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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Theism or Atheism, by Chapman Cohen
+
+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: Theism or Atheism
+       The Great Alternative
+
+Author: Chapman Cohen
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2008 [EBook #25291]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEISM OR ATHEISM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Martin Pettit and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THEISM OR ATHEISM
+
+THE GREAT ALTERNATIVE
+
+By CHAPMAN COHEN
+
+THE PIONEER PRESS,
+
+61, Farringdon Street,
+----E.C.4----
+
+1921.
+
+
+
+
+Contents.
+
+
+Part I.
+
+AN EXAMINATION OF THEISM.
+                                                PAGE
+
+Chapter I.     What is God?                        9
+
+Chapter II.    The Origin of the Idea of God      20
+
+Chapter III.   Have we a Religious Sense?         37
+
+Chapter IV.    The Argument from Existence        49
+
+Chapter V.     The Argument from Causation        59
+
+Chapter VI.    The Argument from Design           69
+
+Chapter VII.   The Disharmonies of Nature         85
+
+Chapter VIII.  God and Evolution                  94
+
+Chapter IX.    The Problem of Pain               110
+
+
+Part II.
+
+SUBSTITUTES FOR ATHEISM.
+
+Chapter X.     A Question of Prejudice           131
+
+Chapter XI.    What is Atheism?                  138
+
+Chapter XII.   Spencer and the Unknowable        151
+
+Chapter XIII.  Agnosticism                       169
+
+Chapter XIV.   Atheism and Morals                181
+
+Chapter XV.    Atheism Inevitable                194
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+Shrouded in the cloak of philosophy, the question of the existence of
+God continues to attract attention, and, I may add, to command more
+respect than it deserves. For it is only by a subterfuge that it assumes
+the rank of philosophy. "God" enters into philosophy only when it is
+beginning to lose caste in its proper home, and then in its new
+environment it undergoes such a transformation as to contain very little
+likeness to its former, and proper, self. It disowns its parentage and
+claims another origin, and, like so many genealogists devising pedigrees
+for the parvenu, certain philosophers attempt to map out for the
+newcomer an ancestry to which he can establish no valid claim. Nothing
+would, indeed, surprise the ancestor more than to be brought face to
+face with his descendant. He would not be more astonished than would the
+ancient Eohippus on meeting with a modern dray-horse. In anthropology or
+history the idea of God may fairly claim a place, but it has no place in
+philosophy on any sensible meaning of the word.
+
+The consequence of this transference of the idea of God to the sphere of
+philosophy is the curious position that the God in which people believe
+is not the God whose existence is made the product of an argument, and
+the God of the argument is not the God of belief. The theory and the
+fact have no more likeness to each other than a chestnut horse has to a
+horse-chestnut. A fallacy is perpetuated by appealing to a fact, but the
+fact immediately discredits the fallacy by disowning it in practice. The
+grounds upon which the belief in God is supposed to rest, the reasoning
+from which it springs, are seen to follow the belief instead of
+preceding it. The roots are in the air, and on closer inspection are
+seen to be artificial adornments, so many imitations that have been hung
+there for the purpose of imposing on near-sighted or careless observers.
+
+The purpose of the following pages is to make clear the nature of this
+alliance and to expose the real character of what we are asked to
+worship. There are, of course, many on whose ears any amount of
+reasoning will fall without effect. To that class this book will not
+appeal; it may be questioned whether many will even read it. They will
+go on professing the belief they have always professed, and taking pride
+in the fact that they have an intellect which is superior to proof, and
+which disdains evidence when it runs contrary to "my belief." Others
+will, I expect, complain that the treatment of so solemn a subject is
+not "reverent" enough. But why _any_ subject should be treated
+reverently, as a condition of examination, is more than I have ever been
+able to discover. It is asking the inquirer to commence his
+investigation with a half-promise to find something good in what he is
+about to examine. Whether a thing is worthy of reverence or not is a
+conclusion that must follow investigation, not precede it. And one does
+not observe any particular reverence shown by the religious person
+towards those beliefs in which he does not happen to believe.
+
+But there are some who will read thoughtfully an examination of so old a
+subject as Theism, and it is to those that these pages are addressed.
+One cannot hope to say anything that is strikingly new on so well worn a
+subject as the existence of God, but there are many who will read an old
+subject when presented in a new work, and even then there is also the
+possibility of presenting an old topic in a slightly new form. And I
+think these will find the main lines of the defence set up by the
+Goddite dealt with in a manner that should at least make the point at
+issue clear.
+
+Finally, it is one aim of this book to press home the point that the
+logical issue is between Theism and Atheism. That there is no logical
+halting place between the two, and that any attempt to call a halt is
+little more than a concession to a desire for mental or social
+convenience, seems to me as clear as anything can well be. And there is
+really nothing gained, ultimately, by the halt. Disinclination on the
+part of the non-Theist to push the issue to its logical conclusion is
+treated by the Theist as inability to do so, and is used as an argument
+in support of his own belief. In matters of the intellect, compromise is
+almost always a dangerous policy. It heartens one's enemies and
+disheartens one's friends. And there is really no adequate reason why
+those who have given up belief in deity should continue to treat this
+master superstition of the ages as though it were one of our most
+valuable inheritances, to be surrendered with lowered heads and sinking
+hearts. We who know both sides know that in giving up the belief in
+deity we have lost nothing of value, nothing that need cause us a single
+regret. And on that point we certainly can speak with authority; for we
+have been where the Theist is, he has not been where we are. Many of us
+know quite well all that is meant by the fear and trembling with which
+the believer looks upon a world without God. And we know how idle the
+fear is--as idle as a child's fear of the dark. What the world is like
+_with_ God, there is all the experience of history to inform us; and it
+would indeed be strange if love and brotherhood, armed with the weapons
+that science has given us, could not produce a better human society than
+has ever existed under the dominion of the Gods.
+
+
+
+
+Part I.
+
+AN EXAMINATION OF THEISM.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+WHAT IS GOD?
+
+
+Soon after that famous Atheist, Charles Bradlaugh, entered the House of
+Commons, it is said that a fellow member approached him with the remark,
+"Good God, Bradlaugh, what does it matter whether there is a God or
+not?" Bradlaugh's answer is not recorded, but one is impelled to open
+the present examination of the belief in God, by putting the same
+question in another form. Is the belief in God, as we are so often
+assured, one of the most important questions that can engage the
+attention of man? Under certain conditions one can conceive a rational
+answer in the affirmative. Where the mental and social conditions are
+such that men seriously believe the incidence of natural forces on
+mankind to be determined by the direct action of "God," one can
+appreciate right belief concerning him being treated as of first rate
+importance. In such circumstances wrong ideas are the equivalent of
+disaster. But we are not in that condition to-day. It is, indeed, common
+ground with all educated men and women that natural happenings are
+independent of divine control to at least the extent that natural forces
+affect all alike, and without the least reference to religious beliefs.
+Fire burns and water drowns, foods sustain and poisons kill, no matter
+what our opinions on theology may be. In an earthquake or a war there is
+no observable relation between casualties and religious opinions. We
+are, in fact, told by theologians that it is folly to expect that there
+should be. A particular providence is no longer in fashion; God, we are
+told, works only through general laws, and that is only another way of
+saying that our opinions about God have no direct or observable
+influence on our well-being. It is a tacit admission that human welfare
+depends upon our knowledge and manipulation of the forces by which we
+are surrounded. There _may_ be a God behind these forces, but that
+neither determines the extent of our knowledge of them or our power to
+manipulate them. The belief in God becomes a matter of, at best,
+secondary importance, and quite probably of no importance whatever.
+
+But if that be so why bother about the belief? Is that not a reason for
+leaving it alone and turning our attention to other matters? The answer
+to that is that the belief in God is not of so detached a character as
+this advice assumes. In the course of ages the belief in God has
+acquired associations that give it the character of a highly obstructive
+force. It has become so entangled with inculcated notions of right and
+wrong that it is everywhere used as a buttress for institutions which
+have either outgrown their utility, or are in need of serious
+modification in the interests of the race. The opposition encountered in
+any attempt to deal with marriage, divorce, or education, are examples
+of the way in which religious ideas are permitted to interfere with
+subjects that should be treated solely from the standpoint of social
+utility. The course of human development has been such that religion has
+hitherto occupied a commanding position in relation to social laws and
+customs, with the result that it is often found difficult to improve
+either until the obstructive influence of religious beliefs has been
+dealt with.
+
+It is not, then, because I believe the question of the existence of God
+to be of intrinsic importance that an examination of its validity is
+here undertaken. Its importance to-day is of a purely contingent
+character. The valid ground for now discussing its truth is that it is
+at present allowed to obstruct the practical conduct of life. And under
+similar circumstances it would be important to investigate the
+historical accuracy of Old Mother Hubbard or Jack and the Beanstalk. Any
+belief, no matter what its nature, must be dealt with as a fact of some
+social importance, so long as it is believed by large numbers to be
+essential to the right ordering of life. Whether true or false, beliefs
+are facts--mental and social facts, and the scheme of things which
+leaves them out of account is making a blunder of the most serious kind.
+
+Certainly, conditions were never before so favourable for the delivery
+of a considered judgment on the question of the belief in God. On the
+one side we have from natural science an account of the universe which
+rules the operations of deity out of court. And on the other side we
+have a knowledge of the mode of origin of the belief which should leave
+us in no doubt as to its real value. We hope to show later that the
+question of origin is really decisive; that in reaching conclusions
+concerning the origin of the god-idea we are passing judgment as to its
+value. That the masters of this form of investigation have not usually,
+and in so many words, pushed their researches to their logical
+conclusions is no reason why we should refrain from doing so. Facts are
+in themselves of no great value. It is the conclusions to which they
+point that are the important things.
+
+If the conclusions to which we refer are sound, then the whole basis of
+theism crumbles away. If we are to regard the god-idea as an evolution
+which began in misunderstandings of nature that were rooted in the
+ignorance of primitive man, it would seem clear that no matter how
+refined or developed the idea may become, it can rest on no other or
+sounder basis than that which is presented to us in the psychology of
+primitive man. Each stage of theistic belief grows out of the preceding
+stage, and if it can be shown that the beginning of this evolution arose
+in a huge blunder I quite fail to see how any subsequent development can
+convert this unmistakable blunder into a demonstrable truth. To take a
+case in point. When it was shown that so far as witchcraft rested on
+observed facts these could be explained on grounds other than those of
+the malevolent activities of certain old women, the belief in witchcraft
+was not "purified," neither did it advance to any so-called higher
+stage; it was simply abandoned as a useless and mischievous explanation
+of facts that could be otherwise accounted for. Are we logically
+justified in dealing with the belief in God on any other principle? We
+cannot logically discard the world of the savage and still retain his
+interpretation of it. If the grounds upon which the savage constructed
+his theory of the world, and from which grew all the ghosts and gods
+with which he believed himself to be surrounded, if these grounds are
+false, how can we still keep in substance to conclusions that are
+admittedly based on false premises? We can say with tolerable certainty
+that had primitive man known what we know about nature the gods would
+never have been born. Civilised man does not discover gods, he discards
+them. It was a profound remark of Feurbach's, that religion is
+ultimately anthropology, and it is anthropology that gives to all forms
+of theism the death blow.
+
+In our own time, at least, it is not difficult to see that the word God
+retains its influence with many because of the indefinite manner in
+which it is used. It is never easy to say what a person has in his mind
+when he uses the word. In most cases one would be safe in saying that
+nothing at all is meant. It is just one of those "blessed" words where
+the comfort felt in their use is proportionate to the lack of definite
+meaning that accompanies them. A frank confession of ignorance is
+something that most people heartily dislike, and where problems are
+persistent and difficult of solution what most people are in search of
+is a narcotic. That "God" is one of the most popular of narcotics will
+be denied by none who study the psychology of the average man or woman.
+
+When not used as a narcotic, "God" is brought into an argument as though
+it stood for a term which carried a well defined and well understood
+meaning. In work after work dealing with theism one looks in vain for
+some definition of "God." All that one can do is to gather the author's
+meaning from the course of his argument, and that is not always an easy
+task. The truth is, of course, that instead of the word carrying with it
+a generally understood meaning there is no word that is more loosely
+used or which carries a greater variety of meanings. Its connotations
+are endless, and range from the aggressively man-like deity of the
+primitive savage up--or down--to the abstract force of the mathematical
+physicist and the shadowy "Absolute" of the theologising metaphysician.
+The consequence of this is to find commonly that while it is one kind of
+a god that is being set up in argument, it is really another god that is
+being defended and even believed in. When we find people talking of
+entering into communion with God, or praying to God, it is quite certain
+they do not conceive him as a mere mathematical abstraction, or as a
+mere symbol of an unknown force. It is impossible to conceive any sane
+man or woman extracting comfort from praying or talking to a god who
+could not think, or feel, or hear. And if he possesses qualities that
+the religious attitude implies, we endow him with all the attributes of
+personality, and, be it noted, of human personality. Either one God is
+believed in in fact while another is established in theory, or an
+elaborate argument is presented which serves no other purpose than a
+disguise for the fact that there is no genuine belief left.
+
+An example of the misleading way in which words are used is supplied by
+Sir Oliver Lodge, who for a man of science shows an amazing capacity for
+making use of unscientific language. In his "Man and the Universe,"
+discussing the attributes of deity, he says, "Let no worthy attribute be
+denied to the deity. In anthropomorphism there are many errors, but
+there is one truth. Whatever worthy attributes belong to man, be it
+personality or any other, its existence in the universe is thereby
+admitted; it belongs to the all." Putting on one side the fallacy
+involved in speaking of attributes as though they were good or bad in
+themselves, one wonders why Sir Oliver limits this inference to the
+"worthy" attributes? Unworthy attributes are as real as worthy ones. If
+honesty exists so does dishonesty. Kindness is as real as cruelty. And
+if we must credit the deity with possessing all the good attributes, to
+whom must we credit the bad ones? A little later Sir Oliver does admit
+that we must credit the deity with the bad attributes also, but adds
+that they are dying out. But as they are _part_ of the deity, their
+decay must mean that the deity is also undergoing a process of change,
+of education, and is as much subject to the law of growth as we are.
+Surely that is not what people mean when they speak about God. A god who
+is only a part of the cosmic process ceases to be a god in any
+reasonable sense of the term.
+
+Professor Mellone, in his "God and the World," says that the word God
+"becomes a name for the infinite system of law regarded as a whole" (p.
+122). If that were really all that was meant by the word the matter
+would not be worth discussing. "God" as a symbol of a generalisation is
+a mere name, and as such is as good as any other name. But, again, it is
+plain that people mean more than that when they speak about God. If God
+is a name for universal law, let any really religious man try the plan
+of substituting in his prayers and in his thoughts the phrase "Universal
+Law" for "God," and then see how long he will retain his religion. As
+Mr. Balfour points out ("Theism and Humanism," p. 20), the god of
+religion and the god of philosophy represent two distinct beings, and it
+is hard to see how the two can be fused into one. The plain truth is
+that it is impossible to now make the existence of the god of religion
+reasonable, and the plan adopted is that of arguing for the existence of
+something about which there is often no dispute, and then introducing as
+the product of the argument something that has never been argued for at
+all. It is the philosophic analogue of the hat and omelette trick.
+
+In this connection some well considered words of Sir James Frazer are
+well worth noting. He says:--
+
+
+     By a god I understand a superhuman and supernatural being, of a
+     spiritual and personal nature, who controls the world or some part
+     of it on the whole for good, and who is endowed with intellectual
+     faculties, moral feelings, and active powers, which we can only
+     conceive on the analogy of human faculties, feelings, and
+     activities, though we are bound to suppose that in the divine
+     nature they exist in an infinitely higher degree, than the
+     corresponding faculties, feelings, and activities of man. In short,
+     by a God I mean a beneficent supernatural spirit, the ruler of the
+     world or of some part of it, who resembles man in nature though he
+     excels him in knowledge, goodness, and power. This is, I think, the
+     sense in which the ordinary man speaks of a God, and I believe that
+     he is right in so doing. I am aware that it has been not unusual,
+     especially of late years, to apply the name of God to very
+     different conceptions, to empty it of all implications of
+     personality, and to reduce it to signifying something very large
+     and very vague, such as the Infinite or the Absolute (whatever
+     these hard words may signify) the great First Cause, the Universal
+     Substance, the stream of tendency by which all things seek to
+     fulfil the law of their being, and so forth. Now, without
+     expressing opinion as to the truth or falsehood of the views
+     implied by such applications of the name of God, I cannot but
+     regard them as illegitimate extensions of the term, in short, an
+     abuse of language, and I venture to protest against it in the
+     interest, not only of verbal accuracy, but of clear thinking,
+     because it is apt to conceal from ourselves and others a real and
+     very important change of thought; in particular it may lead many to
+     imagine that the persons who use the name of God in one or other of
+     these extended senses retain theological opinions which they may in
+     fact have long abandoned. Thus the misuse of the name of God may
+     resemble the stratagem in war of putting up dummies to make an
+     enemy imagine that a fort is still held long after it has been
+     abandoned by the garrison. (_The Belief in Immortality_; pp. 9-10.
+     Vol. I.).
+
+
+This expression of opinion from an authoritative quarter is very much
+needed. The fear of public opinion displayed by many "advanced" thinkers
+is in this country one of the greatest obstacles to rapid advance. It is
+simply deplorable to observe the trouble taken by some to coin new
+names, or the illegitimate use made of old ones, for no other
+discoverable reason than that of disguising from the world the fact that
+the orthodox beliefs are no longer held. The need of to-day is not so
+much liberal thought as strong and courageous thought; and one would
+cheerfully hand back to orthodoxy a fairly large parcel of a certain
+type of heretical thinker in exchange for a single one who used plain
+language to express clear convictions.
+
+What is it that the mass of believers have in their minds when they
+speak of God? There can be no doubt but that what the plain man has
+always understood by "God" is a person. Every book of religious devotion
+implies this; every prayer that is offered takes it for granted that
+_someone_ will listen, and probably grant the petition. God is personal,
+God is just, God is beneficent, God is intelligent, these are
+conceptions that are bound up with all the religions of the world, and
+without which they would lack both significance and value. A very acute
+theistic writer, Mr. W. H. Mallock, puts this quite plainly when he says
+that the God of theism "is represented as revealing himself in the
+universe, firstly, as the mind which animates and moves everything,
+secondly, as a purposing mind which is infinitely wise and powerful, and
+has created a perfect universe with a view to some perfect end; and
+lastly, as an ethical mind which out of all the things created by it,
+has selected men as the object of a preferential love. A personality
+which thinks and wills and loves and hates. That is what mankind in the
+mass have always meant by 'God.'"
+
+Indeed, any other kind of God is inconceivable. Whatever may be the
+metaphysical subtleties employed, we come ultimately to that. It is
+this, the older and the vital conception that is being fought for. The
+arguments for any other kind of existence are mere subterfuges. The
+pleas for an "Absolute" or an "Unconditioned" are only used to buttress
+the older conception, and never till the older one has lost its force.
+The unconditioned God is argued for only that it may serve as the basis
+for the belief in a personal one. What is proved is not what is asked
+for; what is asked for is not what is proved. No wonder that so eminent
+a writer as Mr. F. H. Bradley feels constrained to give these
+verbalistic thimble riggers a smart rap over the knuckles, as in the
+following passage:--
+
+
+     Most of those who insist on the "personality of God" are
+     intellectually dishonest. They desire one conclusion, and, to reach
+     it, they argue for another. But the second, if proved, is quite
+     different, and answers their purpose only because they obscure it
+     and confound it with the first.... The deity they want, is, of
+     course, finite, a person much like themselves, with thoughts and
+     feelings limited and mutable in the process of time.... And for
+     their purpose, what is not this is really nothing. (_Appearance and
+     Reality_; p. 532).
+
+
+And it is really what people mean by God that is decisive. It is not at
+all a question of what they might be made to mean, or what they ought to
+mean. It is wholly a matter of what they _do_ mean. And to say that what
+people intend to affirm in an expression of belief is not true, is to
+say that the belief itself is false. If the God I believe in is a
+delusion, then my God ceases to exist. True, I may if I think it worth
+while acquire another one, but that will not revive the first. It is
+what people believe that is the important question, not what some
+ingenious speculator may succeed in making the belief stand for.
+
+Honestly to be of service to theism the God established must be a
+person. To be intelligible, having regard to the historical developments
+of religion, the God proved must be a person. The relation demanded by
+religion between man and God must be of a personal character. No man can
+love a pure abstraction; he might as reasonably fall in love with a
+triangle or profess devotion to the equator. The God of religion must be
+a person, and it is precisely that, as a controlling force of the
+universe, in which modern thought finds it more and more difficult to
+believe, and which modern science decisively rejects. And in rejecting
+this the death blow is given to those religious ideas, which however
+disguised find their origin in the fear-stricken ignorance of the
+primitive savage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF GOD.
+
+
+The alleged universality of the belief in God is only inferentially an
+argument for its truth. The inference is that if men have everywhere
+developed a particular belief, this general agreement could only have
+been reached as a consequence of a general experience. A universal
+effect implies a universal cause. So put the argument seems impressive.
+As a matter of fact the statement is one long tissue of fallacies and
+unwarranted assumptions.
+
+In the first place, even admitting the universal pressure of certain
+facts, it by no means follows that the theistic interpretation of those
+facts is the only one admissible. There is no exception to the fact that
+men have everywhere come to the conclusion that the earth was flat, and
+yet a wider and truer knowledge proved that universal belief to be quite
+false. The fact of a certain belief being universal only warrants the
+assumption that the belief itself has a cause, but it tells us nothing
+whatever concerning its truthfulness. The truth here is that the
+argument from universality dates its origin from a stage of human
+culture suitable to the god idea itself, a stage when very little was
+known concerning the workings of the mind or the laws of mental
+development. Otherwise it would have been seen that all the universality
+of a belief really proves is the universality of the human mind--and
+that means that, given an organism of a certain kind, it will react in
+substantially an identical manner to the same stimuli. Thus it is not
+surprising to find that as the human organism is everywhere
+fundamentally alike, it has everywhere come to the same conclusions in
+face of the same set of conditions. A man reacts to the universe in one
+way, and a jelly fish in another way. And universality is as true of the
+reactions of the latter as it is of those of the former.
+
+And this means that a delusion may be as widespread as truth, a false
+inference may gain as general an acceptance as a true one. What belief
+has been more general than the belief in witches, fairies, and the like?
+But we see in the prevalence of these and similar beliefs, not a
+presumption of their truth, but only the grounds for a search after the
+conditions, social and psychological, which gave them birth.
+
+The truth is that the conditions which give rise to the belief in gods
+are found in all ages, and no one would be more surprised than the
+Atheist to find it otherwise. But here, precisely as in the case of good
+and bad spirits, the vital question is not that people have everywhere
+believed in the existence of supernatural beings,[1] but an
+understanding of the conditions from which the beliefs themselves have
+grown. That alone can determine whether in studying the god idea we are
+studying the acquisition of a truth or the growth of a fallacy.
+
+Next, while it may be granted, at least provisionally, that the belief
+in supernatural beings is universal, against that has to be set the fact
+that the whole tendency of social development is to narrow the range of
+the belief, to restrict the scope of its authority, and to so attenuate
+it that it becomes of no value precisely where it is supposed to be of
+most use. The belief in God is least questioned where civilisation is
+lowest; it is called into the most serious question where civilisation
+is most advanced. To-day the belief in God is only universal in the
+sense that some representatives of it are to be found in all societies.
+The majority may still profess to have it, but it has ceased to be
+universal in the strict sense of the term. Nor will it be disputed that
+the number of convinced disbelievers is everywhere on the increase. The
+fact is everywhere lamented by the official exponents of religion. All
+that we can say is that the belief in God is universal--with those who
+believe in him. And even here universality of belief is only secured by
+their refraining from discussing precisely what it is they mean by
+"God," and what it is they believe in. There is agreement in obscurity,
+each one dreading to see clearly the features of his assumed friend for
+fear he should recognise the face of an enemy.
+
+Finally, the suspicious feature must be pointed out that the belief in
+God owes its existence, not to the trained and educated observation of
+civilised times, but to the uncritical reflection of the primitive mind.
+It has its origin there, and it would indeed be remarkable if, while in
+almost every other direction the primitive mind showed itself to be
+hopelessly wrong, in its interpretation of the world in this particular
+respect it has proved itself to be altogether right. As a matter of
+fact, this primitive assumption is going the way of the others, the only
+difference being that it is passing through more phases than some. But
+the decay is plain to all save those who refuse to see. The process of
+refinement cannot go on for ever. In other matters knowledge passes from
+a nebulous and indefinite stage to a precise and definite one. In the
+case of theism it pursues an opposite course. From the very definite
+god, or gods, of primitive mankind we advance to the vague and
+indefinite god of the modern theist--a God who, apparently, means
+nothing and does nothing, and at most stands as a symbol for our
+irremovable ignorance. Clearly this process cannot go on for ever. The
+work of attenuation must stop at some point. And one may safely predict
+that just as the advance of scientific knowledge has taken over one
+department after another that was formerly regarded as within the
+province of religion, so one day it will be borne in upon all that an
+hypothesis such as that of theism, which does nothing and explains
+nothing, may be profitably dispensed with.
+
+What really remains for discussion is a problem of socio-psychology.
+That is, we have to determine the conditions of origin of so widespread
+a belief, but which we believe to be false. The materials for answering
+this question are now at our command, and whatever differences of
+opinion there may be concerning the stages of development, there is
+very little concerning their essential character. And it is not without
+significance that this question of origin is one that the present-day
+apologists of theism seem pretty unanimous in leaving severely alone.
+
+Let us commence with the fact that religion is something that is
+acquired. Every work on the origin of religion assumes it, and all
+investigation warrants the assumption. The question at issue is the mode
+of acquisition. And here one word of caution is advisable. The wide
+range of religious ideas and their existence at a very low culture
+stage, precludes the assumption that religious ideas are generated in
+the same conscious way as are scientific theories. Even with the modern
+mind our conclusions concerning many of the affairs of life are formed
+in a semi-conscious manner. Most frequently they are generated
+subconsciously, and are only consciously formulated under pressure of
+circumstances. And if we are to understand religion aright we must be on
+our guard against attributing to primitive mankind a degree of
+scientific curiosity and reflective power to which it can lay no claim.
+We have to allow for what one writer well calls "physiological thought,"
+thought, that is, which rises subconsciously and has its origin in the
+pressure of insistent experience.
+
+A comprehensive survey of religious beliefs show that there are only two
+things that can be said to be common to them all. They differ in
+teachings, in their conceptions of deity, and in modes of worship. But
+all religions agree in believing in some kind of ghostly existence and
+in a continued life beyond the grave. I use the expression, "ghostly
+existence," because we can really trace the idea of God backward until
+we lose the definite figure in a very general conception, much as
+astronomers have taught us to lose a definite world in the primitive
+fire-mist. So when we get beyond the culture stage at which we meet with
+the definite man-like God, we encounter an indefinite thought stage at
+which we can dimly mark the existence of a frame of mind that was to
+give birth to the more concrete conception.
+
+The most general term for the belief in the various orders of gods thus
+becomes the belief in invisible, super-material beings, like, and yet
+superior to man. It is for this reason that Professor Tylor's definition
+of religion as "the belief in spiritual beings--so long as we do not use
+the term "spiritual" in its modern sense"--seems to me the moat
+satisfactory definition yet offered. It is the one point on which all
+religions agree, and for this reason may be regarded as their essential
+feature.
+
+This taken for granted, our next point of enquiry is, What was there in
+the conditions of primitive life that would give rise to a belief in
+this super-material, or in modern language, spiritual existence? Now
+there are at least two sets of experiences that seem adequate to the
+required explanation. The one is normal, the other abnormal. The first
+is connected directly with the universal experience of dreams. The
+savage is, as Tylor says, a severely practical person. He believes what
+he sees and, one may add, he sees what he believes. Knowing nothing of
+the distinction we draw between a fact and an illusion, ignorant of the
+functions, or even the existence of a nervous system, the dreams of a
+savage are to him as real as his waking experiences. He does not say "I
+dreamed I saw So-So," but like the Biblical characters he says, "I saw
+So-So in a dream." The two forms of expression carry all the difference
+between fact and fancy. One thing is therefore obvious to the savage
+mind--something escapes from the body, travels about, and returns. Such
+a conviction does not represent the conclusions of a genius speculating
+upon the meaning of unexplained facts. It is a conviction steadily built
+up by the pressure of unvarying experience, as steadily as is the
+conviction that fire burns or that water is wet. The very universality
+of the belief is proof that it had some such sub-conscious origin.
+
+A second class of experiences lead to the same conclusion. In temporary
+loss of consciousness the savage again sees proof of the existence of a
+double. With epilepsy or insanity there is offered decisive proof that
+some spirit has taken possession of the individual's body. Even in
+civilised countries this belief was widely held hardly more than a
+century ago. And both these classes of experience are enforced by the
+belief that the shadow of a man, an echo, a reflection seen in water,
+etc., are all real things. The proofs that the belief in a "soul" does
+originate in this way are now so plentiful that exact references are
+needless. Examination of primitive religious beliefs all over the world
+yield the one result, without there being any evidence to the contrary.
+
+Primitive philosophy does not stop here. Man dreams of things as well as
+of persons, and a general extension of the belief in a ghost or double
+is made until it covers almost everything. As Tylor says, "the doctrine
+of souls is worked out with remarkable breadth and consistency. The
+souls of animals are recognised by a natural extension from the theory
+of human souls; the souls of trees and plants follow in some vague
+partial way; and the souls of inanimate objects expand the category to
+the extremest boundary." The reasoning of the primitive mind is thus,
+given its limitations and unsound premises, uncompromisingly logical.
+One can trace the processes of reasoning more easily than is the case
+with modern man because it is less disturbed by cross-currents of
+acquired knowledge and conflicting interests.
+
+I am giving but the barest outline of a vast subject because I am
+desirous of keeping the attention of the reader on what I believe to be
+the main issue. For that reason I am not discussing whether animism--the
+vitalising of inanimate objects--has an independent origin, or whether
+it is a mere extension of the ghost theory. Either theory does not
+affect my main position, which is that the idea of God is derived from
+the ignorance of primitive humanity, and has no other authority than a
+misunderstanding of natural facts. On that point the agreement among all
+schools of anthropologists is now very general. Personally, however, I
+do not believe that men would ever have given a soul to trees or other
+natural objects unless they had first given them to living beings, and
+had thus familiarised themselves with the conception of a double.
+
+At present, though, we are on the track of the gods. The belief that
+every human being, and nearly every object, possesses a soul, ends in
+surrounding man with a cloud of spirits against which he has to be
+always on his guard. The general situation is well put by Miss Kingsley,
+who gives a picture of the West African that may well stand for the
+savage world in general.
+
+
+     Everything happens by the action of spirits. The thing he does
+     himself is done by the spirit within acting on his body, the matter
+     with which that spirit is associated. Everything that is done by
+     other things is done by their spirit associated with their
+     particular mass of matter.... The native will point out to you a
+     lightning stricken tree and tell you its spirit has been killed. He
+     will tell you, when the earthen cooking pot is broken, it has lost
+     its spirit. If his weapon failed him, it is because he has stolen
+     or made its spirit sick by means of his influence on other spirits
+     of the same class.... In every action of his life he shows you how
+     he lives with a great, powerful spirit world around him. You see
+     him before running out to hunt or fight rubbing stuff in his weapon
+     to strengthen the spirit that is in it; telling it the while what
+     care he has taken of it; running through a list of what he had
+     given it before, though these things had been hard to give; and
+     begging it, in the hour of his dire necessity, not to fail him....
+     You see him bending over the face of the river, talking to its
+     spirit with proper incantations, asking it when it meets an enemy
+     to upset his canoe and destroy him ... or, as I have myself seen in
+     Congo Fran�aise, to take down with it, away from his village, the
+     pestilence of the spotted death. (_West African Studies_; pp.
+     394-5).
+
+
+When Feurbach said that the "realm of memory was the world of souls," he
+expressed a profound truth in a striking manner. It is dreams, swoons,
+catalepsy, with their allied states which suggest the existence of a
+double or ghost. Even in the absence of the mass of evidence from all
+quarters in support of this, the fact of the ghost always being pictured
+as identical in clothing and figure with the dead man would be almost
+enough to demonstrate its dream origin. Into that aspect of the matter,
+however, we do not now intend to enter. We are now only concerned with
+the bearing of the ghost theory on the origin of God. Another step or
+two and we shall have reached that point. Believing himself surrounded
+on all sides by a world of ghosts the great concern of the savage is to
+escape their ill-will or to secure their favour. Affection and
+fear--fear that the ghost, if his wants are neglected, will wreak
+vengeance through the agency of disease, famine, or accident--leads
+insensibly to the ghosts of one's relations becoming objects of
+veneration, propitiation, and petition. All ghosts receive some
+attention for a certain time after death, but naturally special and
+sustained honours are reserved for the heads of families,[2] and for
+such as have been distinguished for various qualities during life. In
+this way ancestor worship becomes one of the most general forms of
+religious observances, and the gradual development of the great man or
+the deceased ancestor into a deity follows by easy stages. The
+principles of ancestor worship, to again cite the indispensible Tylor,
+are not difficult to understand:--
+
+
+     They plainly keep up the social relations of the living world. The
+     dead ancestor, now passed into a deity, simply goes on protecting:
+     his own family and receiving suit and service from them as of old;
+     the dead chief still watches over his own tribe, still holds his
+     authority by helping friends and harming enemies, still rewards the
+     right and sharply punishes the wrong.
+
+
+That this deification of ancestors and of dead men actually takes place
+is indisputable. The Mythologies of Greece and Rome offer numerous
+examples, and the deification of the Roman Emperors became the regular
+rule. Numerous examples to the same end are supplied from India by Mr.
+W. Crookes and Sir A. C. Lyall. That this way of honouring the dead is
+not limited to natives is shown by the famous case of General Nicholson,
+who actually received the honour of deification during his lifetime.
+Anyone who cares to consult those storehouses of information, Spencer's
+"Principles of Sociology" (Vol. I.), Tylor's "Primitive Culture," and
+Frazer's "Golden Bough" will find the whole god-making process set forth
+with a wealth of illustration that can hardly fail to carry conviction.
+Finally, in the case of Japan and China we have living examples of an
+organised system of religion based upon the deification of ancestors.[3]
+
+It will make it easier to understand the evolution of the god from the
+ghost if we bear in mind that with primitive man the gods are conceived
+neither as independent existences nor as creators. Even immortality is
+not asserted of them. The modern notions of deity, largely due to the
+attempt to accommodate the idea of god to certain metaphysical and
+philosophical conceptions, are so intermingled with the primitive idea,
+that there is always the danger of reading into the primitive
+intelligence more than was ever there. The consequence is that by
+confusing the two senses of the word many find it difficult to realise
+how one has grown out of the other. Such ideas as those of creation and
+independence are quite foreign to the primitive mind. Savages are like
+children in this respect; their interest in things is primarily of a
+practical character. A child does not begin by asking how a thing came
+to be; it asks what it is for or what it does. So the prime concern of
+the savage is, what are certain things for? what will they do? are they
+injurious or beneficial? It is because of this practical turn of mind
+that so much attention is paid to the ghost, having once accepted its
+existence as a fact. The superiority of the gods do not consist in their
+substantial difference from himself, but in the greater power for good
+or evil conferred upon them by their invisible existence. Creation is a
+conception that does not arise until the capacity for philosophical
+speculation has developed. Then reflection sets to work; the nature of
+the god undergoes modification, and the long process of accommodating
+primitive religious beliefs to later knowledge commences, the end of
+which we have not yet seen.
+
+The process of reading modern speculations into the religion of the
+savage leads to some curious results, one of which we cannot forbear
+mentioning. In his little work on "Animism" Mr. Edward Clodd, after
+tracing the fundamental ideas of religion to primitive delusion, says:--
+
+
+     Herein (_i.e._, in dream and visions) are to be found the sufficing
+     materials for a belief in an entity in the body, but not of it,
+     which can depart and return at will, and which man everywhere has
+     more or less vaguely envisaged as his "double" or "other self."...
+     The distinction between soul and body, which explained to man his
+     own actions, was the key to the actions of animate and inanimate
+     things. A personal life and will controlled them. This was
+     obviously brought home to him more forcibly in the actions of
+     living things, since these so closely resembled his own that he saw
+     no difference between themselves and him. _Not in this matter alone
+     have the intuitions of the savage found their confirmation in the
+     discoveries of modern science_.... Ignorant of the reflection of
+     sound, how else could he account for the echoes flung back from the
+     hillside? Ignorant of the law of the interruption of light, how
+     else could he explain the advancing and retreating shadows? _In
+     some sense they must be alive; an inference supported by modern
+     science._
+
+
+The italics in the above passages are mine, and they serve to illustrate
+how certain writers manage to introduce quite misleading conceptions to
+their readers. It almost causes one to cease wondering at the
+persistence of religion when one finds a writer accepting the results of
+anthropological research, and at the same time claiming that savage
+"intuitions" are confirmed by modern science. If that be true, then all
+that Mr. Clodd has previously written must be dismissed as untrue. The
+statement is, however, quite inaccurate. The inference drawn by the
+savage is not supported by modern science. Neither on the existence of a
+soul nor on the existence of a god, nor on the nature of disease, nor on
+the causes of physical or psychical states has science confirmed the
+"intuitions" (whatever that conveniently cloudy word may mean) of the
+primitive savage. The acquisition of correct views would indeed be an
+easy thing if they could be gained by the "intuitions" of an untaught
+savage.
+
+The assertion that "in some sense" natural forces must be alive (as
+though there can be any real sense in a term except the right sense),
+and that this inference is "supported by modern physics," is an
+illustration of that playing with words which is fatal to exact thought.
+The only sense in which the expression is used in physics is that of
+"active," and both "active" and "alive" owe their vogue to the necessity
+for controverting the older view that natural forces are "inert" or
+"dead" and need some external force to produce anything. It is a mere
+figure of speech; the evil is when it is taken and used as an exact
+expression of scientific fact. Let a reader of Mr. Clodd ask himself
+whether the life he thinks of when he speaks of forces being alive is
+animal life, and he will at once see the absurdity of the statement. And
+if he does not mean animal life, what life does he mean?
+
+Putting on one side all such attempts at accommodation, we may safely
+say that given the origin of religion in the manner indicated, one may
+trace--at least in outline--the development of religion from the
+primitive ghost worship up to the rituals and beliefs of current creeds.
+I do not mean by this that _all_ religious beliefs and practices spring
+directly from ghost worship. Once religion is established, and the
+myth-making capacity let loose, additions are made that are due to all
+sorts of causes. The Romans and Greeks, for example, seem to have
+created a number of deities out of pure abstractions--gods of peace, of
+war, of fortune, and so forth. Why particular deities were invented, and
+how they became attached to particular groups of phenomena, are
+questions that it is often impossible to answer with any great degree of
+certainty, but why there should be any gods at all is a question that
+can be answered, I think, on the lines above indicated.
+
+The way in which the primitive ghost worship probably paved the way for
+some of the doctrines of the "higher" religions may be seen on taking a
+story such as the death and resurrection of the Gospel Jesus. In his
+treatise on "The Attis" Mr. Grant Allen made the ingenious suggestion
+that the greater fertility of the ground on and near the grave, owing to
+the food placed there to feed the ghost, would produce in the savage
+mind the conviction that this increased fertility was due to the
+beneficent activity of the double of the dead man. Reasoning from this
+basis, it would be a simple conclusion that the production, or lack, of
+crops was everywhere due to the action of good or evil spirits. In the
+next place, it must be remembered that it is the act of dying which
+raises the human being to the level of a guardian spirit or god; and
+from this to the production of a god by ceremonial killing would be a
+natural and an easy step. In this last respect, at least, we are upon
+the firm ground of fact, and not on that of mere theory. If a reader
+will take the trouble to peruse the numerous examples collected by Tylor
+in the first chapter of his "Primitive Culture," and those provided by
+Frazer in the "Golden Bough," he will find the evidence for this
+overwhelming. Examples of the practice of killing a human being and
+burying his body under the foundations of a castle or a bridge are very
+common, and the modern custom of burying coins under a foundation-stone
+is a harmless and interesting survival of this custom. In some parts of
+Africa a boy and girl are buried where a village is to be established.
+In Polynesia the central pillar of a temple was placed on the body of a
+human victim. In Scotland there is the legend that St. Columba buried
+the body of St. Oran under his monastery to make the building secure.
+Any country will supply stories of a similar kind. Finally, we have the
+amusing story of the manner in which Sir Richard Burton narrowly escaped
+deification. Exploring in Afghanistan in the disguise of a Mohammedan
+fakir, he received a friendly hint that he would do well to get off
+without delay. He expressed surprise, as the people seemed very fond of
+him. That, it was explained, was the cause of the trouble. They thought
+so much of him they intended to kill him, and thus retain so excellent a
+man with them for ever.
+
+When Tylor wrote, the prevalent impression was that this killing of
+human beings was due to a desire to appease the spirits of the place.
+Later investigation showed that instead of a sacrifice it was a
+creation. The purpose was to create a local god who would watch over the
+building or settlement. God-making was thus shown to be a universal
+practice.
+
+Our next step must be taken in the company of Sir James Frazer. On
+all-fours with the practice of creating a guardian deity for a building
+is that of making a similar guardian for crops and vegetation. The
+details of this practice are interesting, but they need not now detain
+us. It is enough that the practice existed, and, as Frazer shows, was an
+annual practice. Year by year the god was killed in order that the seed
+might ripen and the harvest be secured. In some cases the body was cut
+up and pieces buried in the fields; in other cases it was burned and the
+ashes scattered over the ground. Gradually the ritual becomes more
+elaborate, but the central idea remains intact that of a human being
+converted into a god by being killed, a man sacrificed for the benefit
+of the tribe. In the light of these researches the New Testament story
+becomes only a more recent version of a widespread savage superstition.
+The time of the sacrifice, the symbolism, the practices all prove this.
+The crucified Saviour, in honour of whom all the Christian cathedrals
+and churches of the world are built, is only another late survival of
+the god-making practice of primitive savagery.
+
+The gods are, then, ultimately deified ghosts. They are born of
+misinterpreted subjective and objective experiences. This is among the
+surest and most firmly established results of modern investigation. It
+matters not what modifications later knowledge may demand; it will only
+mean a change of form, not of substance. On any scientific theory we are
+bound to explain the origin of the gods in terms of human error. And no
+subsequent development can alter its character. We may trace the various
+stages of a universal delusion, but nothing can convert a delusion into
+a reality. It is now universally recognised that the primitive notions
+of gods represent false conclusions from misunderstood facts. No one now
+believes that the visions seen during sleep are proofs of a wandering
+double. No one believes that it is necessary to supply the ghost of the
+dead with food, or with weapons, or with wives. We do not believe that
+the wind, the stars, the waters are alive or are capable of being
+influenced by our petitions. All the phenomena upon which the god idea
+was originally built are now known to be susceptible to a radically
+different explanation. And if this is so, what other foundations have we
+on which to build a belief in God? There is none. There is only one
+plausible reason for the belief in God, and that is the reason advanced
+by the savage. When we get beyond that we are not dealing with reasons
+for holding the belief, but only with excuses for retaining it.
+Unfortunately, thousands are familiar with the excuses, and only a few
+with the reasons. Were it otherwise a great deal of what follows need
+never have been written.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Both the words "supernatural" and "God" are here used somewhat
+loosely. In fact the conception of the supernatural arises gradually,
+and as a consequence of developing knowledge which, so to speak, splits
+the universe into two. So also with the belief in God. There is clearly
+an earlier form in which there exists a kind of mental plasma from which
+the more definite conception of God is subsequently formed. On this
+topic the reader may consult "The Threshold of Religion," by R. R.
+Marett, 1914.
+
+[2] For the importance of this in the history of religion see Fustel de
+Coulanges' "The Ancient City."
+
+[3] The perpetuation of this earlier stage of religion in China and
+Japan appears to make the transition to Free-thought easier than in
+countries where religion has under-gone a more advanced evolution. In
+both the countries named, the better minds find it quite easy to treat
+their religion as merely the respect paid to ancestors, and thus divest
+it of the supernatural element. In Christian countries there is also the
+attempt to restate beliefs in terms of current morality and sociology,
+but the transition is more difficult.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+HAVE WE A RELIGIOUS SENSE?
+
+
+In all discussions of theism there is one point that is usually
+overlooked. This is that theism is in the nature of a hypothesis. And,
+like every hypothesis, its value is proportionate to the extent to which
+it offers a satisfactory explanation of the facts with which it
+professes to deal. If it can offer no explanation its value is nil. If
+its explanation is only partial, its value will be determined by the
+degree to which it can claim superiority over any other hypothesis that
+is before us. But every hypothesis implies two things. There is a group
+of things to be explained, and there is the hypothesis itself that is
+offered in explanation. In the harmony of the two, and in the
+possibility of verification, lies the only proof of truth that can be
+offered.
+
+If this be granted it at once disposes of the plea that a conviction of
+the existence of God springs from some special quality of the mind which
+enables man to arrive at a conclusion in a manner different from the way
+in which conclusions concerning other subjects are reached. Intuition as
+a method of discovering truth is pure delusion. All that can be
+rationally meant by such a word as intuition is summarised experience.
+When we speak of knowing a thing "intuitively," all that we can mean is
+that, experience having furnished us with a sufficient guidance, we are
+able to reach a conclusion so rapidly that we cannot follow the steps of
+the mental process involved. That this is so is seen in the fact that
+our intuitions always follow the line of our experience. A stockbroker
+may "intuitively" foresee a rise or fall of the market, but his
+intuition will fail him when considering the possibilities of a chemical
+composition. To say that a man knows a thing by intuition is only one
+way of saying that he does not know how he knows it--that is, he is
+unable to trace the stages of his own mental operations. And in this
+sense intuition is universal. It belongs as much to the cooking of a
+dumpling as it does to the belief in deity.
+
+But it is evident that when the theist talks of intuition, what he has
+in mind is something very different from this. He is thinking of some
+special quality of mind that operates independently of experience,
+either racial or individual. And this simply does not exist. In religion
+man is never putting into operation qualities of mind different from
+those he employs in other directions. Whether we call a state of mind
+religious or not is determined, not by the mental processes involved,
+but by the object to which it is directed. Hatred and love, anger,
+pleasure, awe, curiosity, reverence, even worship, are exactly the same
+whether directed towards "God" or towards anything else. Human qualities
+are fundamentally identical, and may be expressed in relation to all
+sorts of objects.
+
+The attempt to mark religion off from the rest of life, to be approached
+by special methods and in a special frame of mind, takes many forms, and
+it may be illustrated by the manner in which it is dealt with by
+Professor Arthur Thomson. In a little work entitled "An Introduction to
+Science," and specially intended for general consumption, he remarks,
+as a piece of advice to his readers:--
+
+
+     We would remind ourselves and our readers that the whole subject
+     should be treated with reverence and sympathy, for it is hardly
+     possible to exaggerate the august r�le of religion in human life.
+     Whatever be our views, we must recognise that just as the great
+     mathematicians and metaphysicians represent the aristocracy of the
+     human intellect, so the great religious geniuses represent the
+     aristocracy of human emotion. And in this connection it is probably
+     useful to bear in mind that in all discussions about religious
+     ideas or feelings we should ourselves be in an exalted mood, and
+     yet "with a compelling sense of our own limitations," and of the
+     vastness and mysteriousness of the world.
+
+
+If Professor Thomson had been writing on "Frames of Mind Fatal to
+Scientific Investigation" he could hardly have chosen a better
+illustration of his thesis. One may safely say that anyone who started
+an examination of religion in this spirit, and maintained it throughout
+his examination, would perform something little short of a miracle did
+he reach a sound conclusion. A feeling of sympathy may pass, but why
+"reverence"? Reverence is a very complex state, but it certainly
+includes respect and a certain measure of affection. And how is one to
+rationally have respect or affection for anything _before_ one has
+ascertained that they are deserving of either? Is anyone who happens to
+believe that religion is _not_ worthy of reverence to be ruled out as
+being unfit to express an opinion? Clearly, on this rule, either we
+compel a man to sacrifice his sense of self-respect before we will allow
+him to be heard, or we pack the jury with persons who confess to have
+reached a decision before they have heard the evidence. It would almost
+seem from the expression that while examining religion we should be in
+an "exalted mood" that Professor Thomson has in view the last
+contingency. For by an exalted mood we can only understand a religious
+mood--that is, we must believe in religion before we examine it,
+otherwise our examination is profanity. Well, that is just the cry of
+the priest in all ages. And while it is sound religion, there is no
+question of its being shocking science. Even the mere feeling of
+exaltation is not to be encouraged during a scientific investigation.
+One can understand Kepler when he had discovered the true laws of
+planetary motion, or Newton when he embraced in one magnificent
+generalisation the fall of a stone and the revolution of a planet,
+experiencing a feeling of exaltation; but exaltation must follow, not
+precede, the conclusion. At any rate, there are few scientific teachers
+who would encourage such a feeling during investigation.
+
+Leaving for a moment the question of religious geniuses being the
+aristocrats of human emotion, we may take the same writer's view of the
+limitations of science, thus providing an opening for the intrusion of
+religion. This is given in the form of a criticism of the following
+well-known passage from Huxley:--
+
+
+     If the fundamental proposition of evolution is true, namely, that
+     the entire world, animate and inanimate, is the result of the
+     mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of forces possessed
+     by the molecules which made up the primitive nebulosity of the
+     universe; then it is no less certain that the present actual world
+     reposed potentially in the cosmic vapour, and that an intelligence,
+     if great enough, could from his knowledge of the properties of the
+     molecules of that vapour have predicted the state of the fauna in
+     Great Britain in 1888 with as much certitude as we say what will
+     happen to the vapour of our breath on a cold day in winter.
+
+
+Now, if the principle of evolution be accepted, the truth of Huxley's
+statement appears to be self-evident. It may be that no intelligence
+capable of making such a calculation will ever exist, but the abstract
+possibility remains. Professor Thomson calls it "a very strong and
+confident statement," which illustrates the need for philosophical
+criticism. His criticism of Huxley's statement is based on two grounds.
+These are: (1) "No complete physico-chemical description has ever been
+given of any distinctively vital activity; and (2) the physical
+description of things cannot cover biological phenomena, nor can the
+biological description cover mental and moral phenomena." There is, he
+says,
+
+
+     The physical order of nature--the inorganic world--where mechanism
+     reigns supreme. (2) There is the vital order of nature--the world
+     of organisms--where mechanism proves insufficient. (3) There is the
+     physical order of nature--the world of mind--where mechanism is
+     irrelevant. Thus there are three fundamental sciences--Physics,
+     Biology, and Psychology--each with characteristic questions,
+     categories and formul�.
+
+
+Now, however earnestly Huxley's statement calls for criticism, it is
+clear to us that nothing useful in that direction is offered by Prof.
+Thomson. It is quite plain that the abstract possibility of such a
+calculation as that named by Huxley can never be ruled out by science,
+since such a conception lies at the root of all scientific thinking.
+After all, want of knowledge only proves--want of knowledge; and Sir
+Oliver Lodge would warn Prof. Thomson of the extreme danger of resting
+an argument on the ignorance of science at any particular time.[4]
+
+I note this statement of Professor Thomson's chiefly because it
+illustrates a very common method of dealing with the mechanistic or
+non-theistic view of the universe. In this matter Professor Thomson may
+claim the companionship of Sir Oliver Lodge, who says, "Materialism is
+appropriate to the material world, not as a philosophy, but as a working
+creed, as a proximate, an immediate formula for guiding research.
+Everything beyond that belongs to another region, and must be reached by
+other methods. To explain the psychical in terms of physics and
+chemistry is simply impossible.... The extreme school of biologists ...
+ought to say, if they were consistent, there is nothing but physics and
+chemistry at work anywhere." With both these writers there is the common
+assumption that the mechanist assumes there is a physical and chemical
+explanation of all phenomena. And the assumption is false. There is a
+story of a well-known lecturer on physiology who commenced an address on
+the stomach by remarking that that organ had been called this, that, and
+the other, but the one thing he wished his students to bear in mind was
+that it was a stomach. So the mechanist, while firmly believing that
+there is an ascending unity in all natural phenomena, is never silly
+enough to deny that living things are alive, or that thinking beings
+think.
+
+But unless Professor Thomson does impute this to the mechanist, we quite
+fail to see the relevance his assertion that there are three
+departments, physics, biology, and psychology, each with its
+characteristic questions, categories, and formul�. Of course, there are,
+and equally, of course, physical laws will not cover biological facts;
+nor will biological laws cover psychological ones. This is not due to
+any occult cause, but to the simple fact that as each group of phenomena
+has its characteristic features, each set of laws are framed to cover
+the phenomena presented by that group. Otherwise there would be no need
+of these special laws. It is astonishing how paralysing is the effect of
+the theistic obsession on the minds of even scientific men, since it
+leads them to ignore what is really a basic consideration in scientific
+method.
+
+Perhaps a word or two more on this topic is advisable. If it is
+permissible to arrange natural phenomena in a serial order, we may place
+them in succession as physical, chemical, biological, and psychological.
+But these names represent no more than descriptions of certain features
+that are to the group common, otherwise the grouping would be useless
+and impossible. And it is part of the business of science to frame
+"laws"--descriptions--of phenomena such as will enable us to express
+their characteristic features in a brief formula. It is, therefore,
+quite true to say that you cannot express vital phenomena in terms of
+physics or chemistry. And no materialist who took the trouble to
+understand materialism, instead of taking a statement of what it is from
+an anti-materialist, ever thought otherwise. _Each specific group of
+phenomena can only be covered by laws that belong to that group, and
+which were framed for that express purpose._ A psychological fact can no
+more be expressed in terms of chemistry than a physical fact can be
+expressed in terms of biology. These truths are as plain to the
+mechanist as they are to the vitalist. Mental life, the scientific
+categories, are real to all; the only question at issue is that of their
+origin.
+
+To explain is to make intelligible, and in that sense all scientific
+explanation consists in the establishing of equivalents. When we say
+that A, B, C are the factors of D, we have asserted D is the equivalent
+of A, B, C--plus, of course, all that results from the combination of
+the factors. When we say that we have explained the formation of water
+by showing it to be the product of H.2.O. we have shown that whether we
+say "water" or use the chemical formula we are making identical
+statements. If we are working out a problem in dynamics we meet with
+exactly the same principle. We must prove that the resultant accounts
+for all the forces in operation at the time. Now, all that the mechanist
+claims is that it is extremely probable that one day the scientist will
+be able to work out the exact physico-chemical conditions that are the
+equivalents of biological phenomena, and, in turn, the
+physico-chemical-biological conditions that are the equivalents of
+psychological phenomena. Very considerable progress has already been
+made in this direction, and, as Sir Oliver Lodge says, there are
+probably very few scientific men who would deny the likelihood of this
+being done.
+
+But this does not deny the existence of differences between these groups
+of phenomena; neither does it assert that we can describe the
+characteristic features of one group in terms that belong to another
+group. Once a group of phenomena, biological, or chemical is there, we
+must have special formul� to describe them, otherwise there would be no
+need for these divisions. It is admitted that the earth was at one time
+destitute of life; it is also admitted that there are forms of life
+destitute of those features which we call mind. And, whatever be their
+mode of origin, once introduced they must be dealt with in special
+terms. Psychological facts must be expressed in terms of psychology,
+biological facts in terms of biology, and chemical facts in terms of
+chemistry. You may give the chemical and physical equivalent of a
+sunset. That is one aspect. You may also give the psychological
+explanation of the emotion of man on beholding it. That is another
+aspect. But you cannot express the psychological fact in terms of
+chemistry because it belongs to quite another category. A psychological
+fact, as such, is ultimate. So is a chemical or a biological fact. If by
+analysis you reduce the psychological fact to its chemical and
+biological equivalents, its character as a psychological fact is
+destroyed. That is the product of the synthesis, and to seek in analysis
+for what only exists in synthesis, is surely to altogether misunderstand
+the spirit of scientific method. The curious thing is that a mere layman
+should have to correct men of science on this matter.
+
+We can now return to Prof. Thomson's attempt to claim for religion a
+special place in the sphere of emotion. He claims, in the passage
+already cited, that "as the great mathematicians and metaphysicians
+represent the aristocracy of human intellect so the great religious
+geniuses represent the aristocracy of human emotion." There is nothing
+new in this claim, neither is there any evidence of its truth.
+Coleridge's dictum that the proper antithesis to religion is poetry is
+open to serious objection, but there is more to be said for it than may
+be said for the antithesis set up by Prof. Thomson. As a matter of fact,
+religious geniuses have often pursued their work with as much attention
+to scientific precision as was possible, and have prided themselves that
+they made no appeal to mere emotion. Justification by emotion has only
+been attempted when other means of securing conviction has failed. And
+the appeal to emotion has become popular for very obvious reasons. It
+enables the ordinary theologian to feel a comfortable superiority over a
+Spencer or a Darwin. It enables mediocrities to enjoy the feeling of
+being wise without the trouble of acquiring wisdom. It enables inherited
+prejudices to rank as reasoned convictions. And, in addition, there is
+nothing that cannot be conveniently proved or disproved by such a
+method.
+
+In whatever form the distinction is met with it harbours a fallacy.
+Intellectual activity is not and cannot be divorced from emotion. There
+are states of mind in which feeling predominates, and there are others
+in which reason predominates. But all intellectual states involve a
+feeling element. The often-made remark that feeling and intellect are
+in conflict is true only in the sense that ultimately certain
+intellectual states, _plus_ their associated feelings, are in conflict
+with other intellectual states plus _their_ associated feelings. To
+realise this one need only consider the sheer pleasure that results from
+the rapid sweep of the mind through a lengthy chain of reasoning, and
+the positive pain that ensues when the terms of a proposition baffles
+comprehension. The force of this is admitted by Prof. Thomson in the
+remark that man at the limit of his endeavour has fallen back on
+religion. Quite so; that is the painful feelings evoked by an
+intellectual failure have thrown a certain type of mind back on
+religion. In this they have acted like one who flies to a drug for
+relief from a pain he lacks the courage to bear. They take a narcotic
+when, often enough, the real need is for a stimulant.
+
+In sober truth religion is no more necessarily connected with the
+emotions than are other subjects of investigation. Those who have made
+the pursuit of "cold scientific truth" their life's work have shown
+every whit as much ardour and passion as those who have given their life
+to religion. The picture of man sacrificing himself in the cause of
+religion is easily matched by a Vesalius haunting the charnel houses of
+Europe, and risking the most loathsome diseases in the interests of
+scientific research. The abiding passion for truth in a character such
+as that of Roger Bacon or Bruno easily matches the enthusiasm of the
+missionary monk. The passion and the enthusiasm for science is less
+advertised than the passion and the enthusiasm for religion, but it is
+quite as real, and certainly not less valuable. The state of mind of
+Kepler on discovering the laws of planetary motion was hardly less
+ecstatic than that of a religious visionary describing his sense of
+"spiritual" communion. Only in the case of the scientist, it is emotion
+guided by reason, not reason checked and partly throttled by emotion.
+
+When, therefore, Matthew Arnold defined religion as morality touched
+with emotion, he substituted a fallacy for a definition. Primarily
+religion is as much a conviction as is the Copernican system of
+astronomy. It exists first as an idea; it only exists as an emotion at a
+later stage. There is really no such thing as a religious emotion, there
+are only emotions connected with religion. Originally all religion is in
+the nature of an inference from observed or experienced facts. This
+inference may not be of the elaborate kind that we associate with modern
+scientific work, but it is there. The inference is an illogical one, but
+under the conditions inevitable. And being an inference religion is not
+primarily an emotion but a conviction, and it must stand or fall by its
+intellectual trustworthiness. It seems, indeed, little less than a
+truism to say that unless men first of all _believed_ something about
+religion they could never have emotions concerning it. Hope and fear may
+colour our convictions, they may prevent the formation of correct
+opinions, but they originate in connection with a belief in every case.
+And an emotion, if it be a healthful one, must be ultimately capable of
+intellectual justification. When this cannot be done, when we have mere
+emotion pleaded as a ground for rejecting rational examination, we have
+irrationalism driven to its last ditch.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[4] "The present powerlessness of science to explain or originate life
+is a convenient weapon wherewith to fell a pseudo-scientific antagonist
+who is dogmatising too loudly out of bounds; but it is not perfectly
+secure as a permanent support.... Life in its ultimate elements and on
+its material side is such a simple thing, it is but a slight extension
+of known chemical and physical forces.... I apprehend that there is not
+a biologist but believes (perhaps quite erroneously) that sooner or
+later the discovery will be made, and that a cell discharging all the
+essential functions of life will be constructed out of inorganic
+material." ("Man and the Universe," Chap. I.).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM EXISTENCE.
+
+
+What, now, are the facts upon which the modern believer in deity
+professes to base his belief and what are the arguments used to defend
+the position taken up?
+
+Premising that the reasons advanced for the belief in deity are more in
+the nature of excuses than aught else, we may take first of all the
+argument derived from the mere existence of the universe, with the
+alleged impossibility of conceiving it as self-existent. Along with that
+there may also be taken as a variant of the argument from existence, the
+alleged impossibility of a natural "order" that should result from the
+inherent properties of natural forces. Now it is at least plain that
+whatever difficulty there is in thinking of the universe as either
+self-existing or self-adjusting is in no degree lessened by assuming a
+God as the originator and sustainer of the whole. The most that it does
+is to move the difficulty back a step, and while with many "out of sight
+out of mind" is as true of their attitude towards mental problems as it
+is towards the more ordinary things of life, the policy can hardly be
+commended in serious intellectual discussions. It is not a bit easier to
+think of self-existence or self-direction in connection with a god than
+it is in connection with the universe. And if we must rest ultimately
+with an insoluble difficulty, it is surely better to stop with the
+existence we know rather than to introduce a second existence which for
+all we know may be quite mythical.
+
+It is no reply to say that the idea of God involves self-existence. It
+does nothing of the kind, or at least it can do so only by our making
+yet another assumption that is as unjustifiable as the previous one. If
+God is a personality, we have no conception of a personality that is
+self-existent. The only personality that we know is the human
+personality, and that is certainly derived. Our whole knowledge of human
+personality is that of something which is derived from pre-existing
+personalities, each of which is a centre of derived influences. Of
+personality as either the cause or the commencement of a series we have
+not the slightest conception. And the man who says he has can never have
+carefully examined the contents of his own mind.
+
+The truth is that the fact of the existence of the universe provides no
+ground for argument in favour of either Atheism or Theism. Existence is
+a common datum for all. Some existence must be assumed in all argument
+since all argument implies something that is to be discussed and
+explained. And for that very reason we can offer no explanation of
+existence itself, since all explanation means the merging of one class
+of facts in a larger class. The largest class of facts we have is that
+which is included in the term "universe," and we cannot explain that by
+assuming another existence--God--about which we know nothing. To explain
+the unknown by the known is an intelligible procedure. To explain the
+known by the unknown is to forsake all intellectual sanity. Thus every
+difficulty that surrounds the conception of the universe as an ultimate
+fact, surrounds the existence of God as an ultimate fact. You cannot get
+rid of a difficulty by giving it another name. And whether we call
+ultimate existence "God," or "matter," or "substance," is of no vital
+importance to anyone who keeps his mind on the real issue that has to be
+decided. If the question, What is the cause of existence? be a
+legitimate one, it applies no less to the existence of God than it does
+to the existence of matter, or force, or substance. All that we gain is
+another problem which we add to the problems we already possess. We
+increase our burden without enlarging our comprehension. If, on the
+other hand, it is said that we need an all embracing formula that will
+make our conception of the universe coherent, it may be replied that we
+have that in such a conception as the persistence of force. And it is
+surely better to keep to a formula that does at least work, than to
+devise one that is altogether useless.
+
+The inherent weakness of the theistic conception will be best seen by
+taking an orthodox presentation of the argument under consideration. In
+his well-known work on "Theism," Professor Flint says "that granting all
+the atoms of matter to be eternal, grant that all the properties and
+forces, which with the smallest degree of plausibility can be claimed
+for them to be eternal and indestructible, and it is still beyond
+expression improbable that these atoms, with these forces, if
+unarranged, uncombined, unutilised by a presiding mind, would give rise
+to anything entitled to be called a universe. It is millions to one that
+they would never produce the simplest of the regular arrangements which
+we comprehend under the designation of course of nature." (_Theism_; pp.
+107-8.)
+
+Now this is an admirably clear and terse statement of an argument which
+is often presented in so verbose a manner that its real nature is, to a
+considerable extent, disguised. But in this case, clearness of statement
+makes for ease of refutation, as will be seen.
+
+For, instead of the statement being, as the writer seems to think,
+almost self-evidently true, it is almost obtrusively false. Instead of
+its being millions to one, given matter and force with all their present
+properties, against the present arrangement of things occurring, it is
+inconceivable, assuming that nothing but the atoms and their properties
+exist, that any other arrangement than the present one should have
+resulted. For the present natural order is not something that is, so to
+speak, separable from our conception of natural forces, it is something
+that has grown out of and is the expression of the idea of nature. Thus,
+given a proper understanding of the principle of gravitation, and it is
+impossible to conceive an unsupported stone _not_ falling to the ground.
+Given a proper conception of the properties of the constituents of a
+chemical compound, and we can only conceive one result as possible. In
+all cases our conception of what _must_ occur follows from the nature of
+the forces themselves. This is necessarily the case since the conception
+of the ultimate properties of matter has been built up by the
+observation of the actual results. And one simply cannot conceive an
+alteration in these results without thinking of some alteration or
+modification of the causes of which they are the expression. What is
+true of the part is true of the whole. The present structure of the
+world stands as the inevitable outcome of the play of natural forces.
+This is both the expression of an actual fact and a condition of
+coherent thought. Uniformity of results from uniformity of conditions is
+a pre-requisite to sane thinking.
+
+In reality, the expression "millions to one" is no more than an appeal
+to man's awe in facing a stupendous mechanism, and his feeling of
+impotence when dealing with so complex a subject as the evolution of a
+world. It can only mean that to a certain state of knowledge it _seems_
+millions to one against the present order resulting. But to a certain
+state of knowledge it would seem millions to one against so fluid a
+thing as water ever becoming solid. To others it is a commonplace thing
+and a necessary consequence of the properties of water itself. To a
+savage it would be millions to one against a cloud of "fire mist" ever
+becoming a world with a highly diversified fauna and flora. To a
+scientist there is nothing more in it than antecedent and consequent.
+Such expressions as its being "millions to one" against certain things
+happening is never really more than an appeal to ignorance; it means
+only that our knowledge is not great enough to permit our tracing the
+successive stages of the evolution before us. Once the scientific
+conception of the universe is grasped, the marvel is not that the
+present order exists, the marvel would be that any other "order" should
+be, or that any radical alteration in it should occur.
+
+And there really is no need to throw the whole universe at the head of
+the sceptic. That is an attempt to overcome him with sheer weight.
+Intrinsically there is nothing more marvellous in the evolution of a
+habitable globe from the primitive nebula, than there is in the fact
+that an unsupported stone always falls to the ground. It is only our
+familiarity with the one experience and our lack of knowledge concerning
+the other that gives us the condition of wonder in the one case and lack
+of it in the other. In the light of modern knowledge "order" is, as W.
+H. Mallock says, "a physical platitude, not a divine paradox."
+
+Moreover, if the odds are a million to one against the existence of the
+present arrangement existing, the odds would be equally great against
+the existence of any other arrangement. And as the odds are equally
+great against all--seeing that _some_ arrangement must exist--there can
+be no logical value in using the argument against one arrangement in
+particular. The same question, "Why this arrangement and none other?"
+might arise in any case.
+
+Finally, the absurdity of arguing that the "order" of nature compels a
+belief in deity may be seen by realising the fact that our conception of
+order is itself the product of the experienced sequence which
+constitutes the order in question. Our ideas of order are not
+independent of the world, they are its product--an expression of the
+relation between organism and environment. Given a different organism,
+with different sense organs, and the world would appear different. On
+the other hand the whole structure of man is the result of the existing
+conditions. Assume the order to be changed, and the human
+organism--presuming it still to exist, will undergo corresponding
+modifications. It would not find less order or less beauty, the order
+and the beauty would simply be found in another direction. And,
+presumably, the theist would still point to the existence of _that_
+order as clear proof of a designing intelligence.
+
+Something needs to be said here on a more recent form of the argument
+from the "order" of nature than the one we have been discussing. There
+is no vital distinction between the old and the new form, but a
+variation in terms seems to produce on some minds a conviction of
+newness--itself a proof that the nature of the old form had never been
+fully realised.
+
+This new form is that based upon what is called "Directivity."
+Recognising that it is no longer possible to successfully dispute the
+scientific proposition that the state of the universe at any one moment
+must be taken as the result of all the conditions then prevailing, and,
+therefore, it is to the operation of the ultimate properties of matter,
+force, ether,--or whatever name we choose to give to the substance of
+the universe--it is argued that we nevertheless require some directing
+force which will set, and keep the universe on its present track.
+
+But there is really nothing in this beyond the now familiar appeal to
+human impotence. "We do not know," "We cannot see," are quite excellent
+reasons for saying nothing at all, but the very worst ground on which to
+make positive statements, or on which to base positive beliefs. The
+only condition that would justify our making human ignorance a ground
+on which to make statements of the kind named would be that we had
+demonstrably exhausted the possibilities of natural forces, and no
+further developments were possible in this direction. Far from this
+being the case there is not a single man of science who would dissent
+from the statement that we are only upon the threshold of a knowledge of
+their possibilities.
+
+And this assumption of "direction" is unconvincing, if not suicidal in
+character. Assuming that direction may have occurred, the fact of
+direction adds nothing to the qualities or possibilities of existence,
+any more than the "directivity" of a chemist adds to the possibilities
+of certain elements when he brings them into combination. Unless the
+possibilities of the compound were already in the elements guidance
+would be useless. And, in the same way, unless the capacity for
+producing the universe we see already existed in the atoms themselves,
+no amount of "direction" could have produced it. God simply takes the
+place of the chemist bringing certain chemical elements in, of the
+engineer guiding certain forces along a particular channel. But no new
+capacity is created, and all that is done by either the chemist or the
+engineer _might_ occur without their interference. Otherwise it could
+not occur at all.
+
+Now there is no denying that natural forces _do_ produce the phenomena
+around us. That is undeniable. And whether there be a god or not this
+fact remains quite unaffected. All that God can do is to set up certain
+combinations. But this does not exclude the possibility of this
+combination taking place without the operation of deity. In fact, it
+implies it. Either, then, natural forces possess the capacity to produce
+the universe as we see it, or they do not. If they do not, then it is
+impossible for us to conceive in what way even deity could produce it.
+If, on the other hand, they have this capacity, the argument for the
+existence of deity loses its force, and the theist is bound to admit
+that all that he claims as due to the action of deity might have
+happened without him. The theists own argument, if logically pursued
+ends in divesting it of all coercive value.
+
+It is curious that the theist should fail to see that a much stronger
+argument for the operation of deity would have been of a negative
+character, to have proved that in some way God manifested an inhibitive
+influence and thus prevented certain things occurring which would have
+transpired but for his interference. Regularity, or "order" is, as we
+have seen, the necessary consequence of the persistence of force. And so
+long as natural forces continue to express themselves in the way in
+which experience has led us to expect there is no need for us to think
+of anything beyond. The principle of inertia is with us here, for if it
+be true that force will persist in a given direction unless deflected
+from its course by some other force, it must be equally true that _all_
+forces will work out a given consequence unless they are deflected from
+their course by the operation of some superior force.
+
+Now if it were possible for the theist to show that in certain cases the
+normal consequences of known forces did not transpire, and that the
+aberration could not be accounted for by the operation of any other
+conceivable force, it might be argued with some degree of plausibility
+that there exists a controlling power beyond which answers to God. That
+might afford a plausible case for "directivity." But to insist upon the
+prevalence of "natural order" will not help the case for theism. It will
+rather embarrass it. It may, of course, impress all those whose
+conception of scientific method is poor--and sometimes one thinks that
+this is all that is deliberately aimed at--but it will not affect anyone
+else. To the informed mind it will appear that the Goddite is weakening
+his case with every step he takes in the direction of what he apparently
+believes to be a demonstration of its logical invulnerability.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM CAUSATION.
+
+
+The argument from causation may logically follow that from existence, of
+which it may be regarded as a part. It is presented under various forms,
+and when stated in a persuasive manner, is next to the argument from
+design, probably as popular as any. The principal reason for this is, I
+think, that very few people are concerned with thinking out exactly what
+is meant by causation, and the proposition that every event must have a
+cause, wins a ready assent, and when followed by the assertion that
+therefore the universe must have had a cause, which is God, the
+reasoning, or rather the parody of reasoning, appeals to many. There is
+a show of reason and logic, but little more.
+
+Quite unquestionably a great deals depends upon what is meant by
+causation, and still more upon the use made of the law of causation by
+theists. Thus we have seen it urged against Materialists that neural
+activity cannot be the equivalent of thought because they do not
+resemble each other. And in another direction we meet with the same idea
+in the assertion that the cause must be equal to the effect, by which it
+is apparently meant that the cause must be _similar_ to the effect, and
+that unless we can discern in the cause the same qualities manifested by
+the effect, we have not established the fact of causation at all.
+
+The complete and perfect answer to this last view is that the qualities
+manifest in an effect never are manifest in the cause, were it so it
+would be impossible to distinguish one from the other. The theist is,
+as is often the case, saying one thing and meaning another. What he says
+is that the cause must be adequate to the effect. There is no dispute
+here. But what he proceeds to argue is that the effect must be
+discernible in the cause, which is a different statement altogether.
+When he says that an effect cannot be greater than its cause, what he
+means is that an effect cannot be different from its cause, which is
+downright nonsense. He asks, How can that which has not life produce
+life? as though the question were on all fours with the necessity for a
+man to possess twenty shillings before he can give change for a
+sovereign.
+
+Of course, the reply to all this is that the factors which when combined
+produce an effect always "give" something of which when uncombined they
+show no trace. There is no trace; of sweetness in the constituents of
+sugar of lead, or of blueness in the constituents of blue vitriol. In
+not a single case, if we are to follow the logic of the theist, is there
+a cause adequate to produce an effect, if we are to follow the reasoning
+of some theists; in each case we should have to assume some occult agent
+as responsible for the result. In reality and in strict scientific
+truth, it is of the very essence of causation that there shall be
+present in the effect some quality or qualities that are not present in
+the cause. And all the confusion may be eliminated if there is borne in
+mind the simple and single consideration that in studying an effect it
+is the qualities of a combination with which we are properly concerned.
+And to expect to find in analysis that which is the product of synthesis
+is in the highest degree absurd.
+
+Sir Oliver Lodge in his little work on "Life and Matter" properly
+corrects the fallacy with which I have been dealing, and points out that
+"properties can be possessed by an aggregate or an assemblage of
+particles, which in the particles themselves did not in the slightest
+degree exist." But in his desire to find a basis for his theism
+immediately falls into an error in an opposite direction. We are on safe
+ground, he says, in asserting that "whatever is in a part must be in the
+whole." This is true if it is meant that as the whole contains the part,
+the part is in the whole. But in that sense the statement was hardly
+worth the making. What his argument demands is the meaning that as man
+is possessed of mind, and as man is part of nature, therefore nature, as
+a whole, manifests mind. And that is not true. Mind may be a special
+manifestation of a special arrangement of forces, and only occurring
+under special conditions. What Sir Oliver says, then, is that the
+properties of a part are in the whole, because the part is included in
+whole. What he implies, and without this implication his argument is
+meaningless, is that the properties of a part belong to all parts of the
+whole. And that is a statement so grotesquely untrue that I suspect Sir
+Oliver would be the first to disown the plain implications of his own
+argument.
+
+And here is Sir Oliver's illustration of his argument:--
+
+
+     "the fact an apple has pips legitimises the assertion that an apple
+     tree has pips ... but it would be a childish misunderstanding to
+     expect to find actual pips in the trunk of a tree."
+
+
+Now, why should the fact that an apple has pips legitimise the
+statement that an apple tree has pips, any more than it legitimises the
+statement that the soil from which it springs has pips? And if the tree
+has not actual pips, in what sense does it possess them? If the reply is
+that it possesses them potentially, one may meet that with the rejoinder
+that potentially pips, and everything else, including Sir Oliver Lodge,
+were contained in the primitive nebul�. As a matter of fact the apple
+tree does not contain pips either actually or potentially. In his
+championship of theism our scientist forgets his science. What the apple
+tree possesses is the capacity for building up a fruit with pips _with
+the aid of material extracted from the soil beneath and from the air
+around_. These pips are no more in the tree than they are in the air or
+the soil--not even as a figure of speech. One might, from any point of
+view, as reasonably look for the colour and shape and smell of an apple
+in the tree as to look for the pips. The properties of the tree is
+really one of the factors in the production of a result. Sir Oliver
+makes the mistake of writing as though the tree was the only factor in
+the problem.
+
+This is not the place in which to enter on an exhaustive inquiry as to
+the nature of causation. It is enough to point out that the whole
+theistic fallacy rests here on the assumption that we are dealing with
+two things, when as a matter of fact we are dealing with only one. Cause
+and effect are not two separate things, they are the same thing viewed
+under two different aspects. When, for example, I ask for the cause of
+gunpowder and am told that it is sulphur, charcoal, and nitre, or for a
+cause of sulphuric acid and am given sulphide of iron and oxygen, it is
+clear that considered separately these ingredients are not causes at
+all. Whether charcoal and sulphur will become part of the cause of
+gunpowder or not will depend upon the presence of the third agent;
+whether sulphide of iron will rank as part of the cause of sulphuric
+acid will depend upon the presence of oxygen. In every case it is the
+assemblage of appropriate factors that constitute a real cause. But
+given the factors, gunpowder does not follow their assemblage, it is
+their assemblage that is expressed by the result. There is no succession
+in time, the result is instantaneous with the assemblage of the factors.
+The effect is the registration, so to speak, of the combination of the
+factors.
+
+Now if what has been said be admitted as correct the argument for the
+existence of God as based upon the fact of causation breaks down
+completely. If cause and effect are the expressions of a relation, and
+if they are not two things, but only one, under two aspects, "cause"
+being the name for the related powers of the factors, and "effect" the
+name for their assemblage, to talk, as does the theist, of working back
+along the chain of causes until we reach God, is nonsense. Even if we
+could achieve this feat of regression, we could not reach by this means
+a God distinct from the universe. For, as discovering the cause of any
+effect means no more than analysing an effect into its factors, the
+problem would ultimately be that of dealing with the question of how
+something already existing transformed itself into the existing
+universe. A form of a very doubtful Pantheism might be reached in this
+way, but not theism.
+
+But here a fresh difficulty presents itself to the theist. A cause, as
+I have pointed out, must consist of at least two factors or two forces.
+This is absolutely indispensable. But assuming that we have got back to
+a point prior to the existence of the universe, we have on the theistic
+theory, not two factors, but only one. The essential condition for an
+act of causation is lacking. A single factor could only repeat itself.
