appear attractive +and desirable, and correspondent to the deeper needs of the soul. It is +also to some extent a work of exposition. But when this all-important +wish has been created, the intellect can hinder its effect. It is much +to know and feel that Christianity is good and useful and beautiful; +"But some time or other the question must be asked: _Is it true_?" And +to liberate the will by satisfying the intellect is work of what alone +is properly called apologetic. Unless we fall back into quietism which +would tell us to read a Kempis and say our prayers and wait, we must +address ourselves first of all to making Christianity attractive; and +then to making it intelligible. And if we do not find it against Gospel +simplicity to address ourselves, as we continually do, to the +intelligence of the semi-educated, we cannot allege that scruple as a +reason why we should not address ourselves to the fully educated,--to +those who eventually form and guide the opinions of the many. + +_Feb. 1901_. + + + +Footnotes: + + +[Footnote 1: _Idealism and Theology_. By Charles D'Arcy, B.D. Hodder and +Stoughton, 1900.] + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAITH OF THE MILLIONS (2ND +SERIES)*** + + +******* This file should be named 10139.txt or 10139.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/3/10139 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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