+By this method the theist might reach "God." But having got there, there
+he would remain. He is left with God and nothing else, and with no
+possibility of reaching anything else.
+
+We land in the same dilemma if we pursue another road. Philosophers of
+certain schools place existence in two categories. There is the world of
+appearance (phenomena), and there is the world of reality or substance
+(noumena). We know phenomena and their laws, they say, but no more. We
+do not know, and cannot know, Substance in itself; and the theist
+promptly adds that this unknown substance is but another name for God.
+The philosopher also warns us against applying the laws of the
+phenomenal world to noumena, reminding us that what we call "laws of
+nature" have been devised to explain the world as it presents itself to
+our consciousness. And to this we have the theological analogue in the
+warning not to measure the infinite by the finite or to judge God by
+human standards.
+
+Now granting all this, let us see how the argument stands. The laws of
+phenomena belong exclusively to the phenomenal world. Their application
+and their validity are restricted to the world of phenomena. When we
+leave this region we are in a sphere to which they are quite
+inapplicable. What, then, can be meant by speaking of God as a "First
+Cause"? Cause is a phenomenal term, it expresses the relations between
+phenomena, and it has no meaning when applied to this assumed and
+unknown reality. We are in the position of one who is trying to use a
+colour scale in a world where vision does not exist. The theist is
+trying, in a similar way, to use the conception of "cause," which is
+created to express the relations between phenomena, in a world where
+phenomena have no existence. Thus, when the theist, to use his own
+words, has traced back an effect to a cause, and this to a prior cause,
+and so on, till he has reached a "First Cause," what happens? Simply
+this. At the end of the chain of phenomena the theist makes a mighty
+jump and gains the noumenon. But between this and the phenomenon he can
+establish no relation whatever. It cannot be a cause of phenomena
+because on his own showing causation is a phenomenal thing. He has
+worked back along the chain of causation, discarding link after link on
+his journey. Finally, he reaches God and discards the lot. And here he
+is left clinging with _no intelligible way of getting back again_. If on
+the other hand, he relates God to phenomena he has failed to get what he
+requires. He has merely added one more link to his chain of phenomena,
+and the "first cause" remains as far off as ever. For if God is not
+related to phenomena he ceases to be a cause of phenomena in the only
+sense in which he is of use to the theistic hypothesis.
+
+Further, one may ask, Why travel back along the chain of causation to
+discover God? What is gained by travelling along an infinite series,
+and saying suddenly, "At this point I espy God." Confessedly we may
+trace back phenomena as far as we will without finding ourselves a step
+nearer a commencement. All we get is a transformation of pre-existing
+material into new forms. Consequently all the evidence that exists at
+the moment we cease our journey existed when we began it. In short, if
+God can be shown to be the efficient cause of phenomena anywhere, he can
+be shown to be the cause everywhere, and the proof may be produced
+through phenomena immediately at hand as well as from those removed from
+us by an indefinite number of stages. The evidence becomes neither
+stronger nor more relevant by being put farther back. Proof is not like
+wine, its quality does not improve with age. To say that we must pause
+somewhere may be true, but that is only reminding us that both human
+time and human energy are limited. But it is certainly foolish to first
+of all induce mental exhaustion, and then use it as the equivalent of a
+positive and valuable discovery.
+
+And even though by some undiscovered method we had reached that
+metaphysical nightmare a cause of all phenomena, and in defiance of all
+intelligibility had christened it a "First Cause," how would that
+satisfy the "causal craving"? Professor Campbell Fraser very properly
+says that "the old form of each new phenomenon as much needs explanation
+as the new form itself did, and this need is certainly neither satisfied
+nor destroyed by referring one form of existence to another." If A. is
+explained by B. we are driven to explain B. by C., and so on
+indefinitely. Or if we can stop with A. or B. then the causal craving
+is not so persistent as was supposed, and man can rest content within
+the limit of recognised limitations. For what Professor Fraser calls an
+"absolutely originating cause" is only such so long as we have not
+reached it. We are satisfied with an imaginary B. as an explanation of
+the actual A. so long as B. does not come within our grasp. So soon as
+it has become the originating cause of the phenomenon in hand we are off
+on a further search. "First" has no other intelligible sense or meaning
+than this. "First" in relation to a given cluster of phenomenon we may
+grant; "First" in the sense of calling for no further explanation is
+downright theological lunacy.
+
+An eternal "First cause" could only be such in relation to an eternal
+effect. And in that case it could not be _prior_ to the effect since the
+effect is only the existing factors combined. Causation cannot carry us
+_beyond_ phenomena since it has no meaning apart from phenomena. The
+notion that because every phenomenon has a cause therefore there must be
+a cause for phenomena as a whole--meaning by this for the sum total of
+phenomena--is wholly absurd. It is not sound science, it is not good
+philosophy, it is not even commonsense. It is simply nonsense which is
+given an air of dignity because it is clothed in philosophic language.
+You cannot rise from phenomena to the theist's God; first, because, as I
+have said, cause and effect are names for the relation that is seen to
+exist between one phenomenon and another, and the theist is seeking
+after something that is above all relations. To postulate something that
+is not phenomena as the cause of phenomena, is like discussing the
+possibility of a bird's flight and dismissing the possibility of an
+atmosphere. Secondly, causation can give no clue to a God because the
+search for causes is a search for the conditions under which phenomena
+occur. And when we have described these conditions we have fulfilled all
+the conditions required to establish an act of causation. The theist, in
+short, commences with a wrong conception of causation. He proceeds by
+applying to one sphere language and principles from another, and to
+which they can have no possible application, and where they have no
+intelligibility. And having completely confused the issue, he ends with
+a conclusion which, even on his own showing, has no logical relation to
+the premises laid down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN.
+
+
+Kant called the argument from design "the oldest, the clearest, and the
+most adapted to the ordinary human reason," of all the arguments
+advanced on behalf of the belief in God. Kant's dictum, it will be
+observed, omits all opinion as to its quality, and his own criticism of
+it left it a sorry wreck. John Stuart Mill treated it far more
+respectfully, and commenced his examination of it with the flattering
+introduction, "We now at last reach an argument of a really scientific
+character," and, although he did not find the argument convincing, gave
+it a most respectful dismissal. The purpose of the present chapter is to
+show that the argument from design in nature is in the last degree
+unscientific, that the analogy it seeks to establish is a false one,
+that it is completely and hopelessly irrelevant to the point at issue,
+and that one might grant nearly all it asks for, and even then show that
+it does not prove what it sets out to prove. That such an argument
+should have, and for so long, exerted so much influence over the human
+mind, gives one anything but a flattering impression of the power of
+reason in human affairs.
+
+True it is that of late years the argument from design has felt the
+influence of the growth of the idea of evolution, and the champions of
+theism have used it with much greater caution, and under an obvious
+sense that it no longer wielded its old authority. The fact that this
+is so forms a commentary on the statement so often made that man's
+craving for an ultimate cause leads to the belief in God. The truth
+being that man--the average man--only seeks for an explanation of
+immediate happenings. Once the immediate thing before him is explained
+his curiosity is allayed. The average man lives mentally from hand to
+mouth, and troubles as little about ultimate explanations as he does
+about the exhaustion of the coal supply.
+
+It is a point of some significance that the perception of design in
+nature, as with the belief in deity, is, if one may use the expression,
+pre-scientific in point of origin. What I mean by that is that it
+originates at a time when no other explanation of the origin of natural
+adaptations existed. It did not establish itself as one of several rival
+explanations and in virtue of its own strength. It was established
+simply because no other explanation was at the time conceivable. And so
+soon as another explanation, such as that of natural selection, was
+placed before the world, the origin of adaptations as a product of an
+extra-natural designing intelligence became to most educated minds
+simply impossible. The perception of design in nature was, as a matter
+of fact, no more than a special illustration of the animistic frame of
+mind which reads vitality into all natural happenings. It is impossible
+to find in the statement that particular adaptations in nature are
+designed anything more scientific than one can find in the belief that
+rain is the product of a heavenly rain-cow, or that flashes of lightning
+are spears thrown by competing heavenly warriors. It is the language
+only that differs in the two cases. The frame of mind indicated in the
+two cases are identical.
+
+The attractiveness of the argument from design lies in its nearness to
+hand and in its appeal to facts, combined with the impossibility of
+verification. That nature is full of strange and curious examples of
+adaptation is clear to all, although the significance of these
+adaptations are by no means so clear. Moreover, a very casual study of
+these cases show that they are better calculated to dazzle than to
+convince. The presentation of a number of more or less elaborate facts
+of adaptation, followed with the remark that we are unable to see how
+such cases could have been brought about in the absence of a designing
+intelligence, is, at best, an appeal to human weakness and ignorance.
+The reverse of such a position is that if we had complete knowledge of
+the causes at work, the assumption of design might be found to be quite
+unnecessary. "We cannot see" is only the equivalent of we do not know,
+and that is a shockingly bad basis on which to build an argument.
+
+When, therefore, an eminent electrician like Professor Fleming says, "We
+have overwhelming proof that in the manufacture of the infinite number
+of substances made in Nature's laboratory there must be at all stages
+some directivity," this can only mean that Professor Fleming cannot see
+the way in which these substances are made. It does not mean that he
+sees _how_ they are made. And in saying this he is in no better position
+than was Kepler, who after describing the true laws of planetary motion,
+when he came to the question of _why_ the planets should describe these
+motions fell back on the theory of "Angelic intelligences" as the
+cause. The true explanation came with the physics of Galileo and Newton,
+and with that, farewell to the angelic "directivity." The only reason
+for Kepler's angels was his ignorance of the causes of planetary motion.
+The only reason why Professor Fleming says that the atoms "have to be
+guided into certain positions to build up the complex molecules" is that
+he is unable to isolate this assumed directive force and to show it in
+operation; he is like a modern Kepler faced with something the cause of
+which he doesn't know, and lugging in "God" to save further trouble. It
+is an assumption of knowledge where no knowledge exists. "God" is always
+what Spinoza called it, the asylum of ignorance. When causes are unknown
+"God" is brought forward. When causes are known "God" retires into the
+background. "God" is not an explanation, it is a narcotic.
+
+The argument from design rests upon the existence in nature of
+adaptations either general or special. And quite obviously the value of
+evidence derived from adaptations will be determined by the existence of
+non-adaptations. If, that is, it can be shown that a certain assemblage
+of forces produce adaptation, while in another instance they fail to
+produce it, it would then be logical to argue that the difference was
+due to the directive power being withdrawn in the latter case. But that
+as we know is never the case. What we see is always the same conditions
+producing the same effects. We are never able to say, "Here are natural
+forces working _minus_ a directing intelligence, and here is an
+assemblage of the same forces working _plus_ the addition of a
+directing intelligence." If we could do that we should be able to
+attribute the difference to the new factor. But this we are never able
+to do. And it is an elementary principle of scientific method that
+before we can assert the existence of a distinct force or factor, the
+possibility of isolation must be shown. Adaptation can, then, only be
+demonstrated by non-adaptation. And _non-adaptation in nature simply
+does not exist, except in relation to an ideal end created by
+ourselves_.
+
+Surprising as this may appear to some, examination shows it to be no
+more than a truism, and that granted, the whole strength of the argument
+from adaptation, whether in the inorganic or the organic world,
+disappears.
+
+To see the matter the more clearly, let us drop for a time the word
+"adaptation" and substitute the word "process." For that after all is
+what nature presents us with. We see processes and we see results. It is
+because we create an _end_ for these processes that we class them as
+well or ill adapted to achieve it. We make a gun, and say it is ill or
+well made as it shoots well or ill. But whether it carries straight or
+not the relation of the shooting to the construction of the gun remains
+the same. Judging the gun merely from its construction, the product
+answers completely to the combination of its parts. Constructed in one
+way the gun cannot but shoot straight. Constructed in another way the
+gun cannot but shoot crookedly. And the only reason we have for calling
+one good and the other bad is that _we_ desire a particular result. But
+the goodness or badness has nothing to do with the thing itself. Its
+adaptation to the end produced is as perfect in the one case as in the
+other. It could produce no other result than the one that actually
+emerges without an alteration in the means employed. A thing is what it
+is because it is the combination of all the forces that produce it. And
+to ask us to marvel at the result of a process, when the one is the
+product of the other is like asking us to express our surprise that
+twice two equal four. Twice two equal four because four is the sum of
+the factors, and no one dreams of praising God because they don't
+sometimes make four and a half. The argument from adaptations in nature
+is, when examined, just about as impressive as the reasoning of the
+curate who saw the hand of Providence in the fact that death came at the
+end of life instead of in the middle of it.
+
+Adaptation is not, then, a singular fact in nature, but a universal one.
+It is everywhere, in the case of death as in that of life. It is the
+same in the case of a child born a marvel of health and beauty as in
+that of one born deformed and diseased. There is nothing else but
+adaptations of means to ends in nature, however displeasing some of them
+may be to us. The "harmony" which the theist perceives in nature is not
+the expression of "plan," it is the inevitable outcome of the properties
+of existence. Given matter and force, and it requires no "directive
+intelligence" to produce the existing order, it would indeed require a
+God to prevent its occurrence.
+
+It is the same if we take the case of animal life alone. To say that
+animal life is adapted to its environment, and to say that animal life
+exists, is to say the same thing in two ways. Whether animal forms are
+fashioned by "divine intelligence" or not, the fact of adaptation
+remains; for adaptation is the essential condition of existence. And as
+adaptation is the condition of existence, it follows that an animal's
+feelings, structure, and functions will be developed in accordance with
+the nature of the environment. If the conditions of existence were
+different from what they are animal life would show corresponding
+modifications. But all the same we should observe the same
+correspondence between animal life and its surroundings. Here, again, we
+have a fact transformed, without the slightest warranty, into a purpose.
+
+Now, if the theist could prove that out of a number of equally possible
+lines of development living beings show one fixed form, and that against
+the compulsion of environmental forces, he would do something to prove
+the probability of some sort of guidance. But that we know cannot be
+done. The forms of life are infinite in number. They vary within all
+possible limits; and always in terms of environmental conditions. In
+brief, what is said to occur with God, can be shown to be inevitable
+without him. "God" in nature is a wholly gratuitous hypothesis.
+
+Later it will be seen that the whole basis of the argument from design
+is fallacious; that it proceeds along altogether wrong lines, and that
+the final objection to it is that it is completely irrelevant to the
+point at issue. For the moment, however, we proceed with a criticism of
+the argument as usually stated.
+
+It must be borne in mind that what the theist desires to reach is a
+_Creator_, but it is obvious that this plea can never give us more than
+a mere designer working on materials that already exist. Of necessity
+design implies two things, difficulties to be overcome, and skill or
+wisdom in overcoming them. Design is an understandable thing in
+connection with man, because man is always occupied in overcoming the
+resistance of forces that exist quite independently of him, and which
+operate without reference to his needs or desires. But it would be
+absurd to assume design on the part of one for whom difficulties had no
+existence, or on the part of one who himself created the forces that had
+to be overcome, and endowed them with all the properties which made the
+work of design necessary. Granting the relevance of the data upon which
+the belief in design rests, one could only assume, with Mill, that "the
+author of the Cosmos worked under limitations; that he was obliged to
+adapt himself to conditions independent of his will, and to attain his
+ends by such arrangements as these conditions admitted of."
+
+In the next place, the argument for design is an argument from analogy,
+and an analogy can by its very nature never give a complete
+demonstration. It can never offer more than a probability, more or less
+convincing as the analogy is more of less complete. But in the case
+under consideration the analogy is considerably less rather than more.
+Paley's classical illustration--taken almost verbatim from Malebranche,
+but as old otherwise as the days of Greek philosophy, where a statute
+took its place--was that of a watch. And the conclusion was drawn that
+as the parts of a watch bear obvious marks of having been made with a
+view to a particular end, so the animal structure and the universe as a
+whole bear similar marks of having been designed. It is true that of
+late years the Paleyan form of the argument has been disavowed by most
+scholarly advocates of theism, but as they immediately proceed to make
+use of arguments that are substantially identical with it, the
+repudiation does not seem of great consequence. It reminds one of a
+government that is compelled by the force of public opinion to openly
+repudiate one of its officials, and having removed him from the office
+in which the misdemeanour was committed, immediately appoints him to one
+of an increased dignity and with a larger salary.
+
+Thus, we have Professor Fiske saying that "Paley's simile of a watch is
+no longer applicable to such a world as this" ("Idea of God"; p. 131),
+and Prof. Sorley telling us that "the age of Paley and of the
+Bridgewater Treatises is past" (Moral Values and the Idea of God; p.
+327), and Mr. Balfour repudiating Paley as having been ruled out of
+court by Darwinism ("Humanism and Theism," chapter II.). But as Fiske
+puts the flower in the place of the watch, Sorley, the moral nature of
+man, and Balfour, the conditions of animal life, it is not quite clear
+why if the Paleyan argument is invalid, the new form is any more
+intellectually respectable. The essence of the Paleyan argument was the
+assertion of a mind behind phenomena, the workings of which could be
+seen in the forms of animal life. And whether we find that proof in the
+growth of a flower, or in the moral sense of man, or in the creation of
+natural conditions that impel the development of life along a certain
+road, the distinction is not vital. We are still finding proofs of God
+in the structure of the world (where otherwise, indeed, are we to find
+it?) and we are still depending on the supposed likeness between the
+works of human intelligence and natural products.
+
+And that analogy is wholly false. The argument from design aims at
+proving that _all_ things are made by a creative intelligence. It is not
+merely animals that are designed; they are selected as no more than
+striking individual examples of a general truth. Everything, if theism
+be true, must be ultimately due to manufacture. But the whole
+significance of the Paleyan argument from design is that behind the
+manufactured article which we recognise as such, there are other
+articles or other things that are not manufactured. The traveller, says
+Paley, who comes across a watch recognises in the relation of its parts
+evidences of workmanship. But he does not see in the breaking of a wave
+on the shore, or in the piling up of sand in the desert, or in a pebble
+on the beach, the same tokens of workmanship. In the very act of
+attempting to prove that _some_ things _are_ made, the theist is
+compelled to assume that _all_ things are not made. He can only gain a
+victory at the price of confessing a defeat.
+
+But is there any real analogy between the works of man and the universe
+at large? Let us take a familiar example. It is, we are told in a very
+familiar illustration, as absurd to imagine that the world as it exists
+is the work of unguided natural forces, as it would be to believe that
+the rows of letters in a compositor's "stick" had of their own
+contained force arranged themselves in intelligible sentences. The
+absurdity of the last supposition is admitted, but why is that so?
+Obviously because we have the previous knowledge that the type itself is
+a manufactured thing, and that its arrangement in orderly sentences is
+the work of intelligent men. Thus, what occurs when we come across a
+particular example of type setting is that we compare our present
+experience with other experiences and recognise it as belonging to a
+particular class. So with the watch. The only reason we have for
+believing that a watch is made is that of our previous knowledge that
+such things are made. The present judgment is based upon past
+experience. But the case of animal forms, and still more the universe at
+large, offers no such analogy. We know nothing of world makers nor of
+animal makers. We have no previous experience to go upon, nor have we
+any things of a similar kind, known to be made, with which we can
+compare them. Instead of the points of resemblance between the two
+things being so numerous as to compel belief, they agree in one
+particular only, that of existence. At most all we are left with is the
+palpably absurd position that because man selects and adjusts means to a
+given end, therefore any combination of forces in nature which produce a
+certain result must also be the expression of conscious intention.
+
+Some apparent force even to this flimsy conclusion might be given if
+nature could be said to be working towards a given end. But we do not
+find this. What we see is a multitude of forces at work, the action of
+each of which often results in the negation of the other. Put on one
+side the larger, but not the least pregnant fact that animal life is
+only maintained in the face of numerous agencies, inorganic and organic,
+that are apparently bent upon its destruction; put on one side also the
+fact that multitudes of parasites--as much the result of design as any
+other form of life--are constantly preying upon and destroying forms of
+life higher than themselves, and there still remain myriads of facts
+altogether inconsistent and completely irreconcilable with the
+hypothesis of a creative intelligence shaping the course of affairs to a
+given end. To take only one illustration of this. What is to be said of
+the myriads of animals that are born into the world only to perish
+before reaching an age at which they can play their part in the
+perpetuation of the species? Are we to believe that the same deity who
+fashioned these forms of life created at the same time a number of
+forces that were certain to destroy them? Clearly we are bound to
+assume, either that this hypothetical Being pursues a number of mutually
+destructive plans, or that there are a number of designers at work and
+at war with each other, or that none at all exist.
+
+If we are to judge nature from the standpoint of human intelligence,
+then we must logically decide that it is full of waste, full of
+bungling, full of plans that come to nothing, of ends that are never
+realised, of pain and misery that might have been avoided by the
+exercise of almost ordinary intelligence. There are few animals
+concerning which a competent anatomist or physiologist could not suggest
+some improvement in their construction by which their functions might be
+more efficiently performed. Nor does it seem quite impossible to have
+so adjusted natural forces that the development of life might have been
+accomplished without the present enormous waste of material. It is
+almost stupid to ask, as did the late Dr. Martineau, what right have we
+to judge the world from "a purely humanistic point of view." The whole
+argument from design is based upon a humanistic point of view. The
+Atheist is only calling the attention of the theist to the consequences
+of his own argument.
+
+I leave for a later chapter, the moral aspect of the design argument. I
+am at present concerned with its purely logical presentation. And the
+crowning charge here is not that it is inconclusive, not that it falls
+short, as Mill thought, of a complete analogy, the decisive rejection of
+it is based upon the fact that it is absolutely irrelevant. The argument
+has no bearing on the issue; the evidence has no relation to the case.
+What is the essence of the argument from design? It is based upon
+certain adaptations that are observed to exist. But adaptation is, as we
+have shown, a universal quality of existence. It exists in every case,
+and no more in one case than in another. And when the theist says that
+because certain things work together therefore god arranged it, an apt
+query is, How do you know? One may even say, Granting there is a God,
+how do you know that what is was actually designed by him? It is no use
+replying that the way things work together prove design, for things
+always work together. They cannot do otherwise. Any group of forces work
+together to produce a given result. That is part of the universal fact
+of adaptation which the theist holds up as though it were a divine
+miracle instead of, as Mallock says, a physical platitude.
+
+Let us take an illustration from everyday life. A man tries his hand at
+building a bicycle. When it is finished the wheels are not true, the
+frame is unsteady, the whole thing is ready to fall to pieces and is
+absolutely unrideable. Is any one warranted in declaring that because
+the parts have all been brought together by me therefore the resulting
+machine was an act of design? Clearly not. What I designed was a machine
+perfect after its kind. What appeared was the miserable structure that
+is before us. On the other hand that machine with all its imperfections
+might have been designed by me. I might, for some purpose deliberately
+have intended to make a machine that would not carry a rider. And when
+would anyone be logically justified in saying which of the two kinds of
+machines express my design? Clearly, only when he had a knowledge of my
+intention. Apart from a knowledge of an intention preceding an act the
+inference of design is unwarrantable.
+
+Now, assuming the existence of a God, and who stands in the same
+relation to the world that I do to the machine, how can anyone know that
+the world as it is expresses design any more than did my home-made
+bicycle? In this case, as in the former, what is needed to justify the
+assumption of design is a knowledge of intention. One must know what the
+assumed maker intended and then see how far the actual result realises
+it.
+
+Design, in short, although it may be expressed in a physical form is not
+a physical thing, but a psychic fact. You cannot by examining physical
+processes and results reach design. You cannot start with a material
+fact and reach intention. You must begin with intention and compare it
+with the physical result. Things may be as they are whether design is
+involved or not. It is only by a knowledge of intention, and a
+comparison of that with the fact before us that we can be certain of
+design. Proof of design is not found in the capacity of certain clusters
+of circumstances or forces to realise a particular result, but in a
+knowledge that they correspond with an intention which we know to have
+existed before the result occurs.
+
+To warrant a logical belief in design in nature three things are
+essential. First, one must assume that a God exists. Second, one must
+take it for granted that one has a knowledge of the intention in the
+mind of the deity before the alleged designed thing is brought into
+existence. Finally, one must be able to compare the result with the
+intention and demonstrate their agreement. But the impossibility of
+knowing the first two things is apparent. And without the first two the
+third is of no value whatever. For we have no means of reaching the
+first except through the third. And until we get to the first we cannot
+make use of the third. We are thus in a hopeless impasse. No examination
+of nature can lead back to God because we lack the necessary starting
+point. All the volumes that have been written, and all the sermons that
+have been preached depicting the wisdom of organic structures are so
+much waste of paper and breath. They prove nothing, and can prove
+nothing. They assume at the beginning all they require at the end. Their
+God is not something reached by way of inference, it is something
+assumed at the very outset.
+
+What the theist does at every step of his reasoning is to read his own
+feelings and desires into nature. The design he talks so glibly about is
+in him, not outside of him. As well might a maggot in a cheese argue
+that the world was designed for him because the agreement between his
+structure and it are so harmonious. In relation to their surroundings
+man and the maggot are in the same position. And in the economy of
+nature man is of no more consequence than the maggot. There is a more
+complex synthesis of forces here than there, a more subtle exhibition of
+nature's infinite capacity for evolving fresh forms of life, and that is
+all. It is man himself who paints a distorted picture of himself on the
+surface of things, who reads his own passions and desires into nature,
+and then admires a marvel created by himself. To he who correctly
+visualises the process of the evolution of deity, the existence of God
+is hardly to-day a question for discussion. There is a discussion only
+of the history of the belief, and in that is found its strongest
+condemnation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE DISHARMONIES OF NATURE.
+
+
+It has already been indicated that it is not really necessary, in order
+to prove design, to establish the fact that the design is perfect or
+that it exhibits complete goodness. It is enough that there be design.
+Its moral quality or value is quite another question. Nevertheless, it
+will be as well to deal with this latter aspect of the subject, and to
+see what kind of "plan" it is that nature does exhibit, even assuming
+the existence of some design.
+
+Now it is evident that if there be design in nature, and if the design
+is the expression of a single supreme mind one quality of that plan
+should be unity. The products should, so to speak, dovetail into each
+other in such a way that they work together, and even harmonise with
+each other. But this is, notoriously, not the case. If from one point of
+view there is a certain harmony throughout the world of living beings in
+virtue of which life is preserved, it is at least equally true that from
+another point of view the harmony is one of destruction. And in the end
+death wins. Sooner or later death overtakes all forms of life, while in
+the grand total of living beings born into the world, a far larger
+number perish than can reach maturity. Wasted effort is the mildest
+judgment that can be passed upon these abortive attempts. And not only
+does death eventually win in the case of each individual, and against
+which may be set the consideration that in the economy of nature death
+plays a part in the development of life, but eventually death will, if
+we are to trust science, reap a sweeping and universal triumph by the
+consummation of terrestrial conditions that will render the maintenance
+of life impossible.
+
+Or, again, the relations of species are clearly not what we have a right
+to expect in the working out of a reasonably wise and benevolent plan.
+It is a general truth that, with the exception of a few instances,
+chiefly connected with the relations existing between insects and
+flowers, the development of one species in relation to another is not
+that of mutual helpfulness. The general rule here is that of mutual
+injury. The carnivora prey on the herbivora and upon each other; and the
+herbivora crush each other by methods that are as effective as the
+method of direct attack. Any variation is "good" provided it be of
+advantage to its possessor. And the "good" of the one kind may mean the
+destruction of another order. All the exquisite design shown in the
+development of the finer feelings of man, and upon which theistic
+sentimentalists love to dwell, may be seen in the structure of those
+parasites which destroy man and bring his finer feelings to naught. The
+late Theodore Roosevelt says of the Brazilian forests:--
+
+
+     In these forests the multitude of insects that bite, sting, devour,
+     and prey on other creatures, often with accompaniments of atrocious
+     suffering, passes belief. The very pathetic myths of beneficent
+     nature could not deceive even the least wise being if he once saw
+     the iron cruelty of life in the tropics. Of course, "nature"--in
+     common parlance a wholly inaccurate term, by the way, especially
+     when used to express a single entity--is entirely ruthless, no less
+     so as regards types than as regards individuals, and entirely
+     indifferent to good or evil, and works out her ends or no ends
+     with utter disregard of pain and woe (Cited by E. D. Fawcett in
+     _The World as Imagination_; pp. 571-2).
+
+
+And Mr. Carveth Reade expresses the same thing in a more elaborate
+summing up:--
+
+
+     The merciless character of organic evolution appears to us, first,
+     in reckless propagation and the consequent destruction. Every
+     species is as prolific as it can be compatibly with the development
+     of its individuals; and the deaths that ensue from inanition,
+     disease, violence, present a stupefying scene. The best one can say
+     for it is that, as life rises in the organic scale, the death rate
+     declines. Yet even man still suffers outrageously by violence,
+     disease, inanition; the notion that "Malthus's Law" no longer holds
+     of civilised man is a foolish delusion. But more sinister than the
+     direct destruction of life is the spectacle of innumerable species
+     profiting by a life, parasitic or predatory, at the expense of
+     others. The parasites refute the vulgar prejudice that evolution is
+     by the measure of man, progressive; adaptation is indifferent to
+     better or worse, except as to each species, that its offspring
+     shall survive by atrophy and degradation. The predatory species
+     flourish as if in derision of moral maxims; we see that though
+     human morality is natural to man, it is far from expressing the
+     whole of Nature. Animals, at first indistinguishable vegetables,
+     devour them and enjoy a far richer life. Animals that eat other
+     animals are nearly always superior not only in strength, grace and
+     agility but in intelligence. There are exceptions to this rule;
+     some snakes eat monkeys (thanking Providence), and the elephant is
+     content with foliage; but compare cats and wolves with the
+     ungulates that make a first concoction of herbs for their sake. It
+     is true that our monkey kin are chiefly frugivorous; for it may be
+     plausibly argued that man was first differentiated by becoming
+     definitely carnivorous, a sociable hunter, as it were, a wolf-ape.
+     Hence the advantage of longer legs, the use of weapons, the upright
+     gait and defter hands to use and make weapons, more strategic
+     brains, tribal organisation, and hence liberation from the tropical
+     forest, and citizenship of the world. The greater part of his
+     subsequent history is equally unedifying: having made the world his
+     prey, he says that God made the world to that end, and those who
+     have preyed upon their fellows, and enslaved them, and flourished
+     upon it, have declared that to have been the intention of nature.
+     (_The Metaphysics of Nature_; pp. 344-5).
+
+
+A perpetual pulling down and building up, and the building altogether
+dependent upon the demolition. The tiger built with tastes and
+capacities for catching the gazelle: the gazelle built with capacities
+that enable it to escape the tiger. There is no evidence here of the
+existence of a single mind working out an intelligent plan. At most we
+have either the proof for a number of warring powers, each one striving
+to destroy what the other is striving to create, or a single mind that
+has deliberately fashioned things so that each part may work for the
+destruction of the other part, the whole to presently end in a grand
+catastrophe.
+
+But that is not all. If we limit our attention to man, can it be said
+that we find in the human structure what we might reasonably expect to
+find if man be indeed the crown of the divine plan, the event to which,
+for untold ages, all things were designedly tending? What we actually do
+find is that the structure of man, physically and mentally, is such as
+to altogether negative the notion of complete or harmonious adjustment
+to environment. That the human has within it a large number of vestigial
+structures--some scientists place it as high as one hundred and
+seventy--is now well known, and forms at the same time one of the
+evidences of evolution and an impeachment of the theistic theory. There
+is only need to instance now the vermiform appendage, which forms the
+seat of appendicitis, the "wisdom" teeth, of very little use, and one of
+the most fruitful of causes of disease of the teeth, the hair which
+covers the human body, now of no use whatever, except to form a lodgment
+for microbes, and so makes the acquisition of disease the more certain.
+In addition to the number of rudimentary organs that actually encourage
+disease--Metchnikoff counts among these the larger intestine--the body
+is full of rudimentary muscles and structures that when not positively
+harmful, impose a tax on the organism for which no corresponding service
+is performed.
+
+The meaning and significance of these structures are, however, so well
+recognised that one need not dwell upon their existence. Not so well
+known is the complementary fact that just as in his physical structure
+man bears evidence of his emergence from lower forms of life, which
+result in a certain degree of disharmony between him and an ideal
+environment, so in his psychic life his instincts and feelings are often
+such as to prevent that ideal adaptation which so many desire. The
+earlier conception of optimistic evolutionists that the instincts of man
+were, through the operation of natural selection, converted into
+beneficent guides is quite faulty. In itself this was probably a
+survival of the theism which tried to prove that this was the best of
+all possible worlds, and which led evolutionists to try and prove that
+their theory was also ethically desirable. At any rate, the theory of
+the wholly beneficent nature of human instincts is not tenable. Our
+instincts are inherited from our animal ancestors; they were brought to
+fruition under conditions different in form from those which obtain with
+human beings, with the result that whether an instinct is helpful or the
+contrary depends largely upon the educational quality of the
+environment, and even then inherited tendencies may be so strong as to
+make them a source of danger to the community rather than of benefit.
+
+It is noted, for example, that a deal of what may be called crime, or at
+least lawlessness, is the result of an individual being born with
+tendencies developed in a way that fits him for an environment of
+centuries ago, rather than an environment of to-day. Very many of our
+national heroes of a few centuries ago would rank as criminals to-day,
+just as many of our criminals to-day would, had they been born a few
+centuries since, have been handed down to us as examples of chivalry or
+of national heroism. Instead of what one may call the natural endowments
+of man pointing towards a more civilised form of life, they point to a
+less civilised form, while it is the artificially or socially induced
+feelings and ideas that point to a better future.
+
+Thus, if we take the primitive or brute feeling of retaliation we find
+it assuming the form of war. And without discussing the value of war in
+the past, or even its admissibility in special circumstances in the
+present, I do not think it will be seriously disputed that the great
+need of the present is to transfer that feeling from the lower level of
+brute force to the higher one of adventure in the interests of science
+and human betterment. Here it is not the existence of a lofty
+"god-given" endowment that puts man out of harmony with his environment;
+it is, on the contrary, the operation of an earlier form of feeling
+manifestation which retards the coming of a better day.
+
+There is, in fact, not a single quality of human nature that can be
+said to act with inerrancy. The baby seizes objects indiscriminately and
+puts them in its mouth. The man falling into the water does the very
+thing he should not do--throws up his arms. Intense cold lulls to
+somnolency, instead of rousing to activity. The love of children, on
+which the preservation of the race depends, is absent with many; while
+with others the sexual instinct undergoes strange and morbid
+manifestations. A complete list of these disharmonies would fill a
+volume--indeed, Metchnikoff, in his "Nature of Man," has filled half a
+volume with describing some of the instances of physiological
+disharmony, and then has not exhausted the list.
+
+It would indeed seem as if nature, with its method of never creating a
+new organ or structure, but only transforming and utilising an old one,
+had attached a penalty to every successful attempt to rise above a
+certain level. If man will walk upright she sees to it that his doing so
+shall involve a great liability to hernia. If he will live in cities,
+she has ready the ravage of consumption. If he will use clothing she
+makes him carry round a coating of useless hair as a method of trapping
+disease microbes. So soon as one disease is conquered another is
+discovered. Pleasures have their reverse side in pains, and to some
+pains the pleasures bear a small relation, being chiefly of the
+character of the pains being absent. As a social animal man is only
+imperfectly adapted to the state, there going on a constant warfare
+between his egoistic and altruistic impulses. In fact, it would
+certainly be an arguable proposition, if we allow intention in nature,
+to say that man was intended to remain at the animal level, and that,
+having so far defeated nature's intention, he is dogged by a
+disappointed creator, and made to pay the fullest price that can be
+exacted for every step of progress achieved.
+
+Of course, of proof of design in nature there is positively none.
+Design, as I have said, is not a natural fact, but a purely human
+construction. But, if admitted, it is a two edged weapon. For, if
+assumed anywhere, it must be assumed to exist everywhere. And designing
+intelligence must be made responsible for the whole scheme. But this the
+most extravagant piety refuses to do. Either we have the primitive
+theory of a devil who divides with God the responsibility for the state
+of the world, or we have the plea that evil may be only good disguised,
+or good in the making, or it is argued that we have to contemplate the
+"plan" as a whole, and must wait for some future state to pass judgment.
+And whichever view we take, there is the implied admission that the plan
+of creation as we know it cannot be harmonised with the theory of God
+that modern theism places before us. And instead of man being the
+miracle of perfection that an earlier generation saw in his structure,
+we know that the human structure is such that, given the power to
+create, science could really fashion, in the light of its present
+knowledge, a better organism.
+
+Finally, disharmony is implied in and necessitated by the very fact of
+progress. Progress means a better adjustment, and the discomfort of
+maladjustment is the spur to improvement. A perfect equilibrium is as
+impossible as perpetual motion, and it is only with a perfect
+equilibrium that change, which is the condition of progress, would
+cease. The ceaseless desire for something better is, therefore, in
+itself an impeachment of things as they are. It is an indication of
+there being something wanting, of the existence of a want of complete
+harmony between man and his surroundings. Nor is the case of the theist
+bettered if he retorts that without the sense of imperfection or of
+dissatisfaction there would be no such thing as a conscious striving
+after improvement. That may be admitted, but that is only proving that
+perfection can never be achieved, and that even in this last resort
+"God" has so designed things as to make a mock of man at the end. The
+want of complete harmony that is seen in the physical structure of man
+is carried over into his mental life. If theism be true man is mocked by
+a mirage. And the knowledge is made the more depressing by the belief
+that the plan is not accidental, it is not a product of the working of
+non-conscious forces, it is the preordained outcome of a plan that was
+deliberately resolved on by a being with full power to devise some thing
+wiser and better. At the side of that, any theory of things is, by
+comparison, hopeful and inspiring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+GOD AND EVOLUTION.
+
+
+There is no logical connection between what is called the "Moral
+government of the universe" and the belief in God, but it must be
+confessed that the criticism of the belief from the point of view of
+moral feeling is of considerable importance. This is in itself a
+striking illustration of the reaction of social developments on
+religious beliefs. For there is originally no connection between
+morality and the belief in God. Man does not believe in the gods because
+they are moral, but because they are there. If they are, to his mind,
+good, that is so much the better. But whether they are good or bad they
+have to be faced as facts. The gods, in short belong to the region of
+belief, while morality belongs to that of practice. It is in the nature
+of morality that it should be implicit in practice long before it is
+explicit in theory. Morality belongs to the group and is rooted in
+certain impulses that are a product of the essential conditions of group
+life. It is as reflection awakens that men are led to speculate upon the
+nature and origin of the moral feelings. Morality, whether in practice
+or in theory, is thus based upon what is. On the other hand, religion,
+whether it be true or false, is in the nature of a discovery. However
+crude or uninformed the thinking, the belief in God must be regarded as
+the product of reflection. The situation is not unfairly described by
+Dr. Jastrow:--
+
+
+     The various rites practiced by primitive society in order to ward
+     off evils, or to secure the protection of dreaded powers or
+     spirits, are based primarily on logical considerations. If a
+     certain stone is regarded as sacred, it is probably because it is
+     associated with some misfortune, or some unusual piece of good
+     luck. Someone sitting on the stone may have died; or on sleeping on
+     it may have seen a remarkable vision, which was followed by a
+     signal victory over a dangerous foe.... In all this, however,
+     ethical considerations are remarkable for their absence.... Taking
+     again so common a belief among all peoples as the influence for
+     good or evil exerted by the dead upon the living and the numerous
+     practices to which it gives rise ... it will be difficult to
+     discover in these beliefs the faintest suggestion of any ethical
+     influence. It is not the good but the powerful spirits that are
+     invoked; an appeal to them is not made by showing them examples of
+     kindness, justice, or noble deeds, but by bribes, flatteries, and
+     threats. (_The Study of Religion_; Ch. VI.).
+
+
+So we have Tylor also endorsing this opinion by remarking that, "The
+popular idea that the moral government of the universe is an essential
+tenet of natural religion simply falls to the ground. Savage animism is
+almost devoid of that ethical element which, to the educated, modern
+mind, is the very mainspring of religion." And Hoffding says that, "In
+the lowest forms of it with which we are acquainted religion cannot be
+said to have any ethical significance. The gods appear as powers on
+which man is dependent, but not as patterns of conduct or administrators
+of an ethical world order.... Not till men have discovered ethical
+problems in practical life and have developed an ethical feeling ... can
+the figures of the gods assume an ethical character." ("Philosophy of
+Religion"; pp. 323-4).
+
+It is quite unnecessary to multiply evidence, the truth of the matter
+would seem obvious. One cannot conceive man actually ascribing ethical
+qualities to his gods before he becomes sufficiently developed to
+formulate moral rules for his own guidance, and to create moral laws for
+his fellow man. The moralisation of the gods will then follow as a
+matter of course. And thereafter we can plainly observe the operation of
+the moral sense on the belief in god, and upon the recognition of crude
+power. Man really modifies his gods in terms of the ideal human being.
+Paul's picture of a god who uses man as the potter uses his clay could
+never flourish in a society which believed in the "rights of man." And
+so soon as that conception developes so soon does man begin to revise
+his conception of god. So with almost every great change in the form of
+government or in the notions of right and wrong. In a slave state, God
+favours slavery. When slavery gives place to another form of labour the
+gods are equally vigorous in its condemnation. The history of the belief
+in witch burning, heresy hunting, eternal damnation, etc., all
+illustrate the same point--religious teachings are all modified and
+moralised in accordance with the changing moral conceptions of mankind.
+It is not the gods who moralise man, it is man who moralises the gods.
+
+The gods have their beginnings as mere powers. They are feared because
+they are, not for the moral value of what they are. Social development
+does all the rest. But with that development the feeling of
+helplessness, of weakness, decays and there arises the demand that if
+god is to be worshipped he must prove worthy of it. The conviction
+arises very gradually, but it is there, and it becomes a powerful
+solvent of religious ideas. Merely to govern is not enough, God must
+govern well, and in terms of what we have come to understand by the word
+"Justice." And to the minds of millions of moderns, when tried by that
+test the idea of god breaks down. That there is a god who rules the
+universe is one question; that he rules it well and in accord with what
+is understood when we talk of morality, is quite another. The two
+questions are quite distinct since the first might be true and the
+second false. We have already seen how slender are the grounds for
+believing in the first; we have now to show that the reasons for
+believing in the second are quite as unsatisfactory.
+
+Theism has been defined as consisting in the belief in a God who is
+wise, powerful, and loving, and who has selected man as the object of
+his preferential care, and to this may be added the statement that most
+modern theists would extend that care to the whole of sentient life.
+"God's care" must be "over all his creatures," and although this care
+may be subservient to some wide and far-seeing plan, there must be
+nothing that looks like obvious carelessness or criminal neglect.
+
+To what conclusion do the facts point when they are examined in the
+light of modern knowledge? Does the world supply us with the kind of
+picture that one would expect to see if it were really presided over by
+divine love under the guidance of divine wisdom, and backed by divine
+power? The proof that it does not is shown in the almost endless
+attempts made to harmonise the world as it is with the world as theory
+would have it be. And a theory that needs so much defending, explaining,
+and qualifying must have something radically weak about it. That there
+is evil in the world all admit, that it offers _prima facie_ objection
+to the theistic hypothesis is confessed by the many attempts made to fit
+in this evil with the existence of God, to prove that it works in some
+mysterious way for some larger good, or that its presence cannot be
+dispensed with profitably. The question of why the world is as it is
+with a god such as we are told exists, is, as Canon Green says, "the
+really vital question, for it touches the very heart of religion." ("The
+Problem of Evil"; p. 46.) How, then, does the Theist deal with it?
+
+Broadly, two methods are adopted. In the one case we are presented with
+the order of the world, or the course of evolution, as indicative of a
+beneficent scheme. This claims to freely adopt all that science has to
+say concerning the development of life and to prove that this is in
+harmony with the legitimate demands of the moral sense. The second is
+the more orthodox way, and taking the world as it is, claims that pain
+and suffering play a disciplinary and educational part in the life of
+the individual. We will take these in the order named.
+
+When dealing with the argument from design little was said concerning
+the evolutionary explanation of the special adaptations that meet us in
+the animal world. It was thought better to fix attention on the purely
+logical value of the argument presented. It is now necessary to look a
+little closer at the ethical implications of the evolutionary process.
+
+It has been pointed out that all life involves a special degree of
+adaptation between an organism and its environment. Destroy that
+adjustment and life ceases to exist. How is that adjustment secured? The
+answer of the pre-Darwinian was that it represented a deliberate design
+on the part of God. Against this Darwinism propounds a theory of
+automatic or mechanical adjustment which makes the calling in of deity
+altogether gratuitous. And it remains gratuitous, no matter how far the
+scope of the theory of natural selection may be modified. But given the
+continuous variations which we know to exist with all kinds of life,
+given any sort of competition between animals as to which shall live,
+given even a degree of adaptation below which an animal cannot fall and
+live, and it is at once plain that the better adaptations will live and
+the poorer adapted will be eliminated. This process is analogous to that
+by which man has managed to breed so many varieties of domesticated
+animals and plants, some of the varieties presenting so marked a
+difference from the original type that if found in a state of nature
+they would often be classed as a distinct species. Man _selects_ the
+variation that pleases him, eliminates or segregates the type that does
+not, and by following up the process eventually produces a distinct and
+fixed variation. It was because of the likeness of what goes on in the
+case of the breeder to what we see actually going on in nature that
+Darwin used the phrase "Natural Selection" as descriptive of the
+process. It was not an exact phrase, and it was not meant to be exact.
+For one thing--a very important thing, while a breeder selects, nature
+eliminates. Man's action, in relation to the type preserved, is
+positive. Nature's attitude in relation to the type preserved is
+negative. This is a very important distinction; and it is one that is
+fatal to the claims of theism. For if it points to a plan in nature it
+points to one that aims at killing off all that can be killed, and only
+sparing those who are able to protect themselves against its attack. And
+one is left wondering at the type of mind which can see goodness and
+wisdom in a plan that goes, on generation, after generation
+manufacturing an inferior or defective type in enormous numbers in order
+that a few superior specimens may be found, these in their turn to
+become inferior by the arrival of some other specimens a little more
+fortunate in their endowment. One hardly knows at which to marvel the
+most--at the clumsiness of the plan, or at the brutality of the design.
+
+It was soon realised that the old argument from design was no longer
+possible. But if one can only get far enough away from the possibility
+of proof or disproof there is always a chance for the Goddite. So it was
+argued that inasmuch as natural selection meant the emergence of a
+"higher" type, and as there was no room for design within the process,
+might not the process itself be an expression of design? There might
+still be room for what Huxley, with one of those foolish concessions to
+established opinion which is the bane of English thought, called the
+"wider teleology." This was a teleology which placed a designing mind at
+the back of the evolutionary process, and arranging it with a view to a
+preconceived end. The process then becomes, to use Spencer's phrase, a
+"beneficent" one, since it eliminates the poorer specimens and leaves
+the better ones to perpetuate the species. We are thus asked to imagine
+a divine wisdom selecting the better and destroying the inferior much as
+an omniscient Eugenist might destroy at birth all human beings of an
+undesirable type.
+
+The weakness of the thesis lies primarily in the fact that in the case
+of the breeder he has to take the animal as he finds it, subject to the
+play of forces, the characteristics of which are determined for him. He
+has to make the best of the situation. In the case of the deity he
+creates the animals with which he is assumed to be experimenting, he
+creates the forces with all their qualities, and thus determines the
+nature of the situation. Quite certainly no breeder would waste his time
+in breeding over a number of generations if he could secure the desired
+type at once. The whole of the argument of the advocate of the wider
+teleology is that God wanted the higher type. But if that is so why did
+he not produce it at once? What useful purpose could be served by
+producing at the end of a lengthy and murderous process what might just
+as well have been secured at the beginning? It is not wisdom but
+unadulterated stupidity to take thousands of years securing what might
+have been as well done in the twinkling of an eye.
+
+There is, in short, no justification in the creation of a process so
+long as the end at which the process is aiming can be reached by a less
+tortuous method. As Mr. F. C. S. Schiller says:--
+
+
+     So long as we are dealing with finite factors, the function of pain
+     and the nature of evil can be more or less understood, but as soon
+     as it is supposed to display the working of an infinite power
+     everything becomes wholly unintelligible. We can no longer console
+     ourselves with the hope that "good becomes the final goal of ill,"
+     we can no longer fancy that imperfection serves any secondary
+     purpose in the economy of the universe. A process by which evil
+     _becomes_ good is unintelligible as the action of a truly infinite
+     power which can attain its end without a process; it is absurd to
+     ascribe imperfection as a secondary result to a power which can
+     attain all its aims _without_ evil. Hence the world process, and
+     the intelligent purpose we fancy we detect in it must be
+     illusory.... God can have no purpose, and the world cannot be in
+     process.... If the world is the product of an infinite power it is
+     utterly unknowable, because its process and its nature would be
+     alike unnecessary and unaccountable. (_Riddles of the Sphinx_; pp.
+     318-19).
+
+
+Besides, as I have already pointed out, in the process as it meets us in
+nature there is not a selection for preservation, but a selection for
+killing. With the breeder preservation is primary. It is of no value to
+him to kill, it is the preservation of a desired type that is all
+important. In nature, so far as we can see, the whole aim is to destroy.
+It is not the fittest that are preserved so much as it is the unfittest
+that are killed. The fittest are left alive for no other apparent reason
+than that nature is unable to kill them. The truth of this is seen in
+the fact that where there is no death there is no evolution of a
+"higher" type. In the case of diseases that kill there is a gradual
+development of an immune type--which introduces the paradox that the
+healthiest diseases from which a race may suffer are those that are most
+deadly. Where a disease does not kill there is no development against
+it. It is the winnowing fan of death that makes for the development of
+animal life. And the correct picture of nature--if we must picture an
+intelligence behind it--would be that of an intelligence aiming at
+killing all, and only failing in its purpose because the natural
+endowment of some placed them beyond its power.
+
+And, without examining the question begging word "higher," it may be
+said that natural selection does not make for the uniform covering of
+the earth with representatives of higher types. If in some parts of the
+world the higher have replaced the lower types, elsewhere the lower have
+replaced the higher. Natural selection, in fact, works without reference
+to whether the form which survives is "higher" or "lower." All that
+matters is adaptation. The germ of malaria renders whole tracts of the
+earth uninhabitable to those whom we consider representative of the
+higher culture. In other parts an alteration of the rainfall may crush
+out a civilisation, and leave a handful of nomadic tribes as the sole
+denizens of lands where once a lofty civilisation flourished. Throughout
+the whole of nature there is never the slightest indication that forces
+operate with the slightest reference to what we are accustomed to
+consider the higher interests of the race.
+
+Moreover, from the standpoint of an apologetic theism, we are entitled
+to ask precisely what is meant by this justification of the evolutionary
+process in terms of the production of a higher type. The justification
+of a painful or a costly experience by an individual is two-fold. First,
+it is the only way, perhaps, in which certain things may be learned or
+accomplished, and, second, it is the individual who passes through the
+experience who benefits thereby. But suppose a person entered on a
+course of training with the absolute certainty that he would never
+survive it. Should we be justified in forcing the course on him?
+Clearly not. The whole would be regarded as a wasted effort and as an
+exhibition of gratuitous cruelty.
+
+Now when we look closely at this evolutionary process, who is it that
+benefits thereby? In a vague way we speak of the race benefiting. But
+the race is made up of individuals, and while it may be said the
+individual benefits from the experience through which the race has
+passed, it cannot be truthfully said that he is the better because he
+has gained from experience. He does not pass through the discipline, he
+simply registers, so to speak, the result. And, therefore, so far as he
+is concerned, he is exactly in the position that the first man would
+have been had he possessed the endowment, social, and individual, which
+the present man has. There is no greater fallacy than that contained in
+the common saying that man learns through experience. Individually, so
+far as civilisation is concerned, that is not true. Were it true,
+civilisation would be impossible. If each man had to start where our
+primitive ancestors started, and learn from experience, we should end
+where the first generation of socialised human beings ended, and the
+generations of men would represent an endless series of first steps to
+which there would be no second ones. What the individual learns from
+experience is very little and would never serve to lift him from out the
+ranks of savagery. What he learns from the experience of the race is
+much, and gives the whole distinction between the civilised man and the
+savage. It is the discipline of the race, that experience which meets
+each of us in the form of traditions, counsels, institutions, etc.,
+from which we get the really vital lessons of life. But if that is so
+the attempted justification of natural processes on the ground that God
+designed them as they are so that man might learn from experience breaks
+down. The individual does not so learn, but is presented with the
+products of the experience of others, and which he accepts in the vast
+majority of cases without even putting it to the test. And, therefore,
+the method by which man learns was open from the start. Had there been
+some _man_ who could have told us generations ago all that has been
+slowly discovered since, we should all have been the better for it, and
+we should have learned then exactly as we have learned since. And if God
+was really anxious to teach us, what possible objection could there be
+to his teaching us in some such way? In other words, how can we justify
+the process if the result is possible by any other method?
+
+The standpoint of the theist is that God develops the species in order
+to benefit the individual. But the order is that the individual is
+sacrificed to benefit the species--so far as any benefit can be traced.
+For it must be noted that it is not the individual who has passed
+through all the suffering, who has lived through the years of
+semi-animal life, or through the years of tyranny, that finally emerges
+strengthened and triumphant. It is a different individual altogether.
+The greatest benefit is secured by those who come latest, and who have
+done the least to secure it. The reward bears no relation to the
+personal desert. And at the end what happens? If we are to be guided by
+the lessons of science, we must believe that one day the human race
+will cease to exist, just as certainly as one day it began to exist.
+And what are we to think of the almighty wisdom and goodness which is
+responsible for all? An almighty intelligence designs a process to
+produce a perfect animal through the sufferings of myriads of other
+animals. It takes thousands and thousands of generations to complete the
+process, and meantime every year is bringing the whole plan nearer to
+extinction. Divine wisdom! Anything nearer complete stupidity and
+futility it would be difficult to conceive.
+
+I know that at this point it will be said that I am leaving out of
+account the future life, and that the story of human growth is to be
+continued elsewhere. But that will certainly not meet all that has been
+said above. And it is a curious manner of meeting an objection based
+upon the only phase of existence that we know with assurance to tell us
+that our indictment will receive a complete refutation in another state
+of existence of which we know nothing at all. The reply is in itself an
+admission of the truth of the charges. If life admitted of a moral
+justification here there would be no need to appeal to some other life
+in which these blemishes are made good. If some other life is needed to
+correct the moral abnormalities of this one, then the indictment of the
+Atheist is justified. And one is left again wondering why, if almighty
+intelligence could make all things straight in the next world, why the
+same intelligence could not have made the necessary corrections in this
+one.
+
+The truth is that the God of the evolutionary process is as much a myth
+as is the god of special creation. He has all the blemishes of the other
+one--one step removed. The Paleyan God had at least the merit of coming
+to close grips with his work. The evolutionary one shields himself
+behind the fact that the work is done by his agents, and then it is
+found that he created the agents for this special work and all that they
+do is the product of the qualities with which he endowed them. If
+anything the evolutionary deity is more objectionable than the older
+one. And if theists will examine nature candidly and with an open mind,
+they will see that it is so. I do not know that anyone has drawn a more
+truthful picture of natural processes as they appear from the point of
+view of being the product of a divine intelligence than has Mr. W. H.
+Mallock, and his picture is the more deadly as coming from a champion of
+theism. If, he says, theists will look the facts of the universe
+steadily in the face:
+
+
+     What they will see will astonish them. They will see that if there
+     is anything at the back of this vast process, with a consciousness
+     and a purpose in any way resembling our own--a being who knows what
+     he wants and is doing his best to get it--he is instead of a holy
+     and all-wise God, a scatter-brained, semi-powerful, semi-impotent
+     monster. They will recognise as clearly as they ever did the old
+     familiar facts which seemed to them evidences of God's wisdom,
+     love, and goodness; but they will find that these facts, when taken
+     in connection with the others, only supply us with a standard in
+     the nature of this Being himself by which most of his acts are
+     exhibited to us as those of a criminal madman. If he had been
+     blind, he had not sin; but if we maintain that he can see, then his
+     sin remains. Habitually a bungler as he is, and callous when not
+     actively cruel, we are forced to regard him, when he seems to
+     exhibit benevolence, as not divinely benevolent, but merely weak
+     and capricious, like a boy who fondles a kitten and the next moment
+     sets a dog at it, and not only does his moral character fall from
+     him bit by bit but his dignity disappears also. The orderly
+     processes of the stars and the larger phenomena of nature are
+     suggestive of nothing so much as a wearisome Court ceremonial
+     surrounding a king who is unable to understand or to break away
+     from it; whilst the thunder and whirlwind, which have from time
+     immemorial been accepted as special revelations of his awful power
+     and majesty, suggest, if they suggest anything of a personal
+     character at all, merely some blackguardly larrikin kicking his
+     heels in the clouds, not perhaps bent on mischief, but indifferent
+     to the fact that he is causing it....
+
+     The truth is, if we consider the universe as a whole, it fails to
+     suggest a conscious and purposive God at all; and it fails to do so
+     not because the processes of evolution as such preclude the idea
+     that a God might have made use of them for a definite purpose, but
+     because when we come to consider these processes in detail, and
+     view them in the light of the only purposes they suggest, we find
+     them to be such that a God who could deliberately have been guilty
+     of them would be a God too absurd, too monstrous, too mad to be
+     credible. (_Religion as a Credible Doctrine_; pp. 176-8).
+
+
+As we have already seen, the attempt to find a plan in the processes of
+evolution breaks down hopelessly. On analysis, the supposed plan turns
+out to be nothing more than a perception of some sort of regularity, and
+as regularity is an inescapable condition of existence, all that it
+proves _is_ existence. On that point there is no dispute. And the moral
+justification of the cosmic process while intellectually indefensible,
+adds an element of moral repulsion. That the process as we know it is
+morally repugnant is shown by the appeal to the future, the request to
+suspend judgment till such time as the plan is completed, when it is
+hoped that the end will justify the means. God, it is trusted, will
+justify himself in the future. But in his anxiety to impress upon us
+the fact that God has a moral future the theist forgets that he has had
+a past, and that past is a black one. The uncounted generations of
+suffering in the past is not to be compensated by a probable happiness
+in the future. The myriads of organisms that have lived incomplete
+lives, and ended them in deaths of suffering are not cancelled by the
+probability that at some time, still in the future, a comparatively
+small number will lead lives of happiness. The record is there, "there
+is blood upon the hand," and not all the apologies of a self-convicted
+animism can ever wipe it clean.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE PROBLEM OF PAIN.
+
+
+The problem of how to harmonise the existence of a God as believers
+picture him to be with a world such as experience discloses, is as old
+as theology. And the problem will disappear only when theology is given
+up as an aggregate of question begging words and gratuitous hypotheses
+based upon a foundation of primitive ignorance and inherited delusion.
+For the majority of those questions that are properly called theological
+are not of the necessary order. Questions such as those connected with
+the mutations of matter, the development of life, the growth of society,
+or the nature and clash of human passions cannot be evaded. They are
+present in the facts themselves. But the problems of theology are
+self-created; they arise out of certain beliefs, and have no existence
+apart from those beliefs. They are the joint product of beliefs which
+are wholly useless, in conflict with facts with which they cannot be
+squared.
+
+What is known as "The Problem of Evil" is an apt illustration of the
+truth of what has been said. Here there is created a problem which is
+not alone quite gratuitous, but it succeeds in inverting the real
+question at issue. For unless we accept the world as the product of a
+good and wise God, there is no problem of evil for us to explain. The
+problem of evil is, given such a deity, how to account for the existence
+of evil, or, if it exists, how account for its continuance. The problem
+is created by the theory. Dismiss the theory and no problem is left.
+And it is in line with what is done in other directions, that, having
+created the difficulty, the theist should present it to the non-theist
+as one of the questions that he must answer.
+
+In reality there is no problem of evil in connection with ethics. The
+ethical problem is not the existence of evil, but the emergence of good;
+not, that is, why do men do wrong, but why do they do right. That life
+should cease to be is not at all wonderful, but that with so many
+potential dangers around the organism, the actions of living beings
+should become so automatically adapted to their surroundings as to shun
+the actions which destroy life, and perform such actions as maintain
+it--at least, to such an extent as secures the preservation of the
+species--may well arouse surprise and give birth to enquiry. So with the
+question of evil and suffering in the world. That these exist is
+undeniable, but the enquiry they suggest is only on all fours with the
+enquiry suggested by any other natural fact, while the ethical problem
+centres, not around the existence of wrong action, but around the
+emergence of right conduct. It is the evolution of happiness that forms
+the kernel of the ethical problem, not the evolution of pain.
+
+The earlier form of the Christian apologetic took the form of a
+dualistic theory of the world. There were two powers, God and the devil,
+and between them they shared the responsibility for all good and evil.
+So far, good. But this was clearly saving the goodness of God at the
+expense of his omnipotence. Moreover, if God was to be thought of as the
+creator of the universe, the theory, as Mill said, paid him the
+doubtful compliment of making him the creator of Satan, and, therefore,
+the creator of evil once removed. Or, if not, God and the devil were
+left as rival monarchs quarrelling over a territory that appeared to
+exist apart from and independent of either.
+
+But nowadays the devil has gone out of fashion. Very few of the clergy
+ever mention him, and although an attempt was made to reinstate him some
+years ago by the author of "Evil and Evolution," the endeavour was a
+failure. And bereft of the convenient scapegoat, the devil, the present
+day theist is compelled to attempt an apology for evil that will appeal
+to natural and verifiable facts for confirmation, or which must, at
+least, not be in conflict with them. If theism is to stand, a place and
+a meaning must be found for the evil in the world, and found in such a
+way that it either relieves God of the responsibility for its existence
+or its being can be shown to harmonise with his assumed character. It is
+no longer possible to fall back on Paul's position that the potter is at
+liberty to doom one pot to honour and the other to dishonour. The moral
+responsibility for the kind of pots he turns out cannot be so easily
+evaded. As Professor Sorley says, "If ethical theism is to stand, the
+evil in the world cannot be referred to God in the same way as the good
+is referred to him." Somehow, he must be relieved of the responsibility
+for its existence, or a purpose for it must be found.
+
+Now, curiously enough, modern theists hover between the two positions.
+Professor Sorley, representing one position, says that the only way to
+avoid referring evil to God is by "the postulate of human freedom."
+("Moral Values and the Idea of God," p. 469.) This is also the way out
+adopted by Canon Green in "The Problem of Evil," and it turns upon a
+mere play on words. Thus, Canon Green says that there is one thing God
+could not do. "He could not force him to be good, i.e., to choose virtue
+freely, for the idea of forcing a free being to choose involves a
+contradiction." And Professor Sorley says more elaborately that "things
+occur in the universe which are not due to God's will, although they
+must have happened with his permission ... a higher range of power and
+perfection is shown in the creation of free beings than in the creation
+of beings whose every thought and action are pre-determined by their
+Creator," and while he admits there is limitations to man's power of
+choice, he holds that there is one form of choice that is always there,
+and that is the choice of good and evil. ("Moral Values and the Idea of
+God," pp. 469-70.)
+
+In all this one can see little more than verbal confusion. To commence
+with Canon Green, which will also cover much that Prof. Sorley says on
+the same point. When we are told man must choose virtue freely in order
+that what he does shall partake of the character of morality, it is
+plain that he is using the word "forced" in two senses. In the one sense
+force may mean no more than a determinant. Thus we may say that our
+sympathies _force_ us to act in such and such a way. Or the religious
+man may say that the love of God forces him to act in such and such a
+manner. Force here means any consideration that will lead to action, and
+no one can object to its use in this sense.
+
+A second meaning of force is that of compulsion from without, as when a
+strong man gets hold of a weak one and by exertion of physical strength
+compels him to do something that he is disinclined to do, or when one
+forces another by threat of punishment. In this latter sense no one
+dreams of harmonising force with moral action. Neither law nor common
+sense does so. But compulsion in the sense of one's actions being forced
+by a mental or moral disposition no one outside an asylum would dispute.
+And what Canon Green does is to ask us to reject the idea of a moral
+action being forced, in the sense of external compulsion, and then uses
+it in the sense of an absence of dispositions that will lead to certain
+courses of conduct.
+
+It is probable that the Canon would reject this interpretation of his
+statement, but if it does not mean this, then his argument is
+unintelligible. For if it is admitted that what man does is the product
+of his mental or moral dispositions, in other words, of his nature, and
+if, as is undeniable, the nature with which he fronts the world is the
+product of heredity and environment, he would no more be "forced" to do
+good had God given him impulses strong enough to overcome all tendency
+to evil than he is now when his impulses come to him from his ancestors
+and his general social heredity.
+
+All that is implied in a moral act is free choice. But choice is free,
+not when it is independent of organic promptings; that is absurd; but
+when those organic promptings are allowed to find expression. There is
+no other rational meaning to "choice" than this. Choice does not tell us
+how it is determined, on that point it can say nothing, any more than a
+child can say why it chooses sugar in preference to cayenne pepper. Its
+choice, we say, is determined by its taste. And its taste is determined
+by--? To answer that question we must call in the chemist and the
+physiologist, and they probably will tell us why our choice moves in one
+direction rather than in another.
+
+When men like Canon Green talk of the morality of an action being
+dependent upon our _choice_ between right and wrong, what they probably
+have in their minds is the perception of right and wrong. For we may
+perceive the possibility of one course while we are performing another.
+But the power of choice is clearly limited. A man cannot choose to be a
+mathematician, however much he may see the desirability of becoming one.
+And many a man may in the moral sphere see the advisability of his being
+different in character from what he is, but may altogether lack the
+capacity of becoming such. And the power of choice differs not only with
+each individual, but with the same individual at different times.
+Finally, the more fixed the character of the individual the less
+conscious he is of choice, or of a sense of freedom to do differently
+from what he actually does, and as this applies with equal force to
+character, whether it be good or bad, we reach, finally, the suicidal
+position that the more fundamentally moral a man becomes, the less moral
+he is.[5]
+
+Now seeing that all our educational processes aim at making the good
+character, so to speak, automatic, that is, to quite fill the mind with
+worthy motives and wise power of choice, and seeing also that a
+character is good so far as this is done, will some one explain in what
+way moral character would have suffered had God so made man that he
+would have had intelligence enough to always choose the good and reject
+the bad? For, be it noted, the apology put forward for the present state
+of affairs is that man is in a state of probation, he is passing through
+a course of moral discipline, and it is essential that he should
+experience the possibility to do wrong, and even to occasionally do the
+wrong. And the end of the process of tuition is, what? The production of
+a perfect being in whom there shall not be a proneness to do wrong, to
+whose purified moral nature wrong doing shall be quite foreign. That is
+to say that we are to reach as a result of this long roundabout process,
+with all its waste and bungling, just what might have been established
+at the beginning. For either the perfect moral being is without the
+quality which we have just been assured is essential to morality, or the
+whole argument is reduced to nonsense.
+
+For it is impossible to assume that the bad man chooses to be bad with a
+full perception of the consequences of his actions, and at the same time
+with the power to do otherwise. We all agree that the _right_ choice is
+ultimately a _wise_ choice, and that if we could all trace out the
+consequences of all we do, we should realise that it was to our real
+interest to act rightly. And if that is admitted, it follows that the
+"choice" to do evil is the product of short-sightedness, or of some
+defect of temperament which prevents our standing up against the
+temptations of the moment. And our ethical education is mainly directed
+to making good this defect in our make up. But suppose that amount of
+wisdom or strength had been an endowment of our nature from the outset,
+is there any conceivable way in which we should have been the worse for
+it? For even as it is there are some people who do make a fairly wise
+and right choice, and whose high-water mark of excellence is not reached
+through the crime and folly of the revival meeting convert. Are they the
+worse because they have never yielded to evil? Is the naturally good man
+really a less worthy character than the one whose comparative goodness
+is only reached through and after a lengthy course of evil living? And
+if not, in what way would the race have been worsened had we all been as
+fortunately circumstanced? If it was really God's purpose to have a race
+of men and women who should be both good and wise, it remains for the
+theist to show in what way the plan would not have been as well served
+by making them at once with a sufficiency of intelligence to act in the
+real interests of themselves and of all around them.
+
+Coming closer to earth the theist attempts to find a justification for
+the existing order of things by finding a use for pain and suffering in
+their educational influence on human nature, and in the impossibility of
+altering for the better the consequences of natural law.
+
+The real question at issue, says one of the most eloquent of modern
+theists, the late Dr. Martineau, is "whether the laws of which complaint
+is made work such harm that they ought never to have been enacted; or
+whether, in spite of occasional disasters in their path, the sentient
+existence of which they are the conditions has in its history a vast
+excess of blessing." (Study of Religion II., p. 91.) And Canon Green,
+who uses some of Dr. Martineau's ideas without the latter's eloquence or
+power of reasoning, asks, "If God were to say, 'You condemn me for this
+suffering! Well, take my creative power and re-create the world to
+please yourself and to suit your own sense of justice and mercy'" could
+we think out a world that should be better than this one? (Problem of
+Evil, p. 48.)
+
+Now both these methods of raising the question--and they are
+representative of a whole group--serve but to confuse the issue. For no
+one denies that some benefit may result from the present cosmical
+structure. But that does not touch the complaint that the structure is
+not such as fits in with the existence of a presiding intelligence such
+as theism asks us to accept. And the question of Canon Green's whether
+we could turn out a better universe than the one that actually exists,
+is wide of the mark also. If I purchase a motor car as the work of a
+genius in car-building, and find when I get my purchase home that it
+cannot be made to run, it does not destroy the justice of my complaint
+to ask whether I could build a better one or not. The important thing is
+that the car is not what it should be, and judging by the product the
+builder is not what he is represented to be either. Dr. Martineau was
+far too keen a controversialist to adopt Canon Green's foolish retort,
+but he does seek to parry the force of the atheist criticism by saying
+that God "if once he commits his will to any determinate method, and for
+the realisation of his ends selects and institutes a scheme of
+instrumental rules, he thereby shuts the door on a thousand things that
+might have been done before." (_Study_, p. 85). To that one may reply,
+so much the worse for his judgment; while if the fact of his having once
+adopted a "determinate method" caused him to resolve to stick to it, in
+spite of its consequences in practice, and irrespective of the
+beneficial results that might have followed its modification, we can
+only regret that the deity was not acquainted with Emerson's opinion
+that "a foolish consistency is the bugbear of little minds." Even what
+is said to be the greatest mind of all might easily have benefited from
+the warning.
+
+Canon Green tries another line of reply, which is not in the least more
+convincing. He pictures to us a father who, by misappropriating trust
+funds, brings disgrace to the whole of his family. The mother is driven
+to despair and drink. The sister dies for want of food, the brother
+finds his career ruined. The disaster is complete, and Canon Green says
+it is inevitable because we cannot have a world in which the relations
+of parents and children exist without having them suffer from each
+other's faults. So far as the present world goes that is true. But it is
+certainly a strange reply to the complaint that an arrangement is unjust
+to say that as the injustice results from the arrangement, therefore, we
+have no cause for complaint. And that _we_ are unable to make a better
+world is beside the mark. Between the perception of an injustice, and
+the ability to remove it there is a world of difference, and although we
+may be unable to remedy the defect the defect remains.
+
+But, indeed, human nature does try to produce a world in which such
+happenings as those depicted shall either not occur or their
+consequences shall be reduced to a minimum. We do not hang a son for
+his parents' crime, nor do humane people blame children for the
+shortcomings of their parents. To some extent we try to correct the
+consequences that follow, and even though the endeavour be futile, that
+is in itself an indictment of the existing order. Man does at least try
+to correct the injustices his God is said to have created.
+
+It is overlooked also that the evils which follow from wrong actions are
+not confined to those immediately connected, and who may conceivably
+have their resentment to some extent dulled, if not lessened, by that
+fact. People in no way connected, and who can have no perception of the
+cause of their suffering, who are unconscious of everything, save the
+one fact that they are suffering, feel its consequences. When a great
+war spreads devastation all over the world, can it be said that any
+useful purpose is served by the sufferings of millions who are not in
+the slightest degree aware of the cause of their agony? When a shady
+financial operation brings an innocent man to ruin, and effects all the
+consequences which Canon Green imagines resulting from the defaulting
+parent, how can it be said that the catastrophe admits of ethical
+justification? In many cases the thought of the injury experienced acts
+itself as a fresh cause of degradation. It creates a rankling and a
+bitterness which depresses and inhibits the power to struggle, unless it
+be the desire to struggle for revenge against a condition of things of
+which the evil results are only too apparent. People are not merely
+punished for the evil they do; they are punished for the evil that
+others do, and the punishment, so far as we can see, bears no observable
+relation to the wrong done. There is no _ethical_ relation between
+actions and consequences. Not alone is the incidence of an action
+dependent upon personal qualities--some will suffer more from having
+accidentally told an untruth than others will suffer from having
+committed gross and deliberate fraud--but nature is absolutely careless
+of whether what I do is motived by good or bad intentions. If I get a
+wetting through going out to help some one in distress, the consequences
+will be exactly the same as though I had got wet going out to commit a
+burglary or a murder. And when Dr. Martineau talks of the "natural
+penalties for guilt," and adds that "sin being there, it would be simply
+monstrous that there should be no suffering and would fully justify the
+despair which now raises its sickly cry of complaint against the
+retributory wretchedness of human transgression" (_Study_ II., p. 106),
+the reply is that there are no such things as "_natural_ penalties for
+guilt." There are only consequences of actions, and they are the same
+whatever be the moral quality of the actions performed. In the same way
+that nature may in the course of an earthquake destroy the homes of a
+dozen worthy families and leave a gambling hell untouched, so it will in
+other directions punish where a man, from good intentions, places
+himself in the path of punishment, and refrain from afflicting one whose
+selfishness or greed has guarded him against attack. There are natural
+consequences of actions, there are no natural penalties for guilt, and
+there are no natural rewards for innocence. Rewards and penalties are
+the creation of man, and it is only in the form of a figure of speech
+that we can apply them to nature.
+
+It is equally idle to speak of pain as a form of discipline. Professor
+Sorley says that if the pain in the world can be turned to the increase
+of goodness, then its existence offers no insuperable objection to "the
+ethical view of reality." So Dr. Martineau says that suffering is "the
+moral discipline" through which our nature arrives at its "true
+elevation." It is needless to multiply quotations; such statements are
+the commonplaces of theistic controversy, and almost any book that one
+cares to pick up will supply further illustrations, if they be required.
+None can reject them, because no theist can afford to candidly admit
+that the world we know offers no justification for his belief. The
+belief in the goodness of God, as Canon Green says, is a belief that is
+"absolutely fundamental to all religion," and if the facts as we see
+them do not support the belief, some apology must be found that will
+marry the theory to the fact.
+
+Nevertheless, the belief in the disciplinary power of pain or suffering
+is, if not quite illusory, so nearly so that it is useless for the
+purpose for which it is brought forward. In the first place, it does not
+require very profound study to see that whatever are the lessons taught
+by suffering they are seldom proportionate to the conduct which cause
+them, nor do those who suffer reap the alleged disciplinary benefit of
+their suffering. Let us take a common case. A mother goes out and leaves
+a child near an unguarded fire. The mother returns to find the child
+burned to death. Where is the discipline here? Certainly the child
+cannot have gained any. But there is, of course, the mother. The mother
+has learned such a lesson that she will never forget it, and will never
+again commit the same blunder. There we have it. A child is allowed to
+die by a hideously cruel death in order that a mother may learn a lesson
+in carefulness. It is good to learn from other sources that God's ways
+are not our ways. A man who tried to imitate them, and who burned one of
+his children in order to teach its mother how to look after the rest,
+would soon find himself in the criminal court, or in an asylum. But what
+would be insanity or criminal cruelty in the case of man, becomes, in
+the alembic of religious apologetic, goodness and wisdom in God.
+
+The theory that it is the function of pain to elevate and to discipline
+is simply not true. One has only to look to see that in countless cases
+the effect of pain is disaster. The world's best work is not born of
+pain but of pleasure. There is no pain and no suffering, there is hardly
+even toil, in the work of a genius. In all the higher walks of music, of
+art, of literature, the work is perfect in proportion as the worker
+finds himself in agreeable and pleasant surroundings. And what is true
+of the higher aspect of art is true also of life in general. Life may be
+lived in spite of pain, as good work may be done in spite of
+discouraging circumstances, but one might as well talk of a plant
+flourishing because of poor soil, or sharp frosts, as to speak of life
+becoming better because of pain.
+
+The normal function of pain is to depress, that of pleasure is to
+heighten. As Spencer said, every pain lowers the tide of life; every
+pleasure raises the tide of life. It is one of the commonest of sights
+to see those suffering from illness becoming more self-centred, less
+careful of others, and to see the disintegrating consequences of
+disease on character. Here and there one may find a character that has
+had its rough edges smoothed down by suffering, but for every case of
+that kind one may find a score of an opposite order. It is not the
+underfed, badly clothed, neglected child that is likely to make the best
+citizen, but the one that has the best chance of developing itself in
+healthy surroundings. And it is a curious commentary, if it were true,
+to argue that a good and wise God so arranged things that pain and
+suffering, even undeserved suffering, should be the main way for the
+development of character.
+
+A strange but not uncommon argument is used by Canon Green in dealing
+with the suffering incidental to the various disasters that overtake
+mankind from time to time. Suffering, he says, has a certain element of
+martyrdom about it. Even evils due to human greed and carelessness bring
+some benefit in their train. Thus, apropos of the _Titanic_ disaster:--
+
+
+     Every such disaster tends to produce some improvement for future
+     generations. Shipowners are forced to supply more boats, wireless
+     instalment is required on all ships; the idle rich are led to think
+     less of saving useless time and more of saving lives, their own and
+     those of men in the stokeholds. In a sense those who perish may be
+     said to be unwilling martyrs who by their deaths purchase some
+     advantage for others. It will be said that it is a great price to
+     pay for a small advantage, and one which might have been cheaply
+     gained in some other ways. That is so. But so too the ways of
+     nature are cruel. So many seeds must be sown, so many young animals
+     or birds or fishes born, so many must be trampled out of existence,
+     that only the best may survive. (_Problem of Evil_; pp. 163-4).
+
+
+That certainly puts all the owners of slum property, all the grasping
+shipowners, all those who batten and fatten on other people's welfare in
+a most favourable light. We have been thinking them almost criminals
+when they were in reality public benefactors. They lead to many
+improvements, and even though the improvements come too late to benefit
+those who suffer from the evils, yet they do come--sometimes. Certainly
+it might give some comfort if the sufferers knew what it was they were
+being sacrificed for, and that others would be benefited by their death.
+But they do not, and we are therefore bound to conclude that whatever
+satisfaction is felt is by those who survive. When a _Titanic_ sinks it
+must be the people on shore who see the element of goodness in it since
+it makes travelling easier for _them_. And the kindness developed in one
+who can excuse the brutalities of nature because it brings some benefit
+to himself is of a rather startling nature.
+
+The fundamental fault in all reasoning of this order lies in the
+assumption that pain ceases to be pain if it can be shown to bring good
+to _some_ one. But that it not so. Pleasure and pain are not
+quantitative things, increments of which can be carried on from
+generation to generation and a balance struck at the end, much as one
+strikes a balance between the profits and losses of a year's trading.
+All suffering and all enjoyment are of necessity personal. Suffering is
+not increased by extending it over a million instances. There was not
+more pain because a larger number happened to be be killed in the
+European war than are killed in a borderland skirmish. There were a
+larger _number_ of people involved in the one case than in the other,
+but that is all. Multiplying the number of cases makes a greater appeal
+to a sluggish imagination, but it adds nothing substantial to the fact.
+Feeling, whether it be pleasant or painful, is a matter of individual
+experience, and that being so it is not the number of people who suffer
+through no fault of their own, and, so far as one can see, without any
+benefit proportionate to the suffering experienced, but the fact of
+there being this suffering at all. That is the point the theist must
+face; it is the one point he systematically avoids.
+
+Another form of the same argument meets us in the familiar plea that
+bodily pain "sounds the alarm bell of disease in time for its removal."
+In some sense it may be admitted that a painful feeling, in certain
+circumstances, does act as a warning that persistence will lead to
+disaster. But it is not universally true in the sense and in the degree
+that is needed to justify the argument, and it is a "warning" out of all
+proportion to the danger faced. In the first place, pain cannot be a
+warning against disease, it can only be an indication of its presence.
+It does not warn us against the dangers of a contemplated course of
+conduct, nor can it tell us what conduct has led to the pain
+experienced. And in the case of contagious diseases, what amount of
+warning is there given? In some case the victim is stricken and is dead
+in so short a time as not to know with what it is he has been afflicted,
+and certainly without any chance of being warned. What warning is there
+in the case of a violent poison? Or what relation is there between pains
+felt and dangers run? The most dangerous diseases may have painless
+beginnings, and be well rooted in the system before the victim is
+driven by discomfort to seek medical advice. On the other hand, a corn
+or a toothache, neither of them very deadly ailments, create pain out of
+all proportion to their gravity. And if we take the case of excessive
+cold we have here an instance where instead of pain acting as a warning,
+the danger just acts as an an�sthetic. The victim is oppressed by
+drowsiness, sinks into insensibility, finally death. Here it is not the
+approach of death that is painful, but the return to life, the pain of
+restoring circulation being very severe indeed.
+
+Fear, which may be classed as a species of pain, appears to act, in the
+majority of instances, as an enemy, rather than as a friend to the
+animal experiencing it. Thus Professor Mosso points out that in the
+animal organism there exists a number of harmful reactions that increase
+in number the graver the peril becomes. We have all read of the
+"fascination" of the bird by the serpent, and there are other animals
+that in the presence of an enemy become so palsied with fear as to
+become incapable of defence, even that of flight. And with man it is not
+as the danger becomes most acute that his nerves become steadier and his
+courage firmer. The opposite is probably more often the case. In all
+these cases it is as though nature had lured the animal or man into a
+position of grave danger, and then does its best to divest him of
+adequate means of defence against it.
+
+Common sense revolts against the doctrine that pain is a good thing, and
+the fact of this is everywhere seen in the attempt of man to get rid of
+it. No one trusts it as a sure warning against disease, no one turns to
+it as a means of purifying character. All these pleas are the mere
+platitudes of a religious apologetic trying to harmonise a primitive
+theory of things with a larger knowledge and a more developed moral
+sense. Pain and suffering in the world remain facts whether we believe
+in the existence of a God or not, but we are at least freed from the
+paralysing horror of the belief that all the suffering and pain in
+nature is part of a plan. If man realised all that that belief involved
+it might indeed rob his mind of all strength to struggle against the
+forces that make for his destruction. Fortunately no race of people
+could act upon the logical implications of the theistic theory and
+maintain its existence. In practice, as well as in theory, theism has
+had to come to terms with facts. And now the series of adjustments have
+almost reached their end. The belief in God has been traced to its
+origin, and we know it to have issued in an altogether discredited view
+of the world and of man. We know that man does not discover God, he
+invents him, and an invention is properly discarded when a better
+instrument is forthcoming. To-day the hypothesis of God stands in just
+the same relation to the better life of to-day as the fire drill of the
+savage does to the modern method of obtaining a light. The belief in God
+may continue awhile in virtue of the lack of intelligence of some, of
+the carelessness of others, and of the conservative character of the
+mass. But no amount of apologising can make up for the absence of
+genuine knowledge, nor can the flow of the finest eloquence do aught but
+clothe in regal raiment the body of a corpse.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[5] I have discussed this question at length in my "Determinism or Free
+Will."
+
+
+
+
+Part II.
+
+SUBSTITUTES FOR ATHEISM.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A QUESTION OF PREJUDICE.
+
+
+It affords some ground for surprise that there should be so great a
+resentment shown against religious disbelief in general and against
+Atheism in particular. We have here more than the mere rejection of a
+theory or view of life. There is a certain emotional resentment, a
+shrinking from the one who is guilty of disbelief, such as is not
+explainable on ordinary grounds. The attitude is ridiculous, so
+ridiculous that many who adopt it are ashamed to openly acknowledge it,
+but it is there, and its existence calls for explanation.
+
+We believe this is to be found in the peculiar history of the god-idea
+combined with primitive theories of social life. Like many frames of
+mind that persist in civilised society, this attitude towards disbelief
+has its roots in a conception of the world that has been generally
+discarded and in social conditions that have ceased to exist among
+civilised people. To begin with, we have the fact that religion
+dominates the life of primitive man to a degree that is almost
+inconceivable to the modern mind. The anger of the tribal gods has to be
+always reckoned with. What they desire must be done, what they do not
+desire must be avoided. In the next place there exists a very strong
+sense of collective responsibility. What one member of a tribe does the
+whole of the tribe is responsible for, both to the members of other
+tribes and to the gods. We see a survival of this in the reversion to a
+more primitive state of things that takes place during a war. In some
+circumstances hatred of the whole of a people with whom a nation is at
+war becomes a duty, and all are responsible for the offences of each. So
+in primitive times an offence against the gods became an act of treason
+against the tribe. It might expose the whole of the tribe to disaster.
+
+It is not, it must be noted, that primitive man is fond of the gods, or
+jealous of their honour; he is not any more fond of them than is the
+modern citizen of the tax-collector. And no one will ever really
+understand the question of religion until he rids himself of the notion
+that primitive man spends his time _looking_ for gods or that he is
+happy in their company. He is simply afraid that a single unruly member
+may get the whole tribe into a serious difficulty. The savage is
+severely practical; his conduct rests upon grounds of, to him, the most
+obvious utility, and his treatment of the heretic leaves little to be
+desired on the score of effectiveness. The unbeliever is a dangerous
+person, and he is promptly suppressed. The first heretic died a martyr
+to the tribe; the last heretic will die a martyr to the race.
+
+Primitive conditions die out, but primitive feelings linger, and
+although in theory we have reached the stage of believing that each
+person must bear the consequences of his own religious opinions, the
+deeply rooted dislike to the man who rejects the rule of the gods
+remains.
+
+Historically we have also to reckon with the operations of an interested
+priesthood, but leaving that on one side as a secondary development it
+would seem that one must trace to some such cause as the one above
+indicated the deep and widespread dislike to such a term as atheism,
+even by many who to all intents and purposes are atheist in their
+opinion. Certainly in this country, where compromise is more fashionable
+than in many other places, the dislike to the word is partly due to its
+uncompromising character. It is clear cut and definite. Its connotations
+cannot be misunderstood by any one who takes the word in its literal
+meaning. The Theist is one who believes in a personal God. The Atheist
+is one who is without belief in a personal God. The meaning is clear,
+and the implied mental attitude is plain. It is opposed to theism, and
+has no significance apart from Theism. And, as will be seen, when
+non-theists quarrel with it, it is only because it is mis-stated or
+misunderstood.
+
+But most people dislike clear cut terms. They prefer to exist in an
+atmosphere of mental ambiguity and intellectual fog which blurs outlines
+and obscures differences. Unbeliever is preferable to some,
+sceptic--presumably because of its age and philosophical associations,
+is a greater favourite, and Agnostic is more beloved than either--the
+latter has indeed been pressed into the service of a more or less
+nebulous "religion." As it is said, "We are all Socialists nowadays," so
+it is said that we are unbelievers or Agnostics nowadays. But no one
+says we are all Atheists nowadays. Timidity can find no use for a word
+of that character. Of course, if a man believes that some word other
+than Atheism best describes his state of mind, he has a perfect right to
+select the one that seems fittest. But when one finds non-theists
+repudiating the name of Atheist with as much moral indignation as though
+they had been accused of shoplifting, one cannot help the suspicion
+that the heat displayed is not unconnected with some lurking fear of the
+"respectabilities." It does seem that while many may have outgrown all
+fear of the God of orthodoxy, the fear of the god of social pressure
+remains.
+
+So far as the Theist is concerned it is quite understandable that his
+objection to Atheism should involve a certain moral element. That would
+result from what has already been said concerning the cause of the fear
+of heresy. Still one would have thought that in these days it would
+require a person of almost abnormal stupidity to assume that disbelief
+in God has its roots in a defective moral character. The facts would
+warrant a quite opposite conclusion. In the first place, the rejection
+of any well-established belief argues a degree of independence of mind
+that is, unfortunately, not common. The ordinary mind follows the common
+route. It is the extraordinary mind that strikes out from the beaten
+path. The heretic, whether in politics or in religion, may be wrong, but
+there is always with him the guarantee of a certain measure of mental
+strength that is not, on the face of the matter, present with one who
+follows the orthodox path. And that in itself represents a type of mind
+of no little social value. Moreover, I for one, am quite ready to assert
+that, class for class, the Freethinker does represent a type of mind
+considerably above the average. That this is not more generally
+recognised is due to the policy of the religious advocate in contrasting
+the uneducated Freethinker with the educated believer.
+
+Secondly, it strikes one as almost insane to assume that in a Christian
+country Atheism should be professed as a cloak or as an excuse for
+misconduct. They who talk in this strain greatly undervalue the
+accommodating power of religion. Is there a single form of rascality
+known to man for which religion has not been able to provide a sanction?
+If there is I have failed to come across it. The use of religion made by
+tyranny in all ages and in all countries is proof of how accommodating
+it is to man's passions and interests. The picture of the dying murderer
+meeting his end, filled with the consolation of religion, and certain of
+his speedy salvation, contains a lesson that all may read if they will.
+
+Error there may be in any case where opinion is concerned, but
+profession of an opinion that paves the way for suspicion and
+persecution provides a _prima facie_ guarantee of honesty that cannot be
+furnished by the advocacy of one that stands high in the public favour.
+For aught I know to the contrary, every one of England's Bishops may be
+quite honest men. But there can be no certainty about it so long as the
+profession carries with it all it does. The dice are loaded in favour of
+conviction. But the man who faces social ostracism, and even loss of
+liberty in defence of an opinion, is giving a hostage to truth such as
+none other can give.
+
+This association of heresy with a defective moral character is a very
+old game. It has been played by all religions, and, it must be admitted,
+with considerable success. Writing in the second century Lucian shows us
+the same policy at work in his day. In one of his dialogues, when the
+Atheist has refuted one after another the theistic arguments of his
+opponent, the defender of the gods turns on his opponent with--
+
+
+     You god robbing, shabby, villainous, infamous, halter-sick
+     vagabond! Does not everybody know that your father was a
+     tatterdemalion, and your mother no better than she should be? that
+     you murdered your brother and are guilty of other execrable crimes?
+     You lewd, lying, rascally, abominable varlet.
+
+
+That type of disputant is still with us, and is still supporting his
+beliefs with the same tactics. And it is successful with some. There is
+a certain snobbishness in human nature that makes it seek the
+association of well-known names and shun all of those with an
+unfashionable reputation. To observe the way in which some people will
+introduce into their conversation, speeches, or writings, the names of
+well-known men, is a revelation of this mental snobbery. And the moral
+equivalent of this is the fear of being found in the company of an
+opinion that has been branded as immoral. Such people have all the fear
+of an unpopular opinion that a savage has of a tribal taboo--it is, in
+fact, a survival of the same spirit that gave the tribal taboo its
+force. It is, thus, not a very difficult matter to warn people off an
+undesirable opinion. Samuel Taylor Coleridge relates how the clergy
+raised the cry of Atheism against him, although he had never advanced
+further than Deism. And it is to his credit that in referring to this
+charge he said:--
+
+
+     Little do these men know what Atheism is. Not one man in a thousand
+     has either strength of mind or goodness of heart to be an Atheist.
+     I repeat it. Not one man in a thousand has either strength of mind
+     or goodness of heart to be an Atheist.
+
+
+And we have also the oft-quoted testimony of the late Professor
+Tyndall:--
+
+
+     It is my comfort to know that there are amongst us many whom the
+     gladiators of pulpit would call Atheists and Materialists, whose
+     lives, nevertheless, as tested by any accessible standard of
+     morality would contrast more than favourably with the lives of
+     those who seek to stamp them with this offensive brand. When I say
+     "offensive," I refer merely to the intention of those who use such
+     terms, and not because Atheism or Materialism, when compared with
+     many of the notions ventilated in the columns of religious
+     newspapers has any particular offensiveness to me. If I wish to
+     find men who are scrupulous in their adherence to engagements,
+     whose words are their bond, and to whom moral shiftiness of any
+     kind is subjectively unknown, if I wanted a loving father, a
+     faithful husband, an honourable neighbour, and a just citizen, I
+     would seek him among the band of Atheists to which I refer. I have
+     known some of the most pronounced amongst them, not only in life,
+     but in death--seeing them approaching with open eyes the inexorable
+     goal, with no dread of a "hangman's whip," with no hope of a
+     heavenly crown, and still as mindful of their duties, as if their
+     eternal future depended upon their latest deeds.
+
+
+Still the moral cry is too useful with the crowd to lead to the
+conviction that anything one could say would lead to its disuse. In the
+dialogue of Lucian's to which we have referred, and after the theist has
+been refuted by the Atheist, Hermes consoles the chief deity, Zeus, by
+telling him that even though a few may have been won over by the
+arguments of the Atheist, the vast majority, "the whole mass of
+uneducated Greeks and the Barbarians everywhere," still remain firm in
+their faith. And although Zeus replies that he would prefer one sensible
+man to a thousand fools, when a case depends upon the adherence of the
+relatively foolish, numbers will always bring some consolation to the
+champions of an intellectually distressed creed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+WHAT IS ATHEISM?
+
+
+Between Atheism and Theism there is no logical halting place. But there
+are, unfortunately, many illogical ones. Few possess the capacity for
+pushing their ideas to a logical conclusion, and some position is
+finally discovered which has the weakness of both extremes with the
+strength of neither. With many there is vague talk of a "Power"
+manifested in the universe, and by giving this the dignity of capital
+letters it is evidently hoped that ether people will recognise it as an
+equivalent for God. But power, with or without capitals, is not God. It
+is not the existence of a "Power" that forms the kernel of the dispute
+between the Theist and the Atheist, but what that power is like. The
+issue arises on the point of whether it is personal or not. That it is,
+is what the religious man believes. As Mr. Balfour says, when the plain
+man speaks of God he means "a God whom men can love, to whom men can
+pray, who takes sides, who has purposes and preferences, whose
+attributes, however conceived, leaves the possibility of a personal
+relation between Himself and those whom he has created." ("Theism and
+Humanism," p. 21.) What the genuine believer has in view is not the
+worthless abstraction of a rationalised metaphysic, but the personal
+being of historic theology.
+
+It is now my purpose to take a few of these substitutes for Atheism by
+the aid of which some persons seek to mark themselves off from a
+declared and reasoned unbelief. As outstanding examples of this one may
+take two men of no less eminence than Herbert Spencer and Professor
+Huxley. Both of these men have rendered great service to advanced
+thought, but both have only succeeded in repudiating Atheism by
+misstating and misrepresenting it. In addition to the service that
+Spencer unwittingly rendered the current religion by his use of the
+"Unknowable" (with which we deal fully later), a further help was given
+by his destruction of an Atheism that had no existence. This remarkable
+performance will be found in the first part of his "First Principles."
+Respecting the origin of the universe, he tells us, there are three
+intelligible propositions--although neither of these, on his own
+showing, is intelligible. We may assert that it is self-existent, that
+it is self-created, or that it is created by an external agency. All
+three propositions, he proceeds to show, are equally inconceivable. The
+noticeable thing about the performance is that Atheism is identified
+with the proposition that the universe is self-existent. A very slight
+acquaintance with the writings of representative Atheists would have
+shown Mr. Spencer that "the origin of the universe" is one of those
+questions on which Atheism has wisely been silent, and it has also
+insisted that all attempts to deal with such a question can only result
+in a meaningless string of words. To the Atheist, "the universe"--the
+sum of existence--is a fact that no amount of reasoning can get behind
+or beyond. To think of the universe as a whole is an impossibility;
+while to talk of its origin is to assume, first, that it did originate,
+and, second, that we have some means by which we can transcend all the
+known limits of the human mind. The Atheist can say, and has said, with
+Mr. Spencer himself--whose final statement of Agnosticism differs in no
+material respect from Atheism, that in discussing the "origin of the
+universe," we can only succeed in multiplying impossibilities of thought
+"by every attempt we make to explain its existence." No one has pointed
+out more clearly than Mr. Spencer that "infinity" is not a conception,
+but the negation of one. The pity is that he did not realise that in
+taking up this position he was on exactly the same level of criticism
+that Atheists have pursued. For them the universe is an ultimate fact;
+all that we can do is to mark the ceaseless changes always going on
+around us, and to develope our capacity for modifying their action in
+the interests of human welfare. Farther than this our knowledge does not
+and cannot go; and it may be added that even though our knowledge could
+go beyond the world of phenomena, such knowledge would not be of the
+slightest possible value.
+
+It may also be pointed out that, just as it is not true that Atheism
+attempts to explain the origin of the universe, so it is unfair to tie
+the Atheist down to any particular theory of cosmic evolution. As a
+mental attitude Atheism is quite independent of any theory of cosmic
+working, so long as that theory does not involve an appeal to deity. As
+we shall see, Atheism, from the point of view both of history and
+etymology, stands for the negation of theism, and its final
+justification must be found in the untenability of the theistic
+position.
+
+Rightly enough it may be argued that the acceptance of Atheism implies a
+certain general mental attitude towards both cosmic and social
+questions, but the Atheist, as such, is no more committed to a special
+scientific theory than he is committed to a special theory of
+government. Of course, it is convenient for the Theist to first of all
+saddle his opponent with a set of social or scientific beliefs, and then
+to assume that in attacking those beliefs he is demolishing Atheism, but
+it is none the less fighting on a false issue. All that Atheism
+necessarily involves is that all forms of Theism are logically
+untenable, and consequently the only effective method of destroying
+Atheism is to establish its opposite.
+
+Professor Huxley's treatment of Atheism proceeds on similar lines to
+that already dealt with, but is more elaborate in character. Discussing
+the nature of his own opinions he repudiates all sympathy with Atheism,
+because:
+
+
+     "the problem of the ultimate cause of existence is one which seems
+     to me to be hopelessly out of reach of my poor powers. Of all the
+     senseless babble I have ever had occasion to read, the
+     demonstrations of those philosophers who undertake to tell us about
+     the nature of God would be the worst, if they were not surpassed by
+     the still greater absurdities of the philosophers who try to prove
+     there is no God." (_On the Hypothesis the Animals are Automata._)
+
+
+And on another occasion, replying to a correspondent, he expresses the
+opinion that "Atheism is, on philosophical grounds, untenable, that
+there is no evidence of the god of the theologians is true enough, but
+strictly scientific reasoning can take us no further. When we know
+nothing we can neither affirm nor deny with propriety." (_Life and
+Letters_, p. 162.)
+
+Here, again, we have the common error that Atheism seeks in some way to
+explain the ultimate cause of existence. And this in spite of continuous
+disclaimers that all search for a "first cause," or for a "cause of
+existence" is midsummer madness. The fault here, we suspect, is that
+both writers took their statement of Atheism, not from Atheistic writers
+but from their opponents. But it is none the less surprising that it was
+not recognised that both "a first cause" and an "ultimate cause of
+existence," are, strictly speaking, theistic questions. I do not mean
+that these questions may not suggest themselves to non-theists, but that
+when they are raised clearly and definitely they are seen to belong to a
+class of questions to which no rational answer is possible. To the
+Theist, however, the questions arise from his primary assumptions. His
+theory is one of final causes; his deity is postulated as the cause of
+existence, and he cannot give up the questions as hopeless without
+admitting his position to be indefensible. It is quite usual for the
+theist to propound problems which only arise on his own assumptions, and
+then call upon his opponents for answers to them, but there is no
+justification whatever for non-theists playing the same game. Atheism
+has nothing to do with final causes, and therefore is not concerned with
+defending its illogicalities. Theism is a doctrine of final causes, and
+in arguing that it is absurd to express an opinion upon the subject
+Professor Huxley was adding a good reason in support of the position he
+believed himself to be destroying.
+
+Huxley's other objection to Atheism is that it perpetuates the absurdity
+of trying to prove there is no God. How far is that true? Or in what
+sense is it true? The danger in all discussion on this point lies in our
+taking it for granted that "God" conveys a definite and identical
+meaning to all people. But this is very far from being the case. What
+anyone means by "God" it is impossible to say until some further
+description has been given. When this has been done, and not until then,
+"God" may become the subject of affirmation or denial. Until then we are
+playing with empty words. By itself "God" means nothing. It offers the
+possibility of neither negation nor affirmation.
+
+Now Professor Huxley would have readily admitted that the truth of a
+proposition may be denied whenever its terms involve a contradiction.
+And the ground of this is the sheer impossibility of bringing the terms
+together in thought. That a circle may be square, or that parallel lines
+may enclose a space, are propositions the truth of which may be denied
+offhand. The ground of this is that the conception of squareness and
+circularity, of straight lines and an enclosed space are mutually
+destructive, they cancel each other. And so far as Atheism may be said
+to involve the denial of particular gods that denial is based upon
+precisely similar grounds. When defined it is seen that the attributes
+of this defined god cancel each other as effectually as squareness rules
+out the idea of a circle; either this or they are simply unthinkable.
+You cannot have an infinite personality any more than you can have a
+six-sided octagon, nor can you posit an infinite personality without
+divesting the terms of all meaning.
+
+It may also be noted in passing that both the theist and the Agnostic
+actually do deny the existence of particular gods without the least
+hesitation. No rational Agnostic would hesitate to deny the existence of
+Jupiter, Javeh, Allah, or Brahma. No Christian would hesitate to deny
+the existence of the gods of a tribe of savages. Even believers in the
+current theology have evolved beyond the stage of the primitive
+Christians, who accepted the existence of the Pagan deities with the
+proviso that they were demons. And it is a mere verbal quibble to say
+that these people merely deny each other's conception of deity. Each
+man's conception of god _is_ his god, and to say that no being answering
+to that conception exists is to say that his god does not exist, and in
+relation to the god denied the denier is in exactly the position in
+which he places the Atheist.
+
+So far then the Atheism of each is just a question of degree or of
+relation. So far as Atheism involves the denial of deity the follower of
+one religion is an Atheist in relation to the followers of every other
+religion. Each religion--among civilised people--is atheistic from the
+standpoint of the followers of other gods. The affirmation of one god
+involves the denial of other gods. This would really seem to be the
+historical significance of the term. The early Christians were called
+atheists by the Pagans, and some of them accepted it without demur. At a
+later date Spinoza, Voltaire, Paine, and others were called atheists,
+and the epithet has lost its force to-day only because the evolution of
+thought has broken down many religious barriers, and is rapidly dividing
+people into two groups--those who believe in some god and who believe
+in none at all. Now all that Atheism--conscious and reflective
+Atheism--does is to carry a step further the restricted denial of the
+ordinary religionist. The Christian theist denies every god but his own.
+The Atheist, seeing no more evidence for the existence of the Christian
+deity than for the existence of any of the deities discarded by the
+Christian, seeing, further, that there are exactly the same
+contradictions involved in assuming the existence of any one of the
+world's deities, places the Christian deity on the list as among those
+gods in whose existence he does not believe, and whose existence, so far
+as it is defined, may be logically denied.
+
+The really distinguishing feature of philosophic Atheism is its
+comprehensiveness, the ranking of all known deities, big and little,
+ancient and modern, savage and civilised, gross and subtle, upon the
+same level. Historically, we see them all originating in the same
+conditions, passing through substantially the same phases of
+development, finally to meet with the same fate as civilisation
+developes. In this respect Atheism has to be considered in its historic
+developments. It begins, as we have seen in the rejection of a
+particular god, in favour of some other deity. It is only at a very much
+later stage that the whole idea of god is subjected to examination and
+analysis in such a way as to lead to the rejection of the conception of
+god as a whole. But with that aspect of the subject we shall be
+concerned later.
+
+But does Atheism deny the existence of any possible god? This question
+might admit of a simple answer if one only knew precisely what it meant.
+It is easy enough to understand what is meant by God so long as we keep
+to any or all of the gods of the world's religions. But what is meant by
+god standing alone and undefined? Historically "God" means a deity
+believed in by some people, some where, at some time. And if we put on
+one side these particular gods we have nothing left that can be either
+affirmed or denied. God in the abstract is not a real existence any more
+than tree in the abstract is a real existence. There is a pine tree, a
+pear tree, an apple tree, etc., but there is and can be no "tree" apart
+from some particular tree. So with "god." There are particular gods, but
+if we do away with these, we have no god left as a separate existence.
+"God" then becomes a mere word conveying no meaning whatever. Atheism
+does not deny the existence of _a_ god for the same reason that it does
+not deny the existence of Abracadabra--both terms mean as much, or as
+little. And it is more than absurd for people who have rejected theism
+to continue using the word "god" as though it had a quite definite
+meaning apart from the gods of the various theologies. We have Professor
+Huxley admitting that "there is no evidence of the existence of the god
+of the theologians," and we imagine that he would have met the
+affirmation of their existence with a flat contradiction. At any rate he
+would have been quite justified in doing so. But when he asserts, with a
+show of logical precision, but in reality with great looseness, that "it
+is preposterous to assert that there is no god because he cannot be such
+as we think him to be," he is using language for which no precise
+meaning can be found. To be intelligible, the sentence implies that we
+have some conception answering to the terms used, and this, as we have
+pointed out with almost wearisome insistence, is not the case. It is not
+a case of saying to the theist, "I fully understand your hypothesis, but
+as at present I do not see enough evidence to convince me of its truth
+or to demonstrate its error I must suspend judgment." We do _not_
+understand it. And when we seek to we discover that the terms of the
+proposition we are asked to accept refuse to be brought together within
+the compass of a single conception. Suspended judgment where the subject
+under discussion is understandable is right and proper, but it is quite
+out of place, and indeed cannot exist, where the proposition before us
+is void of meaning. In such circumstances suspended judgment is absurd,
+and it may be added that the affirmation or negation of such a
+proposition is absurd likewise.
+
+Only one other word need be said on this point. It may be urged that
+educated believers mean by "God" not the anthropomorphic deity of the
+theologies, but a personal intelligence controlling things. But this is
+really not less anthropomorphic than the form in which the god idea
+meets us in the popular theologies. Its anthropomorphism is only, to
+unobservant minds, less apparent. The conception of an intelligent,
+personal being controlling nature is not fundamentally less
+objectionable than the frankly man-like being of the early theologies.
+Intelligence, as we know it (and to talk of an intelligence that is
+unlike the intelligence we know is absurd) is as much a characteristic
+of human, or animal, organisation, as arms and legs are. Mind, after
+all, is only known to us as a function of an organism. That it is more
+than this, or other than this, is a pure assumption. And to divest "God"
+of all physical parts, while retaining his functions, is sheer nonsense.
+There is the personal intelligence of Smith, or Brown, or Robinson, but
+it is absurd to wipe out all the particular Smiths, and Browns, and
+Robinsons, and then talk as though their qualities continue in
+existence. So with God. If we reject all the gods of the theologies one
+after another, what god have we left to talk about? All we have left is
+the memory of a delusion.
+
+It is equally fallacious to talk of "God" as an equivalent of force in
+the abstract, or as the equivalent of some non-intelligent force. This
+is not what people ever meant, or mean, by god. What religious folk
+believe in, what they pray to, is a person who can hear them, and who
+can do things. A god only dimly apprehended may be tolerated, but for
+how long will faith continue to worship an existence that can neither do
+nor hear nor sympathise? There is a limit to even religious folly. And
+even a savage only worships "sticks and stones" _after_ he endows them
+with life and intelligence.
+
+Finally, if there is one thing clear to the modern mind it is that
+science has no room in its theory of things for an over-ruling
+intelligence. Sir Oliver Lodge well sums up the attitude of science in
+the following sentences:--"Orthodox science shows us a self-contained
+and self-sufficient universe, not in touch with anything above or beyond
+itself--the general trend and outline of it known--nothing supernatural
+or miraculous, no intervention of beings other than ourselves, being
+conceived possible." (_Man and the Universe_, p. 14, Popular ed.)
+Personally, we question whether there are any scientists of repute who
+really believe in the existence of a personal intelligence above or
+beyond nature. Some may make professions to the contrary, but it will
+usually be found that the qualifications introduced rob their
+professions of all value. Certainly their teaching is destitute of any
+such conception. Modern scientific thought leaves no room for the
+operations of deity. The miraculous is generally discarded. Response to
+prayer is whittled down to a species of self-delusion, to be valued on
+account of its subjective influence only. The scientific theory of
+things, incomplete as it may be in many of its details, leaves no room
+for the operations of a god. Not alone does it leave no room for a god,
+but if the scientific conception of the world is to stand, then it would
+be necessary to repeat Bakunine's _mot_, and to say, "If there were a
+god it would be necessary to destroy him." You simply cannot have at one
+and the same time a universe in which all that occurs is the consequence
+of calculable and indestructible forces, the operations of which can be
+foreseen and relied upon, and a universe controlled by a
+self-determining deity, capable of modifying the action of these same
+forces. You may have one or the other, but it is sheer lunacy to imagine
+that you can have both. Either uniformity with invariable causation, or
+a world in which every scientific calculation must be prefaced with the
+"D.V." of a prayer meeting. And the Atheist, who accepts the principles
+of modern science, says, not merely that he is without a belief in god,
+but that he fails to see any necessity for his existence, or anything
+for him to do if he did exist. He passes the gods of the world in review
+and categorically dismisses each one as a myth. In doing this he has the
+concurrence of all theists in discarding every god save one--his own.
+The Atheist simply applies the same rule to each, and metes out the same
+judgment to all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE.
+
+
+We have already referred to the use made by religionists of Spencer's
+"Unknowable." This theory was not without its forerunners, and in
+England was already in the field in the teachings of Hamilton and
+Mansel. Spencer gave it a still greater vogue. As he presented it, it
+came before the world with all the prestige attaching to its association
+with one of the most comprehensive of modern thinkers, and one of the
+most influential in the schools of evolutionary philosophy. It was also
+connected with a world theory that claimed to be strictly scientific in
+its character. It became not only a fashion in certain circles, it
+founded a school, and gained numerous followers in the religious world.
+Its author propounded it as a basis on which to reconcile religion and
+science, and many were ready to accept it as such. Printed in all the
+glory of capital letters, appearing sometimes as "The Ultimate Reality,"
+sometimes as the "Unconditioned," sometimes as an "Infinite and Eternal
+Energy," it was equally impressive under all its forms. It provided just
+that solemn kind of formula that the religious mind is accustomed to
+hear, and if it was as meaningless as the Athanasian Creed, is was, for
+that reason, quite as satisfying. It gave all the comfort of a religious
+confession of faith, and it has been the parent of a whole host of more
+recent apologies for God.
+
+In itself the "Unknowable" was harmless enough. Its philosophic value
+is not great, its scientific utility is nil. To say that everything
+proceeds from an "Ultimate Reality" is not very helpful, and to follow
+on with the declaration that we know nothing about it, and that it would
+be of no use to us if we did, does not sound very encouraging. It
+reminds one of the description of the horse that had only two
+faults--one that it was hard to catch, and the other that it was no good
+when it was caught. We repeat with all solemnity the formula that all
+things proceed from an infinite and eternal energy, and that this is the
+Ultimate Reality, and then find that in relation to any and every
+question we are precisely where we were. Its acceptance in certain
+religious circles, and its use later, may be taken as evidence of the
+fact that what the pious mind longs for is not sense but satisfaction.
+
+Still there remains cause for wonder that this "Unknowable" should ever
+have been taken as affording foundation for the belief in deity. The
+most extreme materialist or Atheist need not be in the slightest degree
+disconcerted on being told things proceed from an "Infinite and Eternal
+Energy." It is only what the Atheist has said, minus the capital
+letters. He has affirmed his conviction, that all phenomena result from
+the permutations of matter and force, which are eternal because no time
+limit can be placed to their operations. And you do not add anything
+material to the statement by printing it in capital letters. That the
+Spencerian abstraction should have been taken as a substitute for deity
+proves how desperate the situation is. Drowning men clutch at straws,
+and a disintegrating deity hopes to renew his strength by the lavish
+use of capital letters.
+
+For, after all, what the theist needs is, not an eternal energy, but a
+personality. An inscrutable existence will not do. There is no dispute
+that something exists. There is no quarrel over mere existence. It is
+with the nature of what exists and the mode of its operation that the
+issue arises. The theist needs a special kind of energy, a special form
+of existence, a special kind of "reality" if his case is to be
+established. It will not do for Mr. Spencer to assure him that this
+"Ultimate Reality" is higher than personal. How Mr. Spencer knows that
+something, the nature of which is unknown, is higher than something
+else, is more than one can tell. But that does not matter. Higher or
+lower, it is all the same. Either way it is different from personal, and
+if it is different it is not the same, it is not personal. Whatever
+other qualities this "Ultimate Reality" has or lacks, it must have that
+one if it is to be of use to the theist. And to say that it is higher
+than personal is to say that it is not personal at all, and to repeat in
+a roundabout manner what the Atheist has been saying all the time.
+
+What now is Spencer's theory of an ultimate reality that must for ever
+remain unknowable? Following a line of thought that had been steadily
+gaining ground since Hume--although much older than Hume--Spencer holds
+that in final analysis all our knowledge is a knowledge of mental states
+and their relations. Beyond this we _know_ nothing, and can never know
+anything. Nevertheless, while we cannot know anything beyond
+consciousness, the conditions of thinking oblige us to assume that
+something exists as the cause of our states of mind. Just as black
+implies something that is not black, hard something that is not hard, so
+we must conceive, as against the conditioned, relative existence of our
+conscious states, an unconditioned, absolute existence as their cause.
+It is this assumed, but completely unknown cause of our conscious
+states, and of all else, that Spencer distinguishes as the Unknowable,
+the Unconditioned, the Absolute, etc., and which appears to have brought
+so much consolation to hard-pressed theists.
+
+I have no intention of discussing here the philosophic value of the
+"Unknowable." But one may say, in passing, that even from that point of
+view Spencer is untrue to his own Agnosticism in speaking of the
+Unconditioned as the _cause_ of phenomena. For causation is a category
+of the conditioned, it belongs to the world we know. It is not something
+that exists beyond consciousness, it is something that is supplied by
+consciousness and which possesses validity only within the world of
+phenomena. On Spencer's own theory of relativity a cause only exists in
+relation to an effect. Destroy the one and you destroy the other. Thus,
+if the Unknowable is a cause of phenomena it ceases to be the
+unconditioned and becomes part of the phenomenal order. If, on the other
+hand, it is not part of the phenomenal sequence, it cannot stand to
+phenomena in a genuine casual relation. It is, however, only fair to
+point out that between the Unknowable and the evolutionary philosophy of
+Spencer the only connection between them is that they are both in the
+same work. In all probability it is an unconscious survival of
+Spencer's earlier theism, which was active at the time the Synthetic
+Philosophy was originally planned, but which became more and more
+attenuated as Spencer grew older, and disappears entirely from the more
+important volumes of the series. And but for the help it has been
+supposed to give the belief in god, the "Unknowable" would only have
+ranked as a harmless speculation of no value to anyone or to anything.
+This is substantially admitted in a postscript to the 1899 edition of
+"First Principles." At the conclusion of the section entitled "The
+Unknowable," he says:--
+
+
+     The reader is not called on to judge respecting any of the
+     arguments or conclusions contained in the foregoing five chapters
+     and in the above paragraphs. The subjects on which we are about to
+     enter are independent of the subjects thus far discussed; and he
+     may reject any or all of that which has gone before while leaving
+     himself free to accept any or all of that which is now to come.
+
+
+In other words, the "Unknowable" is a pure abstraction, having no
+organic connection with the Synthetic Philosophy, or indeed with any
+philosophy of value. Mr. Spencer's warning to his readers seems to quite
+justify Mr. Bradley's rather caustic comment, "I do not wish to be
+irreverent, but Mr. Spencer's attitude towards his Unknowable strikes me
+as a pleasantry, the point of which lies in its unconsciousness. It
+seems a proposal to take something for God simply and solely because we
+do not know what the devil it can be." (Note to p. 128 of _Appearance
+and Reality_.)
+
+The curious thing is that Mr. Spencer really offers his readers two
+theories of the nature of religion. One is contained in his "Principles
+of Sociology," and so far as it traces all religious ideas to the
+delusions and illusions of the primitive savage is substantially that
+held by all modern anthropologists. The other is contained in his "First
+Principles," and the two theories, like parallel lines, never meet.
+Though born in the same brain they are quite distinct, and even
+contradictory.
+
+The substance of this second theory may be summarised as follows:--
+
+1. The conditions of human thought compel the recognition of an
+unknowable reality of which all phenomena are the expression.
+
+2. The function of religion, from the earliest time, has been the
+assertion of the existence of an unknowable reality, and to keep alive a
+consciousness of the insoluble mystery surrounding it.
+
+3. The function of science is to deal with the known and the knowable,
+with all that is presented in experience, with the world of phenomena
+exclusively.
+
+4. Religion having for its subject matter the unknown and unknowable,
+while science has for its subject matter the known and the knowable,
+religion and science are not antagonistic, but complementary. Conflicts
+only arise when one trespasses on the other's department, and a
+recognition of the true line of demarcation effectually reconciles these
+hitherto hostile forces.
+
+A very obvious criticism of number one is in affirming a consciousness
+of an "Unknowable," its quality of unknowableness is annihilated.
+Existence can only be predicated of that which affects consciousness in
+some manner; and so far as I have the slightest apprehension or
+consciousness of anything existing, to that extent it ceases to be the
+unknowable. Our knowledge of it may be imperfect or altogether
+erroneous; we may feel it impossible that we should ever rightly
+understand it; but so far as we think about it we are bound to
+assimilate it to the best of our knowledge, even though it be only under
+the category of force. In brief, "unknowableness" is not a property or
+quality by which a thing may be apprehended; it is a name for complete
+mental vacuity. It does not refer to the thing itself, it refers only to
+us. It is a pure negation which Spencer, by sheer verbal play converts
+into a quasi-positive conception. A consciousness of things unknown can
+never be more than a consciousness of ignorance. There is only one way
+to prove the existence of an unknowable, and that is to know nothing
+about it--not even to know that there is something about which we know
+nothing.
+
+But, says Spencer, "to say that we cannot know the absolute is, by
+implication, to affirm that there is an absolute." Certainly, if we take
+an infirmity of language to be the equivalent of a necessity of
+existence, not otherwise. When I say that we cannot know a four-sided
+triangle I do not affirm by implication that a four-sided triangle
+exists. I am asserting that the phrase, a four-sided triangle, involves
+conceptions that cannot be brought together in consciousness, and so
+dismiss it as being without meaning.
+
+The truth is that every one of Spencer's attempts to prove the existence
+of an unknowable turns out on examination to be no more than a proof of
+the existence of an unknown, and this is not disputed at any time or by
+anyone. Thus, after being told that a known cannot be thought of apart
+from an unknown, we are informed:--
+
+
+     Positive knowledge does not, and never can, fill the whole region
+     of possible thought. At the utmost reach of discovery there arises,
+     and must ever arise, the question, What lies beyond? As it is
+     impossible to think of a limit to space so as to exclude the idea
+     of space lying outside that limit, so we cannot conceive of any
+     explanation profound enough to exclude the question, What is the
+     explanation of the explanation?
+
+
+With this we can all agree, but it does not bring us any nearer an
+"unknowable." It is perfectly true that thought can never be
+comprehensive enough to exhaust the possibilities of existence, since it
+is of the essence of thinking to limit and define. But it is a sheer
+impossibility to think of what lies beyond the boundary of our knowledge
+as unknowable, so far as we think of it at all, we must conceive it as
+the unknown but possibly knowable. The unknown can only be thought of
+thus because it is only as it is, by assumption, brought into line with
+what is already known that it can be thought about at all. We are
+compelled to think of what lies beyond the limits of our actual
+knowledge in the same way as a traveller thinks of the fauna and flora
+of an untravelled country. The new region may present many new features,
+but until actual observation has taken place, these new features will
+only be thought of as more or less unusual combinations of known animal
+and vegetable life. They are substantially identical with what is
+already known.
+
+No stranger notion ever occurred to a great thinker than that religion
+and science represent parallel and distinct lines of development, each
+having its own sphere of operation. It is all the more remarkable when
+we remember that with Spencer "religion" means all religion, past and
+present, civilised and savage. And no one is more precise in pointing
+out how all religious ideas find their beginnings in the conditions of
+primitive life. And that being the case, one wonders whether we are to
+picture primitive man as a profound metaphysical philosopher,
+speculating on that which lies behind phenomena, contemplating an
+"insoluble Mystery," and paying homage to an "Ultimate Reality"? Nothing
+could be more absurd. Thinking begins in concrete images, not in
+abstractions. We have only to note the development of intelligence in
+children to realise this. And primitive man, not being a mystic nor a
+metaphysician, bases his religion, not upon a reality that transcends
+experience, but upon a presumed fact, and what is to him the best known
+of all facts. And even with modern men it may safely be said that they
+worship God for what they believe they know about him, not because they
+believe him to be unknown and unknowable.
+
+Spencer himself may be cited in support of this. In his "Principles of
+Sociology," where the Unknowable plays no part whatever, he concludes
+after an elaborate survey of the facts, that the imagination of
+primitive man is reminiscent, not constructive; his power of thought is
+feeble, he is without the quick curiosity of civilised man, there is an
+absence of the conception of causation, he accepts things as they
+appear, without any vivid desire to inquire into their real nature or
+their connection with other events, and is without abstract ideas.
+Clearly, here is not a very promising subject from which to derive even
+the germ of the idea of a "Reality transcending experience." Spencer
+also, and quite properly, insists that religious ideas are, under the
+condition of their origin, national ideas; that we must accept the truth
+that the laws of thought are everywhere the same, and that, given the
+data as known to primitive man, the inference drawn by him is a
+reasonable inference.
+
+With this we agree, but it gives the death blow to the previous
+statement as to the essential nature of religion, and its essential
+differentiation from science. For given the constitution of the
+primitive mind, its ignorance of causation and general lack of
+knowledge, religion commences not in some search after an eternal
+reality, but in a natural misunderstanding of observed facts. Primitive
+religion is just a reasoned misunderstanding of phenomena that in later,
+and better informed ages, are given an altogether different explanation.
+
+That this is so, Spencer himself makes plain. For he shows, step by
+step, how the experience of dreams, echoes, shadows, etc., combine to
+produce the belief in unseen agencies differing in no essential from man
+save that of possessing greater power and in being invisible. From
+dreams and other subjective experiences he derives the idea of a double,
+from death that of a ghost. Hence the ceremonies round the grave, and
+the attention paid to the double of the dead man, which subsequently
+developes into ancestor worship. The same train of thought gives a
+double to objects other than human beings. Hence Animism, Totemism, and
+their numerous subsidiary developments. Spencer insists, not only that
+"all religions have a natural genesis," but also that "behind
+supernatural beings of all orders" there has been in every case a human
+personality--in other words, every god is developed from a ghost,
+"ancestor worship is the root of every religion." To this he will admit
+no exception, and referring to the Jewish religion, he asks
+contemptuously:--
+
+
+     Must we recognise a single exception to the general truth thus far
+     verified everywhere? While among all races in all regions, from the
+     earliest times down to the present, the conceptions of deities have
+     been naturally evolved in the way shown, must we conclude that a
+     small clan of the Semitic race had given to it supernaturally a
+     conception which, though superficially like the rest, was in
+     substance absolutely unlike them.
+
+
+And in about half a dozen pages he shows conclusively that the Biblical
+God had exactly a similar origin to other gods.
+
+Now if this account of religious origins means anything at all (and in
+spite of differences between anthropologists it is in substance the
+account of the origin of religion given by all) it means that instead of
+religion and science moving along parallel lines, religion is simply
+primitive science. Religion and science, as a very able theistic writer
+says, "touch and oppose each other as rival methods of explaining, not
+solely or mainly the life and nature of man, but the universe taken as a
+whole, man forming a part of it." (W. H. Mallock, _Religion as a
+Credible Doctrine_, p. ii.) Both are concerned with the same facts, and
+their respective claims to consideration depend entirely on their
+ability to explain the facts. For the reasons given by Spencer, man's
+earliest interpretation of things is inevitably vitalistic. Ghosts--the
+primitive protoplasm from which the gods are made--are assumed, and once
+assumed dominate the savage intelligence. Fear combines with ignorance
+to resist any conception that will wrest power from the hands of these
+extra-natural agents, "Nature's haughty lords," rule all, and their
+dynasty is the hardest of all to overthrow.
+
+In spite, however, of all opposition the mechanical theory of things
+develops, and in developing establishes a clear division between the two
+conceptions of nature. But the line of demarcation is not that stated by
+Spencer. Religion no more asserts the existence of an "Unknown Verity,"
+than it asserts a fourth dimension of space. Nor is science concerned
+with denying the existence of something of which we know nothing, and
+can never know anything. The essential feature of religion is that it
+offers a vitalistic explanation of the world as against the mechanical
+explanation offered by science. And in this religion stands for the
+earlier as against the later expression of human knowledge. It is the
+eternal champion of savage thought against civilised intelligence. Its
+whole significance lies in the persistence of animistic modes of
+thinking under civilised conditions.
+
+This conclusion, be it observed, is one that is quite borne out by
+Spencer's own explanation of the nature of religion. Nor do we know of a
+more remarkable instance of a front rank thinker propounding in one
+part of his work a theory bearing no relation whatever to the remaining
+portion, and in addition disproving his own theory at every point.
+
+Spencer's reconciliation of science and religion, which in one form or
+another is continually in evidence, is only one degree less remarkable
+than the fact of its being accepted by so many religionists as
+satisfactory. Following the line of his untenable theory that religion
+and science pursue parallel lines, he points out that "the agent which
+has effected the purification (of religion) has been science." That is,
+the growth of the mechanical theory has driven back the vitalistic one.
+This is purification only in the sense that a defaulting cashier
+purifies the firm he robs. "As fact or experience proves that certain
+familiar changes always happen in the same sequence, there begins to
+fade from the mind the conception of a special personality to whose
+variable will they were before ascribed." This process of annexation is,
+says Spencer, science teaching religion its true function. As a matter
+of fact, science has given religion no instruction, it has merely issued
+prohibitions. It has warned religion that there are certain things it
+must not meddle with, certain departments on which it must not encroach.
+In this way religion has been forced farther and farther back, until it
+is left with what? Not with anything that can be known, or is known; it
+is left supreme in the kingdom of nowhere, ruling over an empire of
+nothing at all. And so long as religion strives for a more tangible
+possession so long must there be a conflict between science and
+religion. But--"as the limits of possible cognition are established, the
+causes of possible conflict will diminish. And a permanent peace will be
+reached when science becomes fully convinced that its explanations are
+proximate and relative; while religion becomes fully convinced that the
+mystery it contemplates is ultimate and absolute." So, when science has
+monopolised the entire field of human knowledge, actual and possible,
+and when religion is satisfied that it knows nothing, and never can know
+anything of the object of its worship, that it can offer nothing in the
+shape of counsel or advice, but that its function is to sit in owl-like
+solemnity, contemplating nothing, meanwhile offering man an eternal
+conundrum that he must everlastingly give up, then, and not till then,
+there will be peace between science and religion. And this is called a
+reconciliation. Mr. Spencer finds two combatants engaged in deadly
+conflict, he murders one and offers the other the corpse, with the hope
+that now they will live peacefully together. The scientist is asked to
+be content with all there is. The religious man is asked to find comfort
+in the reflection that science must eventually monopolise the entire
+field of knowledge, but that, in return, religion will be left free to
+work in an unknowable region, to occupy itself with an unknowable
+object, and to eternally cry "all is mystery" in an amended philosophic
+version of the Athanasian Creed.
+
+As a piece of humour this is superb. So also is the following: "Science
+has been obliged to abandon the attempt to include within the boundaries
+of knowledge that which cannot be known, and so has yielded up to
+religion that which of right belonged to it." Capital! Science gives up
+to religion that which cannot be known, and as it does not know what it
+is, that cannot be known, it surrenders to religion absolute vacuity as
+the proper sphere for its operations. And even this is accompanied with
+the proviso that if it happens to have made a mistake, the ceded
+territory will be at once reclaimed. Science would certainly be
+vindictive if after having murdered religion it declined to live
+peaceably with its corpse.
+
+The distinction between science and religion is, in truth, neither
+fundamental nor original. It is one that arises gradually in the history
+of mental development. And, therefore, when a man such as Professor
+Arthur Thomson describes religion as being concerned with the
+recognition of the existence of an independent "spiritual reality," the
+reply is that religion commences as just an explanation of nature in
+terms of the then existing knowledge and culture. Religion is just a
+crude form of science. The separation of the world into a religious and
+a scientific sphere arises when the religious interpretation of natural
+happenings gets discredited by advancing knowledge. If one takes such an
+illustration as that of witchcraft the nature of the process is clear.
+First we have the interpretation of certain forms of dementia and
+delusion in terms of religion. Later we have the same facts interpreted
+in terms of positive knowledge and the religious explanation is
+rejected. And that, in a sentence is the whole history of religion, once
+we have cleared away the verbiage with which the subject is surrounded.
+
+The truth of what has just been said is often obscured by
+unintelligible talk of growth in religion. It is claimed that we acquire
+truer views of deity, and a process of growth is asserted analogous to
+that which meets us in knowledge in general. Let us see what truth there
+is in this.
+
+In ordinary instances when we speak of growth we imply one of three
+things. Either there is increase in size, or there is an enlargement of
+function, or there is an increase in knowledge. So long as we keep to
+these plain meanings of "growth" there can be no confusion. But none of
+these meanings fit the case of religion. Certainly there has been no
+increase in the size of religion--it does not, that is, cover a larger
+area. On the contrary it is continually being warned off more and more
+territory. It becomes more and more a negligible quantity. One need not
+go back to primitive times to prove this, any country will supply
+instances. The displacement of religious by other considerations is
+observable on all sides.
+
+There has certainly been no growth in the functions exercised by
+religion. Its function as law-giver in the physical world is now
+definitely abandoned, and all it asks is that science will let it alone.
+In ethics and sociology it still maintains a precarious kind of an
+existence, but it no longer claims supreme power. It is content to urge
+its utility as a source of inspiration, to rank as one among a number of
+other forces that are frankly secular in nature. Finally there has been
+no growth in the shape of an extension of knowledge of the object of
+religious belief. Of the nature of deity we know no more than did our
+earliest ancestors. In earlier generations the nature of God, his aims
+and intentions, were discussed with the same degree of confidence that
+one now sees displayed in discussing schemes of sanitation. The modern
+believer is now more anxious to impress upon the world how little he
+knows about God, or how little it is possible for him to know. This is
+not surprising except in the fact that it is called religious growth.
+And if this be a sign of growth one wonders what would be considered
+indications of decay. Historically religious life presents us, not with
+a process of growth, but one of shrinkage. To reduce the gods from many
+to few, and from a few to one is not growth. To limit the functions of
+deity from those of a direct, particular, and universal character, to an
+indirect, general form is not growth. To refine the idea of a personal
+deity until it becomes that of a mere abstract force, is not growth. All
+these are so many modifications of the religious idea under pressure of
+advancing knowledge--so many attempts to state religion in such a way
+that it can conflict with nothing we know to be true because it answers
+to nothing of which we are certain.
+
+The idea of God, the idea of religion, does not begin in a mystery or in
+some abstract conception, but in an assumed knowledge of certain
+concrete facts of experience. Man believes in the gods because of what
+he thinks he knows about them, not because of what he does not know. The
+talk of a mystery is the jargon of a priesthood which finds it
+profitable to keep the lay mind at a distance. Increased emphasis is
+placed on mystery because religious teachers are alive to the danger of
+basing their beliefs upon matters that can be brought to the test of
+experience. Mystery mongering is not the beginning of religion, but a
+sign of its approaching demise. Mysticism, too, is no more than a cover
+for a sanctuary that has been emptied of all worthy of respect. But if
+religion is to really live, it must have some knowledge, no matter how
+little or how imperfect, of the subject with which it professes to deal.
+A religion that does not possess this, but is compelled to hand over the
+whole of life to secular science, signs its own death warrant. It
+commits suicide to save itself from execution. And as people realise
+this they turn to clear-eyed science for guidance, leaving religion to
+such representatives of primitive animism as still survive in a
+civilised community.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+AGNOSTICISM.
+
+
+The primary difficulty in dealing with Agnosticism is its elusive
+character. It is a word of various and vague meanings, and many of those
+who use it seem to have no great anxiety to fix its meaning with any
+degree of precision. It is used now in a philosophic and now in a
+religious sense, and its use in the one connection is justified by its
+use in another. It has become, in the half century of its existence, as
+indefinite as "religion," and about as enlightening. On the one side it
+appears as a counsel of mental integrity with which everyone will agree,
+and on the other, the religious side, it will vary from a form that is
+identical, with that much-dreaded "Atheism," to a religious or
+"reverent" Agnosticism that reminds one--mentally and morally--of
+Methodism minus its creed. Indeed, to say that a man is an Agnostic
+nowadays tells one no more than calling a man religious indicates to
+which one of the world's sects he gives his adherence.
+
+The only aspect of Agnosticism that we are here vitally concerned with
+is its relation to religion, or specifically with the god-idea. But it
+will be necessary to say a word, in passing, on at least one other
+phase.
+
+And first as to the origin of the term. The credit for the first use of
+the term has always been given to the late Professor Huxley. Mr. R. H.
+Hutton says that Huxley first suggested the word at a meeting of friends
+in the house of Mr. James Knowles in 1869. Professor Huxley says that he
+deliberately adopted it because, "When I reached intellectual maturity
+and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a
+pantheist; a materialist, or an idealist, a Christian, or a freethinker,
+I found that the more I learned and reflected the less ready was the
+answer, until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art
+nor part with any of these denominations except the last.... So I took
+thought and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of
+'agnostic.'" And he goes on to explain that the term was used as
+antithetical to the "gnostic" of Church history who knew all about
+things of which Huxley felt himself in ignorance. To all of which one
+may say that Huxley appears to have given himself a lot of needless
+trouble. In philosophy there was the term "Sceptic," and in relation to
+religion the term "Atheist" was ready to hand. The latter term certainly
+covered all that Huxley meant by Agnosticism as applied to the god-idea.
+The plain, and perhaps brutal truth, is that Huxley was just
+illustrating the fatal tendency of English public men to seek for a
+label that will mark them off from an unfashionable heresy even more
+clearly than it separates them from a crumbling orthodoxy. It is
+certainly suggestive to find, in this connection, a French writer of
+distinction, M. Emile Boutmy, pointing out that in France, Spencer,
+Mill, and Huxley would all have been professed atheists. (_The English
+People_, p. 44.) But France is France, and has always possessed the
+courage to follow ideas to their logical conclusion.
+
+When it comes to a definition of Agnosticism Professor Huxley's position
+becomes still more difficult of understanding. Agnosticism, he says, is
+a method the essence of which may be expressed in a single principle.
+"Positively the principle may be expressed; in matters of the intellect
+follow your reason so far as it will take you without regard to any
+other consideration. And negatively; in matters of the intellect, do not
+pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or
+demonstrable." So far as this goes we have here perfectly sound advice.
+But why call it Agnosticism? It is no more than the perfectly sound
+advice that we must be honest in our investigations, and make no claim
+to certainty where the conditions of certainty do not exist. But we have
+no more right to call this Agnosticism than we have to give the
+multiplication table a sectarian or party label.
+
+Nor do we believe for a moment that what Huxley had in view, or what
+other agnostics have in view, is no more than a counsel of intellectual
+perfection. What is really at issue here is one's attitude of mind in
+relation to the belief in God. It is in pretending to know about God
+that the theist finds himself at issue with the Agnostic, and it is to
+mark himself off from the theist that the Agnostic gives himself a
+special label. And the trouble of the Agnostic is that so soon as he
+begins to justify his position, either he states the atheistic case or
+he fails altogether to make his case good.
+
+There is, perhaps, one other topic on which agnosticism may be
+professed, and that is in connection with the question of what is known
+as the problem of existence. We may profess our belief in the reality of
+an external world, but deny that any _knowledge_ of it is possible. Here
+we assert that what "substance," or "reality," or "thing in itself," is
+we do not know and cannot know. But while many attempts are made under
+the name of "the Absolute," etc., to identify this with "God," it is
+really nothing of the kind. The belief or disbelief in an external
+"reality" is a problem in philosophy, it has no genuine connection with
+theology. To identify the two is a mere dialectical subterfuge. Mere
+existence is an ultimate fact that must be accepted by all. It is only
+on the question of its nature that controversy can arise.
+
+Whatever may be claimed on behalf of Agnosticism, it certainly cannot be
+claimed that it carries a clear and a definite meaning. As we have seen,
+Professor Huxley used the word to indicate the fact that he was without
+knowledge of certain things. But what things? To answer that we have to
+go beyond the word itself--that is, we have to define the definition. As
+it stands we may profess agnosticism in relation to anything from the
+prospects of a general election within a given period to the question of
+whether Mars is inhabited or not. If, then, it is said that what is
+implied is that the Agnostic is without a knowledge of God, or without a
+belief in God, the reply is that is exactly the position of the Atheist.
+And there was no need whatever to coin a new word, if all that was
+wanted was to express the atheistic position. Still less justifiable was
+it to proceed to misinterpret Atheism in order to justify a departure
+that need never have been made.
+
+One cannot at this point forbear a word on Mr.--afterwards Sir--Leslie
+Stephen's curious justification of his choice of the word Agnosticism.
+After the enlightening remark that the word "Atheist" carries with it an
+unpleasant connotation, he says:--
+
+
+     Dogmatic Atheism--the doctrine that there is no God, whatever may
+     be meant by God--is to say the least of it a rare phase of opinion.
+     The word Agnosticism, on the other hand, seems to imply a fairly
+     accurate appreciation of a form of creed already common and daily
+     spreading. The Agnostic is one who asserts--what no one
+     denies--that there are limits to human intelligence. (_An
+     Agnostic's Apology_; p. 1).
+
+
+And he then goes on to assert that the subject matter of theology lies
+beyond these limits.
+
+Now putting on one side this perversion of the meaning of Atheism, was
+it really worth while to coin a new word to affirm what no one denies?
+Theists do not deny the limitations of knowledge, on the contrary, they
+are always affirming it. Neither do all theists deny that "God" is
+unknowable. That has been affirmed by them over and over again. What
+they have claimed is that "God" is apprehended rather than known, and
+they affirm his existence on much the same grounds that others assert
+the real existence of an external world. Professor Flint's comments on
+Stephen's performance are quite to the point, and the more noteworthy as
+coming from a clergyman. He says:
+
+
+     The word Atheist is a thoroughly honest, unambiguous term. It means
+     one who does not believe in God, and it means neither more nor
+     less. It implies neither blame nor approval, neither desert of
+     punishment nor of reward. If a purely dogmatic Atheism be a rare
+     phase of opinion critical Atheism is a very common one, and there
+     is also a form of Atheism which is professedly sceptical or
+     agnostic, but often in reality dogmatic or gnostic. (_Agnosticism_;
+     p. 69).
+
+
+The more carefully one examines the reasons given for the preference for
+the word Agnosticism, the clearer it becomes that the real motive is not
+the wish to obtain mental clarity, but the desire to avoid association
+with a term that carries, religiously, disagreeable associations. The
+care taken by so many who call themselves Agnostics to explain to the
+religious world that they are not atheists, is almost enough to prove
+this. Indeed, the position is well summed up by Mr. John M. Robertson:--
+
+
+     The best argument for the use of the name Agnostic is simply that
+     the word Atheist has been so long covered with all manner of
+     ignorant calumny that it is expedient to use a new term which
+     though in some respects faulty, has a fair start, and will in time
+     have a recognised meaning. The case, so stated, is reasonable; but
+     there is the _per contra_ that whatever the motive with which the
+     name is used, it is now tacked to half a dozen conflicting forms of
+     doctrine, varying loosely between Theism and Pantheism. The name of
+     Atheist escapes that drawback. Its unpopularity has saved it from
+     half-hearted and half-minded patronage.
+
+
+So that, on the best showing, we are to take "Agnostic" on the professed
+ground that it is more exact than "Atheism," but on the real ground that
+it is less unpopular, waiting meanwhile for the time when it shall have
+become more exact than it is by becoming accepted in the same sense as
+the Atheism that has previously been rejected. Courage and
+straightforwardness saves a lot of trouble.
+
+Mr. Bailey Saunders (_Quest of Faith_, p. 7) calls agnosticism "a plea
+on behalf of suspended judgment," and this is a favourite expression.
+It gives one an air of impartiality, with the comforting reflection that
+it will please the socially stronger side. But suspended judgment on
+what? To hold one's judgment in suspense implies that we have at least a
+workable comprehension of the subject in dispute, and that judgment is
+suspended because the evidence produced is not adequate to command
+decision. But is that the case here? Does the Agnostic claim that the
+evidence produced by the theist is merely inadequate, or that it is
+irrelevant? Surely he holds the latter position. And if that is the
+case, then he does not suspend judgment, for the simple reason that
+there is no case made out concerning which judgment is to be suspended.
+There is simply no case before the court. For the Agnostic, no more than
+the Atheist, can attach no intelligible meaning to "God." He must have
+it defined to understand it, and when it is defined he rejects it
+without ceremony. And it is quite obvious that when an Agnostic says, "I
+know nothing about God," he means more than that; otherwise it would not
+be worth the saying. He really means that no one else knows either. He
+asserts that a knowledge of god is impossible to anyone, because it does
+not present the possibility of being known. "God," standing alone is a
+meaningless word, and how can one suspend judgment concerning the truth
+of an unintelligible proposition?
+
+For here are the plain facts of the situation. If we ask the Agnostic
+whether he suspends judgment concerning the existence of the gods of any
+savage peoples, the reply is in the negative. If we put the same
+question concerning the god of the Bible, or of the Mohammedan, or of
+any other of the world's theologies we receive the same answer. There is
+nothing here to suspend judgment about, the characters and qualities of
+the gods being such that there admits of no doubt as to their imaginary
+character. Or if it is said that the Agnostic, while dismissing the gods
+of the various theologies, savage and civilised, as being impossible,
+suspends judgment as to the existence of a "supreme mind," or of a
+"creative intelligence," the reply is that one cannot suspend judgment
+as to the possible existence of an inconceivability. For "mind" must be
+mind, as we know it. And it is a downright absurdity to speak of the
+possible existence of a "mind" while divesting it of all the qualities
+that characterise mind as we know it. Really between the statement that
+A. does not exist, and the affirmation that A. does exist, but differs
+in every conceivable particular from all known A.'s there is no
+difference whatever. We are denying its existence in the very act of
+affirming it.
+
+Further, we quite agree with Mr. F. C. S. Schiller (_Riddles of the
+Sphinx_, pp. 17-19) that in practice such suspense of judgment is
+impossible. We suspend our judgment as to whether we shall die to-morrow
+or at some indefinite future date, and for that reason we make our
+arrangements in view of either contingency. We suspend judgment as to
+the honesty of an employee, and our attitude towards him is governed by
+that fact. And so with the question of a god. In one way or another we
+are bound to indicate our judgment on the subject. We must act either as
+though we believe in the possibility or in the impossibility of "divine"
+interference. If the mental hesitancy of the respectable Agnostic were
+accompanied by a corresponding timidity in action life would be
+impossible.
+
+A less common plea on behalf of Agnosticism, but one on which a word
+must be said, is that the agnostic attitude is more "reverential" than
+that of atheism. But why in the name of all that is reasonable should
+one profess reverence towards something of which one knows nothing?
+Reverence, to be intelligible, must be directed towards an intelligent
+object, and we must have grounds for believing it to be worthy of
+reverence. Reverence towards our fellow creatures is a reasonable enough
+sentiment, but what is there reasonable in an expression of reverence
+towards something that can only be thought of--and even this is
+unwarranted--as a force? The truth is that this expression of reverence
+is no more than the flickering survival of religion. Numbers have
+reached the stage at which they can perceive the unreasonable nature of
+religious beliefs, but they have not yet managed to achieve liberation
+from the traditional emotional attitude towards these beliefs. In other
+words, the development of the emotional and the intellectual sides of
+their nature have been unequal, and for these the "Unknowable" has
+simply served as a peg on which to hang religious feelings that have
+been robbed of all intellectual support. The semi-religious Agnostic
+thus represents a transition form, interesting enough to all who observe
+how curiously decaying types strive to perpetuate themselves, but which
+is bound to disappear in the process of intellectual evolution.
+
+Finally, one would like from the Agnostic some authoritative
+announcement as to his position in relation to what is known concerning
+the origin of the god-idea. So far as professed theists are concerned
+one expects this to be ignored. On the part of non-theists one expects a
+more logical attitude. In this case it is common ground with the Atheist
+and the Agnostic that the idea of god owes its beginnings to the
+ignorance of primitive man. We know the facts on which this idea was
+based, and we know that all these are now differently explained. The
+belief that there is a god governing nature is just one of those
+blunders made by primitive man, and is on all fours with the numerous
+other blunders he makes concerning himself and the world around him.
+Knowing this, and accepting this, believing that "god" springs from the
+same set of conditions that gave rise to fairies and spirits of various
+kinds, one would like to know on what ground the Agnostic definitely
+rejects the grounds on which the idea of god is based, while professing
+a state of suspended judgment about the existence of the object created
+by this primitive blunder. It is certainly surprising to find those who
+accept the natural origin of the god-idea, when they come to deal with
+current religion talk as though it were merely a question of the
+inconclusiveness of religious arguments. It is nothing of the kind. The
+final reply to the arguments set forth on behalf of Theism is, not that
+they are inconclusive, but that they are absolutely irrelevant to the
+question at issue. We cannot remain undecided because there is nothing
+to remain undecided about. We know that the idea of god is pure myth,
+and was never anything but myth. A belief that began in error, and which
+has no other basis than error, cannot by any possible argument be
+converted into a truth. The old question was, "Can man by searching find
+out God?" The modern answer is an emphatic affirmative. Substantially we
+have by searching found out God. We know the origin and history of one
+of the greatest delusions that ever possessed the human mind. God has
+been found out. Analytically and synthetically we understand the
+god-idea as previous generations could not understand it. It has been
+explained; and the logical consequence of the explanation is--Atheism.
+
+Ultimately, then, we come to this: (1) The Agnosticism that concerns
+itself with a confession of ignorance concerning the nature of
+"existence," has no necessary connection with religion, and is only made
+to have such by a confusion of two distinct things. (2) The plea of a
+suspended judgment is invalid, since there is nothing about which one
+can suspend a decision. (3) The Agnosticism that professes a
+semi-religious feeling of reverence towards the "Unknowable" is
+fundamentally upon all fours with the religious feelings of the ordinary
+believer. Worshipping the Unknowable is more ridiculous than worshipping
+Huxley's "wilderness of apes." The apes _might_ take some intelligent
+interest in the antics of their devotees; but to print our hypostatised
+ignorance in capital letters and then profess a feeling of veneration
+for it is as ridiculous a proceeding as the world has seen. After all,
+an absurdity is never quite so grotesque as when it is tricked out in
+scientific phrases and paraded as the outcome of profound philosophic
+thinking. (4) The only Agnosticism that seems capable of justifying
+itself is an Agnosticism that is indistinguishable from Atheism. To
+again cite Professor Flint, Atheist "means one who does not believe in
+God, and it means neither more nor less." The Agnostic is also one who
+is without belief in a god, every argument he uses to justify his
+position is and has been used as a justification of Atheism. Atheist is
+really "a thoroughly honest, unambiguous term," it admits of no
+paltering and of no evasion, and the need of the world, now as ever, is
+for clear-cut issues and unambiguous speech.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+ATHEISM AND MORALS.
+
+
+Looking at the world as it is one cannot forbear a mild wonder at the
+fears expressed at the probable consequences to morals of a general
+acceptance of Atheism. One would have thought that the world would not
+run a very great danger of becoming worse on that account, and that,
+seeing the way in which all forms of rascality have flourished, and
+still maintain themselves, without in the least disturbing people's
+religious convictions, one might even feel inclined to risk a change in
+the hopes of improvement. Mainly, indeed, one might say that those who
+are affected by religious belief are such as can very well do without
+it, while those who stand in urgent need of moral improvement seldom
+show that their religious belief has any very beneficial effect on their
+conduct.
+
+Yet nothing is more common than to find the theist, when driven off all
+other grounds of defence, protesting against a deliberate propaganda of
+Atheism on the ground of its probable harmful consequences to morals.
+This, not because those who have publicly professed Atheism are open to
+the charge of loose living, but on account of those who at present
+believe in religion, and whose loss of belief would possibly upset their
+moral equilibrium. It is a curious position for a theist to take up,
+since it implies that while the Atheist as we know him shows no
+deterioration of character in consequence of his loss of belief, we
+cannot be so certain of the present believers in deity. They are formed
+of poorer clay, and once convinced that there is no God with whom they
+have to reckon, there is no telling what will happen. So we are urged to
+let well alone, and leave believers with their illusions lest their loss
+should present us with a very unpleasant reality.
+
+This fear is expressed in various ways, but in one way or another it is
+tolerably common. The following which reached me from a well known man
+of letters probably puts the argument as fairly and as temperately as it
+can be put, and therefore in dealing with that I cannot be accused of
+taking the theist at an unfair advantage. His conclusions are summarised
+in the following paragraphs. (The summary is the author's, not mine.)
+
+(1) The decentish code of morals which prevails in this twentieth
+century is the outcome of all the human ages. From the very first,
+everywhere and all the time, it has, and continues to be, inextricably
+intertwined and influenced by Theistic beliefs, even when and where such
+beliefs have been the crudest and most debased form of polytheism.
+
+(2) The ethical atmosphere in which we now live, after having had such
+an origin and history, remains strongly and frankly pervaded by religion
+of a Theistic type. Atheist, Agnostic, and Theist alike have to live in
+this atmosphere, and consciously or unconsciously, are subject to its
+influence.
+
+(3) Even if we could set up a wholly secular code of morals, derived
+entirely from the exigencies of, tribal, communal, and national life, I
+take it that such a code would be inadequate to form the type of
+individual character we most admire, and which acts under a sense of
+"ought" rather than of "must." The latter is often the mere demand of
+gregarious or individual comfort and convenience; the former may be
+quite opposed to the inclinations of the individual, and yet bring into
+play irksome but ennobling springs of action which a purely secular code
+cannot touch.
+
+Now these statements put the case for the theist as moderately and as
+well as it can be put, and I think that they are worthy of a little
+careful examination. It may be observed that there is no insinuation
+that Atheists are actually worse than other people, only the fear that
+in the absence of some form of theism the higher ethical motive cannot
+be roused, and that therefore character will suffer. Well, we are none
+of us free from the contagion of our environment, and the most powerful
+influences are often enough those that it would be difficult to specify
+in any given instance. It is not only that the influence of the higher
+members of society affect the lower. The lower is not without its
+influence on the higher. But the question here is not really whether we
+are all exposed to the general influence of the group to which we
+belong, that, I think, is undeniable, the real question at issue is
+whether the determining influence on conduct is theistic or not. And I
+think it will be found that while the one thing is asserted it is the
+other that is proven.
+
+So far as the first proposition is concerned it may be taken for granted
+that our present state is the product of all past evolution, and that in
+the course of that evolution theistic beliefs have been closely--not
+inextricably--connected with morals. But this is not alone true of
+morality, it is true of every branch of human thought and of every
+aspect of human life. Art, science, literature, have all been closely
+connected with religious beliefs. Necessarily so. Early human history is
+spent under the shadow of superstition, and its dominating influence
+affects the form of every aspect of life. But as the course of
+development has been to separate the essential from the non-essential
+and to place most of each department of life on a self-supporting basis,
+it would not seem an unreasonable conclusion that ethics will follow the
+same lines. In fact, it is following the same lines. There are few
+educated people nowadays who would claim that morality cannot exist
+apart from religion, they are content to say, as my correspondent does,
+that in the absence of religion belief the higher aspects of morality
+will suffer.
+
+Our morality, we are told, is the outcome of all the human ages. I go
+further than that and assert that it is the outcome of all the human and
+of all the animal ages. There is no break in nature, and to the
+evolutionist the development of the human from the animal is plain. And
+it should scarcely need pointing out nowadays that nearly every one of
+the fundamental qualities of man can be seen in germ in the animal
+world. I only emphasise the point here because it is so often forgotten
+that morality is fundamentally the expression of those conditions under
+which associated life is found possible and profitable, and that so far
+as any quality is declared to be moral its justification and meaning
+must be found in that direction. The question of incentive we will come
+to later; for the moment it is enough to insist upon the fact that
+morality is fashioned, in its fundamentals, with reference to facts, not
+with reference to speculative beliefs. Beliefs may influence morality
+for awhile, but the persistent operation of social selection secures a
+general conformity between conduct and the conditions upon which life
+depends. That is the fundamental fact to be remembered in all
+discussions of morality, although it is the fact that is most often
+ignored. Ultimately life determines moral teaching, it is not moral
+teaching that determines life.
+
+Life not alone determines morality, but it determines religion as well.
+What else is the meaning of all those discarded forms of religious
+belief, those bodies of dead gods, that meet the student of history as
+the remains of extinct animals meet the geologist in his unravelment of
+the story of the earth's vicissitudes? They are the result of a lack of
+adaptation to new conditions to which they could not accommodate
+themselves. Once the gods lorded it over man as the gigantic dinosaur
+lorded it in his day over lesser animals. And in the one case, as in the
+other, a change in the environment brought about their doom. Natural
+selection determines the survival of religions as of animal forms, and a
+religion to survive must become increasingly utilitarian in character,
+certainly there is a point beyond which the opposite tendency cannot be
+carried.
+
+Assume, for example, that a religion existed of a grossly anti-social
+character, one that teaches doctrines that are subversive of the general
+social well-being. One of two things must result. If the religion is
+strong enough to enforce its teaching the society it dominates will
+disappear, and the religion will die out with it. If, on the other hand,
+it cannot enforce its teaching, or can get it accepted only in a
+modified form, then either the religion disappears in its original form,
+or it is modified to get itself established. To live, religion must
+establish some sort of harmony between its teachings and the conditions
+of life. It may retard the development of life, but it must not retard
+to the point of destruction. This is all that is really involved in what
+is called the purification of religious teaching. In reality there is no
+such thing. The purification is a modification, and it is modified in
+order that it may become acceptable to the society in which it is
+existing. The ascetic epidemic, the various disgusting sects that have
+sprung into existence from time to time during the course of Christian
+history, have all died out from this cause. As with the individual, so
+with society, the forces of which we are conscious generally move upon
+the surface. Of the underlying ones we are mostly unaware.
+
+The truth is, then, that behind all our consciously elaborated theories
+of life there are operative the unconscious or sub-conscious forces of
+evolution. There is, of course, a certain area of conduct in which
+speculative opinions play their part, and where actions may be
+arbitrarily classed as good or bad. But this area is, of necessity,
+limited, and for the reasons that have been given above. Properly
+understood morality is not something very abstract, but something that
+is very concrete. The underlying reason for morality is always the same,
+and we are compelled to hark back to it for justification. And no
+rejection of religion can alter the basis upon which morality rests.
+
+The proposition that Atheist, Agnostic, and Theist breathe the same
+atmosphere and are affected by the same influences is, therefore, one
+that is two-edged. If our intellectual atmosphere is saturated with
+religious influences, it is also saturated with social influences of a
+much more fundamental character, and which have been perpetually
+correcting religious extravagances. And it is at least open to the
+Atheist to retort that we have to thank this circumstance that religious
+beliefs have not been more injurious than has been actually the case.
+If, for example, the ascetic epidemic of the early Christian centuries
+had increased in force and had continued operative, European society
+would have disappeared. That this was not the case was due to the
+strength of the sexual and social instincts, against which religion was
+unable to maintain its hold. In the change of opinion over the better
+way to spend Sunday, or in the decay of the doctrine of eternal
+damnation, we have the same point illustrated. Right through history it
+has been the social instincts that have acted as a corrective to
+religious extravagance. And it is worth noting that with the exception
+of a little gain from the practice of casuistry, religions have
+contributed nothing towards the building up of a science of ethics. On
+the contrary it has been a very potent cause of confusion and
+obstruction. Fictitious vices and virtues have been created and the real
+moral problem lost sight of. It gave the world the morality of the
+prison cell, instead of the tonic of the rational life. And it was
+indeed fortunate for the race that conduct was not ultimately dependent
+upon a mass of teachings that had their origin in the brains of savages,
+and were brought to maturity during the darkest period of European
+civilisation.
+
+In dealing with the two first propositions I have, by implication,
+answered the third--namely, that a wholly secular authentic code of
+morals would be inadequate to form the highest type of character; it
+might supply a "must," but it could not supply an "ought."
+
+The first and obvious reply to an objection of this kind is that our
+working code of morals is secular already. In life, if we observe
+without prejudice, it is not difficult to see that one's neighbours,
+friends, social class, etc., have far more force in shaping conduct than
+speculative theories. In its widest sense natural selection determines
+what actions shall be declared to be moral. Of this we may take the
+universal feeling against homicide. This is but an expression of the
+truth that social life would be impossible were it otherwise. And when
+we pass from the general to the special we meet with much the same
+principle operating in society. The average burglar pursues his calling
+with no special sense of its wrongness, although he may have a keen
+sense of its dangers. But while burgling with a fairly easy conscience,
+he does flinch at breaking the code of honour set up by his
+fellow-burglars. And at the other extreme we have the "gentleman" with
+his code of honour which forbids him not to pay a gambling debt, but
+takes no count of keeping a poor tradesman out of his money. In each of
+these cases the determining factor is not theory but fact, and the fact
+here is association with our fellow countrymen or with a special social
+class. Morality, in short, is social or nothing. Moral laws are
+meaningless apart from social life. Every moral command implies the
+existence of a social medium, and it is no more than a study in history
+to see how this social medium has been continuously shaping and
+reshaping human nature. The determination here is not conscious, but it
+is real, however much disguised it may be by various forms or theories.
+And when we realise this, it is no more than a truism to say that a
+change in religious belief can no more destroy morality than a change in
+government can destroy society.
+
+But in saying that the essence of morality is unreasoning I do not mean
+that it is unreasonable. All I mean is that it can receive a reasonable
+justification, and that no matter how lofty the development it has its
+basis in the fundamental conditions of associated animal and human life.
+We may surround the subject with a vague and attractive idealistic
+verbalism, but we come back to this as a starting point. The love of
+family, with all its attendant values, rests upon the fact of crude
+sexual desire, refined, of course, during the passing of many
+generations, but dependent upon it all the same. Remove the sexual
+desire and the family feelings are inexplicable. Thus, the _reason_ for
+the existence of the sexual instinct is race preservation, but the end
+has been achieved in a quite unreasoning manner. In the animal world at
+large there is certainly no conscious desire for the production of
+offspring, nor is there with the mass of human beings. There is the
+desire to gratify an impulse, and very little more. And for the
+strengthening of an instinct there need not be, nor is there, any
+consciousness of its social value. All that is necessary is that it
+shall be useful. Natural selection attends to the rest.
+
+This will, I think, supply an answer to the contention that secular
+ethics can supply a "must," but not an "ought"; that is, it may show
+that an individual should act in accordance with his inclinations, but
+in cases where these clash with the social well being, it can supply no
+reason why the former should give way to the latter.
+
+The argument rests upon a dual confusion. First, the moral "ought" is no
+more than an organised and conscious form of "must," and not something
+distinct from it. One may test the matter by taking a case. A man says,
+I ought so to work as to promote the general welfare of society. If we
+seek to find the source of this feeling we come ultimately upon the
+feeling of tribal solidarity in virtue of which certain tribes survive
+in the struggle for existence. It is gregariousness struggling into
+consciousness. The moral "ought" is an idealised form of the primitive
+tribal "must." And the "must" of primitive life is encouraged and
+developed because it is one of the conditions of survival.
+
+The second point of confusion is based upon a supposed opposition
+between individual inclinations and an ideal conception of duty. That
+the two are often, as a matter of fact, in conflict, must be admitted.
+And the cause is that while our inclinations represent a heritage from
+the past, our ideals are a projection into the future. But the
+contention is based upon their supposed permanent hostility, and that
+need not be taken for granted. For the whole course of social evolution
+tends to bring about a substantial identification of personal and social
+well-being. More and more as the race develops it is being recognised
+that there is no real individual life apart from social life, of which
+it is the creation and the expression. Such antagonism as exists is the
+inevitable result of a conflict between an organism and its adaptation
+to a changing environment. And from this point of view the whole growth
+of man is in the nature of an expansion of his sympathies and sense of
+duty over an ever-widening area. The primitive egoism of the tribal
+individual is extended to the nation, that of the nation to the empire,
+and thence to the whole of humanity. There is no destruction or denial
+of self in such cases, it is a development of the sense of self over an
+enlarging area.
+
+Finally, if a secular code of morals will not suffice, it is sheer
+rhetoric to say that religion is powerful enough to operate where
+naturalism fails. On the contrary, in a civilised community religious
+appeals tend to become secular appeals in disguise. On the admission of
+Christian advocates the two most powerful appeals that can be made are
+on the one hand, in the name of the fatherhood of god, and on the other,
+the conception of the Mother and the Child. And what are these but
+appeals to the secular and social feelings of man in the name of
+religion? It may be granted that Atheism in its appeals to mankind often
+fails, but in this respect is it any worse off than religion? Why, one
+of the standing complaints of religious preachers in all ages is that
+their message falls so frequently on deaf ears. There is no more
+certainty that the religious appeal will meet with success, than there
+is that any other appeal will be successful. And there is the
+unquestionable fact that morality has become stronger as the power of
+religion has weakened. The higher qualities have asserted themselves
+during a period of religious disintegration, and the student of morals
+sees in this a promise of a further development in the future.
+
+And to all prophecies as to the effects of Atheism on the morality of
+the future there is the apt reply that they are prophecies and nothing
+else. And in this respect it is dangerous for the Christian theist to
+appeal to history. For while the consequences of Atheism can be no more
+than a forecast, which may or may not be justified, the record of
+Christianity is before the world. And we know that the period during
+which the influence of Christian theism was strongest, was the period
+when the intellectual life of civilised man was at its lowest, morality
+at its weakest, and the general outlook most hopeless. Religious control
+gave us heresy hunts, and Jew hunts, burnings for witchcraft, and magic
+in the place of medicine. It gave us the Inquisition and the _auto da
+f�_, the fires of Smithfield and the night of St. Bartholomew. It gave
+us the war of sects and it helped powerfully to establish the sect of
+war. It gave us life without happiness, and death cloaked with terror.
+The Christian record is before us, and it is such that every Church
+blames the others for its existence. Quite as certainly we cannot point
+to a society that has been dominated by Freethinking ideas, but we can
+point to their existence in all ages, and can show that all progress is
+due to their presence. We can show that progressive ideas have
+originated with the least, and have been opposed by the most religious
+sections of society. What religion has done for the world we know; what
+freethought will do we can only guess. But we are confident that as
+honesty is possible without the falsity of religion, as duty may be done
+with no other incentive than its visible consequences on the people
+around us, so life may be lived in honour and closed in peace with no
+other inspiration than comes from the contemplation of the human stream
+from which we emerge and into which we finally go.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+ATHEISM INEVITABLE.
+
+
+Between Theism and Atheism the logical mind may halt, but it cannot rest
+for long, and in the end the logic of fact works its way. Compromise,
+while it may delay the end without preventing its inevitability, is
+quite out of place in matters of the intellect. In the world of practice
+compromise is often unavoidable, but in that of ideas the sole concern
+should be for truth. When Whately said that the man who commenced by
+loving Christianity more than truth would continue by loving his own
+sect more than any other, and end by loving himself more than all, he
+placed his finger on the great moral danger of compromise where opinion
+is concerned. It begins, ostensibly, by considering the respect due to
+an opponent's case, it continues by sacrificing the respect that is due
+one's own, and it ends by giving a new sense of value to the very
+opinion it aims at destroying. "No quarter" is the only sound rule in
+intellectual warfare, where to take prisoners is only one degree less
+dishonouring than to be taken captive oneself. And the value of an
+opinion is never wholly in the opinion itself. No small part of its
+worth is derived from the way in which it is held, and the importance
+which is placed upon it.
+
+When Professor Tylor said that the deepest of all divisions in the
+history of human thought was that which divided Animism from
+Materialism, he was saying what I have been endeavouring to say, in
+another manner, in the foregoing pages. Atheism and supernaturalism are
+fundamental divisions in human thought, and divisions that connote an
+irreconcilable antagonism. The terms not only mark a division, they are
+the badges of a movement, the indication of a pilgrimage. Dr. Tylor's
+own work and the work of his fellow labourers tell the story in detail,
+and although no one is in a position to write "finis" to it, there is no
+doubt as to what its end will be. And the manner of the pilgrimage is
+quite plain. The starting point is the creation by the befogged
+ignorance of primitive man of that welter of ghosts and gods which make
+so much of early existence a veritable nightmare. The journey commences
+in a world in which the "supernatural" is omnipresent, in which man's
+chief endeavours is given to win the good will or avert the anger of the
+ghosts and gods to whom he has himself given being. And the end, the
+last stage of the pilgrimage, is a world in which mechanical operations
+take the place of disembodied intelligences, or of supernatural powers.
+From a world in which the gods are everything and do everything to a
+world in which the gods are nothing and do nothing. The story of that
+transition is the record of one of the greatest revolutions that has
+happened in the history of mankind. Its real greatness and far-reaching
+significance is not always adequately recognised, even by those who
+welcome it gladly. Indeed, the narrower interests that suffer from this
+revolution are more keenly alive to its importance than are those who
+benefit from its consummation. That is, perhaps, what one ought to
+expect from the known course of human history. For history would not be
+what it is, nor would reforms be so difficult of accomplishment were it
+not possible to persuade the slave that his servitude guards him from
+the very evils it perpetuates.
+
+Incidentally the nature of that revolution has been indicated in the
+preceding pages. But a more connected view will form a fitting close to
+this work. Nothing more than the barest of outlines can be attempted,
+but such as it is it may serve to illustrate the truth that Atheism is
+more than the speculative philosophy of a few, that it is in sober truth
+the logical outcome of mental growth. So far as any phase of human life
+can be called inevitable Atheism may lay claim to being inescapable. All
+mental growth can be seen leading to it, just as we can see one stage of
+social development giving a logical starting point for another stage,
+and which could have been foretold had our knowledge of all the forces
+in operation been precise enough. Atheism is, so to speak, implicit in
+the growth of knowledge; its complete expression is the consummation of
+a process that began with the first questionings of religion. And the
+completion of the process means the death of supernaturalism in all its
+forms.
+
+Religion, it has already been said, is something that is acquired, and
+although that sounds little better than a commonplace, yet reflection
+proves it to contain an important truth. For it is in the nature of the
+acquisition that its significance lies. Whatever be the earliest stages
+of religion it is at all events clear that its earliest form is in the
+nature of a hypothesis, even though only of the semi-conscious kind that
+exists when man is brought into touch with some new and overpowering
+experience. Religious ideas are put forth in explanation of something.
+But all explanation whether by savage or civilised man, must be in terms
+of existing knowledge. No other method is possible. We must explain the
+unknown in terms of the known, and our explanation will be the more
+elaborate and the nearer the truth as our knowledge of the nature of the
+forces are the more exact and extensive. A knowledge of the laws of
+condensation and evaporation enables a modern to give an explanation of
+the meaning of a shower of rain that is simply impossible to man in an
+earlier stage of culture. In every case the facts are the same, and in
+each case the explanation given depends upon the knowledge acquired.
+
+Now one radical distinction between an early and a modern explanation of
+the world is that whereas the former moves from within outward, the
+latter moves from without inward. Uncivilised man explains the world by
+himself; civilised man explains himself by the world. The savage
+describes the world in terms of his own feelings and passions, the
+scientist regards human qualities as resulting from the relation which
+man holds to the forces around him. The process, while presenting a
+radical difference in form, is yet fundamentally one in essence.
+Ignorant of all that we connote by such an expression as "natural
+forces," whatever explanation is offered by the savage is necessarily in
+terms of the only force with which he is acquainted. But it happens that
+the only forces which he then fancies he understands are those
+represented by his own organisation. What he is conscious of doing is
+prompted by his own will and intelligence. He hurts when he is angry, he
+rewards when he is pleased, and he makes the same assumption regarding
+the things around him. So far as he explains nature he vitalises it.
+Vital force becomes the symbol of all force. And this result expresses a
+mental law that is universally operative. The civilised mind differs
+from the savage mind not because the brain functions differently in the
+two cases, but solely in consequence of the wider and truer knowledge of
+the causes of natural phenomena which civilised man possesses. We arrive
+at different conclusions because we start from different premises.
+Inevitably, therefore, the first attempt of man to deal with nature
+takes the form of assuming the operation of a number of personal
+intelligences. Natural objects are alive, and everything that happens to
+man, from the cradle to the grave, is thought of as being either alive
+or controlled by living beings. The world is filled with a crowd of
+ghostly beings exercising more or less discordant functions. Against
+this riot of gods the conception of natural law developes but slowly.
+Quite apart from the natural inertia of the human mind, the fact of
+questioning the power of these assumed beings involves to the primitive
+mind an element of grave danger. All sorts of things may happen if the
+gods are offended, and in self-defence the tribe feels bound to suppress
+the critic of religion and of religious ideas. But once the step is
+taken, the area over which the gods rule is to that extent restricted,
+and with that step Atheism may be said to be born.
+
+What Lange said in the opening sentences of his classic "History of
+Materialism," that "Materialism is as old as philosophy, but not older,"
+may be said with equal truth of Atheism. That, too, is as old as
+philosophy, since it begins with man's attempts to break away from that
+primitive interpretation of nature which sees in all phenomena the
+action of personal intelligences. It is of no importance in which branch
+of knowledge the departure was made, whichever department one takes the
+process can be seen at work. Astronomy appears to have been the branch
+of knowledge in which the powers of the gods were earliest restricted,
+although it was not until the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo,
+Newton, and Laplace were given to the world that "God" vanished
+altogether from that region. Geology follows with the teaching that
+chemical, thermal, and other known forces leave nothing for the gods to
+accomplish. Biology and sociology, dealing with more complex forces, are
+much later in the field, but they tread the same path. They provide a
+refuge for "God" for awhile, but it is evident that their complete
+dispossession is no more than a question of time. And even though the
+very complex character of the forces working in these latter departments
+should prevent us ever acquiring the same degree of prevision that
+exists in other classes, no difference will be made to the general
+result. The principle will be fairly established and our ignorance of
+details will no longer be made the ground for assertions which, if made
+at all, should rest upon the most exact knowledge. "God" will be left
+with nothing to do, and man will not for ever go on worshipping a God
+whose sole recommendation is that he exists, nor will the common sense
+of civilised people hold on to a hypothesis when there is nothing left
+for that hypothesis to explain.
+
+The single and outstanding characteristic of the conception of god at
+all times and under all conditions is that it is the equivalent of
+ignorance. In primitive times it is ignorance of the character of
+natural forces that leads to the assumption of the existence of gods,
+and in this respect the god-idea has remained true to itself throughout.
+Even to-day whenever the principle of "God" is invoked a very slight
+examination is enough to show that the only reason for this being done
+is our ignorance of the subject before us. Why does anyone assume that
+we must believe in God in order to explain the beginnings of life? Why
+is "God" assumed to be responsible for the order of nature? Why must we
+assume "God" to explain mind? The answer to these and to all similar
+questions is that we do not know, in the sense that we know the cause of
+planetary motions, how these things came to be. It is not what we know
+about them that leads to the assumption of god, but what we do not know.
+And the converse of that is that so soon as knowledge replaces ignorance
+"God" will be dispensed with. It is never a case of believing in God
+because of the actual knowledge we possess, but always the appeal to
+weakness and ignorance. From this point of view the colloquial "God only
+knows!" expresses the appeal to ignorance even more clearly than the
+elaborate argument of the sophisticated apologist.
+
+This aspect of the matter was well put by Spinoza. Believers in the
+argument from design, he says, have a method of argument that is a
+reduction, not to the impossible, but to ignorance. Thus,
+
+
+     If a stone falls from a roof on to someone's head and kills him,
+     they will demonstrate by their new method that the stone fell to
+     kill the man; for if it had not by God's will fallen with that
+     object, how could so many circumstances (and there are often many
+     concurrent circumstances) have all happened together by chance.
+     Perhaps you will answer that the event is due to the facts that the
+     wind was blowing, and the man was walking that way. "But why," they
+     will insist, "was the wind blowing, and why was the wind at that
+     very time blowing that way?" If you again answer, that the wind had
+     then sprung up because the sea had begun to be agitated the day
+     before, the weather having been previously calm, and that the man
+     had been invited by a friend, they will again insist: "But why was
+     the sea agitated, and why was the man invited at that time?" So
+     they will pursue their question from cause to cause, till at last
+     you take refuge in the will of God--in other words, the sanctuary
+     of ignorance. (Appendix to _Ethics_; pt. 1)
+
+
+The sanctuary of ignorance "God" has always been, and the sanctuary of
+ignorance it will remain to the end. It has no other function in life. A
+consciousness of this is shown by the upholders of Theism in the
+eagerness with which they welcome every supposed demonstration of the
+impotence of science, and of the resistance everywhere offered to the
+development of scientific advance.
+
+So far, then, as the progress of life makes for the growth of knowledge,
+so far may we safely claim that the development of thought makes for
+Atheism, as we have just said, and to do the religious world justice it
+has always been quick to realise this, and every great scientific
+generalisation--as well as many smaller ones, has been resisted on the
+ground that they were atheistic in character and tended to take the
+control of the world out of God's hands. Present-day theists are apt to
+condemn this attitude of their predecessors, but it can hardly be denied
+that the logic lies with the earlier representatives. A God who does
+nothing might, for all practical purposes, as well be non-existent. And
+a God who is merely in the background of things, who may be responsible
+for their origin, but having originated them surrenders all control over
+their operations, is hardly more serviceable. The modern theist saves
+his God only by leaving him a negligible quantity in a universe he is
+supposed to sustain and govern.
+
+And it cannot be too often emphasised that the whole basis of exact or
+positive science is atheistic--that is, it is compelled to ignore even
+the possibility of the existence of God. Every scientific generalisation
+rests upon the constancy of natural forces. On no other basis is it
+possible to give a scientific interpretation to what has gone before or
+to anticipate what is to happen in the future. Every scientific
+calculation assumes that in the world with which it deals causation is
+invariable and universal. But if we are to assume the operations of a
+"God" at any time or point every scientific calculation would have to be
+accompanied with the D.V. of a prayer meeting. To argue from the past to
+the future would be futile. God might have operated then, no one could
+be certain he will operate now. Or he might have operated in the far
+past, but he might not in the future. In either case the assumption of a
+God would be fatal to exact scientific calculations. Thus in sheer self
+defence, in order to preserve its character as science, science is
+compelled to discard even the possibility of the existence of a
+controlling intelligence. As one eminent theistic advocate admits,
+"Science has no need, and indeed, can make no use, in any particular
+instance of the theistic hypothesis."[6] It is only when supernaturalism
+is partly excluded from human thought that science can be said to really
+commence its existence; and in proportion as our conception of the
+universe becomes that of an aggregate of non-conscious forces--or of a
+single force with many forms producing given results under given
+conditions, only then does our view of the universe reach completion.
+
+A study of the nature and tendency of human development does, therefore,
+provide a very strong presumption in favour of atheism. All growth here
+is in favour of atheism and away from theism. In the beginning we have
+the gods everywhere and dominating everything. They do everything and
+control everything. "God" is the one universal primitive hypothesis. And
+all subsequent development is to its discrediting. There is no growth in
+the idea of god, there is only an attenuation. The gods grow fewer as
+the race approaches maturity. Their activities cease as man becomes
+aware of the character of the forces around him. And it may be further
+noted that this decline of the belief in deity is brought about as much
+by sheer pressure of experience as by pure reason. The majority of
+people do not reason themselves out of the belief in god, they outgrow
+it. People cease to believe in the gods because they experience no
+compulsion to believe in them. The logic of fact is ultimately more
+powerful than the logic of theory, and as environmental forces brought
+the gods into existence, so environmental forces carry them out again.
+
+Now Atheism does but make explicit in words what has long been implicit
+in practice. It takes the god-idea, examines it, and explains it out of
+existence. It admits the reality of gods as it admits the reality of
+ghosts and fairies and witches. They are subjective, not objective,
+realities. Atheism takes the god-idea, explains its origin, describes
+its subsequent development, and in so doing indicates its ultimate fate.
+In this sense Atheism is, as I have said, no more than the final stage
+of a long historical process. The theistic phase of thought is an
+inevitable one in human evolution, but it is no more a permanent one
+than is the belief in hobgoblins. One might here paraphrase Bacon and
+say, "A little philosophy inclineth a man to belief in the gods, but
+depth in philosophy leads to their rejection as a false and useless
+hypothesis." It is true that thinking brought the gods into the world;
+it is also true that adequate thinking carries them out again.
+
+The cardinal truth is, of course, that the hypothesis of mind in nature
+does not owe its existence to an exact knowledge of things but to its
+absence. Its origin must be sought in a pre-scientific age and its
+persistence in a number of extraneous circumstances which have
+perpetuated a belief that would otherwise have inevitably disappeared.
+And it would indeed be a matter for surprise if this belief--said by
+theists to be of all beliefs the most profound--should be the one
+speculation on which savage thought has justified itself. On no other
+question did the primitive mind reach truth. Universally its
+speculations concerning the world were discovered to be wrong. On this
+one topic we are asked to believe that the savage was absolutely right.
+
+From the age of fetichism--rightly called by Comte the creative age in
+theology--the history of the god-idea has been a history of a series of
+modifications and rejections. Scarce an invention that has not slain a
+god, scarce a discovery has not marked the burying-place of a discarded
+deity. Criticism reduced the gods in number and limited them in power.
+Advancing knowledge pushed them back till nature, "rid of her haughty
+lords," is conceived as a huge mechanism, self-acting, self-adjusting,
+and self-repairing. Even in the mouths of religionists "God" to-day
+stands for little more than a force. We must not describe him as
+personal, as intelligent, or as conscious, and between this and the
+existence assumed by atheistic science it is impossible to detect any
+vital difference. Atheism, then, takes its stand upon the observed trend
+of human history, upon a scrutiny of the facts of nature, and upon an
+examination of the origin and contents of the god-idea. And upon these
+grounds it may fairly claim to be irrefutable and inevitable.
+Circumstances may obstruct its universal acceptance as a reasoned mental
+attitude, but that merely delays, it does not destroy the certainty of
+its final triumph.
+
+With the supposed direful consequences that would follow the triumph of
+Atheism I have not dealt with at length. These are the bugbears which
+the designing normally employ in order to frighten the timid and
+credulous. Mental uprightness and moral integrity are certainly not the
+property of one religion, nor can it be said with truth that they belong
+to any. And examining the histories of religion it is a fair assumption
+that in whatever direction the world may suffer from the disappearance
+of religion there will be no moral catastrophe. Looking at the whole
+course of human history, and noting how the vilest and most ruinous
+practices have been ever associated with religion, and have ever relied
+upon religion for support, the cause for speculation is, not what will
+happen to the world when religion dies out, but how human society has
+managed to flourish while the belief in the gods ruled.
+
+Fortunately for human society nature has not left the operation of the
+fundamental virtues dependent upon the acceptance of this or that theory
+of the world. The social and family instincts, which are inseparable
+from our nature as men and women, and which operate in ways of which we
+are largely unconscious, are the grounds of all the higher and finer
+virtues, and while a change in opinion may affect their operation here
+and there, it can never alter their fundamental character. Conduct, in
+short, comes from life, it is not the creation of a theory to be
+dismissed by resolution or refashioned by a vote.
+
+What Atheism would mean in practice would be an enormous concentration
+of energy upon purely human affairs, and a judgment of conduct in terms
+of human happiness and prosperity. And that certainly furnishes no cause
+for alarm. It is, indeed, our greatest need. We need an awakening to the
+untapped power and possibilities of human nature. If the gods die, man
+their creator still lives; and the creative energy which once covered
+the face of nature with innumerable gods, which spent itself in the
+attempt to win their favour, and which called forth a heaven in the
+endeavour to redress the wrongs of earth, may, if properly applied, yet
+cover the earth with homes in which men and women, rendered purer by
+love and stronger by knowledge, will rise superior to the fabled gods
+before whom they once bowed in blind adoration.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[6] Prof. Ward "Naturalism and Agnosticism" Vol. I., p. 23.
+
+
+
+
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Theism Or Atheism, by Chapman Cohen.
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Theism or Atheism, by Chapman Cohen
+
+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: Theism or Atheism
+       The Great Alternative
+
+Author: Chapman Cohen
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2008 [EBook #25291]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEISM OR ATHEISM ***
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+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Martin Pettit and
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+http://www.pgdp.net
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+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1><span class="smcap">Theism or Atheism</span></h1>
+
+<hr class="smler" />
+
+<h2><span class="smcap">The Great Alternative</span></h2>
+
+<hr class="smler" />
+
+<h2>By CHAPMAN COHEN</h2>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>THE PIONEER PRESS,</h3>
+
+<h4>61, Farringdon Street,<br />&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;E.C.4&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</h4>
+
+<h4>1921.</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>Contents.</h2>
+
+<div class="index">
+<ul>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#Preface">Preface.</a></span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<h3><a href="#Part_I">Part I.</a></h3>
+
+<h3>AN EXAMINATION OF THEISM.</h3>
+
+<div class="index">
+<ul>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Chapter I.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>What is God?</li>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">Chapter II.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>The Origin of the Idea of God</li>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Chapter III.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Have we a Religious Sense?</li>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Chapter IV.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>The Argument from Existence</li>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">Chapter V.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>The Argument from Causation</li>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Chapter IV.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>The Argument from Design</li>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Chapter VII.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>The Disharmonies of Nature</li>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">Chapter VIII.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>God and Evolution</li>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">Chapter IX.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>The Problem of Pain</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<h3><a href="#Part_II">Part II.</a></h3>
+
+<h3>SUBSTITUTES FOR ATHEISM.</h3>
+
+<div class="index">
+<ul>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">Chapter X.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>A Question of Prejudice</li>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">Chapter XI.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>What is Atheism?</li>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">Chapter XII.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Spencer and the Unknowable</li>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">Chapter XIII.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Agnosticism</li>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">Chapter XIV.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Atheism and Morals</li>
+<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">Chapter XV.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>Atheism Inevitable</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="Preface" id="Preface"></a><span class="smcap">Preface.</span></h2>
+
+<p>Shrouded in the cloak of philosophy, the question of the existence of
+God continues to attract attention, and, I may add, to command more
+respect than it deserves. For it is only by a subterfuge that it assumes
+the rank of philosophy. "God" enters into philosophy only when it is
+beginning to lose caste in its proper home, and then in its new
+environment it undergoes such a transformation as to contain very little
+likeness to its former, and proper, self. It disowns its parentage and
+claims another origin, and, like so many genealogists devising pedigrees
+for the parvenu, certain philosophers attempt to map out for the
+newcomer an ancestry to which he can establish no valid claim. Nothing
+would, indeed, surprise the ancestor more than to be brought face to
+face with his descendant. He would not be more astonished than would the
+ancient Eohippus on meeting with a modern dray-horse. In anthropology or
+history the idea of God may fairly claim a place, but it has no place in
+philosophy on any sensible meaning of the word.</p>
+
+<p>The consequence of this transference of the idea of God to the sphere of
+philosophy is the curious position that the God in which people believe
+is not the God whose existence is made the product of an argument, and
+the God of the argument is not the God of belief. The theory and the
+fact have no more likeness to each other than a chestnut horse has to a
+horse-chestnut. A fallacy is perpetuated by appealing to a fact, but the
+fact immediately discredits the fallacy by disowning it in practice. The
+grounds upon which the belief in God is supposed to rest, the reasoning
+from which it springs, are seen to follow the belief instead of
+preceding it. The roots are in the air, and on closer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> inspection are
+seen to be artificial adornments, so many imitations that have been hung
+there for the purpose of imposing on near-sighted or careless observers.</p>
+
+<p>The purpose of the following pages is to make clear the nature of this
+alliance and to expose the real character of what we are asked to
+worship. There are, of course, many on whose ears any amount of
+reasoning will fall without effect. To that class this book will not
+appeal; it may be questioned whether many will even read it. They will
+go on professing the belief they have always professed, and taking pride
+in the fact that they have an intellect which is superior to proof, and
+which disdains evidence when it runs contrary to "my belief." Others
+will, I expect, complain that the treatment of so solemn a subject is
+not "reverent" enough. But why <i>any</i> subject should be treated
+reverently, as a condition of examination, is more than I have ever been
+able to discover. It is asking the inquirer to commence his
+investigation with a half-promise to find something good in what he is
+about to examine. Whether a thing is worthy of reverence or not is a
+conclusion that must follow investigation, not precede it. And one does
+not observe any particular reverence shown by the religious person
+towards those beliefs in which he does not happen to believe.</p>
+
+<p>But there are some who will read thoughtfully an examination of so old a
+subject as Theism, and it is to those that these pages are addressed.
+One cannot hope to say anything that is strikingly new on so well worn a
+subject as the existence of God, but there are many who will read an old
+subject when presented in a new work, and even then there is also the
+possibility of presenting an old topic in a slightly new form. And I
+think these will find the main lines of the defence set up by the
+Goddite dealt with in a manner that should at least make the point at
+issue clear.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></p><p>Finally, it is one aim of this book to press home the point that the
+logical issue is between Theism and Atheism. That there is no logical
+halting place between the two, and that any attempt to call a halt is
+little more than a concession to a desire for mental or social
+convenience, seems to me as clear as anything can well be. And there is
+really nothing gained, ultimately, by the halt. Disinclination on the
+part of the non-Theist to push the issue to its logical conclusion is
+treated by the Theist as inability to do so, and is used as an argument
+in support of his own belief. In matters of the intellect, compromise is
+almost always a dangerous policy. It heartens one's enemies and
+disheartens one's friends. And there is really no adequate reason why
+those who have given up belief in deity should continue to treat this
+master superstition of the ages as though it were one of our most
+valuable inheritances, to be surrendered with lowered heads and sinking
+hearts. We who know both sides know that in giving up the belief in
+deity we have lost nothing of value, nothing that need cause us a single
+regret. And on that point we certainly can speak with authority; for we
+have been where the Theist is, he has not been where we are. Many of us
+know quite well all that is meant by the fear and trembling with which
+the believer looks upon a world without God. And we know how idle the
+fear is&mdash;as idle as a child's fear of the dark. What the world is like
+<i>with</i> God, there is all the experience of history to inform us; and it
+would indeed be strange if love and brotherhood, armed with the weapons
+that science has given us, could not produce a better human society than
+has ever existed under the dominion of the Gods.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="Part_I" id="Part_I"></a>Part I.</h2>
+
+<h3>AN EXAMINATION OF THEISM.</h3>
+
+<hr class="smler" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">What is God?</span></h3>
+
+<p>Soon after that famous Atheist, Charles Bradlaugh, entered the House of
+Commons, it is said that a fellow member approached him with the remark,
+"Good God, Bradlaugh, what does it matter whether there is a God or
+not?" Bradlaugh's answer is not recorded, but one is impelled to open
+the present examination of the belief in God, by putting the same
+question in another form. Is the belief in God, as we are so often
+assured, one of the most important questions that can engage the
+attention of man? Under certain conditions one can conceive a rational
+answer in the affirmative. Where the mental and social conditions are
+such that men seriously believe the incidence of natural forces on
+mankind to be determined by the direct action of "God," one can
+appreciate right belief concerning him being treated as of first rate
+importance. In such circumstances wrong ideas are the equivalent of
+disaster. But we are not in that condition to-day. It is, indeed, common
+ground with all educated men and women that natural happenings are
+independent of divine control to at least the extent that natural forces
+affect all alike, and without the least reference to religious beliefs.
+Fire burns and water drowns, foods sustain and poisons kill, no matter
+what our opinions on theology may be. In an earthquake or a war there is
+no observable relation between casualties and religious opinions. We
+are, in fact, told by theologians that it is folly to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> expect that there
+should be. A particular providence is no longer in fashion; God, we are
+told, works only through general laws, and that is only another way of
+saying that our opinions about God have no direct or observable
+influence on our well-being. It is a tacit admission that human welfare
+depends upon our knowledge and manipulation of the forces by which we
+are surrounded. There <i>may</i> be a God behind these forces, but that
+neither determines the extent of our knowledge of them or our power to
+manipulate them. The belief in God becomes a matter of, at best,
+secondary importance, and quite probably of no importance whatever.</p>
+
+<p>But if that be so why bother about the belief? Is that not a reason for
+leaving it alone and turning our attention to other matters? The answer
+to that is that the belief in God is not of so detached a character as
+this advice assumes. In the course of ages the belief in God has
+acquired associations that give it the character of a highly obstructive
+force. It has become so entangled with inculcated notions of right and
+wrong that it is everywhere used as a buttress for institutions which
+have either outgrown their utility, or are in need of serious
+modification in the interests of the race. The opposition encountered in
+any attempt to deal with marriage, divorce, or education, are examples
+of the way in which religious ideas are permitted to interfere with
+subjects that should be treated solely from the standpoint of social
+utility. The course of human development has been such that religion has
+hitherto occupied a commanding position in relation to social laws and
+customs, with the result that it is often found difficult to improve
+either until the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> obstructive influence of religious beliefs has been
+dealt with.</p>
+
+<p>It is not, then, because I believe the question of the existence of God
+to be of intrinsic importance that an examination of its validity is
+here undertaken. Its importance to-day is of a purely contingent
+character. The valid ground for now discussing its truth is that it is
+at present allowed to obstruct the practical conduct of life. And under
+similar circumstances it would be important to investigate the
+historical accuracy of Old Mother Hubbard or Jack and the Beanstalk. Any
+belief, no matter what its nature, must be dealt with as a fact of some
+social importance, so long as it is believed by large numbers to be
+essential to the right ordering of life. Whether true or false, beliefs
+are facts&mdash;mental and social facts, and the scheme of things which
+leaves them out of account is making a blunder of the most serious kind.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly, conditions were never before so favourable for the delivery
+of a considered judgment on the question of the belief in God. On the
+one side we have from natural science an account of the universe which
+rules the operations of deity out of court. And on the other side we
+have a knowledge of the mode of origin of the belief which should leave
+us in no doubt as to its real value. We hope to show later that the
+question of origin is really decisive; that in reaching conclusions
+concerning the origin of the god-idea we are passing judgment as to its
+value. That the masters of this form of investigation have not usually,
+and in so many words, pushed their researches to their logical
+conclusions is no reason why we should refrain from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> doing so. Facts are
+in themselves of no great value. It is the conclusions to which they
+point that are the important things.</p>
+
+<p>If the conclusions to which we refer are sound, then the whole basis of
+theism crumbles away. If we are to regard the god-idea as an evolution
+which began in misunderstandings of nature that were rooted in the
+ignorance of primitive man, it would seem clear that no matter how
+refined or developed the idea may become, it can rest on no other or
+sounder basis than that which is presented to us in the psychology of
+primitive man. Each stage of theistic belief grows out of the preceding
+stage, and if it can be shown that the beginning of this evolution arose
+in a huge blunder I quite fail to see how any subsequent development can
+convert this unmistakable blunder into a demonstrable truth. To take a
+case in point. When it was shown that so far as witchcraft rested on
+observed facts these could be explained on grounds other than those of
+the malevolent activities of certain old women, the belief in witchcraft
+was not "purified," neither did it advance to any so-called higher
+stage; it was simply abandoned as a useless and mischievous explanation
+of facts that could be otherwise accounted for. Are we logically
+justified in dealing with the belief in God on any other principle? We
+cannot logically discard the world of the savage and still retain his
+interpretation of it. If the grounds upon which the savage constructed
+his theory of the world, and from which grew all the ghosts and gods
+with which he believed himself to be surrounded, if these grounds are
+false, how can we still keep in substance to conclusions that are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+admittedly based on false premises? We can say with tolerable certainty
+that had primitive man known what we know about nature the gods would
+never have been born. Civilised man does not discover gods, he discards
+them. It was a profound remark of Feurbach's, that religion is
+ultimately anthropology, and it is anthropology that gives to all forms
+of theism the death blow.</p>
+
+<p>In our own time, at least, it is not difficult to see that the word God
+retains its influence with many because of the indefinite manner in
+which it is used. It is never easy to say what a person has in his mind
+when he uses the word. In most cases one would be safe in saying that
+nothing at all is meant. It is just one of those "blessed" words where
+the comfort felt in their use is proportionate to the lack of definite
+meaning that accompanies them. A frank confession of ignorance is
+something that most people heartily dislike, and where problems are
+persistent and difficult of solution what most people are in search of
+is a narcotic. That "God" is one of the most popular of narcotics will
+be denied by none who study the psychology of the average man or woman.</p>
+
+<p>When not used as a narcotic, "God" is brought into an argument as though
+it stood for a term which carried a well defined and well understood
+meaning. In work after work dealing with theism one looks in vain for
+some definition of "God." All that one can do is to gather the author's
+meaning from the course of his argument, and that is not always an easy
+task. The truth is, of course, that instead of the word carrying with it
+a generally understood meaning there is no word that is more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> loosely
+used or which carries a greater variety of meanings. Its connotations
+are endless, and range from the aggressively man-like deity of the
+primitive savage up&mdash;or down&mdash;to the abstract force of the mathematical
+physicist and the shadowy "Absolute" of the theologising metaphysician.
+The consequence of this is to find commonly that while it is one kind of
+a god that is being set up in argument, it is really another god that is
+being defended and even believed in. When we find people talking of
+entering into communion with God, or praying to God, it is quite certain
+they do not conceive him as a mere mathematical abstraction, or as a
+mere symbol of an unknown force. It is impossible to conceive any sane
+man or woman extracting comfort from praying or talking to a god who
+could not think, or feel, or hear. And if he possesses qualities that
+the religious attitude implies, we endow him with all the attributes of
+personality, and, be it noted, of human personality. Either one God is
+believed in in fact while another is established in theory, or an
+elaborate argument is presented which serves no other purpose than a
+disguise for the fact that there is no genuine belief left.</p>
+
+<p>An example of the misleading way in which words are used is supplied by
+Sir Oliver Lodge, who for a man of science shows an amazing capacity for
+making use of unscientific language. In his "Man and the Universe,"
+discussing the attributes of deity, he says, "Let no worthy attribute be
+denied to the deity. In anthropomorphism there are many errors, but
+there is one truth. Whatever worthy attributes belong to man, be it
+personality or any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> other, its existence in the universe is thereby
+admitted; it belongs to the all." Putting on one side the fallacy
+involved in speaking of attributes as though they were good or bad in
+themselves, one wonders why Sir Oliver limits this inference to the
+"worthy" attributes? Unworthy attributes are as real as worthy ones. If
+honesty exists so does dishonesty. Kindness is as real as cruelty. And
+if we must credit the deity with possessing all the good attributes, to
+whom must we credit the bad ones? A little later Sir Oliver does admit
+that we must credit the deity with the bad attributes also, but adds
+that they are dying out. But as they are <i>part</i> of the deity, their
+decay must mean that the deity is also undergoing a process of change,
+of education, and is as much subject to the law of growth as we are.
+Surely that is not what people mean when they speak about God. A god who
+is only a part of the cosmic process ceases to be a god in any
+reasonable sense of the term.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Mellone, in his "God and the World," says that the word God
+"becomes a name for the infinite system of law regarded as a whole" (p.
+122). If that were really all that was meant by the word the matter
+would not be worth discussing. "God" as a symbol of a generalisation is
+a mere name, and as such is as good as any other name. But, again, it is
+plain that people mean more than that when they speak about God. If God
+is a name for universal law, let any really religious man try the plan
+of substituting in his prayers and in his thoughts the phrase "Universal
+Law" for "God," and then see how long he will retain his religion. As
+Mr. Balfour points out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> ("Theism and Humanism," p. 20), the god of
+religion and the god of philosophy represent two distinct beings, and it
+is hard to see how the two can be fused into one. The plain truth is
+that it is impossible to now make the existence of the god of religion
+reasonable, and the plan adopted is that of arguing for the existence of
+something about which there is often no dispute, and then introducing as
+the product of the argument something that has never been argued for at
+all. It is the philosophic analogue of the hat and omelette trick.</p>
+
+<p>In this connection some well considered words of Sir James Frazer are
+well worth noting. He says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>By a god I understand a superhuman and supernatural being, of a
+spiritual and personal nature, who controls the world or some part
+of it on the whole for good, and who is endowed with intellectual
+faculties, moral feelings, and active powers, which we can only
+conceive on the analogy of human faculties, feelings, and
+activities, though we are bound to suppose that in the divine
+nature they exist in an infinitely higher degree, than the
+corresponding faculties, feelings, and activities of man. In short,
+by a God I mean a beneficent supernatural spirit, the ruler of the
+world or of some part of it, who resembles man in nature though he
+excels him in knowledge, goodness, and power. This is, I think, the
+sense in which the ordinary man speaks of a God, and I believe that
+he is right in so doing. I am aware that it has been not unusual,
+especially of late years, to apply the name of God to very
+different conceptions, to empty it of all implications of
+personality, and to reduce it to signifying something very large
+and very vague, such as the Infinite or the Absolute (whatever
+these hard words may signify) the great First Cause, the Universal
+Substance, the stream of tendency by which all things seek to
+fulfil the law of their being, and so forth. Now, without
+expressing opinion as to the truth or falsehood of the views
+implied by such applications of the name of God, I cannot but
+regard them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> as illegitimate extensions of the term, in short, an
+abuse of language, and I venture to protest against it in the
+interest, not only of verbal accuracy, but of clear thinking,
+because it is apt to conceal from ourselves and others a real and
+very important change of thought; in particular it may lead many to
+imagine that the persons who use the name of God in one or other of
+these extended senses retain theological opinions which they may in
+fact have long abandoned. Thus the misuse of the name of God may
+resemble the stratagem in war of putting up dummies to make an
+enemy imagine that a fort is still held long after it has been
+abandoned by the garrison. (<i>The Belief in Immortality</i>; pp. 9-10.
+Vol. I.).</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This expression of opinion from an authoritative quarter is very much
+needed. The fear of public opinion displayed by many "advanced" thinkers
+is in this country one of the greatest obstacles to rapid advance. It is
+simply deplorable to observe the trouble taken by some to coin new
+names, or the illegitimate use made of old ones, for no other
+discoverable reason than that of disguising from the world the fact that
+the orthodox beliefs are no longer held. The need of to-day is not so
+much liberal thought as strong and courageous thought; and one would
+cheerfully hand back to orthodoxy a fairly large parcel of a certain
+type of heretical thinker in exchange for a single one who used plain
+language to express clear convictions.</p>
+
+<p>What is it that the mass of believers have in their minds when they
+speak of God? There can be no doubt but that what the plain man has
+always understood by "God" is a person. Every book of religious devotion
+implies this; every prayer that is offered takes it for granted that
+<i>someone</i> will listen, and probably grant the petition. God is personal,
+God is just, God is beneficent, God is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> intelligent, these are
+conceptions that are bound up with all the religions of the world, and
+without which they would lack both significance and value. A very acute
+theistic writer, Mr. W. H. Mallock, puts this quite plainly when he says
+that the God of theism "is represented as revealing himself in the
+universe, firstly, as the mind which animates and moves everything,
+secondly, as a purposing mind which is infinitely wise and powerful, and
+has created a perfect universe with a view to some perfect end; and
+lastly, as an ethical mind which out of all the things created by it,
+has selected men as the object of a preferential love. A personality
+which thinks and wills and loves and hates. That is what mankind in the
+mass have always meant by 'God.'"</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, any other kind of God is inconceivable. Whatever may be the
+metaphysical subtleties employed, we come ultimately to that. It is
+this, the older and the vital conception that is being fought for. The
+arguments for any other kind of existence are mere subterfuges. The
+pleas for an "Absolute" or an "Unconditioned" are only used to buttress
+the older conception, and never till the older one has lost its force.
+The unconditioned God is argued for only that it may serve as the basis
+for the belief in a personal one. What is proved is not what is asked
+for; what is asked for is not what is proved. No wonder that so eminent
+a writer as Mr. F. H. Bradley feels constrained to give these
+verbalistic thimble riggers a smart rap over the knuckles, as in the
+following passage:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Most of those who insist on the "personality of God" are
+intellectually dishonest. They desire one conclusion, and, to reach
+it, they argue for another. But the second, if proved, is quite
+different, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> answers their purpose only because they obscure it
+and confound it with the first.... The deity they want, is, of
+course, finite, a person much like themselves, with thoughts and
+feelings limited and mutable in the process of time.... And for
+their purpose, what is not this is really nothing. (<i>Appearance and
+Reality</i>; p. 532).</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And it is really what people mean by God that is decisive. It is not at
+all a question of what they might be made to mean, or what they ought to
+mean. It is wholly a matter of what they <i>do</i> mean. And to say that what
+people intend to affirm in an expression of belief is not true, is to
+say that the belief itself is false. If the God I believe in is a
+delusion, then my God ceases to exist. True, I may if I think it worth
+while acquire another one, but that will not revive the first. It is
+what people believe that is the important question, not what some
+ingenious speculator may succeed in making the belief stand for.</p>
+
+<p>Honestly to be of service to theism the God established must be a
+person. To be intelligible, having regard to the historical developments
+of religion, the God proved must be a person. The relation demanded by
+religion between man and God must be of a personal character. No man can
+love a pure abstraction; he might as reasonably fall in love with a
+triangle or profess devotion to the equator. The God of religion must be
+a person, and it is precisely that, as a controlling force of the
+universe, in which modern thought finds it more and more difficult to
+believe, and which modern science decisively rejects. And in rejecting
+this the death blow is given to those religious ideas, which however
+disguised find their origin in the fear-stricken ignorance of the
+primitive savage.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Origin of the Idea of God.</span></h3>
+
+<p>The alleged universality of the belief in God is only inferentially an
+argument for its truth. The inference is that if men have everywhere
+developed a particular belief, this general agreement could only have
+been reached as a consequence of a general experience. A universal
+effect implies a universal cause. So put the argument seems impressive.
+As a matter of fact the statement is one long tissue of fallacies and
+unwarranted assumptions.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, even admitting the universal pressure of certain
+facts, it by no means follows that the theistic interpretation of those
+facts is the only one admissible. There is no exception to the fact that
+men have everywhere come to the conclusion that the earth was flat, and
+yet a wider and truer knowledge proved that universal belief to be quite
+false. The fact of a certain belief being universal only warrants the
+assumption that the belief itself has a cause, but it tells us nothing
+whatever concerning its truthfulness. The truth here is that the
+argument from universality dates its origin from a stage of human
+culture suitable to the god idea itself, a stage when very little was
+known concerning the workings of the mind or the laws of mental
+development. Otherwise it would have been seen that all the universality
+of a belief really proves is the universality of the human mind&mdash;and
+that means that, given an organism of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> certain kind, it will react in
+substantially an identical manner to the same stimuli. Thus it is not
+surprising to find that as the human organism is everywhere
+fundamentally alike, it has everywhere come to the same conclusions in
+face of the same set of conditions. A man reacts to the universe in one
+way, and a jelly fish in another way. And universality is as true of the
+reactions of the latter as it is of those of the former.</p>
+
+<p>And this means that a delusion may be as widespread as truth, a false
+inference may gain as general an acceptance as a true one. What belief
+has been more general than the belief in witches, fairies, and the like?
+But we see in the prevalence of these and similar beliefs, not a
+presumption of their truth, but only the grounds for a search after the
+conditions, social and psychological, which gave them birth.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is that the conditions which give rise to the belief in gods
+are found in all ages, and no one would be more surprised than the
+Atheist to find it otherwise. But here, precisely as in the case of good
+and bad spirits, the vital question is not that people have everywhere
+believed in the existence of supernatural beings,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> but an
+understanding of the conditions from which the beliefs themselves have
+grown. That alone can determine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> whether in studying the god idea we are
+studying the acquisition of a truth or the growth of a fallacy.</p>
+
+<p>Next, while it may be granted, at least provisionally, that the belief
+in supernatural beings is universal, against that has to be set the fact
+that the whole tendency of social development is to narrow the range of
+the belief, to restrict the scope of its authority, and to so attenuate
+it that it becomes of no value precisely where it is supposed to be of
+most use. The belief in God is least questioned where civilisation is
+lowest; it is called into the most serious question where civilisation
+is most advanced. To-day the belief in God is only universal in the
+sense that some representatives of it are to be found in all societies.
+The majority may still profess to have it, but it has ceased to be
+universal in the strict sense of the term. Nor will it be disputed that
+the number of convinced disbelievers is everywhere on the increase. The
+fact is everywhere lamented by the official exponents of religion. All
+that we can say is that the belief in God is universal&mdash;with those who
+believe in him. And even here universality of belief is only secured by
+their refraining from discussing precisely what it is they mean by
+"God," and what it is they believe in. There is agreement in obscurity,
+each one dreading to see clearly the features of his assumed friend for
+fear he should recognise the face of an enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the suspicious feature must be pointed out that the belief in
+God owes its existence, not to the trained and educated observation of
+civilised times, but to the uncritical reflection of the primitive mind.
+It has its origin there, and it would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> indeed be remarkable if, while in
+almost every other direction the primitive mind showed itself to be
+hopelessly wrong, in its interpretation of the world in this particular
+respect it has proved itself to be altogether right. As a matter of
+fact, this primitive assumption is going the way of the others, the only
+difference being that it is passing through more phases than some. But
+the decay is plain to all save those who refuse to see. The process of
+refinement cannot go on for ever. In other matters knowledge passes from
+a nebulous and indefinite stage to a precise and definite one. In the
+case of theism it pursues an opposite course. From the very definite
+god, or gods, of primitive mankind we advance to the vague and
+indefinite god of the modern theist&mdash;a God who, apparently, means
+nothing and does nothing, and at most stands as a symbol for our
+irremovable ignorance. Clearly this process cannot go on for ever. The
+work of attenuation must stop at some point. And one may safely predict
+that just as the advance of scientific knowledge has taken over one
+department after another that was formerly regarded as within the
+province of religion, so one day it will be borne in upon all that an
+hypothesis such as that of theism, which does nothing and explains
+nothing, may be profitably dispensed with.</p>
+
+<p>What really remains for discussion is a problem of socio-psychology.
+That is, we have to determine the conditions of origin of so widespread
+a belief, but which we believe to be false. The materials for answering
+this question are now at our command, and whatever differences of
+opinion there may be concerning the stages of development, there is
+very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> little concerning their essential character. And it is not without
+significance that this question of origin is one that the present-day
+apologists of theism seem pretty unanimous in leaving severely alone.</p>
+
+<p>Let us commence with the fact that religion is something that is
+acquired. Every work on the origin of religion assumes it, and all
+investigation warrants the assumption. The question at issue is the mode
+of acquisition. And here one word of caution is advisable. The wide
+range of religious ideas and their existence at a very low culture
+stage, precludes the assumption that religious ideas are generated in
+the same conscious way as are scientific theories. Even with the modern
+mind our conclusions concerning many of the affairs of life are formed
+in a semi-conscious manner. Most frequently they are generated
+subconsciously, and are only consciously formulated under pressure of
+circumstances. And if we are to understand religion aright we must be on
+our guard against attributing to primitive mankind a degree of
+scientific curiosity and reflective power to which it can lay no claim.
+We have to allow for what one writer well calls "physiological thought,"
+thought, that is, which rises subconsciously and has its origin in the
+pressure of insistent experience.</p>
+
+<p>A comprehensive survey of religious beliefs show that there are only two
+things that can be said to be common to them all. They differ in
+teachings, in their conceptions of deity, and in modes of worship. But
+all religions agree in believing in some kind of ghostly existence and
+in a continued life beyond the grave. I use the expression, "ghostly
+existence," because we can really trace the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> idea of God backward until
+we lose the definite figure in a very general conception, much as
+astronomers have taught us to lose a definite world in the primitive
+fire-mist. So when we get beyond the culture stage at which we meet with
+the definite man-like God, we encounter an indefinite thought stage at
+which we can dimly mark the existence of a frame of mind that was to
+give birth to the more concrete conception.</p>
+
+<p>The most general term for the belief in the various orders of gods thus
+becomes the belief in invisible, super-material beings, like, and yet
+superior to man. It is for this reason that Professor Tylor's definition
+of religion as "the belief in spiritual beings&mdash;so long as we do not use
+the term "spiritual" in its modern sense"&mdash;seems to me the moat
+satisfactory definition yet offered. It is the one point on which all
+religions agree, and for this reason may be regarded as their essential
+feature.</p>
+
+<p>This taken for granted, our next point of enquiry is, What was there in
+the conditions of primitive life that would give rise to a belief in
+this super-material, or in modern language, spiritual existence? Now
+there are at least two sets of experiences that seem adequate to the
+required explanation. The one is normal, the other abnormal. The first
+is connected directly with the universal experience of dreams. The
+savage is, as Tylor says, a severely practical person. He believes what
+he sees and, one may add, he sees what he believes. Knowing nothing of
+the distinction we draw between a fact and an illusion, ignorant of the
+functions, or even the existence of a nervous system, the dreams of a
+savage are to him as real as his waking experiences. He does not say "I
+dreamed I saw So-So," but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> like the Biblical characters he says, "I saw
+So-So in a dream." The two forms of expression carry all the difference
+between fact and fancy. One thing is therefore obvious to the savage
+mind&mdash;something escapes from the body, travels about, and returns. Such
+a conviction does not represent the conclusions of a genius speculating
+upon the meaning of unexplained facts. It is a conviction steadily built
+up by the pressure of unvarying experience, as steadily as is the
+conviction that fire burns or that water is wet. The very universality
+of the belief is proof that it had some such sub-conscious origin.</p>
+
+<p>A second class of experiences lead to the same conclusion. In temporary
+loss of consciousness the savage again sees proof of the existence of a
+double. With epilepsy or insanity there is offered decisive proof that
+some spirit has taken possession of the individual's body. Even in
+civilised countries this belief was widely held hardly more than a
+century ago. And both these classes of experience are enforced by the
+belief that the shadow of a man, an echo, a reflection seen in water,
+etc., are all real things. The proofs that the belief in a "soul" does
+originate in this way are now so plentiful that exact references are
+needless. Examination of primitive religious beliefs all over the world
+yield the one result, without there being any evidence to the contrary.</p>
+
+<p>Primitive philosophy does not stop here. Man dreams of things as well as
+of persons, and a general extension of the belief in a ghost or double
+is made until it covers almost everything. As Tylor says, "the doctrine
+of souls is worked out with remarkable breadth and consistency. The
+souls of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> animals are recognised by a natural extension from the theory
+of human souls; the souls of trees and plants follow in some vague
+partial way; and the souls of inanimate objects expand the category to
+the extremest boundary." The reasoning of the primitive mind is thus,
+given its limitations and unsound premises, uncompromisingly logical.
+One can trace the processes of reasoning more easily than is the case
+with modern man because it is less disturbed by cross-currents of
+acquired knowledge and conflicting interests.</p>
+
+<p>I am giving but the barest outline of a vast subject because I am
+desirous of keeping the attention of the reader on what I believe to be
+the main issue. For that reason I am not discussing whether animism&mdash;the
+vitalising of inanimate objects&mdash;has an independent origin, or whether
+it is a mere extension of the ghost theory. Either theory does not
+affect my main position, which is that the idea of God is derived from
+the ignorance of primitive humanity, and has no other authority than a
+misunderstanding of natural facts. On that point the agreement among all
+schools of anthropologists is now very general. Personally, however, I
+do not believe that men would ever have given a soul to trees or other
+natural objects unless they had first given them to living beings, and
+had thus familiarised themselves with the conception of a double.</p>
+
+<p>At present, though, we are on the track of the gods. The belief that
+every human being, and nearly every object, possesses a soul, ends in
+surrounding man with a cloud of spirits against which he has to be
+always on his guard. The general situation is well put by Miss Kingsley,
+who gives a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> picture of the West African that may well stand for the
+savage world in general.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Everything happens by the action of spirits. The thing he does
+himself is done by the spirit within acting on his body, the matter
+with which that spirit is associated. Everything that is done by
+other things is done by their spirit associated with their
+particular mass of matter.... The native will point out to you a
+lightning stricken tree and tell you its spirit has been killed. He
+will tell you, when the earthen cooking pot is broken, it has lost
+its spirit. If his weapon failed him, it is because he has stolen
+or made its spirit sick by means of his influence on other spirits
+of the same class.... In every action of his life he shows you how
+he lives with a great, powerful spirit world around him. You see
+him before running out to hunt or fight rubbing stuff in his weapon
+to strengthen the spirit that is in it; telling it the while what
+care he has taken of it; running through a list of what he had
+given it before, though these things had been hard to give; and
+begging it, in the hour of his dire necessity, not to fail him....
+You see him bending over the face of the river, talking to its
+spirit with proper incantations, asking it when it meets an enemy
+to upset his canoe and destroy him ... or, as I have myself seen in
+Congo Fran&ccedil;aise, to take down with it, away from his village, the
+pestilence of the spotted death. (<i>West African Studies</i>; pp.
+394-5).</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>When Feurbach said that the "realm of memory was the world of souls," he
+expressed a profound truth in a striking manner. It is dreams, swoons,
+catalepsy, with their allied states which suggest the existence of a
+double or ghost. Even in the absence of the mass of evidence from all
+quarters in support of this, the fact of the ghost always being pictured
+as identical in clothing and figure with the dead man would be almost
+enough to demonstrate its dream origin. Into that aspect of the matter,
+however, we do not now intend to enter. We are now only concerned with
+the bearing of the ghost theory on the origin of God. Another step or
+two and we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> shall have reached that point. Believing himself surrounded
+on all sides by a world of ghosts the great concern of the savage is to
+escape their ill-will or to secure their favour. Affection and
+fear&mdash;fear that the ghost, if his wants are neglected, will wreak
+vengeance through the agency of disease, famine, or accident&mdash;leads
+insensibly to the ghosts of one's relations becoming objects of
+veneration, propitiation, and petition. All ghosts receive some
+attention for a certain time after death, but naturally special and
+sustained honours are reserved for the heads of families,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> and for
+such as have been distinguished for various qualities during life. In
+this way ancestor worship becomes one of the most general forms of
+religious observances, and the gradual development of the great man or
+the deceased ancestor into a deity follows by easy stages. The
+principles of ancestor worship, to again cite the indispensible Tylor,
+are not difficult to understand:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>They plainly keep up the social relations of the living world. The
+dead ancestor, now passed into a deity, simply goes on protecting:
+his own family and receiving suit and service from them as of old;
+the dead chief still watches over his own tribe, still holds his
+authority by helping friends and harming enemies, still rewards the
+right and sharply punishes the wrong.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That this deification of ancestors and of dead men actually takes place
+is indisputable. The Mythologies of Greece and Rome offer numerous
+examples, and the deification of the Roman Emperors became the regular
+rule. Numerous examples to the same end are supplied from India by Mr.
+W. Crookes and Sir A. C. Lyall. That this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> way of honouring the dead is
+not limited to natives is shown by the famous case of General Nicholson,
+who actually received the honour of deification during his lifetime.
+Anyone who cares to consult those storehouses of information, Spencer's
+"Principles of Sociology" (Vol. I.), Tylor's "Primitive Culture," and
+Frazer's "Golden Bough" will find the whole god-making process set forth
+with a wealth of illustration that can hardly fail to carry conviction.
+Finally, in the case of Japan and China we have living examples of an
+organised system of religion based upon the deification of ancestors.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>It will make it easier to understand the evolution of the god from the
+ghost if we bear in mind that with primitive man the gods are conceived
+neither as independent existences nor as creators. Even immortality is
+not asserted of them. The modern notions of deity, largely due to the
+attempt to accommodate the idea of god to certain metaphysical and
+philosophical conceptions, are so intermingled with the primitive idea,
+that there is always the danger of reading into the primitive
+intelligence more than was ever there. The consequence is that by
+confusing the two senses of the word many find it difficult to realise
+how one has grown out of the other. Such ideas as those of creation and
+independence are quite foreign to the primitive mind. Savages are like
+children in this respect; their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> interest in things is primarily of a
+practical character. A child does not begin by asking how a thing came
+to be; it asks what it is for or what it does. So the prime concern of
+the savage is, what are certain things for? what will they do? are they
+injurious or beneficial? It is because of this practical turn of mind
+that so much attention is paid to the ghost, having once accepted its
+existence as a fact. The superiority of the gods do not consist in their
+substantial difference from himself, but in the greater power for good
+or evil conferred upon them by their invisible existence. Creation is a
+conception that does not arise until the capacity for philosophical
+speculation has developed. Then reflection sets to work; the nature of
+the god undergoes modification, and the long process of accommodating
+primitive religious beliefs to later knowledge commences, the end of
+which we have not yet seen.</p>
+
+<p>The process of reading modern speculations into the religion of the
+savage leads to some curious results, one of which we cannot forbear
+mentioning. In his little work on "Animism" Mr. Edward Clodd, after
+tracing the fundamental ideas of religion to primitive delusion, says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Herein (<i>i.e.</i>, in dream and visions) are to be found the sufficing
+materials for a belief in an entity in the body, but not of it,
+which can depart and return at will, and which man everywhere has
+more or less vaguely envisaged as his "double" or "other self."...
+The distinction between soul and body, which explained to man his
+own actions, was the key to the actions of animate and inanimate
+things. A personal life and will controlled them. This was
+obviously brought home to him more forcibly in the actions of
+living things, since these so closely resembled his own that he saw
+no difference between themselves and him. <i>Not in this matter alone
+have the intuitions of the savage found their confirmation in the
+discoveries</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span><i> of modern science</i>.... Ignorant of the reflection of
+sound, how else could he account for the echoes flung back from the
+hillside? Ignorant of the law of the interruption of light, how
+else could he explain the advancing and retreating shadows? <i>In
+some sense they must be alive; an inference supported by modern
+science.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The italics in the above passages are mine, and they serve to illustrate
+how certain writers manage to introduce quite misleading conceptions to
+their readers. It almost causes one to cease wondering at the
+persistence of religion when one finds a writer accepting the results of
+anthropological research, and at the same time claiming that savage
+"intuitions" are confirmed by modern science. If that be true, then all
+that Mr. Clodd has previously written must be dismissed as untrue. The
+statement is, however, quite inaccurate. The inference drawn by the
+savage is not supported by modern science. Neither on the existence of a
+soul nor on the existence of a god, nor on the nature of disease, nor on
+the causes of physical or psychical states has science confirmed the
+"intuitions" (whatever that conveniently cloudy word may mean) of the
+primitive savage. The acquisition of correct views would indeed be an
+easy thing if they could be gained by the "intuitions" of an untaught
+savage.</p>
+
+<p>The assertion that "in some sense" natural forces must be alive (as
+though there can be any real sense in a term except the right sense),
+and that this inference is "supported by modern physics," is an
+illustration of that playing with words which is fatal to exact thought.
+The only sense in which the expression is used in physics is that of
+"active," and both "active" and "alive" owe their vogue to the necessity
+for controverting the older view that natural forces are "inert" or
+"dead" and need<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> some external force to produce anything. It is a mere
+figure of speech; the evil is when it is taken and used as an exact
+expression of scientific fact. Let a reader of Mr. Clodd ask himself
+whether the life he thinks of when he speaks of forces being alive is
+animal life, and he will at once see the absurdity of the statement. And
+if he does not mean animal life, what life does he mean?</p>
+
+<p>Putting on one side all such attempts at accommodation, we may safely
+say that given the origin of religion in the manner indicated, one may
+trace&mdash;at least in outline&mdash;the development of religion from the
+primitive ghost worship up to the rituals and beliefs of current creeds.
+I do not mean by this that <i>all</i> religious beliefs and practices spring
+directly from ghost worship. Once religion is established, and the
+myth-making capacity let loose, additions are made that are due to all
+sorts of causes. The Romans and Greeks, for example, seem to have
+created a number of deities out of pure abstractions&mdash;gods of peace, of
+war, of fortune, and so forth. Why particular deities were invented, and
+how they became attached to particular groups of phenomena, are
+questions that it is often impossible to answer with any great degree of
+certainty, but why there should be any gods at all is a question that
+can be answered, I think, on the lines above indicated.</p>
+
+<p>The way in which the primitive ghost worship probably paved the way for
+some of the doctrines of the "higher" religions may be seen on taking a
+story such as the death and resurrection of the Gospel Jesus. In his
+treatise on "The Attis" Mr. Grant Allen made the ingenious suggestion
+that the greater fertility of the ground on and near the grave, owing to
+the food placed there to feed the ghost,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> would produce in the savage
+mind the conviction that this increased fertility was due to the
+beneficent activity of the double of the dead man. Reasoning from this
+basis, it would be a simple conclusion that the production, or lack, of
+crops was everywhere due to the action of good or evil spirits. In the
+next place, it must be remembered that it is the act of dying which
+raises the human being to the level of a guardian spirit or god; and
+from this to the production of a god by ceremonial killing would be a
+natural and an easy step. In this last respect, at least, we are upon
+the firm ground of fact, and not on that of mere theory. If a reader
+will take the trouble to peruse the numerous examples collected by Tylor
+in the first chapter of his "Primitive Culture," and those provided by
+Frazer in the "Golden Bough," he will find the evidence for this
+overwhelming. Examples of the practice of killing a human being and
+burying his body under the foundations of a castle or a bridge are very
+common, and the modern custom of burying coins under a foundation-stone
+is a harmless and interesting survival of this custom. In some parts of
+Africa a boy and girl are buried where a village is to be established.
+In Polynesia the central pillar of a temple was placed on the body of a
+human victim. In Scotland there is the legend that St. Columba buried
+the body of St. Oran under his monastery to make the building secure.
+Any country will supply stories of a similar kind. Finally, we have the
+amusing story of the manner in which Sir Richard Burton narrowly escaped
+deification. Exploring in Afghanistan in the disguise of a Mohammedan
+fakir, he received a friendly hint that he would do well to get off
+without delay. He expressed surprise,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> as the people seemed very fond of
+him. That, it was explained, was the cause of the trouble. They thought
+so much of him they intended to kill him, and thus retain so excellent a
+man with them for ever.</p>
+
+<p>When Tylor wrote, the prevalent impression was that this killing of
+human beings was due to a desire to appease the spirits of the place.
+Later investigation showed that instead of a sacrifice it was a
+creation. The purpose was to create a local god who would watch over the
+building or settlement. God-making was thus shown to be a universal
+practice.</p>
+
+<p>Our next step must be taken in the company of Sir James Frazer. On
+all-fours with the practice of creating a guardian deity for a building
+is that of making a similar guardian for crops and vegetation. The
+details of this practice are interesting, but they need not now detain
+us. It is enough that the practice existed, and, as Frazer shows, was an
+annual practice. Year by year the god was killed in order that the seed
+might ripen and the harvest be secured. In some cases the body was cut
+up and pieces buried in the fields; in other cases it was burned and the
+ashes scattered over the ground. Gradually the ritual becomes more
+elaborate, but the central idea remains intact that of a human being
+converted into a god by being killed, a man sacrificed for the benefit
+of the tribe. In the light of these researches the New Testament story
+becomes only a more recent version of a widespread savage superstition.
+The time of the sacrifice, the symbolism, the practices all prove this.
+The crucified Saviour, in honour of whom all the Christian cathedrals
+and churches of the world are built, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> only another late survival of
+the god-making practice of primitive savagery.</p>
+
+<p>The gods are, then, ultimately deified ghosts. They are born of
+misinterpreted subjective and objective experiences. This is among the
+surest and most firmly established results of modern investigation. It
+matters not what modifications later knowledge may demand; it will only
+mean a change of form, not of substance. On any scientific theory we are
+bound to explain the origin of the gods in terms of human error. And no
+subsequent development can alter its character. We may trace the various
+stages of a universal delusion, but nothing can convert a delusion into
+a reality. It is now universally recognised that the primitive notions
+of gods represent false conclusions from misunderstood facts. No one now
+believes that the visions seen during sleep are proofs of a wandering
+double. No one believes that it is necessary to supply the ghost of the
+dead with food, or with weapons, or with wives. We do not believe that
+the wind, the stars, the waters are alive or are capable of being
+influenced by our petitions. All the phenomena upon which the god idea
+was originally built are now known to be susceptible to a radically
+different explanation. And if this is so, what other foundations have we
+on which to build a belief in God? There is none. There is only one
+plausible reason for the belief in God, and that is the reason advanced
+by the savage. When we get beyond that we are not dealing with reasons
+for holding the belief, but only with excuses for retaining it.
+Unfortunately, thousands are familiar with the excuses, and only a few
+with the reasons. Were it otherwise a great deal of what follows need
+never have been written.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Both the words "supernatural" and "God" are here used
+somewhat loosely. In fact the conception of the supernatural arises
+gradually, and as a consequence of developing knowledge which, so to
+speak, splits the universe into two. So also with the belief in God.
+There is clearly an earlier form in which there exists a kind of mental
+plasma from which the more definite conception of God is subsequently
+formed. On this topic the reader may consult "The Threshold of
+Religion," by R. R. Marett, 1914.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> For the importance of this in the history of religion see
+Fustel de Coulanges' "The Ancient City."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The perpetuation of this earlier stage of religion in China
+and Japan appears to make the transition to Free-thought easier than in
+countries where religion has under-gone a more advanced evolution. In
+both the countries named, the better minds find it quite easy to treat
+their religion as merely the respect paid to ancestors, and thus divest
+it of the supernatural element. In Christian countries there is also the
+attempt to restate beliefs in terms of current morality and sociology,
+but the transition is more difficult.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Have we a Religious Sense?</span></h3>
+
+<p>In all discussions of theism there is one point that is usually
+overlooked. This is that theism is in the nature of a hypothesis. And,
+like every hypothesis, its value is proportionate to the extent to which
+it offers a satisfactory explanation of the facts with which it
+professes to deal. If it can offer no explanation its value is nil. If
+its explanation is only partial, its value will be determined by the
+degree to which it can claim superiority over any other hypothesis that
+is before us. But every hypothesis implies two things. There is a group
+of things to be explained, and there is the hypothesis itself that is
+offered in explanation. In the harmony of the two, and in the
+possibility of verification, lies the only proof of truth that can be
+offered.</p>
+
+<p>If this be granted it at once disposes of the plea that a conviction of
+the existence of God springs from some special quality of the mind which
+enables man to arrive at a conclusion in a manner different from the way
+in which conclusions concerning other subjects are reached. Intuition as
+a method of discovering truth is pure delusion. All that can be
+rationally meant by such a word as intuition is summarised experience.
+When we speak of knowing a thing "intuitively," all that we can mean is
+that, experience having furnished us with a sufficient guidance, we are
+able to reach a conclusion so rapidly that we cannot follow the steps of
+the mental process involved. That this is so is seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> in the fact that
+our intuitions always follow the line of our experience. A stockbroker
+may "intuitively" foresee a rise or fall of the market, but his
+intuition will fail him when considering the possibilities of a chemical
+composition. To say that a man knows a thing by intuition is only one
+way of saying that he does not know how he knows it&mdash;that is, he is
+unable to trace the stages of his own mental operations. And in this
+sense intuition is universal. It belongs as much to the cooking of a
+dumpling as it does to the belief in deity.</p>
+
+<p>But it is evident that when the theist talks of intuition, what he has
+in mind is something very different from this. He is thinking of some
+special quality of mind that operates independently of experience,
+either racial or individual. And this simply does not exist. In religion
+man is never putting into operation qualities of mind different from
+those he employs in other directions. Whether we call a state of mind
+religious or not is determined, not by the mental processes involved,
+but by the object to which it is directed. Hatred and love, anger,
+pleasure, awe, curiosity, reverence, even worship, are exactly the same
+whether directed towards "God" or towards anything else. Human qualities
+are fundamentally identical, and may be expressed in relation to all
+sorts of objects.</p>
+
+<p>The attempt to mark religion off from the rest of life, to be approached
+by special methods and in a special frame of mind, takes many forms, and
+it may be illustrated by the manner in which it is dealt with by
+Professor Arthur Thomson. In a little work entitled "An Introduction to
+Science," and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> specially intended for general consumption, he remarks,
+as a piece of advice to his readers:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>We would remind ourselves and our readers that the whole subject
+should be treated with reverence and sympathy, for it is hardly
+possible to exaggerate the august r&ocirc;le of religion in human life.
+Whatever be our views, we must recognise that just as the great
+mathematicians and metaphysicians represent the aristocracy of the
+human intellect, so the great religious geniuses represent the
+aristocracy of human emotion. And in this connection it is probably
+useful to bear in mind that in all discussions about religious
+ideas or feelings we should ourselves be in an exalted mood, and
+yet "with a compelling sense of our own limitations," and of the
+vastness and mysteriousness of the world.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>If Professor Thomson had been writing on "Frames of Mind Fatal to
+Scientific Investigation" he could hardly have chosen a better
+illustration of his thesis. One may safely say that anyone who started
+an examination of religion in this spirit, and maintained it throughout
+his examination, would perform something little short of a miracle did
+he reach a sound conclusion. A feeling of sympathy may pass, but why
+"reverence"? Reverence is a very complex state, but it certainly
+includes respect and a certain measure of affection. And how is one to
+rationally have respect or affection for anything <i>before</i> one has
+ascertained that they are deserving of either? Is anyone who happens to
+believe that religion is <i>not</i> worthy of reverence to be ruled out as
+being unfit to express an opinion? Clearly, on this rule, either we
+compel a man to sacrifice his sense of self-respect before we will allow
+him to be heard, or we pack the jury with persons who confess to have
+reached a decision before they have heard the evidence. It would almost
+seem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> from the expression that while examining religion we should be in
+an "exalted mood" that Professor Thomson has in view the last
+contingency. For by an exalted mood we can only understand a religious
+mood&mdash;that is, we must believe in religion before we examine it,
+otherwise our examination is profanity. Well, that is just the cry of
+the priest in all ages. And while it is sound religion, there is no
+question of its being shocking science. Even the mere feeling of
+exaltation is not to be encouraged during a scientific investigation.
+One can understand Kepler when he had discovered the true laws of
+planetary motion, or Newton when he embraced in one magnificent
+generalisation the fall of a stone and the revolution of a planet,
+experiencing a feeling of exaltation; but exaltation must follow, not
+precede, the conclusion. At any rate, there are few scientific teachers
+who would encourage such a feeling during investigation.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving for a moment the question of religious geniuses being the
+aristocrats of human emotion, we may take the same writer's view of the
+limitations of science, thus providing an opening for the intrusion of
+religion. This is given in the form of a criticism of the following
+well-known passage from Huxley:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>If the fundamental proposition of evolution is true, namely, that
+the entire world, animate and inanimate, is the result of the
+mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of forces possessed
+by the molecules which made up the primitive nebulosity of the
+universe; then it is no less certain that the present actual world
+reposed potentially in the cosmic vapour, and that an intelligence,
+if great enough, could from his knowledge of the properties of the
+molecules of that vapour have predicted the state of the fauna in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+Great Britain in 1888 with as much certitude as we say what will
+happen to the vapour of our breath on a cold day in winter.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Now, if the principle of evolution be accepted, the truth of Huxley's
+statement appears to be self-evident. It may be that no intelligence
+capable of making such a calculation will ever exist, but the abstract
+possibility remains. Professor Thomson calls it "a very strong and
+confident statement," which illustrates the need for philosophical
+criticism. His criticism of Huxley's statement is based on two grounds.
+These are: (1) "No complete physico-chemical description has ever been
+given of any distinctively vital activity; and (2) the physical
+description of things cannot cover biological phenomena, nor can the
+biological description cover mental and moral phenomena." There is, he
+says,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The physical order of nature&mdash;the inorganic world&mdash;where mechanism
+reigns supreme. (2) There is the vital order of nature&mdash;the world
+of organisms&mdash;where mechanism proves insufficient. (3) There is the
+physical order of nature&mdash;the world of mind&mdash;where mechanism is
+irrelevant. Thus there are three fundamental sciences&mdash;Physics,
+Biology, and Psychology&mdash;each with characteristic questions,
+categories and formul&aelig;.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Now, however earnestly Huxley's statement calls for criticism, it is
+clear to us that nothing useful in that direction is offered by Prof.
+Thomson. It is quite plain that the abstract possibility of such a
+calculation as that named by Huxley can never be ruled out by science,
+since such a conception lies at the root of all scientific thinking.
+After all, want of knowledge only proves&mdash;want of knowledge; and Sir
+Oliver Lodge would warn Prof. Thomson of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> extreme danger of resting
+an argument on the ignorance of science at any particular time.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>I note this statement of Professor Thomson's chiefly because it
+illustrates a very common method of dealing with the mechanistic or
+non-theistic view of the universe. In this matter Professor Thomson may
+claim the companionship of Sir Oliver Lodge, who says, "Materialism is
+appropriate to the material world, not as a philosophy, but as a working
+creed, as a proximate, an immediate formula for guiding research.
+Everything beyond that belongs to another region, and must be reached by
+other methods. To explain the psychical in terms of physics and
+chemistry is simply impossible.... The extreme school of biologists ...
+ought to say, if they were consistent, there is nothing but physics and
+chemistry at work anywhere." With both these writers there is the common
+assumption that the mechanist assumes there is a physical and chemical
+explanation of all phenomena. And the assumption is false. There is a
+story of a well-known lecturer on physiology who commenced an address on
+the stomach by remarking that that organ had been called this, that, and
+the other, but the one thing he wished his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> students to bear in mind was
+that it was a stomach. So the mechanist, while firmly believing that
+there is an ascending unity in all natural phenomena, is never silly
+enough to deny that living things are alive, or that thinking beings
+think.</p>
+
+<p>But unless Professor Thomson does impute this to the mechanist, we quite
+fail to see the relevance his assertion that there are three
+departments, physics, biology, and psychology, each with its
+characteristic questions, categories, and formul&aelig;. Of course, there are,
+and equally, of course, physical laws will not cover biological facts;
+nor will biological laws cover psychological ones. This is not due to
+any occult cause, but to the simple fact that as each group of phenomena
+has its characteristic features, each set of laws are framed to cover
+the phenomena presented by that group. Otherwise there would be no need
+of these special laws. It is astonishing how paralysing is the effect of
+the theistic obsession on the minds of even scientific men, since it
+leads them to ignore what is really a basic consideration in scientific
+method.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps a word or two more on this topic is advisable. If it is
+permissible to arrange natural phenomena in a serial order, we may place
+them in succession as physical, chemical, biological, and psychological.
+But these names represent no more than descriptions of certain features
+that are to the group common, otherwise the grouping would be useless
+and impossible. And it is part of the business of science to frame
+"laws"&mdash;descriptions&mdash;of phenomena such as will enable us to express
+their characteristic features in a brief formula. It is, therefore,
+quite true to say that you cannot express<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> vital phenomena in terms of
+physics or chemistry. And no materialist who took the trouble to
+understand materialism, instead of taking a statement of what it is from
+an anti-materialist, ever thought otherwise. <i>Each specific group of
+phenomena can only be covered by laws that belong to that group, and
+which were framed for that express purpose.</i> A psychological fact can no
+more be expressed in terms of chemistry than a physical fact can be
+expressed in terms of biology. These truths are as plain to the
+mechanist as they are to the vitalist. Mental life, the scientific
+categories, are real to all; the only question at issue is that of their
+origin.</p>
+
+<p>To explain is to make intelligible, and in that sense all scientific
+explanation consists in the establishing of equivalents. When we say
+that A, B, C are the factors of D, we have asserted D is the equivalent
+of A, B, C&mdash;plus, of course, all that results from the combination of
+the factors. When we say that we have explained the formation of water
+by showing it to be the product of H.2.O. we have shown that whether we
+say "water" or use the chemical formula we are making identical
+statements. If we are working out a problem in dynamics we meet with
+exactly the same principle. We must prove that the resultant accounts
+for all the forces in operation at the time. Now, all that the mechanist
+claims is that it is extremely probable that one day the scientist will
+be able to work out the exact physico-chemical conditions that are the
+equivalents of biological phenomena, and, in turn, the
+physico-chemical-biological conditions that are the equivalents of
+psychological phenomena. Very considerable progress has already been
+made in this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> direction, and, as Sir Oliver Lodge says, there are
+probably very few scientific men who would deny the likelihood of this
+being done.</p>
+
+<p>But this does not deny the existence of differences between these groups
+of phenomena; neither does it assert that we can describe the
+characteristic features of one group in terms that belong to another
+group. Once a group of phenomena, biological, or chemical is there, we
+must have special formul&aelig; to describe them, otherwise there would be no
+need for these divisions. It is admitted that the earth was at one time
+destitute of life; it is also admitted that there are forms of life
+destitute of those features which we call mind. And, whatever be their
+mode of origin, once introduced they must be dealt with in special
+terms. Psychological facts must be expressed in terms of psychology,
+biological facts in terms of biology, and chemical facts in terms of
+chemistry. You may give the chemical and physical equivalent of a
+sunset. That is one aspect. You may also give the psychological
+explanation of the emotion of man on beholding it. That is another
+aspect. But you cannot express the psychological fact in terms of
+chemistry because it belongs to quite another category. A psychological
+fact, as such, is ultimate. So is a chemical or a biological fact. If by
+analysis you reduce the psychological fact to its chemical and
+biological equivalents, its character as a psychological fact is
+destroyed. That is the product of the synthesis, and to seek in analysis
+for what only exists in synthesis, is surely to altogether misunderstand
+the spirit of scientific method. The curious thing is that a mere layman
+should have to correct men of science on this matter.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p><p>We can now return to Prof. Thomson's attempt to claim for religion a
+special place in the sphere of emotion. He claims, in the passage
+already cited, that "as the great mathematicians and metaphysicians
+represent the aristocracy of human intellect so the great religious
+geniuses represent the aristocracy of human emotion." There is nothing
+new in this claim, neither is there any evidence of its truth.
+Coleridge's dictum that the proper antithesis to religion is poetry is
+open to serious objection, but there is more to be said for it than may
+be said for the antithesis set up by Prof. Thomson. As a matter of fact,
+religious geniuses have often pursued their work with as much attention
+to scientific precision as was possible, and have prided themselves that
+they made no appeal to mere emotion. Justification by emotion has only
+been attempted when other means of securing conviction has failed. And
+the appeal to emotion has become popular for very obvious reasons. It
+enables the ordinary theologian to feel a comfortable superiority over a
+Spencer or a Darwin. It enables mediocrities to enjoy the feeling of
+being wise without the trouble of acquiring wisdom. It enables inherited
+prejudices to rank as reasoned convictions. And, in addition, there is
+nothing that cannot be conveniently proved or disproved by such a
+method.</p>
+
+<p>In whatever form the distinction is met with it harbours a fallacy.
+Intellectual activity is not and cannot be divorced from emotion. There
+are states of mind in which feeling predominates, and there are others
+in which reason predominates. But all intellectual states involve a
+feeling element. The often-made remark that feeling and intellect are
+in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> conflict is true only in the sense that ultimately certain
+intellectual states, <i>plus</i> their associated feelings, are in conflict
+with other intellectual states plus <i>their</i> associated feelings. To
+realise this one need only consider the sheer pleasure that results from
+the rapid sweep of the mind through a lengthy chain of reasoning, and
+the positive pain that ensues when the terms of a proposition baffles
+comprehension. The force of this is admitted by Prof. Thomson in the
+remark that man at the limit of his endeavour has fallen back on
+religion. Quite so; that is the painful feelings evoked by an
+intellectual failure have thrown a certain type of mind back on
+religion. In this they have acted like one who flies to a drug for
+relief from a pain he lacks the courage to bear. They take a narcotic
+when, often enough, the real need is for a stimulant.</p>
+
+<p>In sober truth religion is no more necessarily connected with the
+emotions than are other subjects of investigation. Those who have made
+the pursuit of "cold scientific truth" their life's work have shown
+every whit as much ardour and passion as those who have given their life
+to religion. The picture of man sacrificing himself in the cause of
+religion is easily matched by a Vesalius haunting the charnel houses of
+Europe, and risking the most loathsome diseases in the interests of
+scientific research. The abiding passion for truth in a character such
+as that of Roger Bacon or Bruno easily matches the enthusiasm of the
+missionary monk. The passion and the enthusiasm for science is less
+advertised than the passion and the enthusiasm for religion, but it is
+quite as real, and certainly not less valuable. The state of mind of
+Kepler on discovering the laws of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> planetary motion was hardly less
+ecstatic than that of a religious visionary describing his sense of
+"spiritual" communion. Only in the case of the scientist, it is emotion
+guided by reason, not reason checked and partly throttled by emotion.</p>
+
+<p>When, therefore, Matthew Arnold defined religion as morality touched
+with emotion, he substituted a fallacy for a definition. Primarily
+religion is as much a conviction as is the Copernican system of
+astronomy. It exists first as an idea; it only exists as an emotion at a
+later stage. There is really no such thing as a religious emotion, there
+are only emotions connected with religion. Originally all religion is in
+the nature of an inference from observed or experienced facts. This
+inference may not be of the elaborate kind that we associate with modern
+scientific work, but it is there. The inference is an illogical one, but
+under the conditions inevitable. And being an inference religion is not
+primarily an emotion but a conviction, and it must stand or fall by its
+intellectual trustworthiness. It seems, indeed, little less than a
+truism to say that unless men first of all <i>believed</i> something about
+religion they could never have emotions concerning it. Hope and fear may
+colour our convictions, they may prevent the formation of correct
+opinions, but they originate in connection with a belief in every case.
+And an emotion, if it be a healthful one, must be ultimately capable of
+intellectual justification. When this cannot be done, when we have mere
+emotion pleaded as a ground for rejecting rational examination, we have
+irrationalism driven to its last ditch.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> "The present powerlessness of science to explain or
+originate life is a convenient weapon wherewith to fell a
+pseudo-scientific antagonist who is dogmatising too loudly out of
+bounds; but it is not perfectly secure as a permanent support.... Life
+in its ultimate elements and on its material side is such a simple
+thing, it is but a slight extension of known chemical and physical
+forces.... I apprehend that there is not a biologist but believes
+(perhaps quite erroneously) that sooner or later the discovery will be
+made, and that a cell discharging all the essential functions of life
+will be constructed out of inorganic material." ("Man and the Universe,"
+Chap. I.).</p></div></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Argument from Existence.</span></h3>
+
+<p>What, now, are the facts upon which the modern believer in deity
+professes to base his belief and what are the arguments used to defend
+the position taken up?</p>
+
+<p>Premising that the reasons advanced for the belief in deity are more in
+the nature of excuses than aught else, we may take first of all the
+argument derived from the mere existence of the universe, with the
+alleged impossibility of conceiving it as self-existent. Along with that
+there may also be taken as a variant of the argument from existence, the
+alleged impossibility of a natural "order" that should result from the
+inherent properties of natural forces. Now it is at least plain that
+whatever difficulty there is in thinking of the universe as either
+self-existing or self-adjusting is in no degree lessened by assuming a
+God as the originator and sustainer of the whole. The most that it does
+is to move the difficulty back a step, and while with many "out of sight
+out of mind" is as true of their attitude towards mental problems as it
+is towards the more ordinary things of life, the policy can hardly be
+commended in serious intellectual discussions. It is not a bit easier to
+think of self-existence or self-direction in connection with a god than
+it is in connection with the universe. And if we must rest ultimately
+with an insoluble difficulty, it is surely better to stop with the
+existence we know rather than to introduce<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> a second existence which for
+all we know may be quite mythical.</p>
+
+<p>It is no reply to say that the idea of God involves self-existence. It
+does nothing of the kind, or at least it can do so only by our making
+yet another assumption that is as unjustifiable as the previous one. If
+God is a personality, we have no conception of a personality that is
+self-existent. The only personality that we know is the human
+personality, and that is certainly derived. Our whole knowledge of human
+personality is that of something which is derived from pre-existing
+personalities, each of which is a centre of derived influences. Of
+personality as either the cause or the commencement of a series we have
+not the slightest conception. And the man who says he has can never have
+carefully examined the contents of his own mind.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is that the fact of the existence of the universe provides no
+ground for argument in favour of either Atheism or Theism. Existence is
+a common datum for all. Some existence must be assumed in all argument
+since all argument implies something that is to be discussed and
+explained. And for that very reason we can offer no explanation of
+existence itself, since all explanation means the merging of one class
+of facts in a larger class. The largest class of facts we have is that
+which is included in the term "universe," and we cannot explain that by
+assuming another existence&mdash;God&mdash;about which we know nothing. To explain
+the unknown by the known is an intelligible procedure. To explain the
+known by the unknown is to forsake all intellectual sanity. Thus every
+difficulty that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> surrounds the conception of the universe as an ultimate
+fact, surrounds the existence of God as an ultimate fact. You cannot get
+rid of a difficulty by giving it another name. And whether we call
+ultimate existence "God," or "matter," or "substance," is of no vital
+importance to anyone who keeps his mind on the real issue that has to be
+decided. If the question, What is the cause of existence? be a
+legitimate one, it applies no less to the existence of God than it does
+to the existence of matter, or force, or substance. All that we gain is
+another problem which we add to the problems we already possess. We
+increase our burden without enlarging our comprehension. If, on the
+other hand, it is said that we need an all embracing formula that will
+make our conception of the universe coherent, it may be replied that we
+have that in such a conception as the persistence of force. And it is
+surely better to keep to a formula that does at least work, than to
+devise one that is altogether useless.</p>
+
+<p>The inherent weakness of the theistic conception will be best seen by
+taking an orthodox presentation of the argument under consideration. In
+his well-known work on "Theism," Professor Flint says "that granting all
+the atoms of matter to be eternal, grant that all the properties and
+forces, which with the smallest degree of plausibility can be claimed
+for them to be eternal and indestructible, and it is still beyond
+expression improbable that these atoms, with these forces, if
+unarranged, uncombined, unutilised by a presiding mind, would give rise
+to anything entitled to be called a universe. It is millions to one that
+they would never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> produce the simplest of the regular arrangements which
+we comprehend under the designation of course of nature." (<i>Theism</i>; pp.
+107-8.)</p>
+
+<p>Now this is an admirably clear and terse statement of an argument which
+is often presented in so verbose a manner that its real nature is, to a
+considerable extent, disguised. But in this case, clearness of statement
+makes for ease of refutation, as will be seen.</p>
+
+<p>For, instead of the statement being, as the writer seems to think,
+almost self-evidently true, it is almost obtrusively false. Instead of
+its being millions to one, given matter and force with all their present
+properties, against the present arrangement of things occurring, it is
+inconceivable, assuming that nothing but the atoms and their properties
+exist, that any other arrangement than the present one should have
+resulted. For the present natural order is not something that is, so to
+speak, separable from our conception of natural forces, it is something
+that has grown out of and is the expression of the idea of nature. Thus,
+given a proper understanding of the principle of gravitation, and it is
+impossible to conceive an unsupported stone <i>not</i> falling to the ground.
+Given a proper conception of the properties of the constituents of a
+chemical compound, and we can only conceive one result as possible. In
+all cases our conception of what <i>must</i> occur follows from the nature of
+the forces themselves. This is necessarily the case since the conception
+of the ultimate properties of matter has been built up by the
+observation of the actual results. And one simply cannot conceive an
+alteration in these results without thinking of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> some alteration or
+modification of the causes of which they are the expression. What is
+true of the part is true of the whole. The present structure of the
+world stands as the inevitable outcome of the play of natural forces.
+This is both the expression of an actual fact and a condition of
+coherent thought. Uniformity of results from uniformity of conditions is
+a pre-requisite to sane thinking.</p>
+
+<p>In reality, the expression "millions to one" is no more than an appeal
+to man's awe in facing a stupendous mechanism, and his feeling of
+impotence when dealing with so complex a subject as the evolution of a
+world. It can only mean that to a certain state of knowledge it <i>seems</i>
+millions to one against the present order resulting. But to a certain
+state of knowledge it would seem millions to one against so fluid a
+thing as water ever becoming solid. To others it is a commonplace thing
+and a necessary consequence of the properties of water itself. To a
+savage it would be millions to one against a cloud of "fire mist" ever
+becoming a world with a highly diversified fauna and flora. To a
+scientist there is nothing more in it than antecedent and consequent.
+Such expressions as its being "millions to one" against certain things
+happening is never really more than an appeal to ignorance; it means
+only that our knowledge is not great enough to permit our tracing the
+successive stages of the evolution before us. Once the scientific
+conception of the universe is grasped, the marvel is not that the
+present order exists, the marvel would be that any other "order" should
+be, or that any radical alteration in it should occur.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p><p>And there really is no need to throw the whole universe at the head of
+the sceptic. That is an attempt to overcome him with sheer weight.
+Intrinsically there is nothing more marvellous in the evolution of a
+habitable globe from the primitive nebula, than there is in the fact
+that an unsupported stone always falls to the ground. It is only our
+familiarity with the one experience and our lack of knowledge concerning
+the other that gives us the condition of wonder in the one case and lack
+of it in the other. In the light of modern knowledge "order" is, as W.
+H. Mallock says, "a physical platitude, not a divine paradox."</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, if the odds are a million to one against the existence of the
+present arrangement existing, the odds would be equally great against
+the existence of any other arrangement. And as the odds are equally
+great against all&mdash;seeing that <i>some</i> arrangement must exist&mdash;there can
+be no logical value in using the argument against one arrangement in
+particular. The same question, "Why this arrangement and none other?"
+might arise in any case.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the absurdity of arguing that the "order" of nature compels a
+belief in deity may be seen by realising the fact that our conception of
+order is itself the product of the experienced sequence which
+constitutes the order in question. Our ideas of order are not
+independent of the world, they are its product&mdash;an expression of the
+relation between organism and environment. Given a different organism,
+with different sense organs, and the world would appear different. On
+the other hand the whole structure of man is the result of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> the existing
+conditions. Assume the order to be changed, and the human
+organism&mdash;presuming it still to exist, will undergo corresponding
+modifications. It would not find less order or less beauty, the order
+and the beauty would simply be found in another direction. And,
+presumably, the theist would still point to the existence of <i>that</i>
+order as clear proof of a designing intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>Something needs to be said here on a more recent form of the argument
+from the "order" of nature than the one we have been discussing. There
+is no vital distinction between the old and the new form, but a
+variation in terms seems to produce on some minds a conviction of
+newness&mdash;itself a proof that the nature of the old form had never been
+fully realised.</p>
+
+<p>This new form is that based upon what is called "Directivity."
+Recognising that it is no longer possible to successfully dispute the
+scientific proposition that the state of the universe at any one moment
+must be taken as the result of all the conditions then prevailing, and,
+therefore, it is to the operation of the ultimate properties of matter,
+force, ether,&mdash;or whatever name we choose to give to the substance of
+the universe&mdash;it is argued that we nevertheless require some directing
+force which will set, and keep the universe on its present track.</p>
+
+<p>But there is really nothing in this beyond the now familiar appeal to
+human impotence. "We do not know," "We cannot see," are quite excellent
+reasons for saying nothing at all, but the very worst ground on which to
+make positive statements, or on which to base positive beliefs. The
+only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> condition that would justify our making human ignorance a ground
+on which to make statements of the kind named would be that we had
+demonstrably exhausted the possibilities of natural forces, and no
+further developments were possible in this direction. Far from this
+being the case there is not a single man of science who would dissent
+from the statement that we are only upon the threshold of a knowledge of
+their possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>And this assumption of "direction" is unconvincing, if not suicidal in
+character. Assuming that direction may have occurred, the fact of
+direction adds nothing to the qualities or possibilities of existence,
+any more than the "directivity" of a chemist adds to the possibilities
+of certain elements when he brings them into combination. Unless the
+possibilities of the compound were already in the elements guidance
+would be useless. And, in the same way, unless the capacity for
+producing the universe we see already existed in the atoms themselves,
+no amount of "direction" could have produced it. God simply takes the
+place of the chemist bringing certain chemical elements in, of the
+engineer guiding certain forces along a particular channel. But no new
+capacity is created, and all that is done by either the chemist or the
+engineer <i>might</i> occur without their interference. Otherwise it could
+not occur at all.</p>
+
+<p>Now there is no denying that natural forces <i>do</i> produce the phenomena
+around us. That is undeniable. And whether there be a god or not this
+fact remains quite unaffected. All that God can do is to set up certain
+combinations. But this does not exclude the possibility of this
+combination<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> taking place without the operation of deity. In fact, it
+implies it. Either, then, natural forces possess the capacity to produce
+the universe as we see it, or they do not. If they do not, then it is
+impossible for us to conceive in what way even deity could produce it.
+If, on the other hand, they have this capacity, the argument for the
+existence of deity loses its force, and the theist is bound to admit
+that all that he claims as due to the action of deity might have
+happened without him. The theists own argument, if logically pursued
+ends in divesting it of all coercive value.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious that the theist should fail to see that a much stronger
+argument for the operation of deity would have been of a negative
+character, to have proved that in some way God manifested an inhibitive
+influence and thus prevented certain things occurring which would have
+transpired but for his interference. Regularity, or "order" is, as we
+have seen, the necessary consequence of the persistence of force. And so
+long as natural forces continue to express themselves in the way in
+which experience has led us to expect there is no need for us to think
+of anything beyond. The principle of inertia is with us here, for if it
+be true that force will persist in a given direction unless deflected
+from its course by some other force, it must be equally true that <i>all</i>
+forces will work out a given consequence unless they are deflected from
+their course by the operation of some superior force.</p>
+
+<p>Now if it were possible for the theist to show that in certain cases the
+normal consequences of known forces did not transpire, and that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+aberration could not be accounted for by the operation of any other
+conceivable force, it might be argued with some degree of plausibility
+that there exists a controlling power beyond which answers to God. That
+might afford a plausible case for "directivity." But to insist upon the
+prevalence of "natural order" will not help the case for theism. It will
+rather embarrass it. It may, of course, impress all those whose
+conception of scientific method is poor&mdash;and sometimes one thinks that
+this is all that is deliberately aimed at&mdash;but it will not affect anyone
+else. To the informed mind it will appear that the Goddite is weakening
+his case with every step he takes in the direction of what he apparently
+believes to be a demonstration of its logical invulnerability.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Argument from Causation.</span></h3>
+
+<p>The argument from causation may logically follow that from existence, of
+which it may be regarded as a part. It is presented under various forms,
+and when stated in a persuasive manner, is next to the argument from
+design, probably as popular as any. The principal reason for this is, I
+think, that very few people are concerned with thinking out exactly what
+is meant by causation, and the proposition that every event must have a
+cause, wins a ready assent, and when followed by the assertion that
+therefore the universe must have had a cause, which is God, the
+reasoning, or rather the parody of reasoning, appeals to many. There is
+a show of reason and logic, but little more.</p>
+
+<p>Quite unquestionably a great deals depends upon what is meant by
+causation, and still more upon the use made of the law of causation by
+theists. Thus we have seen it urged against Materialists that neural
+activity cannot be the equivalent of thought because they do not
+resemble each other. And in another direction we meet with the same idea
+in the assertion that the cause must be equal to the effect, by which it
+is apparently meant that the cause must be <i>similar</i> to the effect, and
+that unless we can discern in the cause the same qualities manifested by
+the effect, we have not established the fact of causation at all.</p>
+
+<p>The complete and perfect answer to this last view is that the qualities
+manifest in an effect never are manifest in the cause, were it so it
+would be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>impossible to distinguish one from the other. The theist is,
+as is often the case, saying one thing and meaning another. What he says
+is that the cause must be adequate to the effect. There is no dispute
+here. But what he proceeds to argue is that the effect must be
+discernible in the cause, which is a different statement altogether.
+When he says that an effect cannot be greater than its cause, what he
+means is that an effect cannot be different from its cause, which is
+downright nonsense. He asks, How can that which has not life produce
+life? as though the question were on all fours with the necessity for a
+man to possess twenty shillings before he can give change for a
+sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the reply to all this is that the factors which when combined
+produce an effect always "give" something of which when uncombined they
+show no trace. There is no trace; of sweetness in the constituents of
+sugar of lead, or of blueness in the constituents of blue vitriol. In
+not a single case, if we are to follow the logic of the theist, is there
+a cause adequate to produce an effect, if we are to follow the reasoning
+of some theists; in each case we should have to assume some occult agent
+as responsible for the result. In reality and in strict scientific
+truth, it is of the very essence of causation that there shall be
+present in the effect some quality or qualities that are not present in
+the cause. And all the confusion may be eliminated if there is borne in
+mind the simple and single consideration that in studying an effect it
+is the qualities of a combination with which we are properly concerned.
+And to expect to find in analysis that which is the product of synthesis
+is in the highest degree absurd.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p><p>Sir Oliver Lodge in his little work on "Life and Matter" properly
+corrects the fallacy with which I have been dealing, and points out that
+"properties can be possessed by an aggregate or an assemblage of
+particles, which in the particles themselves did not in the slightest
+degree exist." But in his desire to find a basis for his theism
+immediately falls into an error in an opposite direction. We are on safe
+ground, he says, in asserting that "whatever is in a part must be in the
+whole." This is true if it is meant that as the whole contains the part,
+the part is in the whole. But in that sense the statement was hardly
+worth the making. What his argument demands is the meaning that as man
+is possessed of mind, and as man is part of nature, therefore nature, as
+a whole, manifests mind. And that is not true. Mind may be a special
+manifestation of a special arrangement of forces, and only occurring
+under special conditions. What Sir Oliver says, then, is that the
+properties of a part are in the whole, because the part is included in
+whole. What he implies, and without this implication his argument is
+meaningless, is that the properties of a part belong to all parts of the
+whole. And that is a statement so grotesquely untrue that I suspect Sir
+Oliver would be the first to disown the plain implications of his own
+argument.</p>
+
+<p>And here is Sir Oliver's illustration of his argument:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"the fact an apple has pips legitimises the assertion that an apple
+tree has pips ... but it would be a childish misunderstanding to
+expect to find actual pips in the trunk of a tree."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Now, why should the fact that an apple has pips<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> legitimise the
+statement that an apple tree has pips, any more than it legitimises the
+statement that the soil from which it springs has pips? And if the tree
+has not actual pips, in what sense does it possess them? If the reply is
+that it possesses them potentially, one may meet that with the rejoinder
+that potentially pips, and everything else, including Sir Oliver Lodge,
+were contained in the primitive nebul&aelig;. As a matter of fact the apple
+tree does not contain pips either actually or potentially. In his
+championship of theism our scientist forgets his science. What the apple
+tree possesses is the capacity for building up a fruit with pips <i>with
+the aid of material extracted from the soil beneath and from the air
+around</i>. These pips are no more in the tree than they are in the air or
+the soil&mdash;not even as a figure of speech. One might, from any point of
+view, as reasonably look for the colour and shape and smell of an apple
+in the tree as to look for the pips. The properties of the tree is
+really one of the factors in the production of a result. Sir Oliver
+makes the mistake of writing as though the tree was the only factor in
+the problem.</p>
+
+<p>This is not the place in which to enter on an exhaustive inquiry as to
+the nature of causation. It is enough to point out that the whole
+theistic fallacy rests here on the assumption that we are dealing with
+two things, when as a matter of fact we are dealing with only one. Cause
+and effect are not two separate things, they are the same thing viewed
+under two different aspects. When, for example, I ask for the cause of
+gunpowder and am told that it is sulphur, charcoal, and nitre, or for a
+cause of sulphuric acid and am given sulphide of iron and oxygen, it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+clear that considered separately these ingredients are not causes at
+all. Whether charcoal and sulphur will become part of the cause of
+gunpowder or not will depend upon the presence of the third agent;
+whether sulphide of iron will rank as part of the cause of sulphuric
+acid will depend upon the presence of oxygen. In every case it is the
+assemblage of appropriate factors that constitute a real cause. But
+given the factors, gunpowder does not follow their assemblage, it is
+their assemblage that is expressed by the result. There is no succession
+in time, the result is instantaneous with the assemblage of the factors.
+The effect is the registration, so to speak, of the combination of the
+factors.</p>
+
+<p>Now if what has been said be admitted as correct the argument for the
+existence of God as based upon the fact of causation breaks down
+completely. If cause and effect are the expressions of a relation, and
+if they are not two things, but only one, under two aspects, "cause"
+being the name for the related powers of the factors, and "effect" the
+name for their assemblage, to talk, as does the theist, of working back
+along the chain of causes until we reach God, is nonsense. Even if we
+could achieve this feat of regression, we could not reach by this means
+a God distinct from the universe. For, as discovering the cause of any
+effect means no more than analysing an effect into its factors, the
+problem would ultimately be that of dealing with the question of how
+something already existing transformed itself into the existing
+universe. A form of a very doubtful Pantheism might be reached in this
+way, but not theism.</p>
+
+<p>But here a fresh difficulty presents itself to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> theist. A cause, as
+I have pointed out, must consist of at least two factors or two forces.
+This is absolutely indispensable. But assuming that we have got back to
+a point prior to the existence of the universe, we have on the theistic
+theory, not two factors, but only one. The essential condition for an
+act of causation is lacking. A single factor could only repeat itself.
+By this method the theist might reach "God." But having got there, there
+he would remain. He is left with God and nothing else, and with no
+possibility of reaching anything else.</p>
+
+<p>We land in the same dilemma if we pursue another road. Philosophers of
+certain schools place existence in two categories. There is the world of
+appearance (phenomena), and there is the world of reality or substance
+(noumena). We know phenomena and their laws, they say, but no more. We
+do not know, and cannot know, Substance in itself; and the theist
+promptly adds that this unknown substance is but another name for God.
+The philosopher also warns us against applying the laws of the
+phenomenal world to noumena, reminding us that what we call "laws of
+nature" have been devised to explain the world as it presents itself to
+our consciousness. And to this we have the theological analogue in the
+warning not to measure the infinite by the finite or to judge God by
+human standards.</p>
+
+<p>Now granting all this, let us see how the argument stands. The laws of
+phenomena belong exclusively to the phenomenal world. Their application
+and their validity are restricted to the world of phenomena. When we
+leave this region we are in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> sphere to which they are quite
+inapplicable. What, then, can be meant by speaking of God as a "First
+Cause"? Cause is a phenomenal term, it expresses the relations between
+phenomena, and it has no meaning when applied to this assumed and
+unknown reality. We are in the position of one who is trying to use a
+colour scale in a world where vision does not exist. The theist is
+trying, in a similar way, to use the conception of "cause," which is
+created to express the relations between phenomena, in a world where
+phenomena have no existence. Thus, when the theist, to use his own
+words, has traced back an effect to a cause, and this to a prior cause,
+and so on, till he has reached a "First Cause," what happens? Simply
+this. At the end of the chain of phenomena the theist makes a mighty
+jump and gains the noumenon. But between this and the phenomenon he can
+establish no relation whatever. It cannot be a cause of phenomena
+because on his own showing causation is a phenomenal thing. He has
+worked back along the chain of causation, discarding link after link on
+his journey. Finally, he reaches God and discards the lot. And here he
+is left clinging with <i>no intelligible way of getting back again</i>. If on
+the other hand, he relates God to phenomena he has failed to get what he
+requires. He has merely added one more link to his chain of phenomena,
+and the "first cause" remains as far off as ever. For if God is not
+related to phenomena he ceases to be a cause of phenomena in the only
+sense in which he is of use to the theistic hypothesis.</p>
+
+<p>Further, one may ask, Why travel back along the chain of causation to
+discover God? What is gained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> by travelling along an infinite series,
+and saying suddenly, "At this point I espy God." Confessedly we may
+trace back phenomena as far as we will without finding ourselves a step
+nearer a commencement. All we get is a transformation of pre-existing
+material into new forms. Consequently all the evidence that exists at
+the moment we cease our journey existed when we began it. In short, if
+God can be shown to be the efficient cause of phenomena anywhere, he can
+be shown to be the cause everywhere, and the proof may be produced
+through phenomena immediately at hand as well as from those removed from
+us by an indefinite number of stages. The evidence becomes neither
+stronger nor more relevant by being put farther back. Proof is not like
+wine, its quality does not improve with age. To say that we must pause
+somewhere may be true, but that is only reminding us that both human
+time and human energy are limited. But it is certainly foolish to first
+of all induce mental exhaustion, and then use it as the equivalent of a
+positive and valuable discovery.</p>
+
+<p>And even though by some undiscovered method we had reached that
+metaphysical nightmare a cause of all phenomena, and in defiance of all
+intelligibility had christened it a "First Cause," how would that
+satisfy the "causal craving"? Professor Campbell Fraser very properly
+says that "the old form of each new phenomenon as much needs explanation
+as the new form itself did, and this need is certainly neither satisfied
+nor destroyed by referring one form of existence to another." If A. is
+explained by B. we are driven to explain B. by C., and so on
+indefinitely. Or if we can stop with A.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> or B. then the causal craving
+is not so persistent as was supposed, and man can rest content within
+the limit of recognised limitations. For what Professor Fraser calls an
+"absolutely originating cause" is only such so long as we have not
+reached it. We are satisfied with an imaginary B. as an explanation of
+the actual A. so long as B. does not come within our grasp. So soon as
+it has become the originating cause of the phenomenon in hand we are off
+on a further search. "First" has no other intelligible sense or meaning
+than this. "First" in relation to a given cluster of phenomenon we may
+grant; "First" in the sense of calling for no further explanation is
+downright theological lunacy.</p>
+
+<p>An eternal "First cause" could only be such in relation to an eternal
+effect. And in that case it could not be <i>prior</i> to the effect since the
+effect is only the existing factors combined. Causation cannot carry us
+<i>beyond</i> phenomena since it has no meaning apart from phenomena. The
+notion that because every phenomenon has a cause therefore there must be
+a cause for phenomena as a whole&mdash;meaning by this for the sum total of
+phenomena&mdash;is wholly absurd. It is not sound science, it is not good
+philosophy, it is not even commonsense. It is simply nonsense which is
+given an air of dignity because it is clothed in philosophic language.
+You cannot rise from phenomena to the theist's God; first, because, as I
+have said, cause and effect are names for the relation that is seen to
+exist between one phenomenon and another, and the theist is seeking
+after something that is above all relations. To postulate something that
+is not phenomena as the cause of phenomena, is like discussing the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>possibility of a bird's flight and dismissing the possibility of an
+atmosphere. Secondly, causation can give no clue to a God because the
+search for causes is a search for the conditions under which phenomena
+occur. And when we have described these conditions we have fulfilled all
+the conditions required to establish an act of causation. The theist, in
+short, commences with a wrong conception of causation. He proceeds by
+applying to one sphere language and principles from another, and to
+which they can have no possible application, and where they have no
+intelligibility. And having completely confused the issue, he ends with
+a conclusion which, even on his own showing, has no logical relation to
+the premises laid down.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Argument from Design.</span></h3>
+
+<p>Kant called the argument from design "the oldest, the clearest, and the
+most adapted to the ordinary human reason," of all the arguments
+advanced on behalf of the belief in God. Kant's dictum, it will be
+observed, omits all opinion as to its quality, and his own criticism of
+it left it a sorry wreck. John Stuart Mill treated it far more
+respectfully, and commenced his examination of it with the flattering
+introduction, "We now at last reach an argument of a really scientific
+character," and, although he did not find the argument convincing, gave
+it a most respectful dismissal. The purpose of the present chapter is to
+show that the argument from design in nature is in the last degree
+unscientific, that the analogy it seeks to establish is a false one,
+that it is completely and hopelessly irrelevant to the point at issue,
+and that one might grant nearly all it asks for, and even then show that
+it does not prove what it sets out to prove. That such an argument
+should have, and for so long, exerted so much influence over the human
+mind, gives one anything but a flattering impression of the power of
+reason in human affairs.</p>
+
+<p>True it is that of late years the argument from design has felt the
+influence of the growth of the idea of evolution, and the champions of
+theism have used it with much greater caution, and under an obvious
+sense that it no longer wielded its old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> authority. The fact that this
+is so forms a commentary on the statement so often made that man's
+craving for an ultimate cause leads to the belief in God. The truth
+being that man&mdash;the average man&mdash;only seeks for an explanation of
+immediate happenings. Once the immediate thing before him is explained
+his curiosity is allayed. The average man lives mentally from hand to
+mouth, and troubles as little about ultimate explanations as he does
+about the exhaustion of the coal supply.</p>
+
+<p>It is a point of some significance that the perception of design in
+nature, as with the belief in deity, is, if one may use the expression,
+pre-scientific in point of origin. What I mean by that is that it
+originates at a time when no other explanation of the origin of natural
+adaptations existed. It did not establish itself as one of several rival
+explanations and in virtue of its own strength. It was established
+simply because no other explanation was at the time conceivable. And so
+soon as another explanation, such as that of natural selection, was
+placed before the world, the origin of adaptations as a product of an
+extra-natural designing intelligence became to most educated minds
+simply impossible. The perception of design in nature was, as a matter
+of fact, no more than a special illustration of the animistic frame of
+mind which reads vitality into all natural happenings. It is impossible
+to find in the statement that particular adaptations in nature are
+designed anything more scientific than one can find in the belief that
+rain is the product of a heavenly rain-cow, or that flashes of lightning
+are spears thrown by competing heavenly warriors. It is the language
+only that differs in the two cases. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> frame of mind indicated in the
+two cases are identical.</p>
+
+<p>The attractiveness of the argument from design lies in its nearness to
+hand and in its appeal to facts, combined with the impossibility of
+verification. That nature is full of strange and curious examples of
+adaptation is clear to all, although the significance of these
+adaptations are by no means so clear. Moreover, a very casual study of
+these cases show that they are better calculated to dazzle than to
+convince. The presentation of a number of more or less elaborate facts
+of adaptation, followed with the remark that we are unable to see how
+such cases could have been brought about in the absence of a designing
+intelligence, is, at best, an appeal to human weakness and ignorance.
+The reverse of such a position is that if we had complete knowledge of
+the causes at work, the assumption of design might be found to be quite
+unnecessary. "We cannot see" is only the equivalent of we do not know,
+and that is a shockingly bad basis on which to build an argument.</p>
+
+<p>When, therefore, an eminent electrician like Professor Fleming says, "We
+have overwhelming proof that in the manufacture of the infinite number
+of substances made in Nature's laboratory there must be at all stages
+some directivity," this can only mean that Professor Fleming cannot see
+the way in which these substances are made. It does not mean that he
+sees <i>how</i> they are made. And in saying this he is in no better position
+than was Kepler, who after describing the true laws of planetary motion,
+when he came to the question of <i>why</i> the planets should describe these
+motions fell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> back on the theory of "Angelic intelligences" as the
+cause. The true explanation came with the physics of Galileo and Newton,
+and with that, farewell to the angelic "directivity." The only reason
+for Kepler's angels was his ignorance of the causes of planetary motion.
+The only reason why Professor Fleming says that the atoms "have to be
+guided into certain positions to build up the complex molecules" is that
+he is unable to isolate this assumed directive force and to show it in
+operation; he is like a modern Kepler faced with something the cause of
+which he doesn't know, and lugging in "God" to save further trouble. It
+is an assumption of knowledge where no knowledge exists. "God" is always
+what Spinoza called it, the asylum of ignorance. When causes are unknown
+"God" is brought forward. When causes are known "God" retires into the
+background. "God" is not an explanation, it is a narcotic.</p>
+
+<p>The argument from design rests upon the existence in nature of
+adaptations either general or special. And quite obviously the value of
+evidence derived from adaptations will be determined by the existence of
+non-adaptations. If, that is, it can be shown that a certain assemblage
+of forces produce adaptation, while in another instance they fail to
+produce it, it would then be logical to argue that the difference was
+due to the directive power being withdrawn in the latter case. But that
+as we know is never the case. What we see is always the same conditions
+producing the same effects. We are never able to say, "Here are natural
+forces working <i>minus</i> a directing intelligence, and here is an
+assemblage of the same forces working <i>plus</i> the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> addition of a
+directing intelligence." If we could do that we should be able to
+attribute the difference to the new factor. But this we are never able
+to do. And it is an elementary principle of scientific method that
+before we can assert the existence of a distinct force or factor, the
+possibility of isolation must be shown. Adaptation can, then, only be
+demonstrated by non-adaptation. And <i>non-adaptation in nature simply
+does not exist, except in relation to an ideal end created by
+ourselves</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Surprising as this may appear to some, examination shows it to be no
+more than a truism, and that granted, the whole strength of the argument
+from adaptation, whether in the inorganic or the organic world,
+disappears.</p>
+
+<p>To see the matter the more clearly, let us drop for a time the word
+"adaptation" and substitute the word "process." For that after all is
+what nature presents us with. We see processes and we see results. It is
+because we create an <i>end</i> for these processes that we class them as
+well or ill adapted to achieve it. We make a gun, and say it is ill or
+well made as it shoots well or ill. But whether it carries straight or
+not the relation of the shooting to the construction of the gun remains
+the same. Judging the gun merely from its construction, the product
+answers completely to the combination of its parts. Constructed in one
+way the gun cannot but shoot straight. Constructed in another way the
+gun cannot but shoot crookedly. And the only reason we have for calling
+one good and the other bad is that <i>we</i> desire a particular result. But
+the goodness or badness has nothing to do with the thing itself. Its
+adaptation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> to the end produced is as perfect in the one case as in the
+other. It could produce no other result than the one that actually
+emerges without an alteration in the means employed. A thing is what it
+is because it is the combination of all the forces that produce it. And
+to ask us to marvel at the result of a process, when the one is the
+product of the other is like asking us to express our surprise that
+twice two equal four. Twice two equal four because four is the sum of
+the factors, and no one dreams of praising God because they don't
+sometimes make four and a half. The argument from adaptations in nature
+is, when examined, just about as impressive as the reasoning of the
+curate who saw the hand of Providence in the fact that death came at the
+end of life instead of in the middle of it.</p>
+
+<p>Adaptation is not, then, a singular fact in nature, but a universal one.
+It is everywhere, in the case of death as in that of life. It is the
+same in the case of a child born a marvel of health and beauty as in
+that of one born deformed and diseased. There is nothing else but
+adaptations of means to ends in nature, however displeasing some of them
+may be to us. The "harmony" which the theist perceives in nature is not
+the expression of "plan," it is the inevitable outcome of the properties
+of existence. Given matter and force, and it requires no "directive
+intelligence" to produce the existing order, it would indeed require a
+God to prevent its occurrence.</p>
+
+<p>It is the same if we take the case of animal life alone. To say that
+animal life is adapted to its environment, and to say that animal life
+exists, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> to say the same thing in two ways. Whether animal forms are
+fashioned by "divine intelligence" or not, the fact of adaptation
+remains; for adaptation is the essential condition of existence. And as
+adaptation is the condition of existence, it follows that an animal's
+feelings, structure, and functions will be developed in accordance with
+the nature of the environment. If the conditions of existence were
+different from what they are animal life would show corresponding
+modifications. But all the same we should observe the same
+correspondence between animal life and its surroundings. Here, again, we
+have a fact transformed, without the slightest warranty, into a purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if the theist could prove that out of a number of equally possible
+lines of development living beings show one fixed form, and that against
+the compulsion of environmental forces, he would do something to prove
+the probability of some sort of guidance. But that we know cannot be
+done. The forms of life are infinite in number. They vary within all
+possible limits; and always in terms of environmental conditions. In
+brief, what is said to occur with God, can be shown to be inevitable
+without him. "God" in nature is a wholly gratuitous hypothesis.</p>
+
+<p>Later it will be seen that the whole basis of the argument from design
+is fallacious; that it proceeds along altogether wrong lines, and that
+the final objection to it is that it is completely irrelevant to the
+point at issue. For the moment, however, we proceed with a criticism of
+the argument as usually stated.</p>
+
+<p>It must be borne in mind that what the theist <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>desires to reach is a
+<i>Creator</i>, but it is obvious that this plea can never give us more than
+a mere designer working on materials that already exist. Of necessity
+design implies two things, difficulties to be overcome, and skill or
+wisdom in overcoming them. Design is an understandable thing in
+connection with man, because man is always occupied in overcoming the
+resistance of forces that exist quite independently of him, and which
+operate without reference to his needs or desires. But it would be
+absurd to assume design on the part of one for whom difficulties had no
+existence, or on the part of one who himself created the forces that had
+to be overcome, and endowed them with all the properties which made the
+work of design necessary. Granting the relevance of the data upon which
+the belief in design rests, one could only assume, with Mill, that "the
+author of the Cosmos worked under limitations; that he was obliged to
+adapt himself to conditions independent of his will, and to attain his
+ends by such arrangements as these conditions admitted of."</p>
+
+<p>In the next place, the argument for design is an argument from analogy,
+and an analogy can by its very nature never give a complete
+demonstration. It can never offer more than a probability, more or less
+convincing as the analogy is more of less complete. But in the case
+under consideration the analogy is considerably less rather than more.
+Paley's classical illustration&mdash;taken almost verbatim from Malebranche,
+but as old otherwise as the days of Greek philosophy, where a statute
+took its place&mdash;was that of a watch. And the conclusion was drawn that
+as the parts of a watch bear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> obvious marks of having been made with a
+view to a particular end, so the animal structure and the universe as a
+whole bear similar marks of having been designed. It is true that of
+late years the Paleyan form of the argument has been disavowed by most
+scholarly advocates of theism, but as they immediately proceed to make
+use of arguments that are substantially identical with it, the
+repudiation does not seem of great consequence. It reminds one of a
+government that is compelled by the force of public opinion to openly
+repudiate one of its officials, and having removed him from the office
+in which the misdemeanour was committed, immediately appoints him to one
+of an increased dignity and with a larger salary.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, we have Professor Fiske saying that "Paley's simile of a watch is
+no longer applicable to such a world as this" ("Idea of God"; p. 131),
+and Prof. Sorley telling us that "the age of Paley and of the
+Bridgewater Treatises is past" (Moral Values and the Idea of God; p.
+327), and Mr. Balfour repudiating Paley as having been ruled out of
+court by Darwinism ("Humanism and Theism," chapter II.). But as Fiske
+puts the flower in the place of the watch, Sorley, the moral nature of
+man, and Balfour, the conditions of animal life, it is not quite clear
+why if the Paleyan argument is invalid, the new form is any more
+intellectually respectable. The essence of the Paleyan argument was the
+assertion of a mind behind phenomena, the workings of which could be
+seen in the forms of animal life. And whether we find that proof in the
+growth of a flower, or in the moral sense of man, or in the creation of
+natural conditions that impel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> the development of life along a certain
+road, the distinction is not vital. We are still finding proofs of God
+in the structure of the world (where otherwise, indeed, are we to find
+it?) and we are still depending on the supposed likeness between the
+works of human intelligence and natural products.</p>
+
+<p>And that analogy is wholly false. The argument from design aims at
+proving that <i>all</i> things are made by a creative intelligence. It is not
+merely animals that are designed; they are selected as no more than
+striking individual examples of a general truth. Everything, if theism
+be true, must be ultimately due to manufacture. But the whole
+significance of the Paleyan argument from design is that behind the
+manufactured article which we recognise as such, there are other
+articles or other things that are not manufactured. The traveller, says
+Paley, who comes across a watch recognises in the relation of its parts
+evidences of workmanship. But he does not see in the breaking of a wave
+on the shore, or in the piling up of sand in the desert, or in a pebble
+on the beach, the same tokens of workmanship. In the very act of
+attempting to prove that <i>some</i> things <i>are</i> made, the theist is
+compelled to assume that <i>all</i> things are not made. He can only gain a
+victory at the price of confessing a defeat.</p>
+
+<p>But is there any real analogy between the works of man and the universe
+at large? Let us take a familiar example. It is, we are told in a very
+familiar illustration, as absurd to imagine that the world as it exists
+is the work of unguided natural forces, as it would be to believe that
+the rows of letters in a compositor's "stick" had of their own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+contained force arranged themselves in intelligible sentences. The
+absurdity of the last supposition is admitted, but why is that so?
+Obviously because we have the previous knowledge that the type itself is
+a manufactured thing, and that its arrangement in orderly sentences is
+the work of intelligent men. Thus, what occurs when we come across a
+particular example of type setting is that we compare our present
+experience with other experiences and recognise it as belonging to a
+particular class. So with the watch. The only reason we have for
+believing that a watch is made is that of our previous knowledge that
+such things are made. The present judgment is based upon past
+experience. But the case of animal forms, and still more the universe at
+large, offers no such analogy. We know nothing of world makers nor of
+animal makers. We have no previous experience to go upon, nor have we
+any things of a similar kind, known to be made, with which we can
+compare them. Instead of the points of resemblance between the two
+things being so numerous as to compel belief, they agree in one
+particular only, that of existence. At most all we are left with is the
+palpably absurd position that because man selects and adjusts means to a
+given end, therefore any combination of forces in nature which produce a
+certain result must also be the expression of conscious intention.</p>
+
+<p>Some apparent force even to this flimsy conclusion might be given if
+nature could be said to be working towards a given end. But we do not
+find this. What we see is a multitude of forces at work, the action of
+each of which often results in the negation of the other. Put on one
+side the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> larger, but not the least pregnant fact that animal life is
+only maintained in the face of numerous agencies, inorganic and organic,
+that are apparently bent upon its destruction; put on one side also the
+fact that multitudes of parasites&mdash;as much the result of design as any
+other form of life&mdash;are constantly preying upon and destroying forms of
+life higher than themselves, and there still remain myriads of facts
+altogether inconsistent and completely irreconcilable with the
+hypothesis of a creative intelligence shaping the course of affairs to a
+given end. To take only one illustration of this. What is to be said of
+the myriads of animals that are born into the world only to perish
+before reaching an age at which they can play their part in the
+perpetuation of the species? Are we to believe that the same deity who
+fashioned these forms of life created at the same time a number of
+forces that were certain to destroy them? Clearly we are bound to
+assume, either that this hypothetical Being pursues a number of mutually
+destructive plans, or that there are a number of designers at work and
+at war with each other, or that none at all exist.</p>
+
+<p>If we are to judge nature from the standpoint of human intelligence,
+then we must logically decide that it is full of waste, full of
+bungling, full of plans that come to nothing, of ends that are never
+realised, of pain and misery that might have been avoided by the
+exercise of almost ordinary intelligence. There are few animals
+concerning which a competent anatomist or physiologist could not suggest
+some improvement in their construction by which their functions might be
+more efficiently performed. Nor does it seem quite impossible to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+so adjusted natural forces that the development of life might have been
+accomplished without the present enormous waste of material. It is
+almost stupid to ask, as did the late Dr. Martineau, what right have we
+to judge the world from "a purely humanistic point of view." The whole
+argument from design is based upon a humanistic point of view. The
+Atheist is only calling the attention of the theist to the consequences
+of his own argument.</p>
+
+<p>I leave for a later chapter, the moral aspect of the design argument. I
+am at present concerned with its purely logical presentation. And the
+crowning charge here is not that it is inconclusive, not that it falls
+short, as Mill thought, of a complete analogy, the decisive rejection of
+it is based upon the fact that it is absolutely irrelevant. The argument
+has no bearing on the issue; the evidence has no relation to the case.
+What is the essence of the argument from design? It is based upon
+certain adaptations that are observed to exist. But adaptation is, as we
+have shown, a universal quality of existence. It exists in every case,
+and no more in one case than in another. And when the theist says that
+because certain things work together therefore god arranged it, an apt
+query is, How do you know? One may even say, Granting there is a God,
+how do you know that what is was actually designed by him? It is no use
+replying that the way things work together prove design, for things
+always work together. They cannot do otherwise. Any group of forces work
+together to produce a given result. That is part of the universal fact
+of adaptation which the theist holds up as though it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> were a divine
+miracle instead of, as Mallock says, a physical platitude.</p>
+
+<p>Let us take an illustration from everyday life. A man tries his hand at
+building a bicycle. When it is finished the wheels are not true, the
+frame is unsteady, the whole thing is ready to fall to pieces and is
+absolutely unrideable. Is any one warranted in declaring that because
+the parts have all been brought together by me therefore the resulting
+machine was an act of design? Clearly not. What I designed was a machine
+perfect after its kind. What appeared was the miserable structure that
+is before us. On the other hand that machine with all its imperfections
+might have been designed by me. I might, for some purpose deliberately
+have intended to make a machine that would not carry a rider. And when
+would anyone be logically justified in saying which of the two kinds of
+machines express my design? Clearly, only when he had a knowledge of my
+intention. Apart from a knowledge of an intention preceding an act the
+inference of design is unwarrantable.</p>
+
+<p>Now, assuming the existence of a God, and who stands in the same
+relation to the world that I do to the machine, how can anyone know that
+the world as it is expresses design any more than did my home-made
+bicycle? In this case, as in the former, what is needed to justify the
+assumption of design is a knowledge of intention. One must know what the
+assumed maker intended and then see how far the actual result realises
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Design, in short, although it may be expressed in a physical form is not
+a physical thing, but a psychic fact. You cannot by examining physical
+processes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> and results reach design. You cannot start with a material
+fact and reach intention. You must begin with intention and compare it
+with the physical result. Things may be as they are whether design is
+involved or not. It is only by a knowledge of intention, and a
+comparison of that with the fact before us that we can be certain of
+design. Proof of design is not found in the capacity of certain clusters
+of circumstances or forces to realise a particular result, but in a
+knowledge that they correspond with an intention which we know to have
+existed before the result occurs.</p>
+
+<p>To warrant a logical belief in design in nature three things are
+essential. First, one must assume that a God exists. Second, one must
+take it for granted that one has a knowledge of the intention in the
+mind of the deity before the alleged designed thing is brought into
+existence. Finally, one must be able to compare the result with the
+intention and demonstrate their agreement. But the impossibility of
+knowing the first two things is apparent. And without the first two the
+third is of no value whatever. For we have no means of reaching the
+first except through the third. And until we get to the first we cannot
+make use of the third. We are thus in a hopeless impasse. No examination
+of nature can lead back to God because we lack the necessary starting
+point. All the volumes that have been written, and all the sermons that
+have been preached depicting the wisdom of organic structures are so
+much waste of paper and breath. They prove nothing, and can prove
+nothing. They assume at the beginning all they require at the end. Their
+God is not something reached by way of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>inference, it is something
+assumed at the very outset.</p>
+
+<p>What the theist does at every step of his reasoning is to read his own
+feelings and desires into nature. The design he talks so glibly about is
+in him, not outside of him. As well might a maggot in a cheese argue
+that the world was designed for him because the agreement between his
+structure and it are so harmonious. In relation to their surroundings
+man and the maggot are in the same position. And in the economy of
+nature man is of no more consequence than the maggot. There is a more
+complex synthesis of forces here than there, a more subtle exhibition of
+nature's infinite capacity for evolving fresh forms of life, and that is
+all. It is man himself who paints a distorted picture of himself on the
+surface of things, who reads his own passions and desires into nature,
+and then admires a marvel created by himself. To he who correctly
+visualises the process of the evolution of deity, the existence of God
+is hardly to-day a question for discussion. There is a discussion only
+of the history of the belief, and in that is found its strongest
+condemnation.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Disharmonies of Nature.</span></h3>
+
+<p>It has already been indicated that it is not really necessary, in order
+to prove design, to establish the fact that the design is perfect or
+that it exhibits complete goodness. It is enough that there be design.
+Its moral quality or value is quite another question. Nevertheless, it
+will be as well to deal with this latter aspect of the subject, and to
+see what kind of "plan" it is that nature does exhibit, even assuming
+the existence of some design.</p>
+
+<p>Now it is evident that if there be design in nature, and if the design
+is the expression of a single supreme mind one quality of that plan
+should be unity. The products should, so to speak, dovetail into each
+other in such a way that they work together, and even harmonise with
+each other. But this is, notoriously, not the case. If from one point of
+view there is a certain harmony throughout the world of living beings in
+virtue of which life is preserved, it is at least equally true that from
+another point of view the harmony is one of destruction. And in the end
+death wins. Sooner or later death overtakes all forms of life, while in
+the grand total of living beings born into the world, a far larger
+number perish than can reach maturity. Wasted effort is the mildest
+judgment that can be passed upon these abortive attempts. And not only
+does death eventually win in the case of each individual, and against
+which may be set the consideration that in the economy of nature death
+plays a part in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> development of life, but eventually death will, if
+we are to trust science, reap a sweeping and universal triumph by the
+consummation of terrestrial conditions that will render the maintenance
+of life impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Or, again, the relations of species are clearly not what we have a right
+to expect in the working out of a reasonably wise and benevolent plan.
+It is a general truth that, with the exception of a few instances,
+chiefly connected with the relations existing between insects and
+flowers, the development of one species in relation to another is not
+that of mutual helpfulness. The general rule here is that of mutual
+injury. The carnivora prey on the herbivora and upon each other; and the
+herbivora crush each other by methods that are as effective as the
+method of direct attack. Any variation is "good" provided it be of
+advantage to its possessor. And the "good" of the one kind may mean the
+destruction of another order. All the exquisite design shown in the
+development of the finer feelings of man, and upon which theistic
+sentimentalists love to dwell, may be seen in the structure of those
+parasites which destroy man and bring his finer feelings to naught. The
+late Theodore Roosevelt says of the Brazilian forests:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>In these forests the multitude of insects that bite, sting, devour,
+and prey on other creatures, often with accompaniments of atrocious
+suffering, passes belief. The very pathetic myths of beneficent
+nature could not deceive even the least wise being if he once saw
+the iron cruelty of life in the tropics. Of course, "nature"&mdash;in
+common parlance a wholly inaccurate term, by the way, especially
+when used to express a single entity&mdash;is entirely ruthless, no less
+so as regards types than as regards individuals, and entirely
+indifferent to good or evil, and works out her ends or no ends
+with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> utter disregard of pain and woe (Cited by E. D. Fawcett in
+<i>The World as Imagination</i>; pp. 571-2).</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And Mr. Carveth Reade expresses the same thing in a more elaborate
+summing up:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The merciless character of organic evolution appears to us, first,
+in reckless propagation and the consequent destruction. Every
+species is as prolific as it can be compatibly with the development
+of its individuals; and the deaths that ensue from inanition,
+disease, violence, present a stupefying scene. The best one can say
+for it is that, as life rises in the organic scale, the death rate
+declines. Yet even man still suffers outrageously by violence,
+disease, inanition; the notion that "Malthus's Law" no longer holds
+of civilised man is a foolish delusion. But more sinister than the
+direct destruction of life is the spectacle of innumerable species
+profiting by a life, parasitic or predatory, at the expense of
+others. The parasites refute the vulgar prejudice that evolution is
+by the measure of man, progressive; adaptation is indifferent to
+better or worse, except as to each species, that its offspring
+shall survive by atrophy and degradation. The predatory species
+flourish as if in derision of moral maxims; we see that though
+human morality is natural to man, it is far from expressing the
+whole of Nature. Animals, at first indistinguishable vegetables,
+devour them and enjoy a far richer life. Animals that eat other
+animals are nearly always superior not only in strength, grace and
+agility but in intelligence. There are exceptions to this rule;
+some snakes eat monkeys (thanking Providence), and the elephant is
+content with foliage; but compare cats and wolves with the
+ungulates that make a first concoction of herbs for their sake. It
+is true that our monkey kin are chiefly frugivorous; for it may be
+plausibly argued that man was first differentiated by becoming
+definitely carnivorous, a sociable hunter, as it were, a wolf-ape.
+Hence the advantage of longer legs, the use of weapons, the upright
+gait and defter hands to use and make weapons, more strategic
+brains, tribal organisation, and hence liberation from the tropical
+forest, and citizenship of the world. The greater part of his
+subsequent history is equally unedifying: having made the world his
+prey, he says that God made the world to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> that end, and those who
+have preyed upon their fellows, and enslaved them, and flourished
+upon it, have declared that to have been the intention of nature.
+(<i>The Metaphysics of Nature</i>; pp. 344-5).</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A perpetual pulling down and building up, and the building altogether
+dependent upon the demolition. The tiger built with tastes and
+capacities for catching the gazelle: the gazelle built with capacities
+that enable it to escape the tiger. There is no evidence here of the
+existence of a single mind working out an intelligent plan. At most we
+have either the proof for a number of warring powers, each one striving
+to destroy what the other is striving to create, or a single mind that
+has deliberately fashioned things so that each part may work for the
+destruction of the other part, the whole to presently end in a grand
+catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>But that is not all. If we limit our attention to man, can it be said
+that we find in the human structure what we might reasonably expect to
+find if man be indeed the crown of the divine plan, the event to which,
+for untold ages, all things were designedly tending? What we actually do
+find is that the structure of man, physically and mentally, is such as
+to altogether negative the notion of complete or harmonious adjustment
+to environment. That the human has within it a large number of vestigial
+structures&mdash;some scientists place it as high as one hundred and
+seventy&mdash;is now well known, and forms at the same time one of the
+evidences of evolution and an impeachment of the theistic theory. There
+is only need to instance now the vermiform appendage, which forms the
+seat of appendicitis, the "wisdom" teeth, of very little use, and one of
+the most fruitful of causes of disease of the teeth,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> the hair which
+covers the human body, now of no use whatever, except to form a lodgment
+for microbes, and so makes the acquisition of disease the more certain.
+In addition to the number of rudimentary organs that actually encourage
+disease&mdash;Metchnikoff counts among these the larger intestine&mdash;the body
+is full of rudimentary muscles and structures that when not positively
+harmful, impose a tax on the organism for which no corresponding service
+is performed.</p>
+
+<p>The meaning and significance of these structures are, however, so well
+recognised that one need not dwell upon their existence. Not so well
+known is the complementary fact that just as in his physical structure
+man bears evidence of his emergence from lower forms of life, which
+result in a certain degree of disharmony between him and an ideal
+environment, so in his psychic life his instincts and feelings are often
+such as to prevent that ideal adaptation which so many desire. The
+earlier conception of optimistic evolutionists that the instincts of man
+were, through the operation of natural selection, converted into
+beneficent guides is quite faulty. In itself this was probably a
+survival of the theism which tried to prove that this was the best of
+all possible worlds, and which led evolutionists to try and prove that
+their theory was also ethically desirable. At any rate, the theory of
+the wholly beneficent nature of human instincts is not tenable. Our
+instincts are inherited from our animal ancestors; they were brought to
+fruition under conditions different in form from those which obtain with
+human beings, with the result that whether an instinct is helpful or the
+contrary depends largely upon the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> educational quality of the
+environment, and even then inherited tendencies may be so strong as to
+make them a source of danger to the community rather than of benefit.</p>
+
+<p>It is noted, for example, that a deal of what may be called crime, or at
+least lawlessness, is the result of an individual being born with
+tendencies developed in a way that fits him for an environment of
+centuries ago, rather than an environment of to-day. Very many of our
+national heroes of a few centuries ago would rank as criminals to-day,
+just as many of our criminals to-day would, had they been born a few
+centuries since, have been handed down to us as examples of chivalry or
+of national heroism. Instead of what one may call the natural endowments
+of man pointing towards a more civilised form of life, they point to a
+less civilised form, while it is the artificially or socially induced
+feelings and ideas that point to a better future.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, if we take the primitive or brute feeling of retaliation we find
+it assuming the form of war. And without discussing the value of war in
+the past, or even its admissibility in special circumstances in the
+present, I do not think it will be seriously disputed that the great
+need of the present is to transfer that feeling from the lower level of
+brute force to the higher one of adventure in the interests of science
+and human betterment. Here it is not the existence of a lofty
+"god-given" endowment that puts man out of harmony with his environment;
+it is, on the contrary, the operation of an earlier form of feeling
+manifestation which retards the coming of a better day.</p>
+
+<p>There is, in fact, not a single quality of human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> nature that can be
+said to act with inerrancy. The baby seizes objects indiscriminately and
+puts them in its mouth. The man falling into the water does the very
+thing he should not do&mdash;throws up his arms. Intense cold lulls to
+somnolency, instead of rousing to activity. The love of children, on
+which the preservation of the race depends, is absent with many; while
+with others the sexual instinct undergoes strange and morbid
+manifestations. A complete list of these disharmonies would fill a
+volume&mdash;indeed, Metchnikoff, in his "Nature of Man," has filled half a
+volume with describing some of the instances of physiological
+disharmony, and then has not exhausted the list.</p>
+
+<p>It would indeed seem as if nature, with its method of never creating a
+new organ or structure, but only transforming and utilising an old one,
+had attached a penalty to every successful attempt to rise above a
+certain level. If man will walk upright she sees to it that his doing so
+shall involve a great liability to hernia. If he will live in cities,
+she has ready the ravage of consumption. If he will use clothing she
+makes him carry round a coating of useless hair as a method of trapping
+disease microbes. So soon as one disease is conquered another is
+discovered. Pleasures have their reverse side in pains, and to some
+pains the pleasures bear a small relation, being chiefly of the
+character of the pains being absent. As a social animal man is only
+imperfectly adapted to the state, there going on a constant warfare
+between his egoistic and altruistic impulses. In fact, it would
+certainly be an arguable proposition, if we allow intention in nature,
+to say that man was intended to remain at the animal level, and that,
+having so far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> defeated nature's intention, he is dogged by a
+disappointed creator, and made to pay the fullest price that can be
+exacted for every step of progress achieved.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, of proof of design in nature there is positively none.
+Design, as I have said, is not a natural fact, but a purely human
+construction. But, if admitted, it is a two edged weapon. For, if
+assumed anywhere, it must be assumed to exist everywhere. And designing
+intelligence must be made responsible for the whole scheme. But this the
+most extravagant piety refuses to do. Either we have the primitive
+theory of a devil who divides with God the responsibility for the state
+of the world, or we have the plea that evil may be only good disguised,
+or good in the making, or it is argued that we have to contemplate the
+"plan" as a whole, and must wait for some future state to pass judgment.
+And whichever view we take, there is the implied admission that the plan
+of creation as we know it cannot be harmonised with the theory of God
+that modern theism places before us. And instead of man being the
+miracle of perfection that an earlier generation saw in his structure,
+we know that the human structure is such that, given the power to
+create, science could really fashion, in the light of its present
+knowledge, a better organism.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, disharmony is implied in and necessitated by the very fact of
+progress. Progress means a better adjustment, and the discomfort of
+maladjustment is the spur to improvement. A perfect equilibrium is as
+impossible as perpetual motion, and it is only with a perfect
+equilibrium that change, which is the condition of progress, would
+cease. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> ceaseless desire for something better is, therefore, in
+itself an impeachment of things as they are. It is an indication of
+there being something wanting, of the existence of a want of complete
+harmony between man and his surroundings. Nor is the case of the theist
+bettered if he retorts that without the sense of imperfection or of
+dissatisfaction there would be no such thing as a conscious striving
+after improvement. That may be admitted, but that is only proving that
+perfection can never be achieved, and that even in this last resort
+"God" has so designed things as to make a mock of man at the end. The
+want of complete harmony that is seen in the physical structure of man
+is carried over into his mental life. If theism be true man is mocked by
+a mirage. And the knowledge is made the more depressing by the belief
+that the plan is not accidental, it is not a product of the working of
+non-conscious forces, it is the preordained outcome of a plan that was
+deliberately resolved on by a being with full power to devise some thing
+wiser and better. At the side of that, any theory of things is, by
+comparison, hopeful and inspiring.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">God and Evolution.</span></h3>
+
+<p>There is no logical connection between what is called the "Moral
+government of the universe" and the belief in God, but it must be
+confessed that the criticism of the belief from the point of view of
+moral feeling is of considerable importance. This is in itself a
+striking illustration of the reaction of social developments on
+religious beliefs. For there is originally no connection between
+morality and the belief in God. Man does not believe in the gods because
+they are moral, but because they are there. If they are, to his mind,
+good, that is so much the better. But whether they are good or bad they
+have to be faced as facts. The gods, in short belong to the region of
+belief, while morality belongs to that of practice. It is in the nature
+of morality that it should be implicit in practice long before it is
+explicit in theory. Morality belongs to the group and is rooted in
+certain impulses that are a product of the essential conditions of group
+life. It is as reflection awakens that men are led to speculate upon the
+nature and origin of the moral feelings. Morality, whether in practice
+or in theory, is thus based upon what is. On the other hand, religion,
+whether it be true or false, is in the nature of a discovery. However
+crude or uninformed the thinking, the belief in God must be regarded as
+the product of reflection. The situation is not unfairly described by
+Dr. Jastrow:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>The various rites practiced by primitive society in order to ward
+off evils, or to secure the protection of dreaded powers or
+spirits, are based primarily on logical considerations. If a
+certain stone is regarded as sacred, it is probably because it is
+associated with some misfortune, or some unusual piece of good
+luck. Someone sitting on the stone may have died; or on sleeping on
+it may have seen a remarkable vision, which was followed by a
+signal victory over a dangerous foe.... In all this, however,
+ethical considerations are remarkable for their absence.... Taking
+again so common a belief among all peoples as the influence for
+good or evil exerted by the dead upon the living and the numerous
+practices to which it gives rise ... it will be difficult to
+discover in these beliefs the faintest suggestion of any ethical
+influence. It is not the good but the powerful spirits that are
+invoked; an appeal to them is not made by showing them examples of
+kindness, justice, or noble deeds, but by bribes, flatteries, and
+threats. (<i>The Study of Religion</i>; Ch. VI.).</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>So we have Tylor also endorsing this opinion by remarking that, "The
+popular idea that the moral government of the universe is an essential
+tenet of natural religion simply falls to the ground. Savage animism is
+almost devoid of that ethical element which, to the educated, modern
+mind, is the very mainspring of religion." And Hoffding says that, "In
+the lowest forms of it with which we are acquainted religion cannot be
+said to have any ethical significance. The gods appear as powers on
+which man is dependent, but not as patterns of conduct or administrators
+of an ethical world order.... Not till men have discovered ethical
+problems in practical life and have developed an ethical feeling ... can
+the figures of the gods assume an ethical character." ("Philosophy of
+Religion"; pp. 323-4).</p>
+
+<p>It is quite unnecessary to multiply evidence, the truth of the matter
+would seem obvious. One<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> cannot conceive man actually ascribing ethical
+qualities to his gods before he becomes sufficiently developed to
+formulate moral rules for his own guidance, and to create moral laws for
+his fellow man. The moralisation of the gods will then follow as a
+matter of course. And thereafter we can plainly observe the operation of
+the moral sense on the belief in god, and upon the recognition of crude
+power. Man really modifies his gods in terms of the ideal human being.
+Paul's picture of a god who uses man as the potter uses his clay could
+never flourish in a society which believed in the "rights of man." And
+so soon as that conception developes so soon does man begin to revise
+his conception of god. So with almost every great change in the form of
+government or in the notions of right and wrong. In a slave state, God
+favours slavery. When slavery gives place to another form of labour the
+gods are equally vigorous in its condemnation. The history of the belief
+in witch burning, heresy hunting, eternal damnation, etc., all
+illustrate the same point&mdash;religious teachings are all modified and
+moralised in accordance with the changing moral conceptions of mankind.
+It is not the gods who moralise man, it is man who moralises the gods.</p>
+
+<p>The gods have their beginnings as mere powers. They are feared because
+they are, not for the moral value of what they are. Social development
+does all the rest. But with that development the feeling of
+helplessness, of weakness, decays and there arises the demand that if
+god is to be worshipped he must prove worthy of it. The conviction
+arises very gradually, but it is there, and it becomes a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> powerful
+solvent of religious ideas. Merely to govern is not enough, God must
+govern well, and in terms of what we have come to understand by the word
+"Justice." And to the minds of millions of moderns, when tried by that
+test the idea of god breaks down. That there is a god who rules the
+universe is one question; that he rules it well and in accord with what
+is understood when we talk of morality, is quite another. The two
+questions are quite distinct since the first might be true and the
+second false. We have already seen how slender are the grounds for
+believing in the first; we have now to show that the reasons for
+believing in the second are quite as unsatisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>Theism has been defined as consisting in the belief in a God who is
+wise, powerful, and loving, and who has selected man as the object of
+his preferential care, and to this may be added the statement that most
+modern theists would extend that care to the whole of sentient life.
+"God's care" must be "over all his creatures," and although this care
+may be subservient to some wide and far-seeing plan, there must be
+nothing that looks like obvious carelessness or criminal neglect.</p>
+
+<p>To what conclusion do the facts point when they are examined in the
+light of modern knowledge? Does the world supply us with the kind of
+picture that one would expect to see if it were really presided over by
+divine love under the guidance of divine wisdom, and backed by divine
+power? The proof that it does not is shown in the almost endless
+attempts made to harmonise the world as it is with the world as theory
+would have it be. And a theory that needs so much defending, explaining,
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> qualifying must have something radically weak about it. That there
+is evil in the world all admit, that it offers <i>prima facie</i> objection
+to the theistic hypothesis is confessed by the many attempts made to fit
+in this evil with the existence of God, to prove that it works in some
+mysterious way for some larger good, or that its presence cannot be
+dispensed with profitably. The question of why the world is as it is
+with a god such as we are told exists, is, as Canon Green says, "the
+really vital question, for it touches the very heart of religion." ("The
+Problem of Evil"; p. 46.) How, then, does the Theist deal with it?</p>
+
+<p>Broadly, two methods are adopted. In the one case we are presented with
+the order of the world, or the course of evolution, as indicative of a
+beneficent scheme. This claims to freely adopt all that science has to
+say concerning the development of life and to prove that this is in
+harmony with the legitimate demands of the moral sense. The second is
+the more orthodox way, and taking the world as it is, claims that pain
+and suffering play a disciplinary and educational part in the life of
+the individual. We will take these in the order named.</p>
+
+<p>When dealing with the argument from design little was said concerning
+the evolutionary explanation of the special adaptations that meet us in
+the animal world. It was thought better to fix attention on the purely
+logical value of the argument presented. It is now necessary to look a
+little closer at the ethical implications of the evolutionary process.</p>
+
+<p>It has been pointed out that all life involves a special degree of
+adaptation between an organism<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> and its environment. Destroy that
+adjustment and life ceases to exist. How is that adjustment secured? The
+answer of the pre-Darwinian was that it represented a deliberate design
+on the part of God. Against this Darwinism propounds a theory of
+automatic or mechanical adjustment which makes the calling in of deity
+altogether gratuitous. And it remains gratuitous, no matter how far the
+scope of the theory of natural selection may be modified. But given the
+continuous variations which we know to exist with all kinds of life,
+given any sort of competition between animals as to which shall live,
+given even a degree of adaptation below which an animal cannot fall and
+live, and it is at once plain that the better adaptations will live and
+the poorer adapted will be eliminated. This process is analogous to that
+by which man has managed to breed so many varieties of domesticated
+animals and plants, some of the varieties presenting so marked a
+difference from the original type that if found in a state of nature
+they would often be classed as a distinct species. Man <i>selects</i> the
+variation that pleases him, eliminates or segregates the type that does
+not, and by following up the process eventually produces a distinct and
+fixed variation. It was because of the likeness of what goes on in the
+case of the breeder to what we see actually going on in nature that
+Darwin used the phrase "Natural Selection" as descriptive of the
+process. It was not an exact phrase, and it was not meant to be exact.
+For one thing&mdash;a very important thing, while a breeder selects, nature
+eliminates. Man's action, in relation to the type preserved, is
+positive. Nature's attitude in relation to the type preserved is
+negative.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> This is a very important distinction; and it is one that is
+fatal to the claims of theism. For if it points to a plan in nature it
+points to one that aims at killing off all that can be killed, and only
+sparing those who are able to protect themselves against its attack. And
+one is left wondering at the type of mind which can see goodness and
+wisdom in a plan that goes, on generation, after generation
+manufacturing an inferior or defective type in enormous numbers in order
+that a few superior specimens may be found, these in their turn to
+become inferior by the arrival of some other specimens a little more
+fortunate in their endowment. One hardly knows at which to marvel the
+most&mdash;at the clumsiness of the plan, or at the brutality of the design.</p>
+
+<p>It was soon realised that the old argument from design was no longer
+possible. But if one can only get far enough away from the possibility
+of proof or disproof there is always a chance for the Goddite. So it was
+argued that inasmuch as natural selection meant the emergence of a
+"higher" type, and as there was no room for design within the process,
+might not the process itself be an expression of design? There might
+still be room for what Huxley, with one of those foolish concessions to
+established opinion which is the bane of English thought, called the
+"wider teleology." This was a teleology which placed a designing mind at
+the back of the evolutionary process, and arranging it with a view to a
+preconceived end. The process then becomes, to use Spencer's phrase, a
+"beneficent" one, since it eliminates the poorer specimens and leaves
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> better ones to perpetuate the species. We are thus asked to imagine
+a divine wisdom selecting the better and destroying the inferior much as
+an omniscient Eugenist might destroy at birth all human beings of an
+undesirable type.</p>
+
+<p>The weakness of the thesis lies primarily in the fact that in the case
+of the breeder he has to take the animal as he finds it, subject to the
+play of forces, the characteristics of which are determined for him. He
+has to make the best of the situation. In the case of the deity he
+creates the animals with which he is assumed to be experimenting, he
+creates the forces with all their qualities, and thus determines the
+nature of the situation. Quite certainly no breeder would waste his time
+in breeding over a number of generations if he could secure the desired
+type at once. The whole of the argument of the advocate of the wider
+teleology is that God wanted the higher type. But if that is so why did
+he not produce it at once? What useful purpose could be served by
+producing at the end of a lengthy and murderous process what might just
+as well have been secured at the beginning? It is not wisdom but
+unadulterated stupidity to take thousands of years securing what might
+have been as well done in the twinkling of an eye.</p>
+
+<p>There is, in short, no justification in the creation of a process so
+long as the end at which the process is aiming can be reached by a less
+tortuous method. As Mr. F. C. S. Schiller says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>So long as we are dealing with finite factors, the function of pain
+and the nature of evil can be more or less understood, but as soon
+as it is supposed to display the working of an infinite power
+everything becomes wholly unintelligible. We can no longer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> console
+ourselves with the hope that "good becomes the final goal of ill,"
+we can no longer fancy that imperfection serves any secondary
+purpose in the economy of the universe. A process by which evil
+<i>becomes</i> good is unintelligible as the action of a truly infinite
+power which can attain its end without a process; it is absurd to
+ascribe imperfection as a secondary result to a power which can
+attain all its aims <i>without</i> evil. Hence the world process, and
+the intelligent purpose we fancy we detect in it must be
+illusory.... God can have no purpose, and the world cannot be in
+process.... If the world is the product of an infinite power it is
+utterly unknowable, because its process and its nature would be
+alike unnecessary and unaccountable. (<i>Riddles of the Sphinx</i>; pp.
+318-19).</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Besides, as I have already pointed out, in the process as it meets us in
+nature there is not a selection for preservation, but a selection for
+killing. With the breeder preservation is primary. It is of no value to
+him to kill, it is the preservation of a desired type that is all
+important. In nature, so far as we can see, the whole aim is to destroy.
+It is not the fittest that are preserved so much as it is the unfittest
+that are killed. The fittest are left alive for no other apparent reason
+than that nature is unable to kill them. The truth of this is seen in
+the fact that where there is no death there is no evolution of a
+"higher" type. In the case of diseases that kill there is a gradual
+development of an immune type&mdash;which introduces the paradox that the
+healthiest diseases from which a race may suffer are those that are most
+deadly. Where a disease does not kill there is no development against
+it. It is the winnowing fan of death that makes for the development of
+animal life. And the correct picture of nature&mdash;if we must picture an
+intelligence behind it&mdash;would be that of an intelligence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> aiming at
+killing all, and only failing in its purpose because the natural
+endowment of some placed them beyond its power.</p>
+
+<p>And, without examining the question begging word "higher," it may be
+said that natural selection does not make for the uniform covering of
+the earth with representatives of higher types. If in some parts of the
+world the higher have replaced the lower types, elsewhere the lower have
+replaced the higher. Natural selection, in fact, works without reference
+to whether the form which survives is "higher" or "lower." All that
+matters is adaptation. The germ of malaria renders whole tracts of the
+earth uninhabitable to those whom we consider representative of the
+higher culture. In other parts an alteration of the rainfall may crush
+out a civilisation, and leave a handful of nomadic tribes as the sole
+denizens of lands where once a lofty civilisation flourished. Throughout
+the whole of nature there is never the slightest indication that forces
+operate with the slightest reference to what we are accustomed to
+consider the higher interests of the race.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, from the standpoint of an apologetic theism, we are entitled
+to ask precisely what is meant by this justification of the evolutionary
+process in terms of the production of a higher type. The justification
+of a painful or a costly experience by an individual is two-fold. First,
+it is the only way, perhaps, in which certain things may be learned or
+accomplished, and, second, it is the individual who passes through the
+experience who benefits thereby. But suppose a person entered on a
+course of training with the absolute certainty that he would never
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>survive it. Should we be justified in forcing the course on him?
+Clearly not. The whole would be regarded as a wasted effort and as an
+exhibition of gratuitous cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>Now when we look closely at this evolutionary process, who is it that
+benefits thereby? In a vague way we speak of the race benefiting. But
+the race is made up of individuals, and while it may be said the
+individual benefits from the experience through which the race has
+passed, it cannot be truthfully said that he is the better because he
+has gained from experience. He does not pass through the discipline, he
+simply registers, so to speak, the result. And, therefore, so far as he
+is concerned, he is exactly in the position that the first man would
+have been had he possessed the endowment, social, and individual, which
+the present man has. There is no greater fallacy than that contained in
+the common saying that man learns through experience. Individually, so
+far as civilisation is concerned, that is not true. Were it true,
+civilisation would be impossible. If each man had to start where our
+primitive ancestors started, and learn from experience, we should end
+where the first generation of socialised human beings ended, and the
+generations of men would represent an endless series of first steps to
+which there would be no second ones. What the individual learns from
+experience is very little and would never serve to lift him from out the
+ranks of savagery. What he learns from the experience of the race is
+much, and gives the whole distinction between the civilised man and the
+savage. It is the discipline of the race, that experience which meets
+each of us in the form of traditions, counsels, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>institutions, etc.,
+from which we get the really vital lessons of life. But if that is so
+the attempted justification of natural processes on the ground that God
+designed them as they are so that man might learn from experience breaks
+down. The individual does not so learn, but is presented with the
+products of the experience of others, and which he accepts in the vast
+majority of cases without even putting it to the test. And, therefore,
+the method by which man learns was open from the start. Had there been
+some <i>man</i> who could have told us generations ago all that has been
+slowly discovered since, we should all have been the better for it, and
+we should have learned then exactly as we have learned since. And if God
+was really anxious to teach us, what possible objection could there be
+to his teaching us in some such way? In other words, how can we justify
+the process if the result is possible by any other method?</p>
+
+<p>The standpoint of the theist is that God develops the species in order
+to benefit the individual. But the order is that the individual is
+sacrificed to benefit the species&mdash;so far as any benefit can be traced.
+For it must be noted that it is not the individual who has passed
+through all the suffering, who has lived through the years of
+semi-animal life, or through the years of tyranny, that finally emerges
+strengthened and triumphant. It is a different individual altogether.
+The greatest benefit is secured by those who come latest, and who have
+done the least to secure it. The reward bears no relation to the
+personal desert. And at the end what happens? If we are to be guided by
+the lessons of science, we must believe that one day the human race
+will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> cease to exist, just as certainly as one day it began to exist.
+And what are we to think of the almighty wisdom and goodness which is
+responsible for all? An almighty intelligence designs a process to
+produce a perfect animal through the sufferings of myriads of other
+animals. It takes thousands and thousands of generations to complete the
+process, and meantime every year is bringing the whole plan nearer to
+extinction. Divine wisdom! Anything nearer complete stupidity and
+futility it would be difficult to conceive.</p>
+
+<p>I know that at this point it will be said that I am leaving out of
+account the future life, and that the story of human growth is to be
+continued elsewhere. But that will certainly not meet all that has been
+said above. And it is a curious manner of meeting an objection based
+upon the only phase of existence that we know with assurance to tell us
+that our indictment will receive a complete refutation in another state
+of existence of which we know nothing at all. The reply is in itself an
+admission of the truth of the charges. If life admitted of a moral
+justification here there would be no need to appeal to some other life
+in which these blemishes are made good. If some other life is needed to
+correct the moral abnormalities of this one, then the indictment of the
+Atheist is justified. And one is left again wondering why, if almighty
+intelligence could make all things straight in the next world, why the
+same intelligence could not have made the necessary corrections in this
+one.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is that the God of the evolutionary process is as much a myth
+as is the god of special creation. He has all the blemishes of the other
+one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>&mdash;one step removed. The Paleyan God had at least the merit of coming
+to close grips with his work. The evolutionary one shields himself
+behind the fact that the work is done by his agents, and then it is
+found that he created the agents for this special work and all that they
+do is the product of the qualities with which he endowed them. If
+anything the evolutionary deity is more objectionable than the older
+one. And if theists will examine nature candidly and with an open mind,
+they will see that it is so. I do not know that anyone has drawn a more
+truthful picture of natural processes as they appear from the point of
+view of being the product of a divine intelligence than has Mr. W. H.
+Mallock, and his picture is the more deadly as coming from a champion of
+theism. If, he says, theists will look the facts of the universe
+steadily in the face:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>What they will see will astonish them. They will see that if there
+is anything at the back of this vast process, with a consciousness
+and a purpose in any way resembling our own&mdash;a being who knows what
+he wants and is doing his best to get it&mdash;he is instead of a holy
+and all-wise God, a scatter-brained, semi-powerful, semi-impotent
+monster. They will recognise as clearly as they ever did the old
+familiar facts which seemed to them evidences of God's wisdom,
+love, and goodness; but they will find that these facts, when taken
+in connection with the others, only supply us with a standard in
+the nature of this Being himself by which most of his acts are
+exhibited to us as those of a criminal madman. If he had been
+blind, he had not sin; but if we maintain that he can see, then his
+sin remains. Habitually a bungler as he is, and callous when not
+actively cruel, we are forced to regard him, when he seems to
+exhibit benevolence, as not divinely benevolent, but merely weak
+and capricious, like a boy who fondles a kitten and the next moment
+sets a dog at it, and not only does his moral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> character fall from
+him bit by bit but his dignity disappears also. The orderly
+processes of the stars and the larger phenomena of nature are
+suggestive of nothing so much as a wearisome Court ceremonial
+surrounding a king who is unable to understand or to break away
+from it; whilst the thunder and whirlwind, which have from time
+immemorial been accepted as special revelations of his awful power
+and majesty, suggest, if they suggest anything of a personal
+character at all, merely some blackguardly larrikin kicking his
+heels in the clouds, not perhaps bent on mischief, but indifferent
+to the fact that he is causing it....</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, if we consider the universe as a whole, it fails to
+suggest a conscious and purposive God at all; and it fails to do so
+not because the processes of evolution as such preclude the idea
+that a God might have made use of them for a definite purpose, but
+because when we come to consider these processes in detail, and
+view them in the light of the only purposes they suggest, we find
+them to be such that a God who could deliberately have been guilty
+of them would be a God too absurd, too monstrous, too mad to be
+credible. (<i>Religion as a Credible Doctrine</i>; pp. 176-8).</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As we have already seen, the attempt to find a plan in the processes of
+evolution breaks down hopelessly. On analysis, the supposed plan turns
+out to be nothing more than a perception of some sort of regularity, and
+as regularity is an inescapable condition of existence, all that it
+proves <i>is</i> existence. On that point there is no dispute. And the moral
+justification of the cosmic process while intellectually indefensible,
+adds an element of moral repulsion. That the process as we know it is
+morally repugnant is shown by the appeal to the future, the request to
+suspend judgment till such time as the plan is completed, when it is
+hoped that the end will justify the means. God, it is trusted, will
+justify himself in the future. But in his anxiety to impress<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> upon us
+the fact that God has a moral future the theist forgets that he has had
+a past, and that past is a black one. The uncounted generations of
+suffering in the past is not to be compensated by a probable happiness
+in the future. The myriads of organisms that have lived incomplete
+lives, and ended them in deaths of suffering are not cancelled by the
+probability that at some time, still in the future, a comparatively
+small number will lead lives of happiness. The record is there, "there
+is blood upon the hand," and not all the apologies of a self-convicted
+animism can ever wipe it clean.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Problem of Pain.</span></h3>
+
+<p>The problem of how to harmonise the existence of a God as believers
+picture him to be with a world such as experience discloses, is as old
+as theology. And the problem will disappear only when theology is given
+up as an aggregate of question begging words and gratuitous hypotheses
+based upon a foundation of primitive ignorance and inherited delusion.
+For the majority of those questions that are properly called theological
+are not of the necessary order. Questions such as those connected with
+the mutations of matter, the development of life, the growth of society,
+or the nature and clash of human passions cannot be evaded. They are
+present in the facts themselves. But the problems of theology are
+self-created; they arise out of certain beliefs, and have no existence
+apart from those beliefs. They are the joint product of beliefs which
+are wholly useless, in conflict with facts with which they cannot be
+squared.</p>
+
+<p>What is known as "The Problem of Evil" is an apt illustration of the
+truth of what has been said. Here there is created a problem which is
+not alone quite gratuitous, but it succeeds in inverting the real
+question at issue. For unless we accept the world as the product of a
+good and wise God, there is no problem of evil for us to explain. The
+problem of evil is, given such a deity, how to account for the existence
+of evil, or, if it exists, how account for its continuance. The problem
+is created by the theory.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> Dismiss the theory and no problem is left.
+And it is in line with what is done in other directions, that, having
+created the difficulty, the theist should present it to the non-theist
+as one of the questions that he must answer.</p>
+
+<p>In reality there is no problem of evil in connection with ethics. The
+ethical problem is not the existence of evil, but the emergence of good;
+not, that is, why do men do wrong, but why do they do right. That life
+should cease to be is not at all wonderful, but that with so many
+potential dangers around the organism, the actions of living beings
+should become so automatically adapted to their surroundings as to shun
+the actions which destroy life, and perform such actions as maintain
+it&mdash;at least, to such an extent as secures the preservation of the
+species&mdash;may well arouse surprise and give birth to enquiry. So with the
+question of evil and suffering in the world. That these exist is
+undeniable, but the enquiry they suggest is only on all fours with the
+enquiry suggested by any other natural fact, while the ethical problem
+centres, not around the existence of wrong action, but around the
+emergence of right conduct. It is the evolution of happiness that forms
+the kernel of the ethical problem, not the evolution of pain.</p>
+
+<p>The earlier form of the Christian apologetic took the form of a
+dualistic theory of the world. There were two powers, God and the devil,
+and between them they shared the responsibility for all good and evil.
+So far, good. But this was clearly saving the goodness of God at the
+expense of his omnipotence. Moreover, if God was to be thought of as the
+creator of the universe, the theory, as Mill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> said, paid him the
+doubtful compliment of making him the creator of Satan, and, therefore,
+the creator of evil once removed. Or, if not, God and the devil were
+left as rival monarchs quarrelling over a territory that appeared to
+exist apart from and independent of either.</p>
+
+<p>But nowadays the devil has gone out of fashion. Very few of the clergy
+ever mention him, and although an attempt was made to reinstate him some
+years ago by the author of "Evil and Evolution," the endeavour was a
+failure. And bereft of the convenient scapegoat, the devil, the present
+day theist is compelled to attempt an apology for evil that will appeal
+to natural and verifiable facts for confirmation, or which must, at
+least, not be in conflict with them. If theism is to stand, a place and
+a meaning must be found for the evil in the world, and found in such a
+way that it either relieves God of the responsibility for its existence
+or its being can be shown to harmonise with his assumed character. It is
+no longer possible to fall back on Paul's position that the potter is at
+liberty to doom one pot to honour and the other to dishonour. The moral
+responsibility for the kind of pots he turns out cannot be so easily
+evaded. As Professor Sorley says, "If ethical theism is to stand, the
+evil in the world cannot be referred to God in the same way as the good
+is referred to him." Somehow, he must be relieved of the responsibility
+for its existence, or a purpose for it must be found.</p>
+
+<p>Now, curiously enough, modern theists hover between the two positions.
+Professor Sorley, representing one position, says that the only way to
+avoid referring evil to God is by "the postulate of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> human freedom."
+("Moral Values and the Idea of God," p. 469.) This is also the way out
+adopted by Canon Green in "The Problem of Evil," and it turns upon a
+mere play on words. Thus, Canon Green says that there is one thing God
+could not do. "He could not force him to be good, i.e., to choose virtue
+freely, for the idea of forcing a free being to choose involves a
+contradiction." And Professor Sorley says more elaborately that "things
+occur in the universe which are not due to God's will, although they
+must have happened with his permission ... a higher range of power and
+perfection is shown in the creation of free beings than in the creation
+of beings whose every thought and action are pre-determined by their
+Creator," and while he admits there is limitations to man's power of
+choice, he holds that there is one form of choice that is always there,
+and that is the choice of good and evil. ("Moral Values and the Idea of
+God," pp. 469-70.)</p>
+
+<p>In all this one can see little more than verbal confusion. To commence
+with Canon Green, which will also cover much that Prof. Sorley says on
+the same point. When we are told man must choose virtue freely in order
+that what he does shall partake of the character of morality, it is
+plain that he is using the word "forced" in two senses. In the one sense
+force may mean no more than a determinant. Thus we may say that our
+sympathies <i>force</i> us to act in such and such a way. Or the religious
+man may say that the love of God forces him to act in such and such a
+manner. Force here means any consideration that will lead to action, and
+no one can object to its use in this sense.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p><p>A second meaning of force is that of compulsion from without, as when a
+strong man gets hold of a weak one and by exertion of physical strength
+compels him to do something that he is disinclined to do, or when one
+forces another by threat of punishment. In this latter sense no one
+dreams of harmonising force with moral action. Neither law nor common
+sense does so. But compulsion in the sense of one's actions being forced
+by a mental or moral disposition no one outside an asylum would dispute.
+And what Canon Green does is to ask us to reject the idea of a moral
+action being forced, in the sense of external compulsion, and then uses
+it in the sense of an absence of dispositions that will lead to certain
+courses of conduct.</p>
+
+<p>It is probable that the Canon would reject this interpretation of his
+statement, but if it does not mean this, then his argument is
+unintelligible. For if it is admitted that what man does is the product
+of his mental or moral dispositions, in other words, of his nature, and
+if, as is undeniable, the nature with which he fronts the world is the
+product of heredity and environment, he would no more be "forced" to do
+good had God given him impulses strong enough to overcome all tendency
+to evil than he is now when his impulses come to him from his ancestors
+and his general social heredity.</p>
+
+<p>All that is implied in a moral act is free choice. But choice is free,
+not when it is independent of organic promptings; that is absurd; but
+when those organic promptings are allowed to find expression. There is
+no other rational meaning to "choice" than this. Choice does not tell us
+how it is determined, on that point it can say nothing, any more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> than a
+child can say why it chooses sugar in preference to cayenne pepper. Its
+choice, we say, is determined by its taste. And its taste is determined
+by&mdash;? To answer that question we must call in the chemist and the
+physiologist, and they probably will tell us why our choice moves in one
+direction rather than in another.</p>
+
+<p>When men like Canon Green talk of the morality of an action being
+dependent upon our <i>choice</i> between right and wrong, what they probably
+have in their minds is the perception of right and wrong. For we may
+perceive the possibility of one course while we are performing another.
+But the power of choice is clearly limited. A man cannot choose to be a
+mathematician, however much he may see the desirability of becoming one.
+And many a man may in the moral sphere see the advisability of his being
+different in character from what he is, but may altogether lack the
+capacity of becoming such. And the power of choice differs not only with
+each individual, but with the same individual at different times.
+Finally, the more fixed the character of the individual the less
+conscious he is of choice, or of a sense of freedom to do differently
+from what he actually does, and as this applies with equal force to
+character, whether it be good or bad, we reach, finally, the suicidal
+position that the more fundamentally moral a man becomes, the less moral
+he is.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>Now seeing that all our educational processes aim at making the good
+character, so to speak, automatic, that is, to quite fill the mind with
+worthy motives and wise power of choice, and seeing also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> that a
+character is good so far as this is done, will some one explain in what
+way moral character would have suffered had God so made man that he
+would have had intelligence enough to always choose the good and reject
+the bad? For, be it noted, the apology put forward for the present state
+of affairs is that man is in a state of probation, he is passing through
+a course of moral discipline, and it is essential that he should
+experience the possibility to do wrong, and even to occasionally do the
+wrong. And the end of the process of tuition is, what? The production of
+a perfect being in whom there shall not be a proneness to do wrong, to
+whose purified moral nature wrong doing shall be quite foreign. That is
+to say that we are to reach as a result of this long roundabout process,
+with all its waste and bungling, just what might have been established
+at the beginning. For either the perfect moral being is without the
+quality which we have just been assured is essential to morality, or the
+whole argument is reduced to nonsense.</p>
+
+<p>For it is impossible to assume that the bad man chooses to be bad with a
+full perception of the consequences of his actions, and at the same time
+with the power to do otherwise. We all agree that the <i>right</i> choice is
+ultimately a <i>wise</i> choice, and that if we could all trace out the
+consequences of all we do, we should realise that it was to our real
+interest to act rightly. And if that is admitted, it follows that the
+"choice" to do evil is the product of short-sightedness, or of some
+defect of temperament which prevents our standing up against the
+temptations of the moment. And our ethical education is mainly directed
+to making good this defect in our make up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> But suppose that amount of
+wisdom or strength had been an endowment of our nature from the outset,
+is there any conceivable way in which we should have been the worse for
+it? For even as it is there are some people who do make a fairly wise
+and right choice, and whose high-water mark of excellence is not reached
+through the crime and folly of the revival meeting convert. Are they the
+worse because they have never yielded to evil? Is the naturally good man
+really a less worthy character than the one whose comparative goodness
+is only reached through and after a lengthy course of evil living? And
+if not, in what way would the race have been worsened had we all been as
+fortunately circumstanced? If it was really God's purpose to have a race
+of men and women who should be both good and wise, it remains for the
+theist to show in what way the plan would not have been as well served
+by making them at once with a sufficiency of intelligence to act in the
+real interests of themselves and of all around them.</p>
+
+<p>Coming closer to earth the theist attempts to find a justification for
+the existing order of things by finding a use for pain and suffering in
+their educational influence on human nature, and in the impossibility of
+altering for the better the consequences of natural law.</p>
+
+<p>The real question at issue, says one of the most eloquent of modern
+theists, the late Dr. Martineau, is "whether the laws of which complaint
+is made work such harm that they ought never to have been enacted; or
+whether, in spite of occasional disasters in their path, the sentient
+existence of which they are the conditions has in its history a vast
+excess of blessing." (Study of Religion II., p. 91.) And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> Canon Green,
+who uses some of Dr. Martineau's ideas without the latter's eloquence or
+power of reasoning, asks, "If God were to say, 'You condemn me for this
+suffering! Well, take my creative power and re-create the world to
+please yourself and to suit your own sense of justice and mercy'" could
+we think out a world that should be better than this one? (Problem of
+Evil, p. 48.)</p>
+
+<p>Now both these methods of raising the question&mdash;and they are
+representative of a whole group&mdash;serve but to confuse the issue. For no
+one denies that some benefit may result from the present cosmical
+structure. But that does not touch the complaint that the structure is
+not such as fits in with the existence of a presiding intelligence such
+as theism asks us to accept. And the question of Canon Green's whether
+we could turn out a better universe than the one that actually exists,
+is wide of the mark also. If I purchase a motor car as the work of a
+genius in car-building, and find when I get my purchase home that it
+cannot be made to run, it does not destroy the justice of my complaint
+to ask whether I could build a better one or not. The important thing is
+that the car is not what it should be, and judging by the product the
+builder is not what he is represented to be either. Dr. Martineau was
+far too keen a controversialist to adopt Canon Green's foolish retort,
+but he does seek to parry the force of the atheist criticism by saying
+that God "if once he commits his will to any determinate method, and for
+the realisation of his ends selects and institutes a scheme of
+instrumental rules, he thereby shuts the door on a thousand things that
+might have been done before." (<i>Study</i>, p. 85). To that one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> may reply,
+so much the worse for his judgment; while if the fact of his having once
+adopted a "determinate method" caused him to resolve to stick to it, in
+spite of its consequences in practice, and irrespective of the
+beneficial results that might have followed its modification, we can
+only regret that the deity was not acquainted with Emerson's opinion
+that "a foolish consistency is the bugbear of little minds." Even what
+is said to be the greatest mind of all might easily have benefited from
+the warning.</p>
+
+<p>Canon Green tries another line of reply, which is not in the least more
+convincing. He pictures to us a father who, by misappropriating trust
+funds, brings disgrace to the whole of his family. The mother is driven
+to despair and drink. The sister dies for want of food, the brother
+finds his career ruined. The disaster is complete, and Canon Green says
+it is inevitable because we cannot have a world in which the relations
+of parents and children exist without having them suffer from each
+other's faults. So far as the present world goes that is true. But it is
+certainly a strange reply to the complaint that an arrangement is unjust
+to say that as the injustice results from the arrangement, therefore, we
+have no cause for complaint. And that <i>we</i> are unable to make a better
+world is beside the mark. Between the perception of an injustice, and
+the ability to remove it there is a world of difference, and although we
+may be unable to remedy the defect the defect remains.</p>
+
+<p>But, indeed, human nature does try to produce a world in which such
+happenings as those depicted shall either not occur or their
+consequences shall be reduced to a minimum. We do not hang a son for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+his parents' crime, nor do humane people blame children for the
+shortcomings of their parents. To some extent we try to correct the
+consequences that follow, and even though the endeavour be futile, that
+is in itself an indictment of the existing order. Man does at least try
+to correct the injustices his God is said to have created.</p>
+
+<p>It is overlooked also that the evils which follow from wrong actions are
+not confined to those immediately connected, and who may conceivably
+have their resentment to some extent dulled, if not lessened, by that
+fact. People in no way connected, and who can have no perception of the
+cause of their suffering, who are unconscious of everything, save the
+one fact that they are suffering, feel its consequences. When a great
+war spreads devastation all over the world, can it be said that any
+useful purpose is served by the sufferings of millions who are not in
+the slightest degree aware of the cause of their agony? When a shady
+financial operation brings an innocent man to ruin, and effects all the
+consequences which Canon Green imagines resulting from the defaulting
+parent, how can it be said that the catastrophe admits of ethical
+justification? In many cases the thought of the injury experienced acts
+itself as a fresh cause of degradation. It creates a rankling and a
+bitterness which depresses and inhibits the power to struggle, unless it
+be the desire to struggle for revenge against a condition of things of
+which the evil results are only too apparent. People are not merely
+punished for the evil they do; they are punished for the evil that
+others do, and the punishment, so far as we can see, bears no observable
+relation to the wrong done. There is no <i>ethical</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> relation between
+actions and consequences. Not alone is the incidence of an action
+dependent upon personal qualities&mdash;some will suffer more from having
+accidentally told an untruth than others will suffer from having
+committed gross and deliberate fraud&mdash;but nature is absolutely careless
+of whether what I do is motived by good or bad intentions. If I get a
+wetting through going out to help some one in distress, the consequences
+will be exactly the same as though I had got wet going out to commit a
+burglary or a murder. And when Dr. Martineau talks of the "natural
+penalties for guilt," and adds that "sin being there, it would be simply
+monstrous that there should be no suffering and would fully justify the
+despair which now raises its sickly cry of complaint against the
+retributory wretchedness of human transgression" (<i>Study</i> II., p. 106),
+the reply is that there are no such things as "<i>natural</i> penalties for
+guilt." There are only consequences of actions, and they are the same
+whatever be the moral quality of the actions performed. In the same way
+that nature may in the course of an earthquake destroy the homes of a
+dozen worthy families and leave a gambling hell untouched, so it will in
+other directions punish where a man, from good intentions, places
+himself in the path of punishment, and refrain from afflicting one whose
+selfishness or greed has guarded him against attack. There are natural
+consequences of actions, there are no natural penalties for guilt, and
+there are no natural rewards for innocence. Rewards and penalties are
+the creation of man, and it is only in the form of a figure of speech
+that we can apply them to nature.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p><p>It is equally idle to speak of pain as a form of discipline. Professor
+Sorley says that if the pain in the world can be turned to the increase
+of goodness, then its existence offers no insuperable objection to "the
+ethical view of reality." So Dr. Martineau says that suffering is "the
+moral discipline" through which our nature arrives at its "true
+elevation." It is needless to multiply quotations; such statements are
+the commonplaces of theistic controversy, and almost any book that one
+cares to pick up will supply further illustrations, if they be required.
+None can reject them, because no theist can afford to candidly admit
+that the world we know offers no justification for his belief. The
+belief in the goodness of God, as Canon Green says, is a belief that is
+"absolutely fundamental to all religion," and if the facts as we see
+them do not support the belief, some apology must be found that will
+marry the theory to the fact.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, the belief in the disciplinary power of pain or suffering
+is, if not quite illusory, so nearly so that it is useless for the
+purpose for which it is brought forward. In the first place, it does not
+require very profound study to see that whatever are the lessons taught
+by suffering they are seldom proportionate to the conduct which cause
+them, nor do those who suffer reap the alleged disciplinary benefit of
+their suffering. Let us take a common case. A mother goes out and leaves
+a child near an unguarded fire. The mother returns to find the child
+burned to death. Where is the discipline here? Certainly the child
+cannot have gained any. But there is, of course, the mother. The mother
+has learned such a lesson that she will never forget it,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> and will never
+again commit the same blunder. There we have it. A child is allowed to
+die by a hideously cruel death in order that a mother may learn a lesson
+in carefulness. It is good to learn from other sources that God's ways
+are not our ways. A man who tried to imitate them, and who burned one of
+his children in order to teach its mother how to look after the rest,
+would soon find himself in the criminal court, or in an asylum. But what
+would be insanity or criminal cruelty in the case of man, becomes, in
+the alembic of religious apologetic, goodness and wisdom in God.</p>
+
+<p>The theory that it is the function of pain to elevate and to discipline
+is simply not true. One has only to look to see that in countless cases
+the effect of pain is disaster. The world's best work is not born of
+pain but of pleasure. There is no pain and no suffering, there is hardly
+even toil, in the work of a genius. In all the higher walks of music, of
+art, of literature, the work is perfect in proportion as the worker
+finds himself in agreeable and pleasant surroundings. And what is true
+of the higher aspect of art is true also of life in general. Life may be
+lived in spite of pain, as good work may be done in spite of
+discouraging circumstances, but one might as well talk of a plant
+flourishing because of poor soil, or sharp frosts, as to speak of life
+becoming better because of pain.</p>
+
+<p>The normal function of pain is to depress, that of pleasure is to
+heighten. As Spencer said, every pain lowers the tide of life; every
+pleasure raises the tide of life. It is one of the commonest of sights
+to see those suffering from illness becoming more self-centred, less
+careful of others, and to see the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>disintegrating consequences of
+disease on character. Here and there one may find a character that has
+had its rough edges smoothed down by suffering, but for every case of
+that kind one may find a score of an opposite order. It is not the
+underfed, badly clothed, neglected child that is likely to make the best
+citizen, but the one that has the best chance of developing itself in
+healthy surroundings. And it is a curious commentary, if it were true,
+to argue that a good and wise God so arranged things that pain and
+suffering, even undeserved suffering, should be the main way for the
+development of character.</p>
+
+<p>A strange but not uncommon argument is used by Canon Green in dealing
+with the suffering incidental to the various disasters that overtake
+mankind from time to time. Suffering, he says, has a certain element of
+martyrdom about it. Even evils due to human greed and carelessness bring
+some benefit in their train. Thus, apropos of the <i>Titanic</i> disaster:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Every such disaster tends to produce some improvement for future
+generations. Shipowners are forced to supply more boats, wireless
+instalment is required on all ships; the idle rich are led to think
+less of saving useless time and more of saving lives, their own and
+those of men in the stokeholds. In a sense those who perish may be
+said to be unwilling martyrs who by their deaths purchase some
+advantage for others. It will be said that it is a great price to
+pay for a small advantage, and one which might have been cheaply
+gained in some other ways. That is so. But so too the ways of
+nature are cruel. So many seeds must be sown, so many young animals
+or birds or fishes born, so many must be trampled out of existence,
+that only the best may survive. (<i>Problem of Evil</i>; pp. 163-4).</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That certainly puts all the owners of slum property,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> all the grasping
+shipowners, all those who batten and fatten on other people's welfare in
+a most favourable light. We have been thinking them almost criminals
+when they were in reality public benefactors. They lead to many
+improvements, and even though the improvements come too late to benefit
+those who suffer from the evils, yet they do come&mdash;sometimes. Certainly
+it might give some comfort if the sufferers knew what it was they were
+being sacrificed for, and that others would be benefited by their death.
+But they do not, and we are therefore bound to conclude that whatever
+satisfaction is felt is by those who survive. When a <i>Titanic</i> sinks it
+must be the people on shore who see the element of goodness in it since
+it makes travelling easier for <i>them</i>. And the kindness developed in one
+who can excuse the brutalities of nature because it brings some benefit
+to himself is of a rather startling nature.</p>
+
+<p>The fundamental fault in all reasoning of this order lies in the
+assumption that pain ceases to be pain if it can be shown to bring good
+to <i>some</i> one. But that it not so. Pleasure and pain are not
+quantitative things, increments of which can be carried on from
+generation to generation and a balance struck at the end, much as one
+strikes a balance between the profits and losses of a year's trading.
+All suffering and all enjoyment are of necessity personal. Suffering is
+not increased by extending it over a million instances. There was not
+more pain because a larger number happened to be be killed in the
+European war than are killed in a borderland skirmish. There were a
+larger <i>number</i> of people involved in the one case than in the other,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+but that is all. Multiplying the number of cases makes a greater appeal
+to a sluggish imagination, but it adds nothing substantial to the fact.
+Feeling, whether it be pleasant or painful, is a matter of individual
+experience, and that being so it is not the number of people who suffer
+through no fault of their own, and, so far as one can see, without any
+benefit proportionate to the suffering experienced, but the fact of
+there being this suffering at all. That is the point the theist must
+face; it is the one point he systematically avoids.</p>
+
+<p>Another form of the same argument meets us in the familiar plea that
+bodily pain "sounds the alarm bell of disease in time for its removal."
+In some sense it may be admitted that a painful feeling, in certain
+circumstances, does act as a warning that persistence will lead to
+disaster. But it is not universally true in the sense and in the degree
+that is needed to justify the argument, and it is a "warning" out of all
+proportion to the danger faced. In the first place, pain cannot be a
+warning against disease, it can only be an indication of its presence.
+It does not warn us against the dangers of a contemplated course of
+conduct, nor can it tell us what conduct has led to the pain
+experienced. And in the case of contagious diseases, what amount of
+warning is there given? In some case the victim is stricken and is dead
+in so short a time as not to know with what it is he has been afflicted,
+and certainly without any chance of being warned. What warning is there
+in the case of a violent poison? Or what relation is there between pains
+felt and dangers run? The most dangerous diseases may have painless
+beginnings, and be well rooted in the system<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> before the victim is
+driven by discomfort to seek medical advice. On the other hand, a corn
+or a toothache, neither of them very deadly ailments, create pain out of
+all proportion to their gravity. And if we take the case of excessive
+cold we have here an instance where instead of pain acting as a warning,
+the danger just acts as an an&aelig;sthetic. The victim is oppressed by
+drowsiness, sinks into insensibility, finally death. Here it is not the
+approach of death that is painful, but the return to life, the pain of
+restoring circulation being very severe indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Fear, which may be classed as a species of pain, appears to act, in the
+majority of instances, as an enemy, rather than as a friend to the
+animal experiencing it. Thus Professor Mosso points out that in the
+animal organism there exists a number of harmful reactions that increase
+in number the graver the peril becomes. We have all read of the
+"fascination" of the bird by the serpent, and there are other animals
+that in the presence of an enemy become so palsied with fear as to
+become incapable of defence, even that of flight. And with man it is not
+as the danger becomes most acute that his nerves become steadier and his
+courage firmer. The opposite is probably more often the case. In all
+these cases it is as though nature had lured the animal or man into a
+position of grave danger, and then does its best to divest him of
+adequate means of defence against it.</p>
+
+<p>Common sense revolts against the doctrine that pain is a good thing, and
+the fact of this is everywhere seen in the attempt of man to get rid of
+it. No one trusts it as a sure warning against disease, no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> one turns to
+it as a means of purifying character. All these pleas are the mere
+platitudes of a religious apologetic trying to harmonise a primitive
+theory of things with a larger knowledge and a more developed moral
+sense. Pain and suffering in the world remain facts whether we believe
+in the existence of a God or not, but we are at least freed from the
+paralysing horror of the belief that all the suffering and pain in
+nature is part of a plan. If man realised all that that belief involved
+it might indeed rob his mind of all strength to struggle against the
+forces that make for his destruction. Fortunately no race of people
+could act upon the logical implications of the theistic theory and
+maintain its existence. In practice, as well as in theory, theism has
+had to come to terms with facts. And now the series of adjustments have
+almost reached their end. The belief in God has been traced to its
+origin, and we know it to have issued in an altogether discredited view
+of the world and of man. We know that man does not discover God, he
+invents him, and an invention is properly discarded when a better
+instrument is forthcoming. To-day the hypothesis of God stands in just
+the same relation to the better life of to-day as the fire drill of the
+savage does to the modern method of obtaining a light. The belief in God
+may continue awhile in virtue of the lack of intelligence of some, of
+the carelessness of others, and of the conservative character of the
+mass. But no amount of apologising can make up for the absence of
+genuine knowledge, nor can the flow of the finest eloquence do aught but
+clothe in regal raiment the body of a corpse.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> I have discussed this question at length in my "Determinism
+or Free Will."</p></div></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="Part_II" id="Part_II"></a>Part II.</h2>
+
+<h3>SUBSTITUTES FOR ATHEISM.</h3>
+
+<hr class="smler" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">A Question of Prejudice.</span></h3>
+
+<p>It affords some ground for surprise that there should be so great a
+resentment shown against religious disbelief in general and against
+Atheism in particular. We have here more than the mere rejection of a
+theory or view of life. There is a certain emotional resentment, a
+shrinking from the one who is guilty of disbelief, such as is not
+explainable on ordinary grounds. The attitude is ridiculous, so
+ridiculous that many who adopt it are ashamed to openly acknowledge it,
+but it is there, and its existence calls for explanation.</p>
+
+<p>We believe this is to be found in the peculiar history of the god-idea
+combined with primitive theories of social life. Like many frames of
+mind that persist in civilised society, this attitude towards disbelief
+has its roots in a conception of the world that has been generally
+discarded and in social conditions that have ceased to exist among
+civilised people. To begin with, we have the fact that religion
+dominates the life of primitive man to a degree that is almost
+inconceivable to the modern mind. The anger of the tribal gods has to be
+always reckoned with. What they desire must be done, what they do not
+desire must be avoided. In the next place there exists a very strong
+sense of collective responsibility. What one member of a tribe does the
+whole of the tribe is responsible for, both to the members of other
+tribes and to the gods. We see a survival of this in the reversion to a
+more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> primitive state of things that takes place during a war. In some
+circumstances hatred of the whole of a people with whom a nation is at
+war becomes a duty, and all are responsible for the offences of each. So
+in primitive times an offence against the gods became an act of treason
+against the tribe. It might expose the whole of the tribe to disaster.</p>
+
+<p>It is not, it must be noted, that primitive man is fond of the gods, or
+jealous of their honour; he is not any more fond of them than is the
+modern citizen of the tax-collector. And no one will ever really
+understand the question of religion until he rids himself of the notion
+that primitive man spends his time <i>looking</i> for gods or that he is
+happy in their company. He is simply afraid that a single unruly member
+may get the whole tribe into a serious difficulty. The savage is
+severely practical; his conduct rests upon grounds of, to him, the most
+obvious utility, and his treatment of the heretic leaves little to be
+desired on the score of effectiveness. The unbeliever is a dangerous
+person, and he is promptly suppressed. The first heretic died a martyr
+to the tribe; the last heretic will die a martyr to the race.</p>
+
+<p>Primitive conditions die out, but primitive feelings linger, and
+although in theory we have reached the stage of believing that each
+person must bear the consequences of his own religious opinions, the
+deeply rooted dislike to the man who rejects the rule of the gods
+remains.</p>
+
+<p>Historically we have also to reckon with the operations of an interested
+priesthood, but leaving that on one side as a secondary development it
+would seem that one must trace to some such cause as the one above
+indicated the deep and widespread dislike<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> to such a term as atheism,
+even by many who to all intents and purposes are atheist in their
+opinion. Certainly in this country, where compromise is more fashionable
+than in many other places, the dislike to the word is partly due to its
+uncompromising character. It is clear cut and definite. Its connotations
+cannot be misunderstood by any one who takes the word in its literal
+meaning. The Theist is one who believes in a personal God. The Atheist
+is one who is without belief in a personal God. The meaning is clear,
+and the implied mental attitude is plain. It is opposed to theism, and
+has no significance apart from Theism. And, as will be seen, when
+non-theists quarrel with it, it is only because it is mis-stated or
+misunderstood.</p>
+
+<p>But most people dislike clear cut terms. They prefer to exist in an
+atmosphere of mental ambiguity and intellectual fog which blurs outlines
+and obscures differences. Unbeliever is preferable to some,
+sceptic&mdash;presumably because of its age and philosophical associations,
+is a greater favourite, and Agnostic is more beloved than either&mdash;the
+latter has indeed been pressed into the service of a more or less
+nebulous "religion." As it is said, "We are all Socialists nowadays," so
+it is said that we are unbelievers or Agnostics nowadays. But no one
+says we are all Atheists nowadays. Timidity can find no use for a word
+of that character. Of course, if a man believes that some word other
+than Atheism best describes his state of mind, he has a perfect right to
+select the one that seems fittest. But when one finds non-theists
+repudiating the name of Atheist with as much moral indignation as though
+they had been accused of shoplifting, one cannot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> help the suspicion
+that the heat displayed is not unconnected with some lurking fear of the
+"respectabilities." It does seem that while many may have outgrown all
+fear of the God of orthodoxy, the fear of the god of social pressure
+remains.</p>
+
+<p>So far as the Theist is concerned it is quite understandable that his
+objection to Atheism should involve a certain moral element. That would
+result from what has already been said concerning the cause of the fear
+of heresy. Still one would have thought that in these days it would
+require a person of almost abnormal stupidity to assume that disbelief
+in God has its roots in a defective moral character. The facts would
+warrant a quite opposite conclusion. In the first place, the rejection
+of any well-established belief argues a degree of independence of mind
+that is, unfortunately, not common. The ordinary mind follows the common
+route. It is the extraordinary mind that strikes out from the beaten
+path. The heretic, whether in politics or in religion, may be wrong, but
+there is always with him the guarantee of a certain measure of mental
+strength that is not, on the face of the matter, present with one who
+follows the orthodox path. And that in itself represents a type of mind
+of no little social value. Moreover, I for one, am quite ready to assert
+that, class for class, the Freethinker does represent a type of mind
+considerably above the average. That this is not more generally
+recognised is due to the policy of the religious advocate in contrasting
+the uneducated Freethinker with the educated believer.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, it strikes one as almost insane to assume<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> that in a Christian
+country Atheism should be professed as a cloak or as an excuse for
+misconduct. They who talk in this strain greatly undervalue the
+accommodating power of religion. Is there a single form of rascality
+known to man for which religion has not been able to provide a sanction?
+If there is I have failed to come across it. The use of religion made by
+tyranny in all ages and in all countries is proof of how accommodating
+it is to man's passions and interests. The picture of the dying murderer
+meeting his end, filled with the consolation of religion, and certain of
+his speedy salvation, contains a lesson that all may read if they will.</p>
+
+<p>Error there may be in any case where opinion is concerned, but
+profession of an opinion that paves the way for suspicion and
+persecution provides a <i>prima facie</i> guarantee of honesty that cannot be
+furnished by the advocacy of one that stands high in the public favour.
+For aught I know to the contrary, every one of England's Bishops may be
+quite honest men. But there can be no certainty about it so long as the
+profession carries with it all it does. The dice are loaded in favour of
+conviction. But the man who faces social ostracism, and even loss of
+liberty in defence of an opinion, is giving a hostage to truth such as
+none other can give.</p>
+
+<p>This association of heresy with a defective moral character is a very
+old game. It has been played by all religions, and, it must be admitted,
+with considerable success. Writing in the second century Lucian shows us
+the same policy at work in his day. In one of his dialogues, when the
+Atheist has refuted one after another the theistic arguments of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> his
+opponent, the defender of the gods turns on his opponent with&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>You god robbing, shabby, villainous, infamous, halter-sick
+vagabond! Does not everybody know that your father was a
+tatterdemalion, and your mother no better than she should be? that
+you murdered your brother and are guilty of other execrable crimes?
+You lewd, lying, rascally, abominable varlet.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That type of disputant is still with us, and is still supporting his
+beliefs with the same tactics. And it is successful with some. There is
+a certain snobbishness in human nature that makes it seek the
+association of well-known names and shun all of those with an
+unfashionable reputation. To observe the way in which some people will
+introduce into their conversation, speeches, or writings, the names of
+well-known men, is a revelation of this mental snobbery. And the moral
+equivalent of this is the fear of being found in the company of an
+opinion that has been branded as immoral. Such people have all the fear
+of an unpopular opinion that a savage has of a tribal taboo&mdash;it is, in
+fact, a survival of the same spirit that gave the tribal taboo its
+force. It is, thus, not a very difficult matter to warn people off an
+undesirable opinion. Samuel Taylor Coleridge relates how the clergy
+raised the cry of Atheism against him, although he had never advanced
+further than Deism. And it is to his credit that in referring to this
+charge he said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Little do these men know what Atheism is. Not one man in a thousand
+has either strength of mind or goodness of heart to be an Atheist.
+I repeat it. Not one man in a thousand has either strength of mind
+or goodness of heart to be an Atheist.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p><p>And we have also the oft-quoted testimony of the late Professor
+Tyndall:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>It is my comfort to know that there are amongst us many whom the
+gladiators of pulpit would call Atheists and Materialists, whose
+lives, nevertheless, as tested by any accessible standard of
+morality would contrast more than favourably with the lives of
+those who seek to stamp them with this offensive brand. When I say
+"offensive," I refer merely to the intention of those who use such
+terms, and not because Atheism or Materialism, when compared with
+many of the notions ventilated in the columns of religious
+newspapers has any particular offensiveness to me. If I wish to
+find men who are scrupulous in their adherence to engagements,
+whose words are their bond, and to whom moral shiftiness of any
+kind is subjectively unknown, if I wanted a loving father, a
+faithful husband, an honourable neighbour, and a just citizen, I
+would seek him among the band of Atheists to which I refer. I have
+known some of the most pronounced amongst them, not only in life,
+but in death&mdash;seeing them approaching with open eyes the inexorable
+goal, with no dread of a "hangman's whip," with no hope of a
+heavenly crown, and still as mindful of their duties, as if their
+eternal future depended upon their latest deeds.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Still the moral cry is too useful with the crowd to lead to the
+conviction that anything one could say would lead to its disuse. In the
+dialogue of Lucian's to which we have referred, and after the theist has
+been refuted by the Atheist, Hermes consoles the chief deity, Zeus, by
+telling him that even though a few may have been won over by the
+arguments of the Atheist, the vast majority, "the whole mass of
+uneducated Greeks and the Barbarians everywhere," still remain firm in
+their faith. And although Zeus replies that he would prefer one sensible
+man to a thousand fools, when a case depends upon the adherence of the
+relatively foolish, numbers will always bring some consolation to the
+champions of an intellectually distressed creed.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">What is Atheism?</span></h3>
+
+<p>Between Atheism and Theism there is no logical halting place. But there
+are, unfortunately, many illogical ones. Few possess the capacity for
+pushing their ideas to a logical conclusion, and some position is
+finally discovered which has the weakness of both extremes with the
+strength of neither. With many there is vague talk of a "Power"
+manifested in the universe, and by giving this the dignity of capital
+letters it is evidently hoped that ether people will recognise it as an
+equivalent for God. But power, with or without capitals, is not God. It
+is not the existence of a "Power" that forms the kernel of the dispute
+between the Theist and the Atheist, but what that power is like. The
+issue arises on the point of whether it is personal or not. That it is,
+is what the religious man believes. As Mr. Balfour says, when the plain
+man speaks of God he means "a God whom men can love, to whom men can
+pray, who takes sides, who has purposes and preferences, whose
+attributes, however conceived, leaves the possibility of a personal
+relation between Himself and those whom he has created." ("Theism and
+Humanism," p. 21.) What the genuine believer has in view is not the
+worthless abstraction of a rationalised metaphysic, but the personal
+being of historic theology.</p>
+
+<p>It is now my purpose to take a few of these substitutes for Atheism by
+the aid of which some persons seek to mark themselves off from a
+declared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> and reasoned unbelief. As outstanding examples of this one may
+take two men of no less eminence than Herbert Spencer and Professor
+Huxley. Both of these men have rendered great service to advanced
+thought, but both have only succeeded in repudiating Atheism by
+misstating and misrepresenting it. In addition to the service that
+Spencer unwittingly rendered the current religion by his use of the
+"Unknowable" (with which we deal fully later), a further help was given
+by his destruction of an Atheism that had no existence. This remarkable
+performance will be found in the first part of his "First Principles."
+Respecting the origin of the universe, he tells us, there are three
+intelligible propositions&mdash;although neither of these, on his own
+showing, is intelligible. We may assert that it is self-existent, that
+it is self-created, or that it is created by an external agency. All
+three propositions, he proceeds to show, are equally inconceivable. The
+noticeable thing about the performance is that Atheism is identified
+with the proposition that the universe is self-existent. A very slight
+acquaintance with the writings of representative Atheists would have
+shown Mr. Spencer that "the origin of the universe" is one of those
+questions on which Atheism has wisely been silent, and it has also
+insisted that all attempts to deal with such a question can only result
+in a meaningless string of words. To the Atheist, "the universe"&mdash;the
+sum of existence&mdash;is a fact that no amount of reasoning can get behind
+or beyond. To think of the universe as a whole is an impossibility;
+while to talk of its origin is to assume, first, that it did originate,
+and, second, that we have some means by which we can transcend all the
+known<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> limits of the human mind. The Atheist can say, and has said, with
+Mr. Spencer himself&mdash;whose final statement of Agnosticism differs in no
+material respect from Atheism, that in discussing the "origin of the
+universe," we can only succeed in multiplying impossibilities of thought
+"by every attempt we make to explain its existence." No one has pointed
+out more clearly than Mr. Spencer that "infinity" is not a conception,
+but the negation of one. The pity is that he did not realise that in
+taking up this position he was on exactly the same level of criticism
+that Atheists have pursued. For them the universe is an ultimate fact;
+all that we can do is to mark the ceaseless changes always going on
+around us, and to develope our capacity for modifying their action in
+the interests of human welfare. Farther than this our knowledge does not
+and cannot go; and it may be added that even though our knowledge could
+go beyond the world of phenomena, such knowledge would not be of the
+slightest possible value.</p>
+
+<p>It may also be pointed out that, just as it is not true that Atheism
+attempts to explain the origin of the universe, so it is unfair to tie
+the Atheist down to any particular theory of cosmic evolution. As a
+mental attitude Atheism is quite independent of any theory of cosmic
+working, so long as that theory does not involve an appeal to deity. As
+we shall see, Atheism, from the point of view both of history and
+etymology, stands for the negation of theism, and its final
+justification must be found in the untenability of the theistic
+position.</p>
+
+<p>Rightly enough it may be argued that the acceptance of Atheism implies a
+certain general mental<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> attitude towards both cosmic and social
+questions, but the Atheist, as such, is no more committed to a special
+scientific theory than he is committed to a special theory of
+government. Of course, it is convenient for the Theist to first of all
+saddle his opponent with a set of social or scientific beliefs, and then
+to assume that in attacking those beliefs he is demolishing Atheism, but
+it is none the less fighting on a false issue. All that Atheism
+necessarily involves is that all forms of Theism are logically
+untenable, and consequently the only effective method of destroying
+Atheism is to establish its opposite.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Huxley's treatment of Atheism proceeds on similar lines to
+that already dealt with, but is more elaborate in character. Discussing
+the nature of his own opinions he repudiates all sympathy with Atheism,
+because:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"the problem of the ultimate cause of existence is one which seems
+to me to be hopelessly out of reach of my poor powers. Of all the
+senseless babble I have ever had occasion to read, the
+demonstrations of those philosophers who undertake to tell us about
+the nature of God would be the worst, if they were not surpassed by
+the still greater absurdities of the philosophers who try to prove
+there is no God." (<i>On the Hypothesis the Animals are Automata.</i>)</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And on another occasion, replying to a correspondent, he expresses the
+opinion that "Atheism is, on philosophical grounds, untenable, that
+there is no evidence of the god of the theologians is true enough, but
+strictly scientific reasoning can take us no further. When we know
+nothing we can neither affirm nor deny with propriety." (<i>Life and
+Letters</i>, p. 162.)</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p><p>Here, again, we have the common error that Atheism seeks in some way to
+explain the ultimate cause of existence. And this in spite of continuous
+disclaimers that all search for a "first cause," or for a "cause of
+existence" is midsummer madness. The fault here, we suspect, is that
+both writers took their statement of Atheism, not from Atheistic writers
+but from their opponents. But it is none the less surprising that it was
+not recognised that both "a first cause" and an "ultimate cause of
+existence," are, strictly speaking, theistic questions. I do not mean
+that these questions may not suggest themselves to non-theists, but that
+when they are raised clearly and definitely they are seen to belong to a
+class of questions to which no rational answer is possible. To the
+Theist, however, the questions arise from his primary assumptions. His
+theory is one of final causes; his deity is postulated as the cause of
+existence, and he cannot give up the questions as hopeless without
+admitting his position to be indefensible. It is quite usual for the
+theist to propound problems which only arise on his own assumptions, and
+then call upon his opponents for answers to them, but there is no
+justification whatever for non-theists playing the same game. Atheism
+has nothing to do with final causes, and therefore is not concerned with
+defending its illogicalities. Theism is a doctrine of final causes, and
+in arguing that it is absurd to express an opinion upon the subject
+Professor Huxley was adding a good reason in support of the position he
+believed himself to be destroying.</p>
+
+<p>Huxley's other objection to Atheism is that it perpetuates the absurdity
+of trying to prove there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> is no God. How far is that true? Or in what
+sense is it true? The danger in all discussion on this point lies in our
+taking it for granted that "God" conveys a definite and identical
+meaning to all people. But this is very far from being the case. What
+anyone means by "God" it is impossible to say until some further
+description has been given. When this has been done, and not until then,
+"God" may become the subject of affirmation or denial. Until then we are
+playing with empty words. By itself "God" means nothing. It offers the
+possibility of neither negation nor affirmation.</p>
+
+<p>Now Professor Huxley would have readily admitted that the truth of a
+proposition may be denied whenever its terms involve a contradiction.
+And the ground of this is the sheer impossibility of bringing the terms
+together in thought. That a circle may be square, or that parallel lines
+may enclose a space, are propositions the truth of which may be denied
+offhand. The ground of this is that the conception of squareness and
+circularity, of straight lines and an enclosed space are mutually
+destructive, they cancel each other. And so far as Atheism may be said
+to involve the denial of particular gods that denial is based upon
+precisely similar grounds. When defined it is seen that the attributes
+of this defined god cancel each other as effectually as squareness rules
+out the idea of a circle; either this or they are simply unthinkable.
+You cannot have an infinite personality any more than you can have a
+six-sided octagon, nor can you posit an infinite personality without
+divesting the terms of all meaning.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p><p>It may also be noted in passing that both the theist and the Agnostic
+actually do deny the existence of particular gods without the least
+hesitation. No rational Agnostic would hesitate to deny the existence of
+Jupiter, Javeh, Allah, or Brahma. No Christian would hesitate to deny
+the existence of the gods of a tribe of savages. Even believers in the
+current theology have evolved beyond the stage of the primitive
+Christians, who accepted the existence of the Pagan deities with the
+proviso that they were demons. And it is a mere verbal quibble to say
+that these people merely deny each other's conception of deity. Each
+man's conception of god <i>is</i> his god, and to say that no being answering
+to that conception exists is to say that his god does not exist, and in
+relation to the god denied the denier is in exactly the position in
+which he places the Atheist.</p>
+
+<p>So far then the Atheism of each is just a question of degree or of
+relation. So far as Atheism involves the denial of deity the follower of
+one religion is an Atheist in relation to the followers of every other
+religion. Each religion&mdash;among civilised people&mdash;is atheistic from the
+standpoint of the followers of other gods. The affirmation of one god
+involves the denial of other gods. This would really seem to be the
+historical significance of the term. The early Christians were called
+atheists by the Pagans, and some of them accepted it without demur. At a
+later date Spinoza, Voltaire, Paine, and others were called atheists,
+and the epithet has lost its force to-day only because the evolution of
+thought has broken down many religious barriers, and is rapidly dividing
+people into two groups&mdash;those who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> believe in some god and who believe
+in none at all. Now all that Atheism&mdash;conscious and reflective
+Atheism&mdash;does is to carry a step further the restricted denial of the
+ordinary religionist. The Christian theist denies every god but his own.
+The Atheist, seeing no more evidence for the existence of the Christian
+deity than for the existence of any of the deities discarded by the
+Christian, seeing, further, that there are exactly the same
+contradictions involved in assuming the existence of any one of the
+world's deities, places the Christian deity on the list as among those
+gods in whose existence he does not believe, and whose existence, so far
+as it is defined, may be logically denied.</p>
+
+<p>The really distinguishing feature of philosophic Atheism is its
+comprehensiveness, the ranking of all known deities, big and little,
+ancient and modern, savage and civilised, gross and subtle, upon the
+same level. Historically, we see them all originating in the same
+conditions, passing through substantially the same phases of
+development, finally to meet with the same fate as civilisation
+developes. In this respect Atheism has to be considered in its historic
+developments. It begins, as we have seen in the rejection of a
+particular god, in favour of some other deity. It is only at a very much
+later stage that the whole idea of god is subjected to examination and
+analysis in such a way as to lead to the rejection of the conception of
+god as a whole. But with that aspect of the subject we shall be
+concerned later.</p>
+
+<p>But does Atheism deny the existence of any possible god? This question
+might admit of a simple answer if one only knew precisely what it meant.
+It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> is easy enough to understand what is meant by God so long as we keep
+to any or all of the gods of the world's religions. But what is meant by
+god standing alone and undefined? Historically "God" means a deity
+believed in by some people, some where, at some time. And if we put on
+one side these particular gods we have nothing left that can be either
+affirmed or denied. God in the abstract is not a real existence any more
+than tree in the abstract is a real existence. There is a pine tree, a
+pear tree, an apple tree, etc., but there is and can be no "tree" apart
+from some particular tree. So with "god." There are particular gods, but
+if we do away with these, we have no god left as a separate existence.
+"God" then becomes a mere word conveying no meaning whatever. Atheism
+does not deny the existence of <i>a</i> god for the same reason that it does
+not deny the existence of Abracadabra&mdash;both terms mean as much, or as
+little. And it is more than absurd for people who have rejected theism
+to continue using the word "god" as though it had a quite definite
+meaning apart from the gods of the various theologies. We have Professor
+Huxley admitting that "there is no evidence of the existence of the god
+of the theologians," and we imagine that he would have met the
+affirmation of their existence with a flat contradiction. At any rate he
+would have been quite justified in doing so. But when he asserts, with a
+show of logical precision, but in reality with great looseness, that "it
+is preposterous to assert that there is no god because he cannot be such
+as we think him to be," he is using language for which no precise
+meaning can be found. To be intelligible, the sentence implies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> that we
+have some conception answering to the terms used, and this, as we have
+pointed out with almost wearisome insistence, is not the case. It is not
+a case of saying to the theist, "I fully understand your hypothesis, but
+as at present I do not see enough evidence to convince me of its truth
+or to demonstrate its error I must suspend judgment." We do <i>not</i>
+understand it. And when we seek to we discover that the terms of the
+proposition we are asked to accept refuse to be brought together within
+the compass of a single conception. Suspended judgment where the subject
+under discussion is understandable is right and proper, but it is quite
+out of place, and indeed cannot exist, where the proposition before us
+is void of meaning. In such circumstances suspended judgment is absurd,
+and it may be added that the affirmation or negation of such a
+proposition is absurd likewise.</p>
+
+<p>Only one other word need be said on this point. It may be urged that
+educated believers mean by "God" not the anthropomorphic deity of the
+theologies, but a personal intelligence controlling things. But this is
+really not less anthropomorphic than the form in which the god idea
+meets us in the popular theologies. Its anthropomorphism is only, to
+unobservant minds, less apparent. The conception of an intelligent,
+personal being controlling nature is not fundamentally less
+objectionable than the frankly man-like being of the early theologies.
+Intelligence, as we know it (and to talk of an intelligence that is
+unlike the intelligence we know is absurd) is as much a characteristic
+of human, or animal, organisation, as arms and legs are. Mind, after
+all, is only known to us as a function of an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> organism. That it is more
+than this, or other than this, is a pure assumption. And to divest "God"
+of all physical parts, while retaining his functions, is sheer nonsense.
+There is the personal intelligence of Smith, or Brown, or Robinson, but
+it is absurd to wipe out all the particular Smiths, and Browns, and
+Robinsons, and then talk as though their qualities continue in
+existence. So with God. If we reject all the gods of the theologies one
+after another, what god have we left to talk about? All we have left is
+the memory of a delusion.</p>
+
+<p>It is equally fallacious to talk of "God" as an equivalent of force in
+the abstract, or as the equivalent of some non-intelligent force. This
+is not what people ever meant, or mean, by god. What religious folk
+believe in, what they pray to, is a person who can hear them, and who
+can do things. A god only dimly apprehended may be tolerated, but for
+how long will faith continue to worship an existence that can neither do
+nor hear nor sympathise? There is a limit to even religious folly. And
+even a savage only worships "sticks and stones" <i>after</i> he endows them
+with life and intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, if there is one thing clear to the modern mind it is that
+science has no room in its theory of things for an over-ruling
+intelligence. Sir Oliver Lodge well sums up the attitude of science in
+the following sentences:&mdash;"Orthodox science shows us a self-contained
+and self-sufficient universe, not in touch with anything above or beyond
+itself&mdash;the general trend and outline of it known&mdash;nothing supernatural
+or miraculous, no intervention of beings other than ourselves, being
+conceived <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>possible." (<i>Man and the Universe</i>, p. 14, Popular ed.)
+Personally, we question whether there are any scientists of repute who
+really believe in the existence of a personal intelligence above or
+beyond nature. Some may make professions to the contrary, but it will
+usually be found that the qualifications introduced rob their
+professions of all value. Certainly their teaching is destitute of any
+such conception. Modern scientific thought leaves no room for the
+operations of deity. The miraculous is generally discarded. Response to
+prayer is whittled down to a species of self-delusion, to be valued on
+account of its subjective influence only. The scientific theory of
+things, incomplete as it may be in many of its details, leaves no room
+for the operations of a god. Not alone does it leave no room for a god,
+but if the scientific conception of the world is to stand, then it would
+be necessary to repeat Bakunine's <i>mot</i>, and to say, "If there were a
+god it would be necessary to destroy him." You simply cannot have at one
+and the same time a universe in which all that occurs is the consequence
+of calculable and indestructible forces, the operations of which can be
+foreseen and relied upon, and a universe controlled by a
+self-determining deity, capable of modifying the action of these same
+forces. You may have one or the other, but it is sheer lunacy to imagine
+that you can have both. Either uniformity with invariable causation, or
+a world in which every scientific calculation must be prefaced with the
+"D.V." of a prayer meeting. And the Atheist, who accepts the principles
+of modern science, says, not merely that he is without a belief in god,
+but that he fails to see any necessity for his existence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> or anything
+for him to do if he did exist. He passes the gods of the world in review
+and categorically dismisses each one as a myth. In doing this he has the
+concurrence of all theists in discarding every god save one&mdash;his own.
+The Atheist simply applies the same rule to each, and metes out the same
+judgment to all.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Spencer and the Unknowable.</span></h3>
+
+<p>We have already referred to the use made by religionists of Spencer's
+"Unknowable." This theory was not without its forerunners, and in
+England was already in the field in the teachings of Hamilton and
+Mansel. Spencer gave it a still greater vogue. As he presented it, it
+came before the world with all the prestige attaching to its association
+with one of the most comprehensive of modern thinkers, and one of the
+most influential in the schools of evolutionary philosophy. It was also
+connected with a world theory that claimed to be strictly scientific in
+its character. It became not only a fashion in certain circles, it
+founded a school, and gained numerous followers in the religious world.
+Its author propounded it as a basis on which to reconcile religion and
+science, and many were ready to accept it as such. Printed in all the
+glory of capital letters, appearing sometimes as "The Ultimate Reality,"
+sometimes as the "Unconditioned," sometimes as an "Infinite and Eternal
+Energy," it was equally impressive under all its forms. It provided just
+that solemn kind of formula that the religious mind is accustomed to
+hear, and if it was as meaningless as the Athanasian Creed, is was, for
+that reason, quite as satisfying. It gave all the comfort of a religious
+confession of faith, and it has been the parent of a whole host of more
+recent apologies for God.</p>
+
+<p>In itself the "Unknowable" was harmless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> enough. Its philosophic value
+is not great, its scientific utility is nil. To say that everything
+proceeds from an "Ultimate Reality" is not very helpful, and to follow
+on with the declaration that we know nothing about it, and that it would
+be of no use to us if we did, does not sound very encouraging. It
+reminds one of the description of the horse that had only two
+faults&mdash;one that it was hard to catch, and the other that it was no good
+when it was caught. We repeat with all solemnity the formula that all
+things proceed from an infinite and eternal energy, and that this is the
+Ultimate Reality, and then find that in relation to any and every
+question we are precisely where we were. Its acceptance in certain
+religious circles, and its use later, may be taken as evidence of the
+fact that what the pious mind longs for is not sense but satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Still there remains cause for wonder that this "Unknowable" should ever
+have been taken as affording foundation for the belief in deity. The
+most extreme materialist or Atheist need not be in the slightest degree
+disconcerted on being told things proceed from an "Infinite and Eternal
+Energy." It is only what the Atheist has said, minus the capital
+letters. He has affirmed his conviction, that all phenomena result from
+the permutations of matter and force, which are eternal because no time
+limit can be placed to their operations. And you do not add anything
+material to the statement by printing it in capital letters. That the
+Spencerian abstraction should have been taken as a substitute for deity
+proves how desperate the situation is. Drowning men clutch at straws,
+and a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>disintegrating deity hopes to renew his strength by the lavish
+use of capital letters.</p>
+
+<p>For, after all, what the theist needs is, not an eternal energy, but a
+personality. An inscrutable existence will not do. There is no dispute
+that something exists. There is no quarrel over mere existence. It is
+with the nature of what exists and the mode of its operation that the
+issue arises. The theist needs a special kind of energy, a special form
+of existence, a special kind of "reality" if his case is to be
+established. It will not do for Mr. Spencer to assure him that this
+"Ultimate Reality" is higher than personal. How Mr. Spencer knows that
+something, the nature of which is unknown, is higher than something
+else, is more than one can tell. But that does not matter. Higher or
+lower, it is all the same. Either way it is different from personal, and
+if it is different it is not the same, it is not personal. Whatever
+other qualities this "Ultimate Reality" has or lacks, it must have that
+one if it is to be of use to the theist. And to say that it is higher
+than personal is to say that it is not personal at all, and to repeat in
+a roundabout manner what the Atheist has been saying all the time.</p>
+
+<p>What now is Spencer's theory of an ultimate reality that must for ever
+remain unknowable? Following a line of thought that had been steadily
+gaining ground since Hume&mdash;although much older than Hume&mdash;Spencer holds
+that in final analysis all our knowledge is a knowledge of mental states
+and their relations. Beyond this we <i>know</i> nothing, and can never know
+anything. Nevertheless, while we cannot know anything beyond
+consciousness, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> conditions of thinking oblige us to assume that
+something exists as the cause of our states of mind. Just as black
+implies something that is not black, hard something that is not hard, so
+we must conceive, as against the conditioned, relative existence of our
+conscious states, an unconditioned, absolute existence as their cause.
+It is this assumed, but completely unknown cause of our conscious
+states, and of all else, that Spencer distinguishes as the Unknowable,
+the Unconditioned, the Absolute, etc., and which appears to have brought
+so much consolation to hard-pressed theists.</p>
+
+<p>I have no intention of discussing here the philosophic value of the
+"Unknowable." But one may say, in passing, that even from that point of
+view Spencer is untrue to his own Agnosticism in speaking of the
+Unconditioned as the <i>cause</i> of phenomena. For causation is a category
+of the conditioned, it belongs to the world we know. It is not something
+that exists beyond consciousness, it is something that is supplied by
+consciousness and which possesses validity only within the world of
+phenomena. On Spencer's own theory of relativity a cause only exists in
+relation to an effect. Destroy the one and you destroy the other. Thus,
+if the Unknowable is a cause of phenomena it ceases to be the
+unconditioned and becomes part of the phenomenal order. If, on the other
+hand, it is not part of the phenomenal sequence, it cannot stand to
+phenomena in a genuine casual relation. It is, however, only fair to
+point out that between the Unknowable and the evolutionary philosophy of
+Spencer the only connection between them is that they are both in the
+same work. In all probability it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> an unconscious survival of
+Spencer's earlier theism, which was active at the time the Synthetic
+Philosophy was originally planned, but which became more and more
+attenuated as Spencer grew older, and disappears entirely from the more
+important volumes of the series. And but for the help it has been
+supposed to give the belief in god, the "Unknowable" would only have
+ranked as a harmless speculation of no value to anyone or to anything.
+This is substantially admitted in a postscript to the 1899 edition of
+"First Principles." At the conclusion of the section entitled "The
+Unknowable," he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The reader is not called on to judge respecting any of the
+arguments or conclusions contained in the foregoing five chapters
+and in the above paragraphs. The subjects on which we are about to
+enter are independent of the subjects thus far discussed; and he
+may reject any or all of that which has gone before while leaving
+himself free to accept any or all of that which is now to come.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In other words, the "Unknowable" is a pure abstraction, having no
+organic connection with the Synthetic Philosophy, or indeed with any
+philosophy of value. Mr. Spencer's warning to his readers seems to quite
+justify Mr. Bradley's rather caustic comment, "I do not wish to be
+irreverent, but Mr. Spencer's attitude towards his Unknowable strikes me
+as a pleasantry, the point of which lies in its unconsciousness. It
+seems a proposal to take something for God simply and solely because we
+do not know what the devil it can be." (Note to p. 128 of <i>Appearance
+and Reality</i>.)</p>
+
+<p>The curious thing is that Mr. Spencer really offers his readers two
+theories of the nature of religion. One is contained in his "Principles
+of Sociology,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> and so far as it traces all religious ideas to the
+delusions and illusions of the primitive savage is substantially that
+held by all modern anthropologists. The other is contained in his "First
+Principles," and the two theories, like parallel lines, never meet.
+Though born in the same brain they are quite distinct, and even
+contradictory.</p>
+
+<p>The substance of this second theory may be summarised as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. The conditions of human thought compel the recognition of an
+unknowable reality of which all phenomena are the expression.</p>
+
+<p>2. The function of religion, from the earliest time, has been the
+assertion of the existence of an unknowable reality, and to keep alive a
+consciousness of the insoluble mystery surrounding it.</p>
+
+<p>3. The function of science is to deal with the known and the knowable,
+with all that is presented in experience, with the world of phenomena
+exclusively.</p>
+
+<p>4. Religion having for its subject matter the unknown and unknowable,
+while science has for its subject matter the known and the knowable,
+religion and science are not antagonistic, but complementary. Conflicts
+only arise when one trespasses on the other's department, and a
+recognition of the true line of demarcation effectually reconciles these
+hitherto hostile forces.</p>
+
+<p>A very obvious criticism of number one is in affirming a consciousness
+of an "Unknowable," its quality of unknowableness is annihilated.
+Existence can only be predicated of that which affects <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>consciousness in
+some manner; and so far as I have the slightest apprehension or
+consciousness of anything existing, to that extent it ceases to be the
+unknowable. Our knowledge of it may be imperfect or altogether
+erroneous; we may feel it impossible that we should ever rightly
+understand it; but so far as we think about it we are bound to
+assimilate it to the best of our knowledge, even though it be only under
+the category of force. In brief, "unknowableness" is not a property or
+quality by which a thing may be apprehended; it is a name for complete
+mental vacuity. It does not refer to the thing itself, it refers only to
+us. It is a pure negation which Spencer, by sheer verbal play converts
+into a quasi-positive conception. A consciousness of things unknown can
+never be more than a consciousness of ignorance. There is only one way
+to prove the existence of an unknowable, and that is to know nothing
+about it&mdash;not even to know that there is something about which we know
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>But, says Spencer, "to say that we cannot know the absolute is, by
+implication, to affirm that there is an absolute." Certainly, if we take
+an infirmity of language to be the equivalent of a necessity of
+existence, not otherwise. When I say that we cannot know a four-sided
+triangle I do not affirm by implication that a four-sided triangle
+exists. I am asserting that the phrase, a four-sided triangle, involves
+conceptions that cannot be brought together in consciousness, and so
+dismiss it as being without meaning.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is that every one of Spencer's attempts to prove the existence
+of an unknowable turns out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> on examination to be no more than a proof of
+the existence of an unknown, and this is not disputed at any time or by
+anyone. Thus, after being told that a known cannot be thought of apart
+from an unknown, we are informed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Positive knowledge does not, and never can, fill the whole region
+of possible thought. At the utmost reach of discovery there arises,
+and must ever arise, the question, What lies beyond? As it is
+impossible to think of a limit to space so as to exclude the idea
+of space lying outside that limit, so we cannot conceive of any
+explanation profound enough to exclude the question, What is the
+explanation of the explanation?</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>With this we can all agree, but it does not bring us any nearer an
+"unknowable." It is perfectly true that thought can never be
+comprehensive enough to exhaust the possibilities of existence, since it
+is of the essence of thinking to limit and define. But it is a sheer
+impossibility to think of what lies beyond the boundary of our knowledge
+as unknowable, so far as we think of it at all, we must conceive it as
+the unknown but possibly knowable. The unknown can only be thought of
+thus because it is only as it is, by assumption, brought into line with
+what is already known that it can be thought about at all. We are
+compelled to think of what lies beyond the limits of our actual
+knowledge in the same way as a traveller thinks of the fauna and flora
+of an untravelled country. The new region may present many new features,
+but until actual observation has taken place, these new features will
+only be thought of as more or less unusual combinations of known animal
+and vegetable life. They are substantially identical with what is
+already known.</p>
+
+<p>No stranger notion ever occurred to a great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> thinker than that religion
+and science represent parallel and distinct lines of development, each
+having its own sphere of operation. It is all the more remarkable when
+we remember that with Spencer "religion" means all religion, past and
+present, civilised and savage. And no one is more precise in pointing
+out how all religious ideas find their beginnings in the conditions of
+primitive life. And that being the case, one wonders whether we are to
+picture primitive man as a profound metaphysical philosopher,
+speculating on that which lies behind phenomena, contemplating an
+"insoluble Mystery," and paying homage to an "Ultimate Reality"? Nothing
+could be more absurd. Thinking begins in concrete images, not in
+abstractions. We have only to note the development of intelligence in
+children to realise this. And primitive man, not being a mystic nor a
+metaphysician, bases his religion, not upon a reality that transcends
+experience, but upon a presumed fact, and what is to him the best known
+of all facts. And even with modern men it may safely be said that they
+worship God for what they believe they know about him, not because they
+believe him to be unknown and unknowable.</p>
+
+<p>Spencer himself may be cited in support of this. In his "Principles of
+Sociology," where the Unknowable plays no part whatever, he concludes
+after an elaborate survey of the facts, that the imagination of
+primitive man is reminiscent, not constructive; his power of thought is
+feeble, he is without the quick curiosity of civilised man, there is an
+absence of the conception of causation, he accepts things as they
+appear, without any vivid desire to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> inquire into their real nature or
+their connection with other events, and is without abstract ideas.
+Clearly, here is not a very promising subject from which to derive even
+the germ of the idea of a "Reality transcending experience." Spencer
+also, and quite properly, insists that religious ideas are, under the
+condition of their origin, national ideas; that we must accept the truth
+that the laws of thought are everywhere the same, and that, given the
+data as known to primitive man, the inference drawn by him is a
+reasonable inference.</p>
+
+<p>With this we agree, but it gives the death blow to the previous
+statement as to the essential nature of religion, and its essential
+differentiation from science. For given the constitution of the
+primitive mind, its ignorance of causation and general lack of
+knowledge, religion commences not in some search after an eternal
+reality, but in a natural misunderstanding of observed facts. Primitive
+religion is just a reasoned misunderstanding of phenomena that in later,
+and better informed ages, are given an altogether different explanation.</p>
+
+<p>That this is so, Spencer himself makes plain. For he shows, step by
+step, how the experience of dreams, echoes, shadows, etc., combine to
+produce the belief in unseen agencies differing in no essential from man
+save that of possessing greater power and in being invisible. From
+dreams and other subjective experiences he derives the idea of a double,
+from death that of a ghost. Hence the ceremonies round the grave, and
+the attention paid to the double of the dead man, which subsequently
+developes into ancestor worship. The same train<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> of thought gives a
+double to objects other than human beings. Hence Animism, Totemism, and
+their numerous subsidiary developments. Spencer insists, not only that
+"all religions have a natural genesis," but also that "behind
+supernatural beings of all orders" there has been in every case a human
+personality&mdash;in other words, every god is developed from a ghost,
+"ancestor worship is the root of every religion." To this he will admit
+no exception, and referring to the Jewish religion, he asks
+contemptuously:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Must we recognise a single exception to the general truth thus far
+verified everywhere? While among all races in all regions, from the
+earliest times down to the present, the conceptions of deities have
+been naturally evolved in the way shown, must we conclude that a
+small clan of the Semitic race had given to it supernaturally a
+conception which, though superficially like the rest, was in
+substance absolutely unlike them.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And in about half a dozen pages he shows conclusively that the Biblical
+God had exactly a similar origin to other gods.</p>
+
+<p>Now if this account of religious origins means anything at all (and in
+spite of differences between anthropologists it is in substance the
+account of the origin of religion given by all) it means that instead of
+religion and science moving along parallel lines, religion is simply
+primitive science. Religion and science, as a very able theistic writer
+says, "touch and oppose each other as rival methods of explaining, not
+solely or mainly the life and nature of man, but the universe taken as a
+whole, man forming a part of it." (W. H. Mallock, <i>Religion as a
+Credible Doctrine</i>, p. ii.) Both are concerned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> with the same facts, and
+their respective claims to consideration depend entirely on their
+ability to explain the facts. For the reasons given by Spencer, man's
+earliest interpretation of things is inevitably vitalistic. Ghosts&mdash;the
+primitive protoplasm from which the gods are made&mdash;are assumed, and once
+assumed dominate the savage intelligence. Fear combines with ignorance
+to resist any conception that will wrest power from the hands of these
+extra-natural agents, "Nature's haughty lords," rule all, and their
+dynasty is the hardest of all to overthrow.</p>
+
+<p>In spite, however, of all opposition the mechanical theory of things
+develops, and in developing establishes a clear division between the two
+conceptions of nature. But the line of demarcation is not that stated by
+Spencer. Religion no more asserts the existence of an "Unknown Verity,"
+than it asserts a fourth dimension of space. Nor is science concerned
+with denying the existence of something of which we know nothing, and
+can never know anything. The essential feature of religion is that it
+offers a vitalistic explanation of the world as against the mechanical
+explanation offered by science. And in this religion stands for the
+earlier as against the later expression of human knowledge. It is the
+eternal champion of savage thought against civilised intelligence. Its
+whole significance lies in the persistence of animistic modes of
+thinking under civilised conditions.</p>
+
+<p>This conclusion, be it observed, is one that is quite borne out by
+Spencer's own explanation of the nature of religion. Nor do we know of a
+more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> remarkable instance of a front rank thinker propounding in one
+part of his work a theory bearing no relation whatever to the remaining
+portion, and in addition disproving his own theory at every point.</p>
+
+<p>Spencer's reconciliation of science and religion, which in one form or
+another is continually in evidence, is only one degree less remarkable
+than the fact of its being accepted by so many religionists as
+satisfactory. Following the line of his untenable theory that religion
+and science pursue parallel lines, he points out that "the agent which
+has effected the purification (of religion) has been science." That is,
+the growth of the mechanical theory has driven back the vitalistic one.
+This is purification only in the sense that a defaulting cashier
+purifies the firm he robs. "As fact or experience proves that certain
+familiar changes always happen in the same sequence, there begins to
+fade from the mind the conception of a special personality to whose
+variable will they were before ascribed." This process of annexation is,
+says Spencer, science teaching religion its true function. As a matter
+of fact, science has given religion no instruction, it has merely issued
+prohibitions. It has warned religion that there are certain things it
+must not meddle with, certain departments on which it must not encroach.
+In this way religion has been forced farther and farther back, until it
+is left with what? Not with anything that can be known, or is known; it
+is left supreme in the kingdom of nowhere, ruling over an empire of
+nothing at all. And so long as religion strives for a more tangible
+possession so long must there be a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> conflict between science and
+religion. But&mdash;"as the limits of possible cognition are established, the
+causes of possible conflict will diminish. And a permanent peace will be
+reached when science becomes fully convinced that its explanations are
+proximate and relative; while religion becomes fully convinced that the
+mystery it contemplates is ultimate and absolute." So, when science has
+monopolised the entire field of human knowledge, actual and possible,
+and when religion is satisfied that it knows nothing, and never can know
+anything of the object of its worship, that it can offer nothing in the
+shape of counsel or advice, but that its function is to sit in owl-like
+solemnity, contemplating nothing, meanwhile offering man an eternal
+conundrum that he must everlastingly give up, then, and not till then,
+there will be peace between science and religion. And this is called a
+reconciliation. Mr. Spencer finds two combatants engaged in deadly
+conflict, he murders one and offers the other the corpse, with the hope
+that now they will live peacefully together. The scientist is asked to
+be content with all there is. The religious man is asked to find comfort
+in the reflection that science must eventually monopolise the entire
+field of knowledge, but that, in return, religion will be left free to
+work in an unknowable region, to occupy itself with an unknowable
+object, and to eternally cry "all is mystery" in an amended philosophic
+version of the Athanasian Creed.</p>
+
+<p>As a piece of humour this is superb. So also is the following: "Science
+has been obliged to abandon the attempt to include within the boundaries
+of knowledge that which cannot be known,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> and so has yielded up to
+religion that which of right belonged to it." Capital! Science gives up
+to religion that which cannot be known, and as it does not know what it
+is, that cannot be known, it surrenders to religion absolute vacuity as
+the proper sphere for its operations. And even this is accompanied with
+the proviso that if it happens to have made a mistake, the ceded
+territory will be at once reclaimed. Science would certainly be
+vindictive if after having murdered religion it declined to live
+peaceably with its corpse.</p>
+
+<p>The distinction between science and religion is, in truth, neither
+fundamental nor original. It is one that arises gradually in the history
+of mental development. And, therefore, when a man such as Professor
+Arthur Thomson describes religion as being concerned with the
+recognition of the existence of an independent "spiritual reality," the
+reply is that religion commences as just an explanation of nature in
+terms of the then existing knowledge and culture. Religion is just a
+crude form of science. The separation of the world into a religious and
+a scientific sphere arises when the religious interpretation of natural
+happenings gets discredited by advancing knowledge. If one takes such an
+illustration as that of witchcraft the nature of the process is clear.
+First we have the interpretation of certain forms of dementia and
+delusion in terms of religion. Later we have the same facts interpreted
+in terms of positive knowledge and the religious explanation is
+rejected. And that, in a sentence is the whole history of religion, once
+we have cleared away the verbiage with which the subject is surrounded.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p><p>The truth of what has just been said is often obscured by
+unintelligible talk of growth in religion. It is claimed that we acquire
+truer views of deity, and a process of growth is asserted analogous to
+that which meets us in knowledge in general. Let us see what truth there
+is in this.</p>
+
+<p>In ordinary instances when we speak of growth we imply one of three
+things. Either there is increase in size, or there is an enlargement of
+function, or there is an increase in knowledge. So long as we keep to
+these plain meanings of "growth" there can be no confusion. But none of
+these meanings fit the case of religion. Certainly there has been no
+increase in the size of religion&mdash;it does not, that is, cover a larger
+area. On the contrary it is continually being warned off more and more
+territory. It becomes more and more a negligible quantity. One need not
+go back to primitive times to prove this, any country will supply
+instances. The displacement of religious by other considerations is
+observable on all sides.</p>
+
+<p>There has certainly been no growth in the functions exercised by
+religion. Its function as law-giver in the physical world is now
+definitely abandoned, and all it asks is that science will let it alone.
+In ethics and sociology it still maintains a precarious kind of an
+existence, but it no longer claims supreme power. It is content to urge
+its utility as a source of inspiration, to rank as one among a number of
+other forces that are frankly secular in nature. Finally there has been
+no growth in the shape of an extension of knowledge of the object of
+religious belief. Of the nature of deity we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> know no more than did our
+earliest ancestors. In earlier generations the nature of God, his aims
+and intentions, were discussed with the same degree of confidence that
+one now sees displayed in discussing schemes of sanitation. The modern
+believer is now more anxious to impress upon the world how little he
+knows about God, or how little it is possible for him to know. This is
+not surprising except in the fact that it is called religious growth.
+And if this be a sign of growth one wonders what would be considered
+indications of decay. Historically religious life presents us, not with
+a process of growth, but one of shrinkage. To reduce the gods from many
+to few, and from a few to one is not growth. To limit the functions of
+deity from those of a direct, particular, and universal character, to an
+indirect, general form is not growth. To refine the idea of a personal
+deity until it becomes that of a mere abstract force, is not growth. All
+these are so many modifications of the religious idea under pressure of
+advancing knowledge&mdash;so many attempts to state religion in such a way
+that it can conflict with nothing we know to be true because it answers
+to nothing of which we are certain.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of God, the idea of religion, does not begin in a mystery or in
+some abstract conception, but in an assumed knowledge of certain
+concrete facts of experience. Man believes in the gods because of what
+he thinks he knows about them, not because of what he does not know. The
+talk of a mystery is the jargon of a priesthood which finds it
+profitable to keep the lay mind at a distance. Increased emphasis is
+placed on mystery because religious teachers are alive to the danger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> of
+basing their beliefs upon matters that can be brought to the test of
+experience. Mystery mongering is not the beginning of religion, but a
+sign of its approaching demise. Mysticism, too, is no more than a cover
+for a sanctuary that has been emptied of all worthy of respect. But if
+religion is to really live, it must have some knowledge, no matter how
+little or how imperfect, of the subject with which it professes to deal.
+A religion that does not possess this, but is compelled to hand over the
+whole of life to secular science, signs its own death warrant. It
+commits suicide to save itself from execution. And as people realise
+this they turn to clear-eyed science for guidance, leaving religion to
+such representatives of primitive animism as still survive in a
+civilised community.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Agnosticism.</span></h3>
+
+<p>The primary difficulty in dealing with Agnosticism is its elusive
+character. It is a word of various and vague meanings, and many of those
+who use it seem to have no great anxiety to fix its meaning with any
+degree of precision. It is used now in a philosophic and now in a
+religious sense, and its use in the one connection is justified by its
+use in another. It has become, in the half century of its existence, as
+indefinite as "religion," and about as enlightening. On the one side it
+appears as a counsel of mental integrity with which everyone will agree,
+and on the other, the religious side, it will vary from a form that is
+identical, with that much-dreaded "Atheism," to a religious or
+"reverent" Agnosticism that reminds one&mdash;mentally and morally&mdash;of
+Methodism minus its creed. Indeed, to say that a man is an Agnostic
+nowadays tells one no more than calling a man religious indicates to
+which one of the world's sects he gives his adherence.</p>
+
+<p>The only aspect of Agnosticism that we are here vitally concerned with
+is its relation to religion, or specifically with the god-idea. But it
+will be necessary to say a word, in passing, on at least one other
+phase.</p>
+
+<p>And first as to the origin of the term. The credit for the first use of
+the term has always been given to the late Professor Huxley. Mr. R. H.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+Hutton says that Huxley first suggested the word at a meeting of friends
+in the house of Mr. James Knowles in 1869. Professor Huxley says that he
+deliberately adopted it because, "When I reached intellectual maturity
+and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a
+pantheist; a materialist, or an idealist, a Christian, or a freethinker,
+I found that the more I learned and reflected the less ready was the
+answer, until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art
+nor part with any of these denominations except the last.... So I took
+thought and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of
+'agnostic.'" And he goes on to explain that the term was used as
+antithetical to the "gnostic" of Church history who knew all about
+things of which Huxley felt himself in ignorance. To all of which one
+may say that Huxley appears to have given himself a lot of needless
+trouble. In philosophy there was the term "Sceptic," and in relation to
+religion the term "Atheist" was ready to hand. The latter term certainly
+covered all that Huxley meant by Agnosticism as applied to the god-idea.
+The plain, and perhaps brutal truth, is that Huxley was just
+illustrating the fatal tendency of English public men to seek for a
+label that will mark them off from an unfashionable heresy even more
+clearly than it separates them from a crumbling orthodoxy. It is
+certainly suggestive to find, in this connection, a French writer of
+distinction, M. Emile Boutmy, pointing out that in France, Spencer,
+Mill, and Huxley would all have been professed atheists. (<i>The English
+People</i>, p. 44.) But France<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> is France, and has always possessed the
+courage to follow ideas to their logical conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>When it comes to a definition of Agnosticism Professor Huxley's position
+becomes still more difficult of understanding. Agnosticism, he says, is
+a method the essence of which may be expressed in a single principle.
+"Positively the principle may be expressed; in matters of the intellect
+follow your reason so far as it will take you without regard to any
+other consideration. And negatively; in matters of the intellect, do not
+pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or
+demonstrable." So far as this goes we have here perfectly sound advice.
+But why call it Agnosticism? It is no more than the perfectly sound
+advice that we must be honest in our investigations, and make no claim
+to certainty where the conditions of certainty do not exist. But we have
+no more right to call this Agnosticism than we have to give the
+multiplication table a sectarian or party label.</p>
+
+<p>Nor do we believe for a moment that what Huxley had in view, or what
+other agnostics have in view, is no more than a counsel of intellectual
+perfection. What is really at issue here is one's attitude of mind in
+relation to the belief in God. It is in pretending to know about God
+that the theist finds himself at issue with the Agnostic, and it is to
+mark himself off from the theist that the Agnostic gives himself a
+special label. And the trouble of the Agnostic is that so soon as he
+begins to justify his position, either he states the atheistic case or
+he fails altogether to make his case good.</p>
+
+<p>There is, perhaps, one other topic on which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> agnosticism may be
+professed, and that is in connection with the question of what is known
+as the problem of existence. We may profess our belief in the reality of
+an external world, but deny that any <i>knowledge</i> of it is possible. Here
+we assert that what "substance," or "reality," or "thing in itself," is
+we do not know and cannot know. But while many attempts are made under
+the name of "the Absolute," etc., to identify this with "God," it is
+really nothing of the kind. The belief or disbelief in an external
+"reality" is a problem in philosophy, it has no genuine connection with
+theology. To identify the two is a mere dialectical subterfuge. Mere
+existence is an ultimate fact that must be accepted by all. It is only
+on the question of its nature that controversy can arise.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be claimed on behalf of Agnosticism, it certainly cannot be
+claimed that it carries a clear and a definite meaning. As we have seen,
+Professor Huxley used the word to indicate the fact that he was without
+knowledge of certain things. But what things? To answer that we have to
+go beyond the word itself&mdash;that is, we have to define the definition. As
+it stands we may profess agnosticism in relation to anything from the
+prospects of a general election within a given period to the question of
+whether Mars is inhabited or not. If, then, it is said that what is
+implied is that the Agnostic is without a knowledge of God, or without a
+belief in God, the reply is that is exactly the position of the Atheist.
+And there was no need whatever to coin a new word, if all that was
+wanted was to express the atheistic position. Still less justifiable was
+it to proceed to misinterpret Atheism in order<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> to justify a departure
+that need never have been made.</p>
+
+<p>One cannot at this point forbear a word on Mr.&mdash;afterwards Sir&mdash;Leslie
+Stephen's curious justification of his choice of the word Agnosticism.
+After the enlightening remark that the word "Atheist" carries with it an
+unpleasant connotation, he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Dogmatic Atheism&mdash;the doctrine that there is no God, whatever may
+be meant by God&mdash;is to say the least of it a rare phase of opinion.
+The word Agnosticism, on the other hand, seems to imply a fairly
+accurate appreciation of a form of creed already common and daily
+spreading. The Agnostic is one who asserts&mdash;what no one
+denies&mdash;that there are limits to human intelligence. (<i>An
+Agnostic's Apology</i>; p. 1).</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And he then goes on to assert that the subject matter of theology lies
+beyond these limits.</p>
+
+<p>Now putting on one side this perversion of the meaning of Atheism, was
+it really worth while to coin a new word to affirm what no one denies?
+Theists do not deny the limitations of knowledge, on the contrary, they
+are always affirming it. Neither do all theists deny that "God" is
+unknowable. That has been affirmed by them over and over again. What
+they have claimed is that "God" is apprehended rather than known, and
+they affirm his existence on much the same grounds that others assert
+the real existence of an external world. Professor Flint's comments on
+Stephen's performance are quite to the point, and the more noteworthy as
+coming from a clergyman. He says:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The word Atheist is a thoroughly honest, unambiguous term. It means
+one who does not believe in God, and it means neither more nor
+less. It implies neither blame nor approval, neither desert of
+punishment nor of reward. If a purely dogmatic Atheism be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> a rare
+phase of opinion critical Atheism is a very common one, and there
+is also a form of Atheism which is professedly sceptical or
+agnostic, but often in reality dogmatic or gnostic. (<i>Agnosticism</i>;
+p. 69).</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The more carefully one examines the reasons given for the preference for
+the word Agnosticism, the clearer it becomes that the real motive is not
+the wish to obtain mental clarity, but the desire to avoid association
+with a term that carries, religiously, disagreeable associations. The
+care taken by so many who call themselves Agnostics to explain to the
+religious world that they are not atheists, is almost enough to prove
+this. Indeed, the position is well summed up by Mr. John M. Robertson:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The best argument for the use of the name Agnostic is simply that
+the word Atheist has been so long covered with all manner of
+ignorant calumny that it is expedient to use a new term which
+though in some respects faulty, has a fair start, and will in time
+have a recognised meaning. The case, so stated, is reasonable; but
+there is the <i>per contra</i> that whatever the motive with which the
+name is used, it is now tacked to half a dozen conflicting forms of
+doctrine, varying loosely between Theism and Pantheism. The name of
+Atheist escapes that drawback. Its unpopularity has saved it from
+half-hearted and half-minded patronage.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>So that, on the best showing, we are to take "Agnostic" on the professed
+ground that it is more exact than "Atheism," but on the real ground that
+it is less unpopular, waiting meanwhile for the time when it shall have
+become more exact than it is by becoming accepted in the same sense as
+the Atheism that has previously been rejected. Courage and
+straightforwardness saves a lot of trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bailey Saunders (<i>Quest of Faith</i>, p. 7) calls agnosticism "a plea
+on behalf of suspended <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>judgment," and this is a favourite expression.
+It gives one an air of impartiality, with the comforting reflection that
+it will please the socially stronger side. But suspended judgment on
+what? To hold one's judgment in suspense implies that we have at least a
+workable comprehension of the subject in dispute, and that judgment is
+suspended because the evidence produced is not adequate to command
+decision. But is that the case here? Does the Agnostic claim that the
+evidence produced by the theist is merely inadequate, or that it is
+irrelevant? Surely he holds the latter position. And if that is the
+case, then he does not suspend judgment, for the simple reason that
+there is no case made out concerning which judgment is to be suspended.
+There is simply no case before the court. For the Agnostic, no more than
+the Atheist, can attach no intelligible meaning to "God." He must have
+it defined to understand it, and when it is defined he rejects it
+without ceremony. And it is quite obvious that when an Agnostic says, "I
+know nothing about God," he means more than that; otherwise it would not
+be worth the saying. He really means that no one else knows either. He
+asserts that a knowledge of god is impossible to anyone, because it does
+not present the possibility of being known. "God," standing alone is a
+meaningless word, and how can one suspend judgment concerning the truth
+of an unintelligible proposition?</p>
+
+<p>For here are the plain facts of the situation. If we ask the Agnostic
+whether he suspends judgment concerning the existence of the gods of any
+savage peoples, the reply is in the negative. If we put the same
+question concerning the god of the Bible, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> of the Mohammedan, or of
+any other of the world's theologies we receive the same answer. There is
+nothing here to suspend judgment about, the characters and qualities of
+the gods being such that there admits of no doubt as to their imaginary
+character. Or if it is said that the Agnostic, while dismissing the gods
+of the various theologies, savage and civilised, as being impossible,
+suspends judgment as to the existence of a "supreme mind," or of a
+"creative intelligence," the reply is that one cannot suspend judgment
+as to the possible existence of an inconceivability. For "mind" must be
+mind, as we know it. And it is a downright absurdity to speak of the
+possible existence of a "mind" while divesting it of all the qualities
+that characterise mind as we know it. Really between the statement that
+A. does not exist, and the affirmation that A. does exist, but differs
+in every conceivable particular from all known A.'s there is no
+difference whatever. We are denying its existence in the very act of
+affirming it.</p>
+
+<p>Further, we quite agree with Mr. F. C. S. Schiller (<i>Riddles of the
+Sphinx</i>, pp. 17-19) that in practice such suspense of judgment is
+impossible. We suspend our judgment as to whether we shall die to-morrow
+or at some indefinite future date, and for that reason we make our
+arrangements in view of either contingency. We suspend judgment as to
+the honesty of an employee, and our attitude towards him is governed by
+that fact. And so with the question of a god. In one way or another we
+are bound to indicate our judgment on the subject. We must act either as
+though we believe in the possibility or in the impossibility of "divine"
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>interference. If the mental hesitancy of the respectable Agnostic were
+accompanied by a corresponding timidity in action life would be
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>A less common plea on behalf of Agnosticism, but one on which a word
+must be said, is that the agnostic attitude is more "reverential" than
+that of atheism. But why in the name of all that is reasonable should
+one profess reverence towards something of which one knows nothing?
+Reverence, to be intelligible, must be directed towards an intelligent
+object, and we must have grounds for believing it to be worthy of
+reverence. Reverence towards our fellow creatures is a reasonable enough
+sentiment, but what is there reasonable in an expression of reverence
+towards something that can only be thought of&mdash;and even this is
+unwarranted&mdash;as a force? The truth is that this expression of reverence
+is no more than the flickering survival of religion. Numbers have
+reached the stage at which they can perceive the unreasonable nature of
+religious beliefs, but they have not yet managed to achieve liberation
+from the traditional emotional attitude towards these beliefs. In other
+words, the development of the emotional and the intellectual sides of
+their nature have been unequal, and for these the "Unknowable" has
+simply served as a peg on which to hang religious feelings that have
+been robbed of all intellectual support. The semi-religious Agnostic
+thus represents a transition form, interesting enough to all who observe
+how curiously decaying types strive to perpetuate themselves, but which
+is bound to disappear in the process of intellectual evolution.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, one would like from the Agnostic some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> authoritative
+announcement as to his position in relation to what is known concerning
+the origin of the god-idea. So far as professed theists are concerned
+one expects this to be ignored. On the part of non-theists one expects a
+more logical attitude. In this case it is common ground with the Atheist
+and the Agnostic that the idea of god owes its beginnings to the
+ignorance of primitive man. We know the facts on which this idea was
+based, and we know that all these are now differently explained. The
+belief that there is a god governing nature is just one of those
+blunders made by primitive man, and is on all fours with the numerous
+other blunders he makes concerning himself and the world around him.
+Knowing this, and accepting this, believing that "god" springs from the
+same set of conditions that gave rise to fairies and spirits of various
+kinds, one would like to know on what ground the Agnostic definitely
+rejects the grounds on which the idea of god is based, while professing
+a state of suspended judgment about the existence of the object created
+by this primitive blunder. It is certainly surprising to find those who
+accept the natural origin of the god-idea, when they come to deal with
+current religion talk as though it were merely a question of the
+inconclusiveness of religious arguments. It is nothing of the kind. The
+final reply to the arguments set forth on behalf of Theism is, not that
+they are inconclusive, but that they are absolutely irrelevant to the
+question at issue. We cannot remain undecided because there is nothing
+to remain undecided about. We know that the idea of god is pure myth,
+and was never anything but myth. A belief that began in error, and which
+has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> no other basis than error, cannot by any possible argument be
+converted into a truth. The old question was, "Can man by searching find
+out God?" The modern answer is an emphatic affirmative. Substantially we
+have by searching found out God. We know the origin and history of one
+of the greatest delusions that ever possessed the human mind. God has
+been found out. Analytically and synthetically we understand the
+god-idea as previous generations could not understand it. It has been
+explained; and the logical consequence of the explanation is&mdash;Atheism.</p>
+
+<p>Ultimately, then, we come to this: (1) The Agnosticism that concerns
+itself with a confession of ignorance concerning the nature of
+"existence," has no necessary connection with religion, and is only made
+to have such by a confusion of two distinct things. (2) The plea of a
+suspended judgment is invalid, since there is nothing about which one
+can suspend a decision. (3) The Agnosticism that professes a
+semi-religious feeling of reverence towards the "Unknowable" is
+fundamentally upon all fours with the religious feelings of the ordinary
+believer. Worshipping the Unknowable is more ridiculous than worshipping
+Huxley's "wilderness of apes." The apes <i>might</i> take some intelligent
+interest in the antics of their devotees; but to print our hypostatised
+ignorance in capital letters and then profess a feeling of veneration
+for it is as ridiculous a proceeding as the world has seen. After all,
+an absurdity is never quite so grotesque as when it is tricked out in
+scientific phrases and paraded as the outcome of profound philosophic
+thinking. (4) The only Agnosticism that seems capable of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> justifying
+itself is an Agnosticism that is indistinguishable from Atheism. To
+again cite Professor Flint, Atheist "means one who does not believe in
+God, and it means neither more nor less." The Agnostic is also one who
+is without belief in a god, every argument he uses to justify his
+position is and has been used as a justification of Atheism. Atheist is
+really "a thoroughly honest, unambiguous term," it admits of no
+paltering and of no evasion, and the need of the world, now as ever, is
+for clear-cut issues and unambiguous speech.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Atheism and Morals.</span></h3>
+
+<p>Looking at the world as it is one cannot forbear a mild wonder at the
+fears expressed at the probable consequences to morals of a general
+acceptance of Atheism. One would have thought that the world would not
+run a very great danger of becoming worse on that account, and that,
+seeing the way in which all forms of rascality have flourished, and
+still maintain themselves, without in the least disturbing people's
+religious convictions, one might even feel inclined to risk a change in
+the hopes of improvement. Mainly, indeed, one might say that those who
+are affected by religious belief are such as can very well do without
+it, while those who stand in urgent need of moral improvement seldom
+show that their religious belief has any very beneficial effect on their
+conduct.</p>
+
+<p>Yet nothing is more common than to find the theist, when driven off all
+other grounds of defence, protesting against a deliberate propaganda of
+Atheism on the ground of its probable harmful consequences to morals.
+This, not because those who have publicly professed Atheism are open to
+the charge of loose living, but on account of those who at present
+believe in religion, and whose loss of belief would possibly upset their
+moral equilibrium. It is a curious position for a theist to take up,
+since it implies that while the Atheist as we know him shows no
+deterioration of character in consequence of his loss of belief, we
+cannot be so certain of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> present believers in deity. They are formed
+of poorer clay, and once convinced that there is no God with whom they
+have to reckon, there is no telling what will happen. So we are urged to
+let well alone, and leave believers with their illusions lest their loss
+should present us with a very unpleasant reality.</p>
+
+<p>This fear is expressed in various ways, but in one way or another it is
+tolerably common. The following which reached me from a well known man
+of letters probably puts the argument as fairly and as temperately as it
+can be put, and therefore in dealing with that I cannot be accused of
+taking the theist at an unfair advantage. His conclusions are summarised
+in the following paragraphs. (The summary is the author's, not mine.)</p>
+
+<p>(1) The decentish code of morals which prevails in this twentieth
+century is the outcome of all the human ages. From the very first,
+everywhere and all the time, it has, and continues to be, inextricably
+intertwined and influenced by Theistic beliefs, even when and where such
+beliefs have been the crudest and most debased form of polytheism.</p>
+
+<p>(2) The ethical atmosphere in which we now live, after having had such
+an origin and history, remains strongly and frankly pervaded by religion
+of a Theistic type. Atheist, Agnostic, and Theist alike have to live in
+this atmosphere, and consciously or unconsciously, are subject to its
+influence.</p>
+
+<p>(3) Even if we could set up a wholly secular code of morals, derived
+entirely from the exigencies of, tribal, communal, and national life, I
+take it that such a code would be inadequate to form the type<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> of
+individual character we most admire, and which acts under a sense of
+"ought" rather than of "must." The latter is often the mere demand of
+gregarious or individual comfort and convenience; the former may be
+quite opposed to the inclinations of the individual, and yet bring into
+play irksome but ennobling springs of action which a purely secular code
+cannot touch.</p>
+
+<p>Now these statements put the case for the theist as moderately and as
+well as it can be put, and I think that they are worthy of a little
+careful examination. It may be observed that there is no insinuation
+that Atheists are actually worse than other people, only the fear that
+in the absence of some form of theism the higher ethical motive cannot
+be roused, and that therefore character will suffer. Well, we are none
+of us free from the contagion of our environment, and the most powerful
+influences are often enough those that it would be difficult to specify
+in any given instance. It is not only that the influence of the higher
+members of society affect the lower. The lower is not without its
+influence on the higher. But the question here is not really whether we
+are all exposed to the general influence of the group to which we
+belong, that, I think, is undeniable, the real question at issue is
+whether the determining influence on conduct is theistic or not. And I
+think it will be found that while the one thing is asserted it is the
+other that is proven.</p>
+
+<p>So far as the first proposition is concerned it may be taken for granted
+that our present state is the product of all past evolution, and that in
+the course<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> of that evolution theistic beliefs have been closely&mdash;not
+inextricably&mdash;connected with morals. But this is not alone true of
+morality, it is true of every branch of human thought and of every
+aspect of human life. Art, science, literature, have all been closely
+connected with religious beliefs. Necessarily so. Early human history is
+spent under the shadow of superstition, and its dominating influence
+affects the form of every aspect of life. But as the course of
+development has been to separate the essential from the non-essential
+and to place most of each department of life on a self-supporting basis,
+it would not seem an unreasonable conclusion that ethics will follow the
+same lines. In fact, it is following the same lines. There are few
+educated people nowadays who would claim that morality cannot exist
+apart from religion, they are content to say, as my correspondent does,
+that in the absence of religion belief the higher aspects of morality
+will suffer.</p>
+
+<p>Our morality, we are told, is the outcome of all the human ages. I go
+further than that and assert that it is the outcome of all the human and
+of all the animal ages. There is no break in nature, and to the
+evolutionist the development of the human from the animal is plain. And
+it should scarcely need pointing out nowadays that nearly every one of
+the fundamental qualities of man can be seen in germ in the animal
+world. I only emphasise the point here because it is so often forgotten
+that morality is fundamentally the expression of those conditions under
+which associated life is found possible and profitable, and that so far
+as any quality is declared to be moral its justification and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> meaning
+must be found in that direction. The question of incentive we will come
+to later; for the moment it is enough to insist upon the fact that
+morality is fashioned, in its fundamentals, with reference to facts, not
+with reference to speculative beliefs. Beliefs may influence morality
+for awhile, but the persistent operation of social selection secures a
+general conformity between conduct and the conditions upon which life
+depends. That is the fundamental fact to be remembered in all
+discussions of morality, although it is the fact that is most often
+ignored. Ultimately life determines moral teaching, it is not moral
+teaching that determines life.</p>
+
+<p>Life not alone determines morality, but it determines religion as well.
+What else is the meaning of all those discarded forms of religious
+belief, those bodies of dead gods, that meet the student of history as
+the remains of extinct animals meet the geologist in his unravelment of
+the story of the earth's vicissitudes? They are the result of a lack of
+adaptation to new conditions to which they could not accommodate
+themselves. Once the gods lorded it over man as the gigantic dinosaur
+lorded it in his day over lesser animals. And in the one case, as in the
+other, a change in the environment brought about their doom. Natural
+selection determines the survival of religions as of animal forms, and a
+religion to survive must become increasingly utilitarian in character,
+certainly there is a point beyond which the opposite tendency cannot be
+carried.</p>
+
+<p>Assume, for example, that a religion existed of a grossly anti-social
+character, one that teaches doctrines that are subversive of the general
+social<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> well-being. One of two things must result. If the religion is
+strong enough to enforce its teaching the society it dominates will
+disappear, and the religion will die out with it. If, on the other hand,
+it cannot enforce its teaching, or can get it accepted only in a
+modified form, then either the religion disappears in its original form,
+or it is modified to get itself established. To live, religion must
+establish some sort of harmony between its teachings and the conditions
+of life. It may retard the development of life, but it must not retard
+to the point of destruction. This is all that is really involved in what
+is called the purification of religious teaching. In reality there is no
+such thing. The purification is a modification, and it is modified in
+order that it may become acceptable to the society in which it is
+existing. The ascetic epidemic, the various disgusting sects that have
+sprung into existence from time to time during the course of Christian
+history, have all died out from this cause. As with the individual, so
+with society, the forces of which we are conscious generally move upon
+the surface. Of the underlying ones we are mostly unaware.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, then, that behind all our consciously elaborated theories
+of life there are operative the unconscious or sub-conscious forces of
+evolution. There is, of course, a certain area of conduct in which
+speculative opinions play their part, and where actions may be
+arbitrarily classed as good or bad. But this area is, of necessity,
+limited, and for the reasons that have been given above. Properly
+understood morality is not something very abstract, but something that
+is very concrete. The underlying reason for morality is always the same,
+and we are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> compelled to hark back to it for justification. And no
+rejection of religion can alter the basis upon which morality rests.</p>
+
+<p>The proposition that Atheist, Agnostic, and Theist breathe the same
+atmosphere and are affected by the same influences is, therefore, one
+that is two-edged. If our intellectual atmosphere is saturated with
+religious influences, it is also saturated with social influences of a
+much more fundamental character, and which have been perpetually
+correcting religious extravagances. And it is at least open to the
+Atheist to retort that we have to thank this circumstance that religious
+beliefs have not been more injurious than has been actually the case.
+If, for example, the ascetic epidemic of the early Christian centuries
+had increased in force and had continued operative, European society
+would have disappeared. That this was not the case was due to the
+strength of the sexual and social instincts, against which religion was
+unable to maintain its hold. In the change of opinion over the better
+way to spend Sunday, or in the decay of the doctrine of eternal
+damnation, we have the same point illustrated. Right through history it
+has been the social instincts that have acted as a corrective to
+religious extravagance. And it is worth noting that with the exception
+of a little gain from the practice of casuistry, religions have
+contributed nothing towards the building up of a science of ethics. On
+the contrary it has been a very potent cause of confusion and
+obstruction. Fictitious vices and virtues have been created and the real
+moral problem lost sight of. It gave the world the morality of the
+prison cell, instead of the tonic of the rational life. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> it was
+indeed fortunate for the race that conduct was not ultimately dependent
+upon a mass of teachings that had their origin in the brains of savages,
+and were brought to maturity during the darkest period of European
+civilisation.</p>
+
+<p>In dealing with the two first propositions I have, by implication,
+answered the third&mdash;namely, that a wholly secular authentic code of
+morals would be inadequate to form the highest type of character; it
+might supply a "must," but it could not supply an "ought."</p>
+
+<p>The first and obvious reply to an objection of this kind is that our
+working code of morals is secular already. In life, if we observe
+without prejudice, it is not difficult to see that one's neighbours,
+friends, social class, etc., have far more force in shaping conduct than
+speculative theories. In its widest sense natural selection determines
+what actions shall be declared to be moral. Of this we may take the
+universal feeling against homicide. This is but an expression of the
+truth that social life would be impossible were it otherwise. And when
+we pass from the general to the special we meet with much the same
+principle operating in society. The average burglar pursues his calling
+with no special sense of its wrongness, although he may have a keen
+sense of its dangers. But while burgling with a fairly easy conscience,
+he does flinch at breaking the code of honour set up by his
+fellow-burglars. And at the other extreme we have the "gentleman" with
+his code of honour which forbids him not to pay a gambling debt, but
+takes no count of keeping a poor tradesman out of his money. In each of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+these cases the determining factor is not theory but fact, and the fact
+here is association with our fellow countrymen or with a special social
+class. Morality, in short, is social or nothing. Moral laws are
+meaningless apart from social life. Every moral command implies the
+existence of a social medium, and it is no more than a study in history
+to see how this social medium has been continuously shaping and
+reshaping human nature. The determination here is not conscious, but it
+is real, however much disguised it may be by various forms or theories.
+And when we realise this, it is no more than a truism to say that a
+change in religious belief can no more destroy morality than a change in
+government can destroy society.</p>
+
+<p>But in saying that the essence of morality is unreasoning I do not mean
+that it is unreasonable. All I mean is that it can receive a reasonable
+justification, and that no matter how lofty the development it has its
+basis in the fundamental conditions of associated animal and human life.
+We may surround the subject with a vague and attractive idealistic
+verbalism, but we come back to this as a starting point. The love of
+family, with all its attendant values, rests upon the fact of crude
+sexual desire, refined, of course, during the passing of many
+generations, but dependent upon it all the same. Remove the sexual
+desire and the family feelings are inexplicable. Thus, the <i>reason</i> for
+the existence of the sexual instinct is race preservation, but the end
+has been achieved in a quite unreasoning manner. In the animal world at
+large there is certainly no conscious desire for the production of
+offspring, nor is there with the mass of human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> beings. There is the
+desire to gratify an impulse, and very little more. And for the
+strengthening of an instinct there need not be, nor is there, any
+consciousness of its social value. All that is necessary is that it
+shall be useful. Natural selection attends to the rest.</p>
+
+<p>This will, I think, supply an answer to the contention that secular
+ethics can supply a "must," but not an "ought"; that is, it may show
+that an individual should act in accordance with his inclinations, but
+in cases where these clash with the social well being, it can supply no
+reason why the former should give way to the latter.</p>
+
+<p>The argument rests upon a dual confusion. First, the moral "ought" is no
+more than an organised and conscious form of "must," and not something
+distinct from it. One may test the matter by taking a case. A man says,
+I ought so to work as to promote the general welfare of society. If we
+seek to find the source of this feeling we come ultimately upon the
+feeling of tribal solidarity in virtue of which certain tribes survive
+in the struggle for existence. It is gregariousness struggling into
+consciousness. The moral "ought" is an idealised form of the primitive
+tribal "must." And the "must" of primitive life is encouraged and
+developed because it is one of the conditions of survival.</p>
+
+<p>The second point of confusion is based upon a supposed opposition
+between individual inclinations and an ideal conception of duty. That
+the two are often, as a matter of fact, in conflict, must be admitted.
+And the cause is that while our inclinations represent a heritage from
+the past, our ideals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> are a projection into the future. But the
+contention is based upon their supposed permanent hostility, and that
+need not be taken for granted. For the whole course of social evolution
+tends to bring about a substantial identification of personal and social
+well-being. More and more as the race develops it is being recognised
+that there is no real individual life apart from social life, of which
+it is the creation and the expression. Such antagonism as exists is the
+inevitable result of a conflict between an organism and its adaptation
+to a changing environment. And from this point of view the whole growth
+of man is in the nature of an expansion of his sympathies and sense of
+duty over an ever-widening area. The primitive egoism of the tribal
+individual is extended to the nation, that of the nation to the empire,
+and thence to the whole of humanity. There is no destruction or denial
+of self in such cases, it is a development of the sense of self over an
+enlarging area.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, if a secular code of morals will not suffice, it is sheer
+rhetoric to say that religion is powerful enough to operate where
+naturalism fails. On the contrary, in a civilised community religious
+appeals tend to become secular appeals in disguise. On the admission of
+Christian advocates the two most powerful appeals that can be made are
+on the one hand, in the name of the fatherhood of god, and on the other,
+the conception of the Mother and the Child. And what are these but
+appeals to the secular and social feelings of man in the name of
+religion? It may be granted that Atheism in its appeals to mankind often
+fails, but in this respect is it any worse off than religion? Why, one
+of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> standing complaints of religious preachers in all ages is that
+their message falls so frequently on deaf ears. There is no more
+certainty that the religious appeal will meet with success, than there
+is that any other appeal will be successful. And there is the
+unquestionable fact that morality has become stronger as the power of
+religion has weakened. The higher qualities have asserted themselves
+during a period of religious disintegration, and the student of morals
+sees in this a promise of a further development in the future.</p>
+
+<p>And to all prophecies as to the effects of Atheism on the morality of
+the future there is the apt reply that they are prophecies and nothing
+else. And in this respect it is dangerous for the Christian theist to
+appeal to history. For while the consequences of Atheism can be no more
+than a forecast, which may or may not be justified, the record of
+Christianity is before the world. And we know that the period during
+which the influence of Christian theism was strongest, was the period
+when the intellectual life of civilised man was at its lowest, morality
+at its weakest, and the general outlook most hopeless. Religious control
+gave us heresy hunts, and Jew hunts, burnings for witchcraft, and magic
+in the place of medicine. It gave us the Inquisition and the <i>auto da
+f&eacute;</i>, the fires of Smithfield and the night of St. Bartholomew. It gave
+us the war of sects and it helped powerfully to establish the sect of
+war. It gave us life without happiness, and death cloaked with terror.
+The Christian record is before us, and it is such that every Church
+blames the others for its existence. Quite as certainly we cannot point
+to a society that has been dominated by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> Freethinking ideas, but we can
+point to their existence in all ages, and can show that all progress is
+due to their presence. We can show that progressive ideas have
+originated with the least, and have been opposed by the most religious
+sections of society. What religion has done for the world we know; what
+freethought will do we can only guess. But we are confident that as
+honesty is possible without the falsity of religion, as duty may be done
+with no other incentive than its visible consequences on the people
+around us, so life may be lived in honour and closed in peace with no
+other inspiration than comes from the contemplation of the human stream
+from which we emerge and into which we finally go.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Atheism Inevitable.</span></h3>
+
+<p>Between Theism and Atheism the logical mind may halt, but it cannot rest
+for long, and in the end the logic of fact works its way. Compromise,
+while it may delay the end without preventing its inevitability, is
+quite out of place in matters of the intellect. In the world of practice
+compromise is often unavoidable, but in that of ideas the sole concern
+should be for truth. When Whately said that the man who commenced by
+loving Christianity more than truth would continue by loving his own
+sect more than any other, and end by loving himself more than all, he
+placed his finger on the great moral danger of compromise where opinion
+is concerned. It begins, ostensibly, by considering the respect due to
+an opponent's case, it continues by sacrificing the respect that is due
+one's own, and it ends by giving a new sense of value to the very
+opinion it aims at destroying. "No quarter" is the only sound rule in
+intellectual warfare, where to take prisoners is only one degree less
+dishonouring than to be taken captive oneself. And the value of an
+opinion is never wholly in the opinion itself. No small part of its
+worth is derived from the way in which it is held, and the importance
+which is placed upon it.</p>
+
+<p>When Professor Tylor said that the deepest of all divisions in the
+history of human thought was that which divided Animism from
+Materialism, he was saying what I have been endeavouring to say,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> in
+another manner, in the foregoing pages. Atheism and supernaturalism are
+fundamental divisions in human thought, and divisions that connote an
+irreconcilable antagonism. The terms not only mark a division, they are
+the badges of a movement, the indication of a pilgrimage. Dr. Tylor's
+own work and the work of his fellow labourers tell the story in detail,
+and although no one is in a position to write "finis" to it, there is no
+doubt as to what its end will be. And the manner of the pilgrimage is
+quite plain. The starting point is the creation by the befogged
+ignorance of primitive man of that welter of ghosts and gods which make
+so much of early existence a veritable nightmare. The journey commences
+in a world in which the "supernatural" is omnipresent, in which man's
+chief endeavours is given to win the good will or avert the anger of the
+ghosts and gods to whom he has himself given being. And the end, the
+last stage of the pilgrimage, is a world in which mechanical operations
+take the place of disembodied intelligences, or of supernatural powers.
+From a world in which the gods are everything and do everything to a
+world in which the gods are nothing and do nothing. The story of that
+transition is the record of one of the greatest revolutions that has
+happened in the history of mankind. Its real greatness and far-reaching
+significance is not always adequately recognised, even by those who
+welcome it gladly. Indeed, the narrower interests that suffer from this
+revolution are more keenly alive to its importance than are those who
+benefit from its consummation. That is, perhaps, what one ought to
+expect from the known course of human history. For history would not be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+what it is, nor would reforms be so difficult of accomplishment were it
+not possible to persuade the slave that his servitude guards him from
+the very evils it perpetuates.</p>
+
+<p>Incidentally the nature of that revolution has been indicated in the
+preceding pages. But a more connected view will form a fitting close to
+this work. Nothing more than the barest of outlines can be attempted,
+but such as it is it may serve to illustrate the truth that Atheism is
+more than the speculative philosophy of a few, that it is in sober truth
+the logical outcome of mental growth. So far as any phase of human life
+can be called inevitable Atheism may lay claim to being inescapable. All
+mental growth can be seen leading to it, just as we can see one stage of
+social development giving a logical starting point for another stage,
+and which could have been foretold had our knowledge of all the forces
+in operation been precise enough. Atheism is, so to speak, implicit in
+the growth of knowledge; its complete expression is the consummation of
+a process that began with the first questionings of religion. And the
+completion of the process means the death of supernaturalism in all its
+forms.</p>
+
+<p>Religion, it has already been said, is something that is acquired, and
+although that sounds little better than a commonplace, yet reflection
+proves it to contain an important truth. For it is in the nature of the
+acquisition that its significance lies. Whatever be the earliest stages
+of religion it is at all events clear that its earliest form is in the
+nature of a hypothesis, even though only of the semi-conscious kind that
+exists when man is brought into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> touch with some new and overpowering
+experience. Religious ideas are put forth in explanation of something.
+But all explanation whether by savage or civilised man, must be in terms
+of existing knowledge. No other method is possible. We must explain the
+unknown in terms of the known, and our explanation will be the more
+elaborate and the nearer the truth as our knowledge of the nature of the
+forces are the more exact and extensive. A knowledge of the laws of
+condensation and evaporation enables a modern to give an explanation of
+the meaning of a shower of rain that is simply impossible to man in an
+earlier stage of culture. In every case the facts are the same, and in
+each case the explanation given depends upon the knowledge acquired.</p>
+
+<p>Now one radical distinction between an early and a modern explanation of
+the world is that whereas the former moves from within outward, the
+latter moves from without inward. Uncivilised man explains the world by
+himself; civilised man explains himself by the world. The savage
+describes the world in terms of his own feelings and passions, the
+scientist regards human qualities as resulting from the relation which
+man holds to the forces around him. The process, while presenting a
+radical difference in form, is yet fundamentally one in essence.
+Ignorant of all that we connote by such an expression as "natural
+forces," whatever explanation is offered by the savage is necessarily in
+terms of the only force with which he is acquainted. But it happens that
+the only forces which he then fancies he understands are those
+represented by his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> organisation. What he is conscious of doing is
+prompted by his own will and intelligence. He hurts when he is angry, he
+rewards when he is pleased, and he makes the same assumption regarding
+the things around him. So far as he explains nature he vitalises it.
+Vital force becomes the symbol of all force. And this result expresses a
+mental law that is universally operative. The civilised mind differs
+from the savage mind not because the brain functions differently in the
+two cases, but solely in consequence of the wider and truer knowledge of
+the causes of natural phenomena which civilised man possesses. We arrive
+at different conclusions because we start from different premises.
+Inevitably, therefore, the first attempt of man to deal with nature
+takes the form of assuming the operation of a number of personal
+intelligences. Natural objects are alive, and everything that happens to
+man, from the cradle to the grave, is thought of as being either alive
+or controlled by living beings. The world is filled with a crowd of
+ghostly beings exercising more or less discordant functions. Against
+this riot of gods the conception of natural law developes but slowly.
+Quite apart from the natural inertia of the human mind, the fact of
+questioning the power of these assumed beings involves to the primitive
+mind an element of grave danger. All sorts of things may happen if the
+gods are offended, and in self-defence the tribe feels bound to suppress
+the critic of religion and of religious ideas. But once the step is
+taken, the area over which the gods rule is to that extent restricted,
+and with that step Atheism may be said to be born.</p>
+
+<p>What Lange said in the opening sentences of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> classic "History of
+Materialism," that "Materialism is as old as philosophy, but not older,"
+may be said with equal truth of Atheism. That, too, is as old as
+philosophy, since it begins with man's attempts to break away from that
+primitive interpretation of nature which sees in all phenomena the
+action of personal intelligences. It is of no importance in which branch
+of knowledge the departure was made, whichever department one takes the
+process can be seen at work. Astronomy appears to have been the branch
+of knowledge in which the powers of the gods were earliest restricted,
+although it was not until the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo,
+Newton, and Laplace were given to the world that "God" vanished
+altogether from that region. Geology follows with the teaching that
+chemical, thermal, and other known forces leave nothing for the gods to
+accomplish. Biology and sociology, dealing with more complex forces, are
+much later in the field, but they tread the same path. They provide a
+refuge for "God" for awhile, but it is evident that their complete
+dispossession is no more than a question of time. And even though the
+very complex character of the forces working in these latter departments
+should prevent us ever acquiring the same degree of prevision that
+exists in other classes, no difference will be made to the general
+result. The principle will be fairly established and our ignorance of
+details will no longer be made the ground for assertions which, if made
+at all, should rest upon the most exact knowledge. "God" will be left
+with nothing to do, and man will not for ever go on worshipping a God
+whose sole recommendation is that he exists, nor will the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> common sense
+of civilised people hold on to a hypothesis when there is nothing left
+for that hypothesis to explain.</p>
+
+<p>The single and outstanding characteristic of the conception of god at
+all times and under all conditions is that it is the equivalent of
+ignorance. In primitive times it is ignorance of the character of
+natural forces that leads to the assumption of the existence of gods,
+and in this respect the god-idea has remained true to itself throughout.
+Even to-day whenever the principle of "God" is invoked a very slight
+examination is enough to show that the only reason for this being done
+is our ignorance of the subject before us. Why does anyone assume that
+we must believe in God in order to explain the beginnings of life? Why
+is "God" assumed to be responsible for the order of nature? Why must we
+assume "God" to explain mind? The answer to these and to all similar
+questions is that we do not know, in the sense that we know the cause of
+planetary motions, how these things came to be. It is not what we know
+about them that leads to the assumption of god, but what we do not know.
+And the converse of that is that so soon as knowledge replaces ignorance
+"God" will be dispensed with. It is never a case of believing in God
+because of the actual knowledge we possess, but always the appeal to
+weakness and ignorance. From this point of view the colloquial "God only
+knows!" expresses the appeal to ignorance even more clearly than the
+elaborate argument of the sophisticated apologist.</p>
+
+<p>This aspect of the matter was well put by Spinoza. Believers in the
+argument from design,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> he says, have a method of argument that is a
+reduction, not to the impossible, but to ignorance. Thus,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>If a stone falls from a roof on to someone's head and kills him,
+they will demonstrate by their new method that the stone fell to
+kill the man; for if it had not by God's will fallen with that
+object, how could so many circumstances (and there are often many
+concurrent circumstances) have all happened together by chance.
+Perhaps you will answer that the event is due to the facts that the
+wind was blowing, and the man was walking that way. "But why," they
+will insist, "was the wind blowing, and why was the wind at that
+very time blowing that way?" If you again answer, that the wind had
+then sprung up because the sea had begun to be agitated the day
+before, the weather having been previously calm, and that the man
+had been invited by a friend, they will again insist: "But why was
+the sea agitated, and why was the man invited at that time?" So
+they will pursue their question from cause to cause, till at last
+you take refuge in the will of God&mdash;in other words, the sanctuary
+of ignorance. (Appendix to <i>Ethics</i>; pt. 1)</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The sanctuary of ignorance "God" has always been, and the sanctuary of
+ignorance it will remain to the end. It has no other function in life. A
+consciousness of this is shown by the upholders of Theism in the
+eagerness with which they welcome every supposed demonstration of the
+impotence of science, and of the resistance everywhere offered to the
+development of scientific advance.</p>
+
+<p>So far, then, as the progress of life makes for the growth of knowledge,
+so far may we safely claim that the development of thought makes for
+Atheism, as we have just said, and to do the religious world justice it
+has always been quick to realise this, and every great scientific
+generalisation&mdash;as well as many smaller ones, has been resisted on the
+ground that they were atheistic in character and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> tended to take the
+control of the world out of God's hands. Present-day theists are apt to
+condemn this attitude of their predecessors, but it can hardly be denied
+that the logic lies with the earlier representatives. A God who does
+nothing might, for all practical purposes, as well be non-existent. And
+a God who is merely in the background of things, who may be responsible
+for their origin, but having originated them surrenders all control over
+their operations, is hardly more serviceable. The modern theist saves
+his God only by leaving him a negligible quantity in a universe he is
+supposed to sustain and govern.</p>
+
+<p>And it cannot be too often emphasised that the whole basis of exact or
+positive science is atheistic&mdash;that is, it is compelled to ignore even
+the possibility of the existence of God. Every scientific generalisation
+rests upon the constancy of natural forces. On no other basis is it
+possible to give a scientific interpretation to what has gone before or
+to anticipate what is to happen in the future. Every scientific
+calculation assumes that in the world with which it deals causation is
+invariable and universal. But if we are to assume the operations of a
+"God" at any time or point every scientific calculation would have to be
+accompanied with the D.V. of a prayer meeting. To argue from the past to
+the future would be futile. God might have operated then, no one could
+be certain he will operate now. Or he might have operated in the far
+past, but he might not in the future. In either case the assumption of a
+God would be fatal to exact scientific calculations. Thus in sheer self
+defence, in order to preserve its character as science, science is
+compelled to discard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> even the possibility of the existence of a
+controlling intelligence. As one eminent theistic advocate admits,
+"Science has no need, and indeed, can make no use, in any particular
+instance of the theistic hypothesis."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> It is only when supernaturalism
+is partly excluded from human thought that science can be said to really
+commence its existence; and in proportion as our conception of the
+universe becomes that of an aggregate of non-conscious forces&mdash;or of a
+single force with many forms producing given results under given
+conditions, only then does our view of the universe reach completion.</p>
+
+<p>A study of the nature and tendency of human development does, therefore,
+provide a very strong presumption in favour of atheism. All growth here
+is in favour of atheism and away from theism. In the beginning we have
+the gods everywhere and dominating everything. They do everything and
+control everything. "God" is the one universal primitive hypothesis. And
+all subsequent development is to its discrediting. There is no growth in
+the idea of god, there is only an attenuation. The gods grow fewer as
+the race approaches maturity. Their activities cease as man becomes
+aware of the character of the forces around him. And it may be further
+noted that this decline of the belief in deity is brought about as much
+by sheer pressure of experience as by pure reason. The majority of
+people do not reason themselves out of the belief in god, they outgrow
+it. People cease to believe in the gods because they experience no
+compulsion to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> believe in them. The logic of fact is ultimately more
+powerful than the logic of theory, and as environmental forces brought
+the gods into existence, so environmental forces carry them out again.</p>
+
+<p>Now Atheism does but make explicit in words what has long been implicit
+in practice. It takes the god-idea, examines it, and explains it out of
+existence. It admits the reality of gods as it admits the reality of
+ghosts and fairies and witches. They are subjective, not objective,
+realities. Atheism takes the god-idea, explains its origin, describes
+its subsequent development, and in so doing indicates its ultimate fate.
+In this sense Atheism is, as I have said, no more than the final stage
+of a long historical process. The theistic phase of thought is an
+inevitable one in human evolution, but it is no more a permanent one
+than is the belief in hobgoblins. One might here paraphrase Bacon and
+say, "A little philosophy inclineth a man to belief in the gods, but
+depth in philosophy leads to their rejection as a false and useless
+hypothesis." It is true that thinking brought the gods into the world;
+it is also true that adequate thinking carries them out again.</p>
+
+<p>The cardinal truth is, of course, that the hypothesis of mind in nature
+does not owe its existence to an exact knowledge of things but to its
+absence. Its origin must be sought in a pre-scientific age and its
+persistence in a number of extraneous circumstances which have
+perpetuated a belief that would otherwise have inevitably disappeared.
+And it would indeed be a matter for surprise if this belief&mdash;said by
+theists to be of all beliefs the most profound&mdash;should be the one
+speculation on which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> savage thought has justified itself. On no other
+question did the primitive mind reach truth. Universally its
+speculations concerning the world were discovered to be wrong. On this
+one topic we are asked to believe that the savage was absolutely right.</p>
+
+<p>From the age of fetichism&mdash;rightly called by Comte the creative age in
+theology&mdash;the history of the god-idea has been a history of a series of
+modifications and rejections. Scarce an invention that has not slain a
+god, scarce a discovery has not marked the burying-place of a discarded
+deity. Criticism reduced the gods in number and limited them in power.
+Advancing knowledge pushed them back till nature, "rid of her haughty
+lords," is conceived as a huge mechanism, self-acting, self-adjusting,
+and self-repairing. Even in the mouths of religionists "God" to-day
+stands for little more than a force. We must not describe him as
+personal, as intelligent, or as conscious, and between this and the
+existence assumed by atheistic science it is impossible to detect any
+vital difference. Atheism, then, takes its stand upon the observed trend
+of human history, upon a scrutiny of the facts of nature, and upon an
+examination of the origin and contents of the god-idea. And upon these
+grounds it may fairly claim to be irrefutable and inevitable.
+Circumstances may obstruct its universal acceptance as a reasoned mental
+attitude, but that merely delays, it does not destroy the certainty of
+its final triumph.</p>
+
+<p>With the supposed direful consequences that would follow the triumph of
+Atheism I have not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> dealt with at length. These are the bugbears which
+the designing normally employ in order to frighten the timid and
+credulous. Mental uprightness and moral integrity are certainly not the
+property of one religion, nor can it be said with truth that they belong
+to any. And examining the histories of religion it is a fair assumption
+that in whatever direction the world may suffer from the disappearance
+of religion there will be no moral catastrophe. Looking at the whole
+course of human history, and noting how the vilest and most ruinous
+practices have been ever associated with religion, and have ever relied
+upon religion for support, the cause for speculation is, not what will
+happen to the world when religion dies out, but how human society has
+managed to flourish while the belief in the gods ruled.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for human society nature has not left the operation of the
+fundamental virtues dependent upon the acceptance of this or that theory
+of the world. The social and family instincts, which are inseparable
+from our nature as men and women, and which operate in ways of which we
+are largely unconscious, are the grounds of all the higher and finer
+virtues, and while a change in opinion may affect their operation here
+and there, it can never alter their fundamental character. Conduct, in
+short, comes from life, it is not the creation of a theory to be
+dismissed by resolution or refashioned by a vote.</p>
+
+<p>What Atheism would mean in practice would be an enormous concentration
+of energy upon purely human affairs, and a judgment of conduct in terms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+of human happiness and prosperity. And that certainly furnishes no cause
+for alarm. It is, indeed, our greatest need. We need an awakening to the
+untapped power and possibilities of human nature. If the gods die, man
+their creator still lives; and the creative energy which once covered
+the face of nature with innumerable gods, which spent itself in the
+attempt to win their favour, and which called forth a heaven in the
+endeavour to redress the wrongs of earth, may, if properly applied, yet
+cover the earth with homes in which men and women, rendered purer by
+love and stronger by knowledge, will rise superior to the fabled gods
+before whom they once bowed in blind adoration.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Prof. Ward "Naturalism and Agnosticism" Vol. I., p. 23.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Theism or Atheism, by Chapman Cohen
+
+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: Theism or Atheism
+       The Great Alternative
+
+Author: Chapman Cohen
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2008 [EBook #25291]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEISM OR ATHEISM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Martin Pettit and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THEISM OR ATHEISM
+
+THE GREAT ALTERNATIVE
+
+By CHAPMAN COHEN
+
+THE PIONEER PRESS,
+
+61, Farringdon Street,
+----E.C.4----
+
+1921.
+
+
+
+
+Contents.
+
+
+Part I.
+
+AN EXAMINATION OF THEISM.
+                                                PAGE
+
+Chapter I.     What is God?                        9
+
+Chapter II.    The Origin of the Idea of God      20
+
+Chapter III.   Have we a Religious Sense?         37
+
+Chapter IV.    The Argument from Existence        49
+
+Chapter V.     The Argument from Causation        59
+
+Chapter VI.    The Argument from Design           69
+
+Chapter VII.   The Disharmonies of Nature         85
+
+Chapter VIII.  God and Evolution                  94
+
+Chapter IX.    The Problem of Pain               110
+
+
+Part II.
+
+SUBSTITUTES FOR ATHEISM.
+
+Chapter X.     A Question of Prejudice           131
+
+Chapter XI.    What is Atheism?                  138
+
+Chapter XII.   Spencer and the Unknowable        151
+
+Chapter XIII.  Agnosticism                       169
+
+Chapter XIV.   Atheism and Morals                181
+
+Chapter XV.    Atheism Inevitable                194
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+Shrouded in the cloak of philosophy, the question of the existence of
+God continues to attract attention, and, I may add, to command more
+respect than it deserves. For it is only by a subterfuge that it assumes
+the rank of philosophy. "God" enters into philosophy only when it is
+beginning to lose caste in its proper home, and then in its new
+environment it undergoes such a transformation as to contain very little
+likeness to its former, and proper, self. It disowns its parentage and
+claims another origin, and, like so many genealogists devising pedigrees
+for the parvenu, certain philosophers attempt to map out for the
+newcomer an ancestry to which he can establish no valid claim. Nothing
+would, indeed, surprise the ancestor more than to be brought face to
+face with his descendant. He would not be more astonished than would the
+ancient Eohippus on meeting with a modern dray-horse. In anthropology or
+history the idea of God may fairly claim a place, but it has no place in
+philosophy on any sensible meaning of the word.
+
+The consequence of this transference of the idea of God to the sphere of
+philosophy is the curious position that the God in which people believe
+is not the God whose existence is made the product of an argument, and
+the God of the argument is not the God of belief. The theory and the
+fact have no more likeness to each other than a chestnut horse has to a
+horse-chestnut. A fallacy is perpetuated by appealing to a fact, but the
+fact immediately discredits the fallacy by disowning it in practice. The
+grounds upon which the belief in God is supposed to rest, the reasoning
+from which it springs, are seen to follow the belief instead of
+preceding it. The roots are in the air, and on closer inspection are
+seen to be artificial adornments, so many imitations that have been hung
+there for the purpose of imposing on near-sighted or careless observers.
+
+The purpose of the following pages is to make clear the nature of this
+alliance and to expose the real character of what we are asked to
+worship. There are, of course, many on whose ears any amount of
+reasoning will fall without effect. To that class this book will not
+appeal; it may be questioned whether many will even read it. They will
+go on professing the belief they have always professed, and taking pride
+in the fact that they have an intellect which is superior to proof, and
+which disdains evidence when it runs contrary to "my belief." Others
+will, I expect, complain that the treatment of so solemn a subject is
+not "reverent" enough. But why _any_ subject should be treated
+reverently, as a condition of examination, is more than I have ever been
+able to discover. It is asking the inquirer to commence his
+investigation with a half-promise to find something good in what he is
+about to examine. Whether a thing is worthy of reverence or not is a
+conclusion that must follow investigation, not precede it. And one does
+not observe any particular reverence shown by the religious person
+towards those beliefs in which he does not happen to believe.
+
+But there are some who will read thoughtfully an examination of so old a
+subject as Theism, and it is to those that these pages are addressed.
+One cannot hope to say anything that is strikingly new on so well worn a
+subject as the existence of God, but there are many who will read an old
+subject when presented in a new work, and even then there is also the
+possibility of presenting an old topic in a slightly new form. And I
+think these will find the main lines of the defence set up by the
+Goddite dealt with in a manner that should at least make the point at
+issue clear.
+
+Finally, it is one aim of this book to press home the point that the
+logical issue is between Theism and Atheism. That there is no logical
+halting place between the two, and that any attempt to call a halt is
+little more than a concession to a desire for mental or social
+convenience, seems to me as clear as anything can well be. And there is
+really nothing gained, ultimately, by the halt. Disinclination on the
+part of the non-Theist to push the issue to its logical conclusion is
+treated by the Theist as inability to do so, and is used as an argument
+in support of his own belief. In matters of the intellect, compromise is
+almost always a dangerous policy. It heartens one's enemies and
+disheartens one's friends. And there is really no adequate reason why
+those who have given up belief in deity should continue to treat this
+master superstition of the ages as though it were one of our most
+valuable inheritances, to be surrendered with lowered heads and sinking
+hearts. We who know both sides know that in giving up the belief in
+deity we have lost nothing of value, nothing that need cause us a single
+regret. And on that point we certainly can speak with authority; for we
+have been where the Theist is, he has not been where we are. Many of us
+know quite well all that is meant by the fear and trembling with which
+the believer looks upon a world without God. And we know how idle the
+fear is--as idle as a child's fear of the dark. What the world is like
+_with_ God, there is all the experience of history to inform us; and it
+would indeed be strange if love and brotherhood, armed with the weapons
+that science has given us, could not produce a better human society than
+has ever existed under the dominion of the Gods.
+
+
+
+
+Part I.
+
+AN EXAMINATION OF THEISM.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+WHAT IS GOD?
+
+
+Soon after that famous Atheist, Charles Bradlaugh, entered the House of
+Commons, it is said that a fellow member approached him with the remark,
+"Good God, Bradlaugh, what does it matter whether there is a God or
+not?" Bradlaugh's answer is not recorded, but one is impelled to open
+the present examination of the belief in God, by putting the same
+question in another form. Is the belief in God, as we are so often
+assured, one of the most important questions that can engage the
+attention of man? Under certain conditions one can conceive a rational
+answer in the affirmative. Where the mental and social conditions are
+such that men seriously believe the incidence of natural forces on
+mankind to be determined by the direct action of "God," one can
+appreciate right belief concerning him being treated as of first rate
+importance. In such circumstances wrong ideas are the equivalent of
+disaster. But we are not in that condition to-day. It is, indeed, common
+ground with all educated men and women that natural happenings are
+independent of divine control to at least the extent that natural forces
+affect all alike, and without the least reference to religious beliefs.
+Fire burns and water drowns, foods sustain and poisons kill, no matter
+what our opinions on theology may be. In an earthquake or a war there is
+no observable relation between casualties and religious opinions. We
+are, in fact, told by theologians that it is folly to expect that there
+should be. A particular providence is no longer in fashion; God, we are
+told, works only through general laws, and that is only another way of
+saying that our opinions about God have no direct or observable
+influence on our well-being. It is a tacit admission that human welfare
+depends upon our knowledge and manipulation of the forces by which we
+are surrounded. There _may_ be a God behind these forces, but that
+neither determines the extent of our knowledge of them or our power to
+manipulate them. The belief in God becomes a matter of, at best,
+secondary importance, and quite probably of no importance whatever.
+
+But if that be so why bother about the belief? Is that not a reason for
+leaving it alone and turning our attention to other matters? The answer
+to that is that the belief in God is not of so detached a character as
+this advice assumes. In the course of ages the belief in God has
+acquired associations that give it the character of a highly obstructive
+force. It has become so entangled with inculcated notions of right and
+wrong that it is everywhere used as a buttress for institutions which
+have either outgrown their utility, or are in need of serious
+modification in the interests of the race. The opposition encountered in
+any attempt to deal with marriage, divorce, or education, are examples
+of the way in which religious ideas are permitted to interfere with
+subjects that should be treated solely from the standpoint of social
+utility. The course of human development has been such that religion has
+hitherto occupied a commanding position in relation to social laws and
+customs, with the result that it is often found difficult to improve
+either until the obstructive influence of religious beliefs has been
+dealt with.
+
+It is not, then, because I believe the question of the existence of God
+to be of intrinsic importance that an examination of its validity is
+here undertaken. Its importance to-day is of a purely contingent
+character. The valid ground for now discussing its truth is that it is
+at present allowed to obstruct the practical conduct of life. And under
+similar circumstances it would be important to investigate the
+historical accuracy of Old Mother Hubbard or Jack and the Beanstalk. Any
+belief, no matter what its nature, must be dealt with as a fact of some
+social importance, so long as it is believed by large numbers to be
+essential to the right ordering of life. Whether true or false, beliefs
+are facts--mental and social facts, and the scheme of things which
+leaves them out of account is making a blunder of the most serious kind.
+
+Certainly, conditions were never before so favourable for the delivery
+of a considered judgment on the question of the belief in God. On the
+one side we have from natural science an account of the universe which
+rules the operations of deity out of court. And on the other side we
+have a knowledge of the mode of origin of the belief which should leave
+us in no doubt as to its real value. We hope to show later that the
+question of origin is really decisive; that in reaching conclusions
+concerning the origin of the god-idea we are passing judgment as to its
+value. That the masters of this form of investigation have not usually,
+and in so many words, pushed their researches to their logical
+conclusions is no reason why we should refrain from doing so. Facts are
+in themselves of no great value. It is the conclusions to which they
+point that are the important things.
+
+If the conclusions to which we refer are sound, then the whole basis of
+theism crumbles away. If we are to regard the god-idea as an evolution
+which began in misunderstandings of nature that were rooted in the
+ignorance of primitive man, it would seem clear that no matter how
+refined or developed the idea may become, it can rest on no other or
+sounder basis than that which is presented to us in the psychology of
+primitive man. Each stage of theistic belief grows out of the preceding
+stage, and if it can be shown that the beginning of this evolution arose
+in a huge blunder I quite fail to see how any subsequent development can
+convert this unmistakable blunder into a demonstrable truth. To take a
+case in point. When it was shown that so far as witchcraft rested on
+observed facts these could be explained on grounds other than those of
+the malevolent activities of certain old women, the belief in witchcraft
+was not "purified," neither did it advance to any so-called higher
+stage; it was simply abandoned as a useless and mischievous explanation
+of facts that could be otherwise accounted for. Are we logically
+justified in dealing with the belief in God on any other principle? We
+cannot logically discard the world of the savage and still retain his
+interpretation of it. If the grounds upon which the savage constructed
+his theory of the world, and from which grew all the ghosts and gods
+with which he believed himself to be surrounded, if these grounds are
+false, how can we still keep in substance to conclusions that are
+admittedly based on false premises? We can say with tolerable certainty
+that had primitive man known what we know about nature the gods would
+never have been born. Civilised man does not discover gods, he discards
+them. It was a profound remark of Feurbach's, that religion is
+ultimately anthropology, and it is anthropology that gives to all forms
+of theism the death blow.
+
+In our own time, at least, it is not difficult to see that the word God
+retains its influence with many because of the indefinite manner in
+which it is used. It is never easy to say what a person has in his mind
+when he uses the word. In most cases one would be safe in saying that
+nothing at all is meant. It is just one of those "blessed" words where
+the comfort felt in their use is proportionate to the lack of definite
+meaning that accompanies them. A frank confession of ignorance is
+something that most people heartily dislike, and where problems are
+persistent and difficult of solution what most people are in search of
+is a narcotic. That "God" is one of the most popular of narcotics will
+be denied by none who study the psychology of the average man or woman.
+
+When not used as a narcotic, "God" is brought into an argument as though
+it stood for a term which carried a well defined and well understood
+meaning. In work after work dealing with theism one looks in vain for
+some definition of "God." All that one can do is to gather the author's
+meaning from the course of his argument, and that is not always an easy
+task. The truth is, of course, that instead of the word carrying with it
+a generally understood meaning there is no word that is more loosely
+used or which carries a greater variety of meanings. Its connotations
+are endless, and range from the aggressively man-like deity of the
+primitive savage up--or down--to the abstract force of the mathematical
+physicist and the shadowy "Absolute" of the theologising metaphysician.
+The consequence of this is to find commonly that while it is one kind of
+a god that is being set up in argument, it is really another god that is
+being defended and even believed in. When we find people talking of
+entering into communion with God, or praying to God, it is quite certain
+they do not conceive him as a mere mathematical abstraction, or as a
+mere symbol of an unknown force. It is impossible to conceive any sane
+man or woman extracting comfort from praying or talking to a god who
+could not think, or feel, or hear. And if he possesses qualities that
+the religious attitude implies, we endow him with all the attributes of
+personality, and, be it noted, of human personality. Either one God is
+believed in in fact while another is established in theory, or an
+elaborate argument is presented which serves no other purpose than a
+disguise for the fact that there is no genuine belief left.
+
+An example of the misleading way in which words are used is supplied by
+Sir Oliver Lodge, who for a man of science shows an amazing capacity for
+making use of unscientific language. In his "Man and the Universe,"
+discussing the attributes of deity, he says, "Let no worthy attribute be
+denied to the deity. In anthropomorphism there are many errors, but
+there is one truth. Whatever worthy attributes belong to man, be it
+personality or any other, its existence in the universe is thereby
+admitted; it belongs to the all." Putting on one side the fallacy
+involved in speaking of attributes as though they were good or bad in
+themselves, one wonders why Sir Oliver limits this inference to the
+"worthy" attributes? Unworthy attributes are as real as worthy ones. If
+honesty exists so does dishonesty. Kindness is as real as cruelty. And
+if we must credit the deity with possessing all the good attributes, to
+whom must we credit the bad ones? A little later Sir Oliver does admit
+that we must credit the deity with the bad attributes also, but adds
+that they are dying out. But as they are _part_ of the deity, their
+decay must mean that the deity is also undergoing a process of change,
+of education, and is as much subject to the law of growth as we are.
+Surely that is not what people mean when they speak about God. A god who
+is only a part of the cosmic process ceases to be a god in any
+reasonable sense of the term.
+
+Professor Mellone, in his "God and the World," says that the word God
+"becomes a name for the infinite system of law regarded as a whole" (p.
+122). If that were really all that was meant by the word the matter
+would not be worth discussing. "God" as a symbol of a generalisation is
+a mere name, and as such is as good as any other name. But, again, it is
+plain that people mean more than that when they speak about God. If God
+is a name for universal law, let any really religious man try the plan
+of substituting in his prayers and in his thoughts the phrase "Universal
+Law" for "God," and then see how long he will retain his religion. As
+Mr. Balfour points out ("Theism and Humanism," p. 20), the god of
+religion and the god of philosophy represent two distinct beings, and it
+is hard to see how the two can be fused into one. The plain truth is
+that it is impossible to now make the existence of the god of religion
+reasonable, and the plan adopted is that of arguing for the existence of
+something about which there is often no dispute, and then introducing as
+the product of the argument something that has never been argued for at
+all. It is the philosophic analogue of the hat and omelette trick.
+
+In this connection some well considered words of Sir James Frazer are
+well worth noting. He says:--
+
+
+     By a god I understand a superhuman and supernatural being, of a
+     spiritual and personal nature, who controls the world or some part
+     of it on the whole for good, and who is endowed with intellectual
+     faculties, moral feelings, and active powers, which we can only
+     conceive on the analogy of human faculties, feelings, and
+     activities, though we are bound to suppose that in the divine
+     nature they exist in an infinitely higher degree, than the
+     corresponding faculties, feelings, and activities of man. In short,
+     by a God I mean a beneficent supernatural spirit, the ruler of the
+     world or of some part of it, who resembles man in nature though he
+     excels him in knowledge, goodness, and power. This is, I think, the
+     sense in which the ordinary man speaks of a God, and I believe that
+     he is right in so doing. I am aware that it has been not unusual,
+     especially of late years, to apply the name of God to very
+     different conceptions, to empty it of all implications of
+     personality, and to reduce it to signifying something very large
+     and very vague, such as the Infinite or the Absolute (whatever
+     these hard words may signify) the great First Cause, the Universal
+     Substance, the stream of tendency by which all things seek to
+     fulfil the law of their being, and so forth. Now, without
+     expressing opinion as to the truth or falsehood of the views
+     implied by such applications of the name of God, I cannot but
+     regard them as illegitimate extensions of the term, in short, an
+     abuse of language, and I venture to protest against it in the
+     interest, not only of verbal accuracy, but of clear thinking,
+     because it is apt to conceal from ourselves and others a real and
+     very important change of thought; in particular it may lead many to
+     imagine that the persons who use the name of God in one or other of
+     these extended senses retain theological opinions which they may in
+     fact have long abandoned. Thus the misuse of the name of God may
+     resemble the stratagem in war of putting up dummies to make an
+     enemy imagine that a fort is still held long after it has been
+     abandoned by the garrison. (_The Belief in Immortality_; pp. 9-10.
+     Vol. I.).
+
+
+This expression of opinion from an authoritative quarter is very much
+needed. The fear of public opinion displayed by many "advanced" thinkers
+is in this country one of the greatest obstacles to rapid advance. It is
+simply deplorable to observe the trouble taken by some to coin new
+names, or the illegitimate use made of old ones, for no other
+discoverable reason than that of disguising from the world the fact that
+the orthodox beliefs are no longer held. The need of to-day is not so
+much liberal thought as strong and courageous thought; and one would
+cheerfully hand back to orthodoxy a fairly large parcel of a certain
+type of heretical thinker in exchange for a single one who used plain
+language to express clear convictions.
+
+What is it that the mass of believers have in their minds when they
+speak of God? There can be no doubt but that what the plain man has
+always understood by "God" is a person. Every book of religious devotion
+implies this; every prayer that is offered takes it for granted that
+_someone_ will listen, and probably grant the petition. God is personal,
+God is just, God is beneficent, God is intelligent, these are
+conceptions that are bound up with all the religions of the world, and
+without which they would lack both significance and value. A very acute
+theistic writer, Mr. W. H. Mallock, puts this quite plainly when he says
+that the God of theism "is represented as revealing himself in the
+universe, firstly, as the mind which animates and moves everything,
+secondly, as a purposing mind which is infinitely wise and powerful, and
+has created a perfect universe with a view to some perfect end; and
+lastly, as an ethical mind which out of all the things created by it,
+has selected men as the object of a preferential love. A personality
+which thinks and wills and loves and hates. That is what mankind in the
+mass have always meant by 'God.'"
+
+Indeed, any other kind of God is inconceivable. Whatever may be the
+metaphysical subtleties employed, we come ultimately to that. It is
+this, the older and the vital conception that is being fought for. The
+arguments for any other kind of existence are mere subterfuges. The
+pleas for an "Absolute" or an "Unconditioned" are only used to buttress
+the older conception, and never till the older one has lost its force.
+The unconditioned God is argued for only that it may serve as the basis
+for the belief in a personal one. What is proved is not what is asked
+for; what is asked for is not what is proved. No wonder that so eminent
+a writer as Mr. F. H. Bradley feels constrained to give these
+verbalistic thimble riggers a smart rap over the knuckles, as in the
+following passage:--
+
+
+     Most of those who insist on the "personality of God" are
+     intellectually dishonest. They desire one conclusion, and, to reach
+     it, they argue for another. But the second, if proved, is quite
+     different, and answers their purpose only because they obscure it
+     and confound it with the first.... The deity they want, is, of
+     course, finite, a person much like themselves, with thoughts and
+     feelings limited and mutable in the process of time.... And for
+     their purpose, what is not this is really nothing. (_Appearance and
+     Reality_; p. 532).
+
+
+And it is really what people mean by God that is decisive. It is not at
+all a question of what they might be made to mean, or what they ought to
+mean. It is wholly a matter of what they _do_ mean. And to say that what
+people intend to affirm in an expression of belief is not true, is to
+say that the belief itself is false. If the God I believe in is a
+delusion, then my God ceases to exist. True, I may if I think it worth
+while acquire another one, but that will not revive the first. It is
+what people believe that is the important question, not what some
+ingenious speculator may succeed in making the belief stand for.
+
+Honestly to be of service to theism the God established must be a
+person. To be intelligible, having regard to the historical developments
+of religion, the God proved must be a person. The relation demanded by
+religion between man and God must be of a personal character. No man can
+love a pure abstraction; he might as reasonably fall in love with a
+triangle or profess devotion to the equator. The God of religion must be
+a person, and it is precisely that, as a controlling force of the
+universe, in which modern thought finds it more and more difficult to
+believe, and which modern science decisively rejects. And in rejecting
+this the death blow is given to those religious ideas, which however
+disguised find their origin in the fear-stricken ignorance of the
+primitive savage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF GOD.
+
+
+The alleged universality of the belief in God is only inferentially an
+argument for its truth. The inference is that if men have everywhere
+developed a particular belief, this general agreement could only have
+been reached as a consequence of a general experience. A universal
+effect implies a universal cause. So put the argument seems impressive.
+As a matter of fact the statement is one long tissue of fallacies and
+unwarranted assumptions.
+
+In the first place, even admitting the universal pressure of certain
+facts, it by no means follows that the theistic interpretation of those
+facts is the only one admissible. There is no exception to the fact that
+men have everywhere come to the conclusion that the earth was flat, and
+yet a wider and truer knowledge proved that universal belief to be quite
+false. The fact of a certain belief being universal only warrants the
+assumption that the belief itself has a cause, but it tells us nothing
+whatever concerning its truthfulness. The truth here is that the
+argument from universality dates its origin from a stage of human
+culture suitable to the god idea itself, a stage when very little was
+known concerning the workings of the mind or the laws of mental
+development. Otherwise it would have been seen that all the universality
+of a belief really proves is the universality of the human mind--and
+that means that, given an organism of a certain kind, it will react in
+substantially an identical manner to the same stimuli. Thus it is not
+surprising to find that as the human organism is everywhere
+fundamentally alike, it has everywhere come to the same conclusions in
+face of the same set of conditions. A man reacts to the universe in one
+way, and a jelly fish in another way. And universality is as true of the
+reactions of the latter as it is of those of the former.
+
+And this means that a delusion may be as widespread as truth, a false
+inference may gain as general an acceptance as a true one. What belief
+has been more general than the belief in witches, fairies, and the like?
+But we see in the prevalence of these and similar beliefs, not a
+presumption of their truth, but only the grounds for a search after the
+conditions, social and psychological, which gave them birth.
+
+The truth is that the conditions which give rise to the belief in gods
+are found in all ages, and no one would be more surprised than the
+Atheist to find it otherwise. But here, precisely as in the case of good
+and bad spirits, the vital question is not that people have everywhere
+believed in the existence of supernatural beings,[1] but an
+understanding of the conditions from which the beliefs themselves have
+grown. That alone can determine whether in studying the god idea we are
+studying the acquisition of a truth or the growth of a fallacy.
+
+Next, while it may be granted, at least provisionally, that the belief
+in supernatural beings is universal, against that has to be set the fact
+that the whole tendency of social development is to narrow the range of
+the belief, to restrict the scope of its authority, and to so attenuate
+it that it becomes of no value precisely where it is supposed to be of
+most use. The belief in God is least questioned where civilisation is
+lowest; it is called into the most serious question where civilisation
+is most advanced. To-day the belief in God is only universal in the
+sense that some representatives of it are to be found in all societies.
+The majority may still profess to have it, but it has ceased to be
+universal in the strict sense of the term. Nor will it be disputed that
+the number of convinced disbelievers is everywhere on the increase. The
+fact is everywhere lamented by the official exponents of religion. All
+that we can say is that the belief in God is universal--with those who
+believe in him. And even here universality of belief is only secured by
+their refraining from discussing precisely what it is they mean by
+"God," and what it is they believe in. There is agreement in obscurity,
+each one dreading to see clearly the features of his assumed friend for
+fear he should recognise the face of an enemy.
+
+Finally, the suspicious feature must be pointed out that the belief in
+God owes its existence, not to the trained and educated observation of
+civilised times, but to the uncritical reflection of the primitive mind.
+It has its origin there, and it would indeed be remarkable if, while in
+almost every other direction the primitive mind showed itself to be
+hopelessly wrong, in its interpretation of the world in this particular
+respect it has proved itself to be altogether right. As a matter of
+fact, this primitive assumption is going the way of the others, the only
+difference being that it is passing through more phases than some. But
+the decay is plain to all save those who refuse to see. The process of
+refinement cannot go on for ever. In other matters knowledge passes from
+a nebulous and indefinite stage to a precise and definite one. In the
+case of theism it pursues an opposite course. From the very definite
+god, or gods, of primitive mankind we advance to the vague and
+indefinite god of the modern theist--a God who, apparently, means
+nothing and does nothing, and at most stands as a symbol for our
+irremovable ignorance. Clearly this process cannot go on for ever. The
+work of attenuation must stop at some point. And one may safely predict
+that just as the advance of scientific knowledge has taken over one
+department after another that was formerly regarded as within the
+province of religion, so one day it will be borne in upon all that an
+hypothesis such as that of theism, which does nothing and explains
+nothing, may be profitably dispensed with.
+
+What really remains for discussion is a problem of socio-psychology.
+That is, we have to determine the conditions of origin of so widespread
+a belief, but which we believe to be false. The materials for answering
+this question are now at our command, and whatever differences of
+opinion there may be concerning the stages of development, there is
+very little concerning their essential character. And it is not without
+significance that this question of origin is one that the present-day
+apologists of theism seem pretty unanimous in leaving severely alone.
+
+Let us commence with the fact that religion is something that is
+acquired. Every work on the origin of religion assumes it, and all
+investigation warrants the assumption. The question at issue is the mode
+of acquisition. And here one word of caution is advisable. The wide
+range of religious ideas and their existence at a very low culture
+stage, precludes the assumption that religious ideas are generated in
+the same conscious way as are scientific theories. Even with the modern
+mind our conclusions concerning many of the affairs of life are formed
+in a semi-conscious manner. Most frequently they are generated
+subconsciously, and are only consciously formulated under pressure of
+circumstances. And if we are to understand religion aright we must be on
+our guard against attributing to primitive mankind a degree of
+scientific curiosity and reflective power to which it can lay no claim.
+We have to allow for what one writer well calls "physiological thought,"
+thought, that is, which rises subconsciously and has its origin in the
+pressure of insistent experience.
+
+A comprehensive survey of religious beliefs show that there are only two
+things that can be said to be common to them all. They differ in
+teachings, in their conceptions of deity, and in modes of worship. But
+all religions agree in believing in some kind of ghostly existence and
+in a continued life beyond the grave. I use the expression, "ghostly
+existence," because we can really trace the idea of God backward until
+we lose the definite figure in a very general conception, much as
+astronomers have taught us to lose a definite world in the primitive
+fire-mist. So when we get beyond the culture stage at which we meet with
+the definite man-like God, we encounter an indefinite thought stage at
+which we can dimly mark the existence of a frame of mind that was to
+give birth to the more concrete conception.
+
+The most general term for the belief in the various orders of gods thus
+becomes the belief in invisible, super-material beings, like, and yet
+superior to man. It is for this reason that Professor Tylor's definition
+of religion as "the belief in spiritual beings--so long as we do not use
+the term "spiritual" in its modern sense"--seems to me the moat
+satisfactory definition yet offered. It is the one point on which all
+religions agree, and for this reason may be regarded as their essential
+feature.
+
+This taken for granted, our next point of enquiry is, What was there in
+the conditions of primitive life that would give rise to a belief in
+this super-material, or in modern language, spiritual existence? Now
+there are at least two sets of experiences that seem adequate to the
+required explanation. The one is normal, the other abnormal. The first
+is connected directly with the universal experience of dreams. The
+savage is, as Tylor says, a severely practical person. He believes what
+he sees and, one may add, he sees what he believes. Knowing nothing of
+the distinction we draw between a fact and an illusion, ignorant of the
+functions, or even the existence of a nervous system, the dreams of a
+savage are to him as real as his waking experiences. He does not say "I
+dreamed I saw So-So," but like the Biblical characters he says, "I saw
+So-So in a dream." The two forms of expression carry all the difference
+between fact and fancy. One thing is therefore obvious to the savage
+mind--something escapes from the body, travels about, and returns. Such
+a conviction does not represent the conclusions of a genius speculating
+upon the meaning of unexplained facts. It is a conviction steadily built
+up by the pressure of unvarying experience, as steadily as is the
+conviction that fire burns or that water is wet. The very universality
+of the belief is proof that it had some such sub-conscious origin.
+
+A second class of experiences lead to the same conclusion. In temporary
+loss of consciousness the savage again sees proof of the existence of a
+double. With epilepsy or insanity there is offered decisive proof that
+some spirit has taken possession of the individual's body. Even in
+civilised countries this belief was widely held hardly more than a
+century ago. And both these classes of experience are enforced by the
+belief that the shadow of a man, an echo, a reflection seen in water,
+etc., are all real things. The proofs that the belief in a "soul" does
+originate in this way are now so plentiful that exact references are
+needless. Examination of primitive religious beliefs all over the world
+yield the one result, without there being any evidence to the contrary.
+
+Primitive philosophy does not stop here. Man dreams of things as well as
+of persons, and a general extension of the belief in a ghost or double
+is made until it covers almost everything. As Tylor says, "the doctrine
+of souls is worked out with remarkable breadth and consistency. The
+souls of animals are recognised by a natural extension from the theory
+of human souls; the souls of trees and plants follow in some vague
+partial way; and the souls of inanimate objects expand the category to
+the extremest boundary." The reasoning of the primitive mind is thus,
+given its limitations and unsound premises, uncompromisingly logical.
+One can trace the processes of reasoning more easily than is the case
+with modern man because it is less disturbed by cross-currents of
+acquired knowledge and conflicting interests.
+
+I am giving but the barest outline of a vast subject because I am
+desirous of keeping the attention of the reader on what I believe to be
+the main issue. For that reason I am not discussing whether animism--the
+vitalising of inanimate objects--has an independent origin, or whether
+it is a mere extension of the ghost theory. Either theory does not
+affect my main position, which is that the idea of God is derived from
+the ignorance of primitive humanity, and has no other authority than a
+misunderstanding of natural facts. On that point the agreement among all
+schools of anthropologists is now very general. Personally, however, I
+do not believe that men would ever have given a soul to trees or other
+natural objects unless they had first given them to living beings, and
+had thus familiarised themselves with the conception of a double.
+
+At present, though, we are on the track of the gods. The belief that
+every human being, and nearly every object, possesses a soul, ends in
+surrounding man with a cloud of spirits against which he has to be
+always on his guard. The general situation is well put by Miss Kingsley,
+who gives a picture of the West African that may well stand for the
+savage world in general.
+
+
+     Everything happens by the action of spirits. The thing he does
+     himself is done by the spirit within acting on his body, the matter
+     with which that spirit is associated. Everything that is done by
+     other things is done by their spirit associated with their
+     particular mass of matter.... The native will point out to you a
+     lightning stricken tree and tell you its spirit has been killed. He
+     will tell you, when the earthen cooking pot is broken, it has lost
+     its spirit. If his weapon failed him, it is because he has stolen
+     or made its spirit sick by means of his influence on other spirits
+     of the same class.... In every action of his life he shows you how
+     he lives with a great, powerful spirit world around him. You see
+     him before running out to hunt or fight rubbing stuff in his weapon
+     to strengthen the spirit that is in it; telling it the while what
+     care he has taken of it; running through a list of what he had
+     given it before, though these things had been hard to give; and
+     begging it, in the hour of his dire necessity, not to fail him....
+     You see him bending over the face of the river, talking to its
+     spirit with proper incantations, asking it when it meets an enemy
+     to upset his canoe and destroy him ... or, as I have myself seen in
+     Congo Francaise, to take down with it, away from his village, the
+     pestilence of the spotted death. (_West African Studies_; pp.
+     394-5).
+
+
+When Feurbach said that the "realm of memory was the world of souls," he
+expressed a profound truth in a striking manner. It is dreams, swoons,
+catalepsy, with their allied states which suggest the existence of a
+double or ghost. Even in the absence of the mass of evidence from all
+quarters in support of this, the fact of the ghost always being pictured
+as identical in clothing and figure with the dead man would be almost
+enough to demonstrate its dream origin. Into that aspect of the matter,
+however, we do not now intend to enter. We are now only concerned with
+the bearing of the ghost theory on the origin of God. Another step or
+two and we shall have reached that point. Believing himself surrounded
+on all sides by a world of ghosts the great concern of the savage is to
+escape their ill-will or to secure their favour. Affection and
+fear--fear that the ghost, if his wants are neglected, will wreak
+vengeance through the agency of disease, famine, or accident--leads
+insensibly to the ghosts of one's relations becoming objects of
+veneration, propitiation, and petition. All ghosts receive some
+attention for a certain time after death, but naturally special and
+sustained honours are reserved for the heads of families,[2] and for
+such as have been distinguished for various qualities during life. In
+this way ancestor worship becomes one of the most general forms of
+religious observances, and the gradual development of the great man or
+the deceased ancestor into a deity follows by easy stages. The
+principles of ancestor worship, to again cite the indispensible Tylor,
+are not difficult to understand:--
+
+
+     They plainly keep up the social relations of the living world. The
+     dead ancestor, now passed into a deity, simply goes on protecting:
+     his own family and receiving suit and service from them as of old;
+     the dead chief still watches over his own tribe, still holds his
+     authority by helping friends and harming enemies, still rewards the
+     right and sharply punishes the wrong.
+
+
+That this deification of ancestors and of dead men actually takes place
+is indisputable. The Mythologies of Greece and Rome offer numerous
+examples, and the deification of the Roman Emperors became the regular
+rule. Numerous examples to the same end are supplied from India by Mr.
+W. Crookes and Sir A. C. Lyall. That this way of honouring the dead is
+not limited to natives is shown by the famous case of General Nicholson,
+who actually received the honour of deification during his lifetime.
+Anyone who cares to consult those storehouses of information, Spencer's
+"Principles of Sociology" (Vol. I.), Tylor's "Primitive Culture," and
+Frazer's "Golden Bough" will find the whole god-making process set forth
+with a wealth of illustration that can hardly fail to carry conviction.
+Finally, in the case of Japan and China we have living examples of an
+organised system of religion based upon the deification of ancestors.[3]
+
+It will make it easier to understand the evolution of the god from the
+ghost if we bear in mind that with primitive man the gods are conceived
+neither as independent existences nor as creators. Even immortality is
+not asserted of them. The modern notions of deity, largely due to the
+attempt to accommodate the idea of god to certain metaphysical and
+philosophical conceptions, are so intermingled with the primitive idea,
+that there is always the danger of reading into the primitive
+intelligence more than was ever there. The consequence is that by
+confusing the two senses of the word many find it difficult to realise
+how one has grown out of the other. Such ideas as those of creation and
+independence are quite foreign to the primitive mind. Savages are like
+children in this respect; their interest in things is primarily of a
+practical character. A child does not begin by asking how a thing came
+to be; it asks what it is for or what it does. So the prime concern of
+the savage is, what are certain things for? what will they do? are they
+injurious or beneficial? It is because of this practical turn of mind
+that so much attention is paid to the ghost, having once accepted its
+existence as a fact. The superiority of the gods do not consist in their
+substantial difference from himself, but in the greater power for good
+or evil conferred upon them by their invisible existence. Creation is a
+conception that does not arise until the capacity for philosophical
+speculation has developed. Then reflection sets to work; the nature of
+the god undergoes modification, and the long process of accommodating
+primitive religious beliefs to later knowledge commences, the end of
+which we have not yet seen.
+
+The process of reading modern speculations into the religion of the
+savage leads to some curious results, one of which we cannot forbear
+mentioning. In his little work on "Animism" Mr. Edward Clodd, after
+tracing the fundamental ideas of religion to primitive delusion, says:--
+
+
+     Herein (_i.e._, in dream and visions) are to be found the sufficing
+     materials for a belief in an entity in the body, but not of it,
+     which can depart and return at will, and which man everywhere has
+     more or less vaguely envisaged as his "double" or "other self."...
+     The distinction between soul and body, which explained to man his
+     own actions, was the key to the actions of animate and inanimate
+     things. A personal life and will controlled them. This was
+     obviously brought home to him more forcibly in the actions of
+     living things, since these so closely resembled his own that he saw
+     no difference between themselves and him. _Not in this matter alone
+     have the intuitions of the savage found their confirmation in the
+     discoveries of modern science_.... Ignorant of the reflection of
+     sound, how else could he account for the echoes flung back from the
+     hillside? Ignorant of the law of the interruption of light, how
+     else could he explain the advancing and retreating shadows? _In
+     some sense they must be alive; an inference supported by modern
+     science._
+
+
+The italics in the above passages are mine, and they serve to illustrate
+how certain writers manage to introduce quite misleading conceptions to
+their readers. It almost causes one to cease wondering at the
+persistence of religion when one finds a writer accepting the results of
+anthropological research, and at the same time claiming that savage
+"intuitions" are confirmed by modern science. If that be true, then all
+that Mr. Clodd has previously written must be dismissed as untrue. The
+statement is, however, quite inaccurate. The inference drawn by the
+savage is not supported by modern science. Neither on the existence of a
+soul nor on the existence of a god, nor on the nature of disease, nor on
+the causes of physical or psychical states has science confirmed the
+"intuitions" (whatever that conveniently cloudy word may mean) of the
+primitive savage. The acquisition of correct views would indeed be an
+easy thing if they could be gained by the "intuitions" of an untaught
+savage.
+
+The assertion that "in some sense" natural forces must be alive (as
+though there can be any real sense in a term except the right sense),
+and that this inference is "supported by modern physics," is an
+illustration of that playing with words which is fatal to exact thought.
+The only sense in which the expression is used in physics is that of
+"active," and both "active" and "alive" owe their vogue to the necessity
+for controverting the older view that natural forces are "inert" or
+"dead" and need some external force to produce anything. It is a mere
+figure of speech; the evil is when it is taken and used as an exact
+expression of scientific fact. Let a reader of Mr. Clodd ask himself
+whether the life he thinks of when he speaks of forces being alive is
+animal life, and he will at once see the absurdity of the statement. And
+if he does not mean animal life, what life does he mean?
+
+Putting on one side all such attempts at accommodation, we may safely
+say that given the origin of religion in the manner indicated, one may
+trace--at least in outline--the development of religion from the
+primitive ghost worship up to the rituals and beliefs of current creeds.
+I do not mean by this that _all_ religious beliefs and practices spring
+directly from ghost worship. Once religion is established, and the
+myth-making capacity let loose, additions are made that are due to all
+sorts of causes. The Romans and Greeks, for example, seem to have
+created a number of deities out of pure abstractions--gods of peace, of
+war, of fortune, and so forth. Why particular deities were invented, and
+how they became attached to particular groups of phenomena, are
+questions that it is often impossible to answer with any great degree of
+certainty, but why there should be any gods at all is a question that
+can be answered, I think, on the lines above indicated.
+
+The way in which the primitive ghost worship probably paved the way for
+some of the doctrines of the "higher" religions may be seen on taking a
+story such as the death and resurrection of the Gospel Jesus. In his
+treatise on "The Attis" Mr. Grant Allen made the ingenious suggestion
+that the greater fertility of the ground on and near the grave, owing to
+the food placed there to feed the ghost, would produce in the savage
+mind the conviction that this increased fertility was due to the
+beneficent activity of the double of the dead man. Reasoning from this
+basis, it would be a simple conclusion that the production, or lack, of
+crops was everywhere due to the action of good or evil spirits. In the
+next place, it must be remembered that it is the act of dying which
+raises the human being to the level of a guardian spirit or god; and
+from this to the production of a god by ceremonial killing would be a
+natural and an easy step. In this last respect, at least, we are upon
+the firm ground of fact, and not on that of mere theory. If a reader
+will take the trouble to peruse the numerous examples collected by Tylor
+in the first chapter of his "Primitive Culture," and those provided by
+Frazer in the "Golden Bough," he will find the evidence for this
+overwhelming. Examples of the practice of killing a human being and
+burying his body under the foundations of a castle or a bridge are very
+common, and the modern custom of burying coins under a foundation-stone
+is a harmless and interesting survival of this custom. In some parts of
+Africa a boy and girl are buried where a village is to be established.
+In Polynesia the central pillar of a temple was placed on the body of a
+human victim. In Scotland there is the legend that St. Columba buried
+the body of St. Oran under his monastery to make the building secure.
+Any country will supply stories of a similar kind. Finally, we have the
+amusing story of the manner in which Sir Richard Burton narrowly escaped
+deification. Exploring in Afghanistan in the disguise of a Mohammedan
+fakir, he received a friendly hint that he would do well to get off
+without delay. He expressed surprise, as the people seemed very fond of
+him. That, it was explained, was the cause of the trouble. They thought
+so much of him they intended to kill him, and thus retain so excellent a
+man with them for ever.
+
+When Tylor wrote, the prevalent impression was that this killing of
+human beings was due to a desire to appease the spirits of the place.
+Later investigation showed that instead of a sacrifice it was a
+creation. The purpose was to create a local god who would watch over the
+building or settlement. God-making was thus shown to be a universal
+practice.
+
+Our next step must be taken in the company of Sir James Frazer. On
+all-fours with the practice of creating a guardian deity for a building
+is that of making a similar guardian for crops and vegetation. The
+details of this practice are interesting, but they need not now detain
+us. It is enough that the practice existed, and, as Frazer shows, was an
+annual practice. Year by year the god was killed in order that the seed
+might ripen and the harvest be secured. In some cases the body was cut
+up and pieces buried in the fields; in other cases it was burned and the
+ashes scattered over the ground. Gradually the ritual becomes more
+elaborate, but the central idea remains intact that of a human being
+converted into a god by being killed, a man sacrificed for the benefit
+of the tribe. In the light of these researches the New Testament story
+becomes only a more recent version of a widespread savage superstition.
+The time of the sacrifice, the symbolism, the practices all prove this.
+The crucified Saviour, in honour of whom all the Christian cathedrals
+and churches of the world are built, is only another late survival of
+the god-making practice of primitive savagery.
+
+The gods are, then, ultimately deified ghosts. They are born of
+misinterpreted subjective and objective experiences. This is among the
+surest and most firmly established results of modern investigation. It
+matters not what modifications later knowledge may demand; it will only
+mean a change of form, not of substance. On any scientific theory we are
+bound to explain the origin of the gods in terms of human error. And no
+subsequent development can alter its character. We may trace the various
+stages of a universal delusion, but nothing can convert a delusion into
+a reality. It is now universally recognised that the primitive notions
+of gods represent false conclusions from misunderstood facts. No one now
+believes that the visions seen during sleep are proofs of a wandering
+double. No one believes that it is necessary to supply the ghost of the
+dead with food, or with weapons, or with wives. We do not believe that
+the wind, the stars, the waters are alive or are capable of being
+influenced by our petitions. All the phenomena upon which the god idea
+was originally built are now known to be susceptible to a radically
+different explanation. And if this is so, what other foundations have we
+on which to build a belief in God? There is none. There is only one
+plausible reason for the belief in God, and that is the reason advanced
+by the savage. When we get beyond that we are not dealing with reasons
+for holding the belief, but only with excuses for retaining it.
+Unfortunately, thousands are familiar with the excuses, and only a few
+with the reasons. Were it otherwise a great deal of what follows need
+never have been written.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Both the words "supernatural" and "God" are here used somewhat
+loosely. In fact the conception of the supernatural arises gradually,
+and as a consequence of developing knowledge which, so to speak, splits
+the universe into two. So also with the belief in God. There is clearly
+an earlier form in which there exists a kind of mental plasma from which
+the more definite conception of God is subsequently formed. On this
+topic the reader may consult "The Threshold of Religion," by R. R.
+Marett, 1914.
+
+[2] For the importance of this in the history of religion see Fustel de
+Coulanges' "The Ancient City."
+
+[3] The perpetuation of this earlier stage of religion in China and
+Japan appears to make the transition to Free-thought easier than in
+countries where religion has under-gone a more advanced evolution. In
+both the countries named, the better minds find it quite easy to treat
+their religion as merely the respect paid to ancestors, and thus divest
+it of the supernatural element. In Christian countries there is also the
+attempt to restate beliefs in terms of current morality and sociology,
+but the transition is more difficult.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+HAVE WE A RELIGIOUS SENSE?
+
+
+In all discussions of theism there is one point that is usually
+overlooked. This is that theism is in the nature of a hypothesis. And,
+like every hypothesis, its value is proportionate to the extent to which
+it offers a satisfactory explanation of the facts with which it
+professes to deal. If it can offer no explanation its value is nil. If
+its explanation is only partial, its value will be determined by the
+degree to which it can claim superiority over any other hypothesis that
+is before us. But every hypothesis implies two things. There is a group
+of things to be explained, and there is the hypothesis itself that is
+offered in explanation. In the harmony of the two, and in the
+possibility of verification, lies the only proof of truth that can be
+offered.
+
+If this be granted it at once disposes of the plea that a conviction of
+the existence of God springs from some special quality of the mind which
+enables man to arrive at a conclusion in a manner different from the way
+in which conclusions concerning other subjects are reached. Intuition as
+a method of discovering truth is pure delusion. All that can be
+rationally meant by such a word as intuition is summarised experience.
+When we speak of knowing a thing "intuitively," all that we can mean is
+that, experience having furnished us with a sufficient guidance, we are
+able to reach a conclusion so rapidly that we cannot follow the steps of
+the mental process involved. That this is so is seen in the fact that
+our intuitions always follow the line of our experience. A stockbroker
+may "intuitively" foresee a rise or fall of the market, but his
+intuition will fail him when considering the possibilities of a chemical
+composition. To say that a man knows a thing by intuition is only one
+way of saying that he does not know how he knows it--that is, he is
+unable to trace the stages of his own mental operations. And in this
+sense intuition is universal. It belongs as much to the cooking of a
+dumpling as it does to the belief in deity.
+
+But it is evident that when the theist talks of intuition, what he has
+in mind is something very different from this. He is thinking of some
+special quality of mind that operates independently of experience,
+either racial or individual. And this simply does not exist. In religion
+man is never putting into operation qualities of mind different from
+those he employs in other directions. Whether we call a state of mind
+religious or not is determined, not by the mental processes involved,
+but by the object to which it is directed. Hatred and love, anger,
+pleasure, awe, curiosity, reverence, even worship, are exactly the same
+whether directed towards "God" or towards anything else. Human qualities
+are fundamentally identical, and may be expressed in relation to all
+sorts of objects.
+
+The attempt to mark religion off from the rest of life, to be approached
+by special methods and in a special frame of mind, takes many forms, and
+it may be illustrated by the manner in which it is dealt with by
+Professor Arthur Thomson. In a little work entitled "An Introduction to
+Science," and specially intended for general consumption, he remarks,
+as a piece of advice to his readers:--
+
+
+     We would remind ourselves and our readers that the whole subject
+     should be treated with reverence and sympathy, for it is hardly
+     possible to exaggerate the august role of religion in human life.
+     Whatever be our views, we must recognise that just as the great
+     mathematicians and metaphysicians represent the aristocracy of the
+     human intellect, so the great religious geniuses represent the
+     aristocracy of human emotion. And in this connection it is probably
+     useful to bear in mind that in all discussions about religious
+     ideas or feelings we should ourselves be in an exalted mood, and
+     yet "with a compelling sense of our own limitations," and of the
+     vastness and mysteriousness of the world.
+
+
+If Professor Thomson had been writing on "Frames of Mind Fatal to
+Scientific Investigation" he could hardly have chosen a better
+illustration of his thesis. One may safely say that anyone who started
+an examination of religion in this spirit, and maintained it throughout
+his examination, would perform something little short of a miracle did
+he reach a sound conclusion. A feeling of sympathy may pass, but why
+"reverence"? Reverence is a very complex state, but it certainly
+includes respect and a certain measure of affection. And how is one to
+rationally have respect or affection for anything _before_ one has
+ascertained that they are deserving of either? Is anyone who happens to
+believe that religion is _not_ worthy of reverence to be ruled out as
+being unfit to express an opinion? Clearly, on this rule, either we
+compel a man to sacrifice his sense of self-respect before we will allow
+him to be heard, or we pack the jury with persons who confess to have
+reached a decision before they have heard the evidence. It would almost
+seem from the expression that while examining religion we should be in
+an "exalted mood" that Professor Thomson has in view the last
+contingency. For by an exalted mood we can only understand a religious
+mood--that is, we must believe in religion before we examine it,
+otherwise our examination is profanity. Well, that is just the cry of
+the priest in all ages. And while it is sound religion, there is no
+question of its being shocking science. Even the mere feeling of
+exaltation is not to be encouraged during a scientific investigation.
+One can understand Kepler when he had discovered the true laws of
+planetary motion, or Newton when he embraced in one magnificent
+generalisation the fall of a stone and the revolution of a planet,
+experiencing a feeling of exaltation; but exaltation must follow, not
+precede, the conclusion. At any rate, there are few scientific teachers
+who would encourage such a feeling during investigation.
+
+Leaving for a moment the question of religious geniuses being the
+aristocrats of human emotion, we may take the same writer's view of the
+limitations of science, thus providing an opening for the intrusion of
+religion. This is given in the form of a criticism of the following
+well-known passage from Huxley:--
+
+
+     If the fundamental proposition of evolution is true, namely, that
+     the entire world, animate and inanimate, is the result of the
+     mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of forces possessed
+     by the molecules which made up the primitive nebulosity of the
+     universe; then it is no less certain that the present actual world
+     reposed potentially in the cosmic vapour, and that an intelligence,
+     if great enough, could from his knowledge of the properties of the
+     molecules of that vapour have predicted the state of the fauna in
+     Great Britain in 1888 with as much certitude as we say what will
+     happen to the vapour of our breath on a cold day in winter.
+
+
+Now, if the principle of evolution be accepted, the truth of Huxley's
+statement appears to be self-evident. It may be that no intelligence
+capable of making such a calculation will ever exist, but the abstract
+possibility remains. Professor Thomson calls it "a very strong and
+confident statement," which illustrates the need for philosophical
+criticism. His criticism of Huxley's statement is based on two grounds.
+These are: (1) "No complete physico-chemical description has ever been
+given of any distinctively vital activity; and (2) the physical
+description of things cannot cover biological phenomena, nor can the
+biological description cover mental and moral phenomena." There is, he
+says,
+
+
+     The physical order of nature--the inorganic world--where mechanism
+     reigns supreme. (2) There is the vital order of nature--the world
+     of organisms--where mechanism proves insufficient. (3) There is the
+     physical order of nature--the world of mind--where mechanism is
+     irrelevant. Thus there are three fundamental sciences--Physics,
+     Biology, and Psychology--each with characteristic questions,
+     categories and formulae.
+
+
+Now, however earnestly Huxley's statement calls for criticism, it is
+clear to us that nothing useful in that direction is offered by Prof.
+Thomson. It is quite plain that the abstract possibility of such a
+calculation as that named by Huxley can never be ruled out by science,
+since such a conception lies at the root of all scientific thinking.
+After all, want of knowledge only proves--want of knowledge; and Sir
+Oliver Lodge would warn Prof. Thomson of the extreme danger of resting
+an argument on the ignorance of science at any particular time.[4]
+
+I note this statement of Professor Thomson's chiefly because it
+illustrates a very common method of dealing with the mechanistic or
+non-theistic view of the universe. In this matter Professor Thomson may
+claim the companionship of Sir Oliver Lodge, who says, "Materialism is
+appropriate to the material world, not as a philosophy, but as a working
+creed, as a proximate, an immediate formula for guiding research.
+Everything beyond that belongs to another region, and must be reached by
+other methods. To explain the psychical in terms of physics and
+chemistry is simply impossible.... The extreme school of biologists ...
+ought to say, if they were consistent, there is nothing but physics and
+chemistry at work anywhere." With both these writers there is the common
+assumption that the mechanist assumes there is a physical and chemical
+explanation of all phenomena. And the assumption is false. There is a
+story of a well-known lecturer on physiology who commenced an address on
+the stomach by remarking that that organ had been called this, that, and
+the other, but the one thing he wished his students to bear in mind was
+that it was a stomach. So the mechanist, while firmly believing that
+there is an ascending unity in all natural phenomena, is never silly
+enough to deny that living things are alive, or that thinking beings
+think.
+
+But unless Professor Thomson does impute this to the mechanist, we quite
+fail to see the relevance his assertion that there are three
+departments, physics, biology, and psychology, each with its
+characteristic questions, categories, and formulae. Of course, there are,
+and equally, of course, physical laws will not cover biological facts;
+nor will biological laws cover psychological ones. This is not due to
+any occult cause, but to the simple fact that as each group of phenomena
+has its characteristic features, each set of laws are framed to cover
+the phenomena presented by that group. Otherwise there would be no need
+of these special laws. It is astonishing how paralysing is the effect of
+the theistic obsession on the minds of even scientific men, since it
+leads them to ignore what is really a basic consideration in scientific
+method.
+
+Perhaps a word or two more on this topic is advisable. If it is
+permissible to arrange natural phenomena in a serial order, we may place
+them in succession as physical, chemical, biological, and psychological.
+But these names represent no more than descriptions of certain features
+that are to the group common, otherwise the grouping would be useless
+and impossible. And it is part of the business of science to frame
+"laws"--descriptions--of phenomena such as will enable us to express
+their characteristic features in a brief formula. It is, therefore,
+quite true to say that you cannot express vital phenomena in terms of
+physics or chemistry. And no materialist who took the trouble to
+understand materialism, instead of taking a statement of what it is from
+an anti-materialist, ever thought otherwise. _Each specific group of
+phenomena can only be covered by laws that belong to that group, and
+which were framed for that express purpose._ A psychological fact can no
+more be expressed in terms of chemistry than a physical fact can be
+expressed in terms of biology. These truths are as plain to the
+mechanist as they are to the vitalist. Mental life, the scientific
+categories, are real to all; the only question at issue is that of their
+origin.
+
+To explain is to make intelligible, and in that sense all scientific
+explanation consists in the establishing of equivalents. When we say
+that A, B, C are the factors of D, we have asserted D is the equivalent
+of A, B, C--plus, of course, all that results from the combination of
+the factors. When we say that we have explained the formation of water
+by showing it to be the product of H.2.O. we have shown that whether we
+say "water" or use the chemical formula we are making identical
+statements. If we are working out a problem in dynamics we meet with
+exactly the same principle. We must prove that the resultant accounts
+for all the forces in operation at the time. Now, all that the mechanist
+claims is that it is extremely probable that one day the scientist will
+be able to work out the exact physico-chemical conditions that are the
+equivalents of biological phenomena, and, in turn, the
+physico-chemical-biological conditions that are the equivalents of
+psychological phenomena. Very considerable progress has already been
+made in this direction, and, as Sir Oliver Lodge says, there are
+probably very few scientific men who would deny the likelihood of this
+being done.
+
+But this does not deny the existence of differences between these groups
+of phenomena; neither does it assert that we can describe the
+characteristic features of one group in terms that belong to another
+group. Once a group of phenomena, biological, or chemical is there, we
+must have special formulae to describe them, otherwise there would be no
+need for these divisions. It is admitted that the earth was at one time
+destitute of life; it is also admitted that there are forms of life
+destitute of those features which we call mind. And, whatever be their
+mode of origin, once introduced they must be dealt with in special
+terms. Psychological facts must be expressed in terms of psychology,
+biological facts in terms of biology, and chemical facts in terms of
+chemistry. You may give the chemical and physical equivalent of a
+sunset. That is one aspect. You may also give the psychological
+explanation of the emotion of man on beholding it. That is another
+aspect. But you cannot express the psychological fact in terms of
+chemistry because it belongs to quite another category. A psychological
+fact, as such, is ultimate. So is a chemical or a biological fact. If by
+analysis you reduce the psychological fact to its chemical and
+biological equivalents, its character as a psychological fact is
+destroyed. That is the product of the synthesis, and to seek in analysis
+for what only exists in synthesis, is surely to altogether misunderstand
+the spirit of scientific method. The curious thing is that a mere layman
+should have to correct men of science on this matter.
+
+We can now return to Prof. Thomson's attempt to claim for religion a
+special place in the sphere of emotion. He claims, in the passage
+already cited, that "as the great mathematicians and metaphysicians
+represent the aristocracy of human intellect so the great religious
+geniuses represent the aristocracy of human emotion." There is nothing
+new in this claim, neither is there any evidence of its truth.
+Coleridge's dictum that the proper antithesis to religion is poetry is
+open to serious objection, but there is more to be said for it than may
+be said for the antithesis set up by Prof. Thomson. As a matter of fact,
+religious geniuses have often pursued their work with as much attention
+to scientific precision as was possible, and have prided themselves that
+they made no appeal to mere emotion. Justification by emotion has only
+been attempted when other means of securing conviction has failed. And
+the appeal to emotion has become popular for very obvious reasons. It
+enables the ordinary theologian to feel a comfortable superiority over a
+Spencer or a Darwin. It enables mediocrities to enjoy the feeling of
+being wise without the trouble of acquiring wisdom. It enables inherited
+prejudices to rank as reasoned convictions. And, in addition, there is
+nothing that cannot be conveniently proved or disproved by such a
+method.
+
+In whatever form the distinction is met with it harbours a fallacy.
+Intellectual activity is not and cannot be divorced from emotion. There
+are states of mind in which feeling predominates, and there are others
+in which reason predominates. But all intellectual states involve a
+feeling element. The often-made remark that feeling and intellect are
+in conflict is true only in the sense that ultimately certain
+intellectual states, _plus_ their associated feelings, are in conflict
+with other intellectual states plus _their_ associated feelings. To
+realise this one need only consider the sheer pleasure that results from
+the rapid sweep of the mind through a lengthy chain of reasoning, and
+the positive pain that ensues when the terms of a proposition baffles
+comprehension. The force of this is admitted by Prof. Thomson in the
+remark that man at the limit of his endeavour has fallen back on
+religion. Quite so; that is the painful feelings evoked by an
+intellectual failure have thrown a certain type of mind back on
+religion. In this they have acted like one who flies to a drug for
+relief from a pain he lacks the courage to bear. They take a narcotic
+when, often enough, the real need is for a stimulant.
+
+In sober truth religion is no more necessarily connected with the
+emotions than are other subjects of investigation. Those who have made
+the pursuit of "cold scientific truth" their life's work have shown
+every whit as much ardour and passion as those who have given their life
+to religion. The picture of man sacrificing himself in the cause of
+religion is easily matched by a Vesalius haunting the charnel houses of
+Europe, and risking the most loathsome diseases in the interests of
+scientific research. The abiding passion for truth in a character such
+as that of Roger Bacon or Bruno easily matches the enthusiasm of the
+missionary monk. The passion and the enthusiasm for science is less
+advertised than the passion and the enthusiasm for religion, but it is
+quite as real, and certainly not less valuable. The state of mind of
+Kepler on discovering the laws of planetary motion was hardly less
+ecstatic than that of a religious visionary describing his sense of
+"spiritual" communion. Only in the case of the scientist, it is emotion
+guided by reason, not reason checked and partly throttled by emotion.
+
+When, therefore, Matthew Arnold defined religion as morality touched
+with emotion, he substituted a fallacy for a definition. Primarily
+religion is as much a conviction as is the Copernican system of
+astronomy. It exists first as an idea; it only exists as an emotion at a
+later stage. There is really no such thing as a religious emotion, there
+are only emotions connected with religion. Originally all religion is in
+the nature of an inference from observed or experienced facts. This
+inference may not be of the elaborate kind that we associate with modern
+scientific work, but it is there. The inference is an illogical one, but
+under the conditions inevitable. And being an inference religion is not
+primarily an emotion but a conviction, and it must stand or fall by its
+intellectual trustworthiness. It seems, indeed, little less than a
+truism to say that unless men first of all _believed_ something about
+religion they could never have emotions concerning it. Hope and fear may
+colour our convictions, they may prevent the formation of correct
+opinions, but they originate in connection with a belief in every case.
+And an emotion, if it be a healthful one, must be ultimately capable of
+intellectual justification. When this cannot be done, when we have mere
+emotion pleaded as a ground for rejecting rational examination, we have
+irrationalism driven to its last ditch.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[4] "The present powerlessness of science to explain or originate life
+is a convenient weapon wherewith to fell a pseudo-scientific antagonist
+who is dogmatising too loudly out of bounds; but it is not perfectly
+secure as a permanent support.... Life in its ultimate elements and on
+its material side is such a simple thing, it is but a slight extension
+of known chemical and physical forces.... I apprehend that there is not
+a biologist but believes (perhaps quite erroneously) that sooner or
+later the discovery will be made, and that a cell discharging all the
+essential functions of life will be constructed out of inorganic
+material." ("Man and the Universe," Chap. I.).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM EXISTENCE.
+
+
+What, now, are the facts upon which the modern believer in deity
+professes to base his belief and what are the arguments used to defend
+the position taken up?
+
+Premising that the reasons advanced for the belief in deity are more in
+the nature of excuses than aught else, we may take first of all the
+argument derived from the mere existence of the universe, with the
+alleged impossibility of conceiving it as self-existent. Along with that
+there may also be taken as a variant of the argument from existence, the
+alleged impossibility of a natural "order" that should result from the
+inherent properties of natural forces. Now it is at least plain that
+whatever difficulty there is in thinking of the universe as either
+self-existing or self-adjusting is in no degree lessened by assuming a
+God as the originator and sustainer of the whole. The most that it does
+is to move the difficulty back a step, and while with many "out of sight
+out of mind" is as true of their attitude towards mental problems as it
+is towards the more ordinary things of life, the policy can hardly be
+commended in serious intellectual discussions. It is not a bit easier to
+think of self-existence or self-direction in connection with a god than
+it is in connection with the universe. And if we must rest ultimately
+with an insoluble difficulty, it is surely better to stop with the
+existence we know rather than to introduce a second existence which for
+all we know may be quite mythical.
+
+It is no reply to say that the idea of God involves self-existence. It
+does nothing of the kind, or at least it can do so only by our making
+yet another assumption that is as unjustifiable as the previous one. If
+God is a personality, we have no conception of a personality that is
+self-existent. The only personality that we know is the human
+personality, and that is certainly derived. Our whole knowledge of human
+personality is that of something which is derived from pre-existing
+personalities, each of which is a centre of derived influences. Of
+personality as either the cause or the commencement of a series we have
+not the slightest conception. And the man who says he has can never have
+carefully examined the contents of his own mind.
+
+The truth is that the fact of the existence of the universe provides no
+ground for argument in favour of either Atheism or Theism. Existence is
+a common datum for all. Some existence must be assumed in all argument
+since all argument implies something that is to be discussed and
+explained. And for that very reason we can offer no explanation of
+existence itself, since all explanation means the merging of one class
+of facts in a larger class. The largest class of facts we have is that
+which is included in the term "universe," and we cannot explain that by
+assuming another existence--God--about which we know nothing. To explain
+the unknown by the known is an intelligible procedure. To explain the
+known by the unknown is to forsake all intellectual sanity. Thus every
+difficulty that surrounds the conception of the universe as an ultimate
+fact, surrounds the existence of God as an ultimate fact. You cannot get
+rid of a difficulty by giving it another name. And whether we call
+ultimate existence "God," or "matter," or "substance," is of no vital
+importance to anyone who keeps his mind on the real issue that has to be
+decided. If the question, What is the cause of existence? be a
+legitimate one, it applies no less to the existence of God than it does
+to the existence of matter, or force, or substance. All that we gain is
+another problem which we add to the problems we already possess. We
+increase our burden without enlarging our comprehension. If, on the
+other hand, it is said that we need an all embracing formula that will
+make our conception of the universe coherent, it may be replied that we
+have that in such a conception as the persistence of force. And it is
+surely better to keep to a formula that does at least work, than to
+devise one that is altogether useless.
+
+The inherent weakness of the theistic conception will be best seen by
+taking an orthodox presentation of the argument under consideration. In
+his well-known work on "Theism," Professor Flint says "that granting all
+the atoms of matter to be eternal, grant that all the properties and
+forces, which with the smallest degree of plausibility can be claimed
+for them to be eternal and indestructible, and it is still beyond
+expression improbable that these atoms, with these forces, if
+unarranged, uncombined, unutilised by a presiding mind, would give rise
+to anything entitled to be called a universe. It is millions to one that
+they would never produce the simplest of the regular arrangements which
+we comprehend under the designation of course of nature." (_Theism_; pp.
+107-8.)
+
+Now this is an admirably clear and terse statement of an argument which
+is often presented in so verbose a manner that its real nature is, to a
+considerable extent, disguised. But in this case, clearness of statement
+makes for ease of refutation, as will be seen.
+
+For, instead of the statement being, as the writer seems to think,
+almost self-evidently true, it is almost obtrusively false. Instead of
+its being millions to one, given matter and force with all their present
+properties, against the present arrangement of things occurring, it is
+inconceivable, assuming that nothing but the atoms and their properties
+exist, that any other arrangement than the present one should have
+resulted. For the present natural order is not something that is, so to
+speak, separable from our conception of natural forces, it is something
+that has grown out of and is the expression of the idea of nature. Thus,
+given a proper understanding of the principle of gravitation, and it is
+impossible to conceive an unsupported stone _not_ falling to the ground.
+Given a proper conception of the properties of the constituents of a
+chemical compound, and we can only conceive one result as possible. In
+all cases our conception of what _must_ occur follows from the nature of
+the forces themselves. This is necessarily the case since the conception
+of the ultimate properties of matter has been built up by the
+observation of the actual results. And one simply cannot conceive an
+alteration in these results without thinking of some alteration or
+modification of the causes of which they are the expression. What is
+true of the part is true of the whole. The present structure of the
+world stands as the inevitable outcome of the play of natural forces.
+This is both the expression of an actual fact and a condition of
+coherent thought. Uniformity of results from uniformity of conditions is
+a pre-requisite to sane thinking.
+
+In reality, the expression "millions to one" is no more than an appeal
+to man's awe in facing a stupendous mechanism, and his feeling of
+impotence when dealing with so complex a subject as the evolution of a
+world. It can only mean that to a certain state of knowledge it _seems_
+millions to one against the present order resulting. But to a certain
+state of knowledge it would seem millions to one against so fluid a
+thing as water ever becoming solid. To others it is a commonplace thing
+and a necessary consequence of the properties of water itself. To a
+savage it would be millions to one against a cloud of "fire mist" ever
+becoming a world with a highly diversified fauna and flora. To a
+scientist there is nothing more in it than antecedent and consequent.
+Such expressions as its being "millions to one" against certain things
+happening is never really more than an appeal to ignorance; it means
+only that our knowledge is not great enough to permit our tracing the
+successive stages of the evolution before us. Once the scientific
+conception of the universe is grasped, the marvel is not that the
+present order exists, the marvel would be that any other "order" should
+be, or that any radical alteration in it should occur.
+
+And there really is no need to throw the whole universe at the head of
+the sceptic. That is an attempt to overcome him with sheer weight.
+Intrinsically there is nothing more marvellous in the evolution of a
+habitable globe from the primitive nebula, than there is in the fact
+that an unsupported stone always falls to the ground. It is only our
+familiarity with the one experience and our lack of knowledge concerning
+the other that gives us the condition of wonder in the one case and lack
+of it in the other. In the light of modern knowledge "order" is, as W.
+H. Mallock says, "a physical platitude, not a divine paradox."
+
+Moreover, if the odds are a million to one against the existence of the
+present arrangement existing, the odds would be equally great against
+the existence of any other arrangement. And as the odds are equally
+great against all--seeing that _some_ arrangement must exist--there can
+be no logical value in using the argument against one arrangement in
+particular. The same question, "Why this arrangement and none other?"
+might arise in any case.
+
+Finally, the absurdity of arguing that the "order" of nature compels a
+belief in deity may be seen by realising the fact that our conception of
+order is itself the product of the experienced sequence which
+constitutes the order in question. Our ideas of order are not
+independent of the world, they are its product--an expression of the
+relation between organism and environment. Given a different organism,
+with different sense organs, and the world would appear different. On
+the other hand the whole structure of man is the result of the existing
+conditions. Assume the order to be changed, and the human
+organism--presuming it still to exist, will undergo corresponding
+modifications. It would not find less order or less beauty, the order
+and the beauty would simply be found in another direction. And,
+presumably, the theist would still point to the existence of _that_
+order as clear proof of a designing intelligence.
+
+Something needs to be said here on a more recent form of the argument
+from the "order" of nature than the one we have been discussing. There
+is no vital distinction between the old and the new form, but a
+variation in terms seems to produce on some minds a conviction of
+newness--itself a proof that the nature of the old form had never been
+fully realised.
+
+This new form is that based upon what is called "Directivity."
+Recognising that it is no longer possible to successfully dispute the
+scientific proposition that the state of the universe at any one moment
+must be taken as the result of all the conditions then prevailing, and,
+therefore, it is to the operation of the ultimate properties of matter,
+force, ether,--or whatever name we choose to give to the substance of
+the universe--it is argued that we nevertheless require some directing
+force which will set, and keep the universe on its present track.
+
+But there is really nothing in this beyond the now familiar appeal to
+human impotence. "We do not know," "We cannot see," are quite excellent
+reasons for saying nothing at all, but the very worst ground on which to
+make positive statements, or on which to base positive beliefs. The
+only condition that would justify our making human ignorance a ground
+on which to make statements of the kind named would be that we had
+demonstrably exhausted the possibilities of natural forces, and no
+further developments were possible in this direction. Far from this
+being the case there is not a single man of science who would dissent
+from the statement that we are only upon the threshold of a knowledge of
+their possibilities.
+
+And this assumption of "direction" is unconvincing, if not suicidal in
+character. Assuming that direction may have occurred, the fact of
+direction adds nothing to the qualities or possibilities of existence,
+any more than the "directivity" of a chemist adds to the possibilities
+of certain elements when he brings them into combination. Unless the
+possibilities of the compound were already in the elements guidance
+would be useless. And, in the same way, unless the capacity for
+producing the universe we see already existed in the atoms themselves,
+no amount of "direction" could have produced it. God simply takes the
+place of the chemist bringing certain chemical elements in, of the
+engineer guiding certain forces along a particular channel. But no new
+capacity is created, and all that is done by either the chemist or the
+engineer _might_ occur without their interference. Otherwise it could
+not occur at all.
+
+Now there is no denying that natural forces _do_ produce the phenomena
+around us. That is undeniable. And whether there be a god or not this
+fact remains quite unaffected. All that God can do is to set up certain
+combinations. But this does not exclude the possibility of this
+combination taking place without the operation of deity. In fact, it
+implies it. Either, then, natural forces possess the capacity to produce
+the universe as we see it, or they do not. If they do not, then it is
+impossible for us to conceive in what way even deity could produce it.
+If, on the other hand, they have this capacity, the argument for the
+existence of deity loses its force, and the theist is bound to admit
+that all that he claims as due to the action of deity might have
+happened without him. The theists own argument, if logically pursued
+ends in divesting it of all coercive value.
+
+It is curious that the theist should fail to see that a much stronger
+argument for the operation of deity would have been of a negative
+character, to have proved that in some way God manifested an inhibitive
+influence and thus prevented certain things occurring which would have
+transpired but for his interference. Regularity, or "order" is, as we
+have seen, the necessary consequence of the persistence of force. And so
+long as natural forces continue to express themselves in the way in
+which experience has led us to expect there is no need for us to think
+of anything beyond. The principle of inertia is with us here, for if it
+be true that force will persist in a given direction unless deflected
+from its course by some other force, it must be equally true that _all_
+forces will work out a given consequence unless they are deflected from
+their course by the operation of some superior force.
+
+Now if it were possible for the theist to show that in certain cases the
+normal consequences of known forces did not transpire, and that the
+aberration could not be accounted for by the operation of any other
+conceivable force, it might be argued with some degree of plausibility
+that there exists a controlling power beyond which answers to God. That
+might afford a plausible case for "directivity." But to insist upon the
+prevalence of "natural order" will not help the case for theism. It will
+rather embarrass it. It may, of course, impress all those whose
+conception of scientific method is poor--and sometimes one thinks that
+this is all that is deliberately aimed at--but it will not affect anyone
+else. To the informed mind it will appear that the Goddite is weakening
+his case with every step he takes in the direction of what he apparently
+believes to be a demonstration of its logical invulnerability.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM CAUSATION.
+
+
+The argument from causation may logically follow that from existence, of
+which it may be regarded as a part. It is presented under various forms,
+and when stated in a persuasive manner, is next to the argument from
+design, probably as popular as any. The principal reason for this is, I
+think, that very few people are concerned with thinking out exactly what
+is meant by causation, and the proposition that every event must have a
+cause, wins a ready assent, and when followed by the assertion that
+therefore the universe must have had a cause, which is God, the
+reasoning, or rather the parody of reasoning, appeals to many. There is
+a show of reason and logic, but little more.
+
+Quite unquestionably a great deals depends upon what is meant by
+causation, and still more upon the use made of the law of causation by
+theists. Thus we have seen it urged against Materialists that neural
+activity cannot be the equivalent of thought because they do not
+resemble each other. And in another direction we meet with the same idea
+in the assertion that the cause must be equal to the effect, by which it
+is apparently meant that the cause must be _similar_ to the effect, and
+that unless we can discern in the cause the same qualities manifested by
+the effect, we have not established the fact of causation at all.
+
+The complete and perfect answer to this last view is that the qualities
+manifest in an effect never are manifest in the cause, were it so it
+would be impossible to distinguish one from the other. The theist is,
+as is often the case, saying one thing and meaning another. What he says
+is that the cause must be adequate to the effect. There is no dispute
+here. But what he proceeds to argue is that the effect must be
+discernible in the cause, which is a different statement altogether.
+When he says that an effect cannot be greater than its cause, what he
+means is that an effect cannot be different from its cause, which is
+downright nonsense. He asks, How can that which has not life produce
+life? as though the question were on all fours with the necessity for a
+man to possess twenty shillings before he can give change for a
+sovereign.
+
+Of course, the reply to all this is that the factors which when combined
+produce an effect always "give" something of which when uncombined they
+show no trace. There is no trace; of sweetness in the constituents of
+sugar of lead, or of blueness in the constituents of blue vitriol. In
+not a single case, if we are to follow the logic of the theist, is there
+a cause adequate to produce an effect, if we are to follow the reasoning
+of some theists; in each case we should have to assume some occult agent
+as responsible for the result. In reality and in strict scientific
+truth, it is of the very essence of causation that there shall be
+present in the effect some quality or qualities that are not present in
+the cause. And all the confusion may be eliminated if there is borne in
+mind the simple and single consideration that in studying an effect it
+is the qualities of a combination with which we are properly concerned.
+And to expect to find in analysis that which is the product of synthesis
+is in the highest degree absurd.
+
+Sir Oliver Lodge in his little work on "Life and Matter" properly
+corrects the fallacy with which I have been dealing, and points out that
+"properties can be possessed by an aggregate or an assemblage of
+particles, which in the particles themselves did not in the slightest
+degree exist." But in his desire to find a basis for his theism
+immediately falls into an error in an opposite direction. We are on safe
+ground, he says, in asserting that "whatever is in a part must be in the
+whole." This is true if it is meant that as the whole contains the part,
+the part is in the whole. But in that sense the statement was hardly
+worth the making. What his argument demands is the meaning that as man
+is possessed of mind, and as man is part of nature, therefore nature, as
+a whole, manifests mind. And that is not true. Mind may be a special
+manifestation of a special arrangement of forces, and only occurring
+under special conditions. What Sir Oliver says, then, is that the
+properties of a part are in the whole, because the part is included in
+whole. What he implies, and without this implication his argument is
+meaningless, is that the properties of a part belong to all parts of the
+whole. And that is a statement so grotesquely untrue that I suspect Sir
+Oliver would be the first to disown the plain implications of his own
+argument.
+
+And here is Sir Oliver's illustration of his argument:--
+
+
+     "the fact an apple has pips legitimises the assertion that an apple
+     tree has pips ... but it would be a childish misunderstanding to
+     expect to find actual pips in the trunk of a tree."
+
+
+Now, why should the fact that an apple has pips legitimise the
+statement that an apple tree has pips, any more than it legitimises the
+statement that the soil from which it springs has pips? And if the tree
+has not actual pips, in what sense does it possess them? If the reply is
+that it possesses them potentially, one may meet that with the rejoinder
+that potentially pips, and everything else, including Sir Oliver Lodge,
+were contained in the primitive nebulae. As a matter of fact the apple
+tree does not contain pips either actually or potentially. In his
+championship of theism our scientist forgets his science. What the apple
+tree possesses is the capacity for building up a fruit with pips _with
+the aid of material extracted from the soil beneath and from the air
+around_. These pips are no more in the tree than they are in the air or
+the soil--not even as a figure of speech. One might, from any point of
+view, as reasonably look for the colour and shape and smell of an apple
+in the tree as to look for the pips. The properties of the tree is
+really one of the factors in the production of a result. Sir Oliver
+makes the mistake of writing as though the tree was the only factor in
+the problem.
+
+This is not the place in which to enter on an exhaustive inquiry as to
+the nature of causation. It is enough to point out that the whole
+theistic fallacy rests here on the assumption that we are dealing with
+two things, when as a matter of fact we are dealing with only one. Cause
+and effect are not two separate things, they are the same thing viewed
+under two different aspects. When, for example, I ask for the cause of
+gunpowder and am told that it is sulphur, charcoal, and nitre, or for a
+cause of sulphuric acid and am given sulphide of iron and oxygen, it is
+clear that considered separately these ingredients are not causes at
+all. Whether charcoal and sulphur will become part of the cause of
+gunpowder or not will depend upon the presence of the third agent;
+whether sulphide of iron will rank as part of the cause of sulphuric
+acid will depend upon the presence of oxygen. In every case it is the
+assemblage of appropriate factors that constitute a real cause. But
+given the factors, gunpowder does not follow their assemblage, it is
+their assemblage that is expressed by the result. There is no succession
+in time, the result is instantaneous with the assemblage of the factors.
+The effect is the registration, so to speak, of the combination of the
+factors.
+
+Now if what has been said be admitted as correct the argument for the
+existence of God as based upon the fact of causation breaks down
+completely. If cause and effect are the expressions of a relation, and
+if they are not two things, but only one, under two aspects, "cause"
+being the name for the related powers of the factors, and "effect" the
+name for their assemblage, to talk, as does the theist, of working back
+along the chain of causes until we reach God, is nonsense. Even if we
+could achieve this feat of regression, we could not reach by this means
+a God distinct from the universe. For, as discovering the cause of any
+effect means no more than analysing an effect into its factors, the
+problem would ultimately be that of dealing with the question of how
+something already existing transformed itself into the existing
+universe. A form of a very doubtful Pantheism might be reached in this
+way, but not theism.
+
+But here a fresh difficulty presents itself to the theist. A cause, as
+I have pointed out, must consist of at least two factors or two forces.
+This is absolutely indispensable. But assuming that we have got back to
+a point prior to the existence of the universe, we have on the theistic
+theory, not two factors, but only one. The essential condition for an
+act of causation is lacking. A single factor could only repeat itself.
+By this method the theist might reach "God." But having got there, there
+he would remain. He is left with God and nothing else, and with no
+possibility of reaching anything else.
+
+We land in the same dilemma if we pursue another road. Philosophers of
+certain schools place existence in two categories. There is the world of
+appearance (phenomena), and there is the world of reality or substance
+(noumena). We know phenomena and their laws, they say, but no more. We
+do not know, and cannot know, Substance in itself; and the theist
+promptly adds that this unknown substance is but another name for God.
+The philosopher also warns us against applying the laws of the
+phenomenal world to noumena, reminding us that what we call "laws of
+nature" have been devised to explain the world as it presents itself to
+our consciousness. And to this we have the theological analogue in the
+warning not to measure the infinite by the finite or to judge God by
+human standards.
+
+Now granting all this, let us see how the argument stands. The laws of
+phenomena belong exclusively to the phenomenal world. Their application
+and their validity are restricted to the world of phenomena. When we
+leave this region we are in a sphere to which they are quite
+inapplicable. What, then, can be meant by speaking of God as a "First
+Cause"? Cause is a phenomenal term, it expresses the relations between
+phenomena, and it has no meaning when applied to this assumed and
+unknown reality. We are in the position of one who is trying to use a
+colour scale in a world where vision does not exist. The theist is
+trying, in a similar way, to use the conception of "cause," which is
+created to express the relations between phenomena, in a world where
+phenomena have no existence. Thus, when the theist, to use his own
+words, has traced back an effect to a cause, and this to a prior cause,
+and so on, till he has reached a "First Cause," what happens? Simply
+this. At the end of the chain of phenomena the theist makes a mighty
+jump and gains the noumenon. But between this and the phenomenon he can
+establish no relation whatever. It cannot be a cause of phenomena
+because on his own showing causation is a phenomenal thing. He has
+worked back along the chain of causation, discarding link after link on
+his journey. Finally, he reaches God and discards the lot. And here he
+is left clinging with _no intelligible way of getting back again_. If on
+the other hand, he relates God to phenomena he has failed to get what he
+requires. He has merely added one more link to his chain of phenomena,
+and the "first cause" remains as far off as ever. For if God is not
+related to phenomena he ceases to be a cause of phenomena in the only
+sense in which he is of use to the theistic hypothesis.
+
+Further, one may ask, Why travel back along the chain of causation to
+discover God? What is gained by travelling along an infinite series,
+and saying suddenly, "At this point I espy God." Confessedly we may
+trace back phenomena as far as we will without finding ourselves a step
+nearer a commencement. All we get is a transformation of pre-existing
+material into new forms. Consequently all the evidence that exists at
+the moment we cease our journey existed when we began it. In short, if
+God can be shown to be the efficient cause of phenomena anywhere, he can
+be shown to be the cause everywhere, and the proof may be produced
+through phenomena immediately at hand as well as from those removed from
+us by an indefinite number of stages. The evidence becomes neither
+stronger nor more relevant by being put farther back. Proof is not like
+wine, its quality does not improve with age. To say that we must pause
+somewhere may be true, but that is only reminding us that both human
+time and human energy are limited. But it is certainly foolish to first
+of all induce mental exhaustion, and then use it as the equivalent of a
+positive and valuable discovery.
+
+And even though by some undiscovered method we had reached that
+metaphysical nightmare a cause of all phenomena, and in defiance of all
+intelligibility had christened it a "First Cause," how would that
+satisfy the "causal craving"? Professor Campbell Fraser very properly
+says that "the old form of each new phenomenon as much needs explanation
+as the new form itself did, and this need is certainly neither satisfied
+nor destroyed by referring one form of existence to another." If A. is
+explained by B. we are driven to explain B. by C., and so on
+indefinitely. Or if we can stop with A. or B. then the causal craving
+is not so persistent as was supposed, and man can rest content within
+the limit of recognised limitations. For what Professor Fraser calls an
+"absolutely originating cause" is only such so long as we have not
+reached it. We are satisfied with an imaginary B. as an explanation of
+the actual A. so long as B. does not come within our grasp. So soon as
+it has become the originating cause of the phenomenon in hand we are off
+on a further search. "First" has no other intelligible sense or meaning
+than this. "First" in relation to a given cluster of phenomenon we may
+grant; "First" in the sense of calling for no further explanation is
+downright theological lunacy.
+
+An eternal "First cause" could only be such in relation to an eternal
+effect. And in that case it could not be _prior_ to the effect since the
+effect is only the existing factors combined. Causation cannot carry us
+_beyond_ phenomena since it has no meaning apart from phenomena. The
+notion that because every phenomenon has a cause therefore there must be
+a cause for phenomena as a whole--meaning by this for the sum total of
+phenomena--is wholly absurd. It is not sound science, it is not good
+philosophy, it is not even commonsense. It is simply nonsense which is
+given an air of dignity because it is clothed in philosophic language.
+You cannot rise from phenomena to the theist's God; first, because, as I
+have said, cause and effect are names for the relation that is seen to
+exist between one phenomenon and another, and the theist is seeking
+after something that is above all relations. To postulate something that
+is not phenomena as the cause of phenomena, is like discussing the
+possibility of a bird's flight and dismissing the possibility of an
+atmosphere. Secondly, causation can give no clue to a God because the
+search for causes is a search for the conditions under which phenomena
+occur. And when we have described these conditions we have fulfilled all
+the conditions required to establish an act of causation. The theist, in
+short, commences with a wrong conception of causation. He proceeds by
+applying to one sphere language and principles from another, and to
+which they can have no possible application, and where they have no
+intelligibility. And having completely confused the issue, he ends with
+a conclusion which, even on his own showing, has no logical relation to
+the premises laid down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN.
+
+
+Kant called the argument from design "the oldest, the clearest, and the
+most adapted to the ordinary human reason," of all the arguments
+advanced on behalf of the belief in God. Kant's dictum, it will be
+observed, omits all opinion as to its quality, and his own criticism of
+it left it a sorry wreck. John Stuart Mill treated it far more
+respectfully, and commenced his examination of it with the flattering
+introduction, "We now at last reach an argument of a really scientific
+character," and, although he did not find the argument convincing, gave
+it a most respectful dismissal. The purpose of the present chapter is to
+show that the argument from design in nature is in the last degree
+unscientific, that the analogy it seeks to establish is a false one,
+that it is completely and hopelessly irrelevant to the point at issue,
+and that one might grant nearly all it asks for, and even then show that
+it does not prove what it sets out to prove. That such an argument
+should have, and for so long, exerted so much influence over the human
+mind, gives one anything but a flattering impression of the power of
+reason in human affairs.
+
+True it is that of late years the argument from design has felt the
+influence of the growth of the idea of evolution, and the champions of
+theism have used it with much greater caution, and under an obvious
+sense that it no longer wielded its old authority. The fact that this
+is so forms a commentary on the statement so often made that man's
+craving for an ultimate cause leads to the belief in God. The truth
+being that man--the average man--only seeks for an explanation of
+immediate happenings. Once the immediate thing before him is explained
+his curiosity is allayed. The average man lives mentally from hand to
+mouth, and troubles as little about ultimate explanations as he does
+about the exhaustion of the coal supply.
+
+It is a point of some significance that the perception of design in
+nature, as with the belief in deity, is, if one may use the expression,
+pre-scientific in point of origin. What I mean by that is that it
+originates at a time when no other explanation of the origin of natural
+adaptations existed. It did not establish itself as one of several rival
+explanations and in virtue of its own strength. It was established
+simply because no other explanation was at the time conceivable. And so
+soon as another explanation, such as that of natural selection, was
+placed before the world, the origin of adaptations as a product of an
+extra-natural designing intelligence became to most educated minds
+simply impossible. The perception of design in nature was, as a matter
+of fact, no more than a special illustration of the animistic frame of
+mind which reads vitality into all natural happenings. It is impossible
+to find in the statement that particular adaptations in nature are
+designed anything more scientific than one can find in the belief that
+rain is the product of a heavenly rain-cow, or that flashes of lightning
+are spears thrown by competing heavenly warriors. It is the language
+only that differs in the two cases. The frame of mind indicated in the
+two cases are identical.
+
+The attractiveness of the argument from design lies in its nearness to
+hand and in its appeal to facts, combined with the impossibility of
+verification. That nature is full of strange and curious examples of
+adaptation is clear to all, although the significance of these
+adaptations are by no means so clear. Moreover, a very casual study of
+these cases show that they are better calculated to dazzle than to
+convince. The presentation of a number of more or less elaborate facts
+of adaptation, followed with the remark that we are unable to see how
+such cases could have been brought about in the absence of a designing
+intelligence, is, at best, an appeal to human weakness and ignorance.
+The reverse of such a position is that if we had complete knowledge of
+the causes at work, the assumption of design might be found to be quite
+unnecessary. "We cannot see" is only the equivalent of we do not know,
+and that is a shockingly bad basis on which to build an argument.
+
+When, therefore, an eminent electrician like Professor Fleming says, "We
+have overwhelming proof that in the manufacture of the infinite number
+of substances made in Nature's laboratory there must be at all stages
+some directivity," this can only mean that Professor Fleming cannot see
+the way in which these substances are made. It does not mean that he
+sees _how_ they are made. And in saying this he is in no better position
+than was Kepler, who after describing the true laws of planetary motion,
+when he came to the question of _why_ the planets should describe these
+motions fell back on the theory of "Angelic intelligences" as the
+cause. The true explanation came with the physics of Galileo and Newton,
+and with that, farewell to the angelic "directivity." The only reason
+for Kepler's angels was his ignorance of the causes of planetary motion.
+The only reason why Professor Fleming says that the atoms "have to be
+guided into certain positions to build up the complex molecules" is that
+he is unable to isolate this assumed directive force and to show it in
+operation; he is like a modern Kepler faced with something the cause of
+which he doesn't know, and lugging in "God" to save further trouble. It
+is an assumption of knowledge where no knowledge exists. "God" is always
+what Spinoza called it, the asylum of ignorance. When causes are unknown
+"God" is brought forward. When causes are known "God" retires into the
+background. "God" is not an explanation, it is a narcotic.
+
+The argument from design rests upon the existence in nature of
+adaptations either general or special. And quite obviously the value of
+evidence derived from adaptations will be determined by the existence of
+non-adaptations. If, that is, it can be shown that a certain assemblage
+of forces produce adaptation, while in another instance they fail to
+produce it, it would then be logical to argue that the difference was
+due to the directive power being withdrawn in the latter case. But that
+as we know is never the case. What we see is always the same conditions
+producing the same effects. We are never able to say, "Here are natural
+forces working _minus_ a directing intelligence, and here is an
+assemblage of the same forces working _plus_ the addition of a
+directing intelligence." If we could do that we should be able to
+attribute the difference to the new factor. But this we are never able
+to do. And it is an elementary principle of scientific method that
+before we can assert the existence of a distinct force or factor, the
+possibility of isolation must be shown. Adaptation can, then, only be
+demonstrated by non-adaptation. And _non-adaptation in nature simply
+does not exist, except in relation to an ideal end created by
+ourselves_.
+
+Surprising as this may appear to some, examination shows it to be no
+more than a truism, and that granted, the whole strength of the argument
+from adaptation, whether in the inorganic or the organic world,
+disappears.
+
+To see the matter the more clearly, let us drop for a time the word
+"adaptation" and substitute the word "process." For that after all is
+what nature presents us with. We see processes and we see results. It is
+because we create an _end_ for these processes that we class them as
+well or ill adapted to achieve it. We make a gun, and say it is ill or
+well made as it shoots well or ill. But whether it carries straight or
+not the relation of the shooting to the construction of the gun remains
+the same. Judging the gun merely from its construction, the product
+answers completely to the combination of its parts. Constructed in one
+way the gun cannot but shoot straight. Constructed in another way the
+gun cannot but shoot crookedly. And the only reason we have for calling
+one good and the other bad is that _we_ desire a particular result. But
+the goodness or badness has nothing to do with the thing itself. Its
+adaptation to the end produced is as perfect in the one case as in the
+other. It could produce no other result than the one that actually
+emerges without an alteration in the means employed. A thing is what it
+is because it is the combination of all the forces that produce it. And
+to ask us to marvel at the result of a process, when the one is the
+product of the other is like asking us to express our surprise that
+twice two equal four. Twice two equal four because four is the sum of
+the factors, and no one dreams of praising God because they don't
+sometimes make four and a half. The argument from adaptations in nature
+is, when examined, just about as impressive as the reasoning of the
+curate who saw the hand of Providence in the fact that death came at the
+end of life instead of in the middle of it.
+
+Adaptation is not, then, a singular fact in nature, but a universal one.
+It is everywhere, in the case of death as in that of life. It is the
+same in the case of a child born a marvel of health and beauty as in
+that of one born deformed and diseased. There is nothing else but
+adaptations of means to ends in nature, however displeasing some of them
+may be to us. The "harmony" which the theist perceives in nature is not
+the expression of "plan," it is the inevitable outcome of the properties
+of existence. Given matter and force, and it requires no "directive
+intelligence" to produce the existing order, it would indeed require a
+God to prevent its occurrence.
+
+It is the same if we take the case of animal life alone. To say that
+animal life is adapted to its environment, and to say that animal life
+exists, is to say the same thing in two ways. Whether animal forms are
+fashioned by "divine intelligence" or not, the fact of adaptation
+remains; for adaptation is the essential condition of existence. And as
+adaptation is the condition of existence, it follows that an animal's
+feelings, structure, and functions will be developed in accordance with
+the nature of the environment. If the conditions of existence were
+different from what they are animal life would show corresponding
+modifications. But all the same we should observe the same
+correspondence between animal life and its surroundings. Here, again, we
+have a fact transformed, without the slightest warranty, into a purpose.
+
+Now, if the theist could prove that out of a number of equally possible
+lines of development living beings show one fixed form, and that against
+the compulsion of environmental forces, he would do something to prove
+the probability of some sort of guidance. But that we know cannot be
+done. The forms of life are infinite in number. They vary within all
+possible limits; and always in terms of environmental conditions. In
+brief, what is said to occur with God, can be shown to be inevitable
+without him. "God" in nature is a wholly gratuitous hypothesis.
+
+Later it will be seen that the whole basis of the argument from design
+is fallacious; that it proceeds along altogether wrong lines, and that
+the final objection to it is that it is completely irrelevant to the
+point at issue. For the moment, however, we proceed with a criticism of
+the argument as usually stated.
+
+It must be borne in mind that what the theist desires to reach is a
+_Creator_, but it is obvious that this plea can never give us more than
+a mere designer working on materials that already exist. Of necessity
+design implies two things, difficulties to be overcome, and skill or
+wisdom in overcoming them. Design is an understandable thing in
+connection with man, because man is always occupied in overcoming the
+resistance of forces that exist quite independently of him, and which
+operate without reference to his needs or desires. But it would be
+absurd to assume design on the part of one for whom difficulties had no
+existence, or on the part of one who himself created the forces that had
+to be overcome, and endowed them with all the properties which made the
+work of design necessary. Granting the relevance of the data upon which
+the belief in design rests, one could only assume, with Mill, that "the
+author of the Cosmos worked under limitations; that he was obliged to
+adapt himself to conditions independent of his will, and to attain his
+ends by such arrangements as these conditions admitted of."
+
+In the next place, the argument for design is an argument from analogy,
+and an analogy can by its very nature never give a complete
+demonstration. It can never offer more than a probability, more or less
+convincing as the analogy is more of less complete. But in the case
+under consideration the analogy is considerably less rather than more.
+Paley's classical illustration--taken almost verbatim from Malebranche,
+but as old otherwise as the days of Greek philosophy, where a statute
+took its place--was that of a watch. And the conclusion was drawn that
+as the parts of a watch bear obvious marks of having been made with a
+view to a particular end, so the animal structure and the universe as a
+whole bear similar marks of having been designed. It is true that of
+late years the Paleyan form of the argument has been disavowed by most
+scholarly advocates of theism, but as they immediately proceed to make
+use of arguments that are substantially identical with it, the
+repudiation does not seem of great consequence. It reminds one of a
+government that is compelled by the force of public opinion to openly
+repudiate one of its officials, and having removed him from the office
+in which the misdemeanour was committed, immediately appoints him to one
+of an increased dignity and with a larger salary.
+
+Thus, we have Professor Fiske saying that "Paley's simile of a watch is
+no longer applicable to such a world as this" ("Idea of God"; p. 131),
+and Prof. Sorley telling us that "the age of Paley and of the
+Bridgewater Treatises is past" (Moral Values and the Idea of God; p.
+327), and Mr. Balfour repudiating Paley as having been ruled out of
+court by Darwinism ("Humanism and Theism," chapter II.). But as Fiske
+puts the flower in the place of the watch, Sorley, the moral nature of
+man, and Balfour, the conditions of animal life, it is not quite clear
+why if the Paleyan argument is invalid, the new form is any more
+intellectually respectable. The essence of the Paleyan argument was the
+assertion of a mind behind phenomena, the workings of which could be
+seen in the forms of animal life. And whether we find that proof in the
+growth of a flower, or in the moral sense of man, or in the creation of
+natural conditions that impel the development of life along a certain
+road, the distinction is not vital. We are still finding proofs of God
+in the structure of the world (where otherwise, indeed, are we to find
+it?) and we are still depending on the supposed likeness between the
+works of human intelligence and natural products.
+
+And that analogy is wholly false. The argument from design aims at
+proving that _all_ things are made by a creative intelligence. It is not
+merely animals that are designed; they are selected as no more than
+striking individual examples of a general truth. Everything, if theism
+be true, must be ultimately due to manufacture. But the whole
+significance of the Paleyan argument from design is that behind the
+manufactured article which we recognise as such, there are other
+articles or other things that are not manufactured. The traveller, says
+Paley, who comes across a watch recognises in the relation of its parts
+evidences of workmanship. But he does not see in the breaking of a wave
+on the shore, or in the piling up of sand in the desert, or in a pebble
+on the beach, the same tokens of workmanship. In the very act of
+attempting to prove that _some_ things _are_ made, the theist is
+compelled to assume that _all_ things are not made. He can only gain a
+victory at the price of confessing a defeat.
+
+But is there any real analogy between the works of man and the universe
+at large? Let us take a familiar example. It is, we are told in a very
+familiar illustration, as absurd to imagine that the world as it exists
+is the work of unguided natural forces, as it would be to believe that
+the rows of letters in a compositor's "stick" had of their own
+contained force arranged themselves in intelligible sentences. The
+absurdity of the last supposition is admitted, but why is that so?
+Obviously because we have the previous knowledge that the type itself is
+a manufactured thing, and that its arrangement in orderly sentences is
+the work of intelligent men. Thus, what occurs when we come across a
+particular example of type setting is that we compare our present
+experience with other experiences and recognise it as belonging to a
+particular class. So with the watch. The only reason we have for
+believing that a watch is made is that of our previous knowledge that
+such things are made. The present judgment is based upon past
+experience. But the case of animal forms, and still more the universe at
+large, offers no such analogy. We know nothing of world makers nor of
+animal makers. We have no previous experience to go upon, nor have we
+any things of a similar kind, known to be made, with which we can
+compare them. Instead of the points of resemblance between the two
+things being so numerous as to compel belief, they agree in one
+particular only, that of existence. At most all we are left with is the
+palpably absurd position that because man selects and adjusts means to a
+given end, therefore any combination of forces in nature which produce a
+certain result must also be the expression of conscious intention.
+
+Some apparent force even to this flimsy conclusion might be given if
+nature could be said to be working towards a given end. But we do not
+find this. What we see is a multitude of forces at work, the action of
+each of which often results in the negation of the other. Put on one
+side the larger, but not the least pregnant fact that animal life is
+only maintained in the face of numerous agencies, inorganic and organic,
+that are apparently bent upon its destruction; put on one side also the
+fact that multitudes of parasites--as much the result of design as any
+other form of life--are constantly preying upon and destroying forms of
+life higher than themselves, and there still remain myriads of facts
+altogether inconsistent and completely irreconcilable with the
+hypothesis of a creative intelligence shaping the course of affairs to a
+given end. To take only one illustration of this. What is to be said of
+the myriads of animals that are born into the world only to perish
+before reaching an age at which they can play their part in the
+perpetuation of the species? Are we to believe that the same deity who
+fashioned these forms of life created at the same time a number of
+forces that were certain to destroy them? Clearly we are bound to
+assume, either that this hypothetical Being pursues a number of mutually
+destructive plans, or that there are a number of designers at work and
+at war with each other, or that none at all exist.
+
+If we are to judge nature from the standpoint of human intelligence,
+then we must logically decide that it is full of waste, full of
+bungling, full of plans that come to nothing, of ends that are never
+realised, of pain and misery that might have been avoided by the
+exercise of almost ordinary intelligence. There are few animals
+concerning which a competent anatomist or physiologist could not suggest
+some improvement in their construction by which their functions might be
+more efficiently performed. Nor does it seem quite impossible to have
+so adjusted natural forces that the development of life might have been
+accomplished without the present enormous waste of material. It is
+almost stupid to ask, as did the late Dr. Martineau, what right have we
+to judge the world from "a purely humanistic point of view." The whole
+argument from design is based upon a humanistic point of view. The
+Atheist is only calling the attention of the theist to the consequences
+of his own argument.
+
+I leave for a later chapter, the moral aspect of the design argument. I
+am at present concerned with its purely logical presentation. And the
+crowning charge here is not that it is inconclusive, not that it falls
+short, as Mill thought, of a complete analogy, the decisive rejection of
+it is based upon the fact that it is absolutely irrelevant. The argument
+has no bearing on the issue; the evidence has no relation to the case.
+What is the essence of the argument from design? It is based upon
+certain adaptations that are observed to exist. But adaptation is, as we
+have shown, a universal quality of existence. It exists in every case,
+and no more in one case than in another. And when the theist says that
+because certain things work together therefore god arranged it, an apt
+query is, How do you know? One may even say, Granting there is a God,
+how do you know that what is was actually designed by him? It is no use
+replying that the way things work together prove design, for things
+always work together. They cannot do otherwise. Any group of forces work
+together to produce a given result. That is part of the universal fact
+of adaptation which the theist holds up as though it were a divine
+miracle instead of, as Mallock says, a physical platitude.
+
+Let us take an illustration from everyday life. A man tries his hand at
+building a bicycle. When it is finished the wheels are not true, the
+frame is unsteady, the whole thing is ready to fall to pieces and is
+absolutely unrideable. Is any one warranted in declaring that because
+the parts have all been brought together by me therefore the resulting
+machine was an act of design? Clearly not. What I designed was a machine
+perfect after its kind. What appeared was the miserable structure that
+is before us. On the other hand that machine with all its imperfections
+might have been designed by me. I might, for some purpose deliberately
+have intended to make a machine that would not carry a rider. And when
+would anyone be logically justified in saying which of the two kinds of
+machines express my design? Clearly, only when he had a knowledge of my
+intention. Apart from a knowledge of an intention preceding an act the
+inference of design is unwarrantable.
+
+Now, assuming the existence of a God, and who stands in the same
+relation to the world that I do to the machine, how can anyone know that
+the world as it is expresses design any more than did my home-made
+bicycle? In this case, as in the former, what is needed to justify the
+assumption of design is a knowledge of intention. One must know what the
+assumed maker intended and then see how far the actual result realises
+it.
+
+Design, in short, although it may be expressed in a physical form is not
+a physical thing, but a psychic fact. You cannot by examining physical
+processes and results reach design. You cannot start with a material
+fact and reach intention. You must begin with intention and compare it
+with the physical result. Things may be as they are whether design is
+involved or not. It is only by a knowledge of intention, and a
+comparison of that with the fact before us that we can be certain of
+design. Proof of design is not found in the capacity of certain clusters
+of circumstances or forces to realise a particular result, but in a
+knowledge that they correspond with an intention which we know to have
+existed before the result occurs.
+
+To warrant a logical belief in design in nature three things are
+essential. First, one must assume that a God exists. Second, one must
+take it for granted that one has a knowledge of the intention in the
+mind of the deity before the alleged designed thing is brought into
+existence. Finally, one must be able to compare the result with the
+intention and demonstrate their agreement. But the impossibility of
+knowing the first two things is apparent. And without the first two the
+third is of no value whatever. For we have no means of reaching the
+first except through the third. And until we get to the first we cannot
+make use of the third. We are thus in a hopeless impasse. No examination
+of nature can lead back to God because we lack the necessary starting
+point. All the volumes that have been written, and all the sermons that
+have been preached depicting the wisdom of organic structures are so
+much waste of paper and breath. They prove nothing, and can prove
+nothing. They assume at the beginning all they require at the end. Their
+God is not something reached by way of inference, it is something
+assumed at the very outset.
+
+What the theist does at every step of his reasoning is to read his own
+feelings and desires into nature. The design he talks so glibly about is
+in him, not outside of him. As well might a maggot in a cheese argue
+that the world was designed for him because the agreement between his
+structure and it are so harmonious. In relation to their surroundings
+man and the maggot are in the same position. And in the economy of
+nature man is of no more consequence than the maggot. There is a more
+complex synthesis of forces here than there, a more subtle exhibition of
+nature's infinite capacity for evolving fresh forms of life, and that is
+all. It is man himself who paints a distorted picture of himself on the
+surface of things, who reads his own passions and desires into nature,
+and then admires a marvel created by himself. To he who correctly
+visualises the process of the evolution of deity, the existence of God
+is hardly to-day a question for discussion. There is a discussion only
+of the history of the belief, and in that is found its strongest
+condemnation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE DISHARMONIES OF NATURE.
+
+
+It has already been indicated that it is not really necessary, in order
+to prove design, to establish the fact that the design is perfect or
+that it exhibits complete goodness. It is enough that there be design.
+Its moral quality or value is quite another question. Nevertheless, it
+will be as well to deal with this latter aspect of the subject, and to
+see what kind of "plan" it is that nature does exhibit, even assuming
+the existence of some design.
+
+Now it is evident that if there be design in nature, and if the design
+is the expression of a single supreme mind one quality of that plan
+should be unity. The products should, so to speak, dovetail into each
+other in such a way that they work together, and even harmonise with
+each other. But this is, notoriously, not the case. If from one point of
+view there is a certain harmony throughout the world of living beings in
+virtue of which life is preserved, it is at least equally true that from
+another point of view the harmony is one of destruction. And in the end
+death wins. Sooner or later death overtakes all forms of life, while in
+the grand total of living beings born into the world, a far larger
+number perish than can reach maturity. Wasted effort is the mildest
+judgment that can be passed upon these abortive attempts. And not only
+does death eventually win in the case of each individual, and against
+which may be set the consideration that in the economy of nature death
+plays a part in the development of life, but eventually death will, if
+we are to trust science, reap a sweeping and universal triumph by the
+consummation of terrestrial conditions that will render the maintenance
+of life impossible.
+
+Or, again, the relations of species are clearly not what we have a right
+to expect in the working out of a reasonably wise and benevolent plan.
+It is a general truth that, with the exception of a few instances,
+chiefly connected with the relations existing between insects and
+flowers, the development of one species in relation to another is not
+that of mutual helpfulness. The general rule here is that of mutual
+injury. The carnivora prey on the herbivora and upon each other; and the
+herbivora crush each other by methods that are as effective as the
+method of direct attack. Any variation is "good" provided it be of
+advantage to its possessor. And the "good" of the one kind may mean the
+destruction of another order. All the exquisite design shown in the
+development of the finer feelings of man, and upon which theistic
+sentimentalists love to dwell, may be seen in the structure of those
+parasites which destroy man and bring his finer feelings to naught. The
+late Theodore Roosevelt says of the Brazilian forests:--
+
+
+     In these forests the multitude of insects that bite, sting, devour,
+     and prey on other creatures, often with accompaniments of atrocious
+     suffering, passes belief. The very pathetic myths of beneficent
+     nature could not deceive even the least wise being if he once saw
+     the iron cruelty of life in the tropics. Of course, "nature"--in
+     common parlance a wholly inaccurate term, by the way, especially
+     when used to express a single entity--is entirely ruthless, no less
+     so as regards types than as regards individuals, and entirely
+     indifferent to good or evil, and works out her ends or no ends
+     with utter disregard of pain and woe (Cited by E. D. Fawcett in
+     _The World as Imagination_; pp. 571-2).
+
+
+And Mr. Carveth Reade expresses the same thing in a more elaborate
+summing up:--
+
+
+     The merciless character of organic evolution appears to us, first,
+     in reckless propagation and the consequent destruction. Every
+     species is as prolific as it can be compatibly with the development
+     of its individuals; and the deaths that ensue from inanition,
+     disease, violence, present a stupefying scene. The best one can say
+     for it is that, as life rises in the organic scale, the death rate
+     declines. Yet even man still suffers outrageously by violence,
+     disease, inanition; the notion that "Malthus's Law" no longer holds
+     of civilised man is a foolish delusion. But more sinister than the
+     direct destruction of life is the spectacle of innumerable species
+     profiting by a life, parasitic or predatory, at the expense of
+     others. The parasites refute the vulgar prejudice that evolution is
+     by the measure of man, progressive; adaptation is indifferent to
+     better or worse, except as to each species, that its offspring
+     shall survive by atrophy and degradation. The predatory species
+     flourish as if in derision of moral maxims; we see that though
+     human morality is natural to man, it is far from expressing the
+     whole of Nature. Animals, at first indistinguishable vegetables,
+     devour them and enjoy a far richer life. Animals that eat other
+     animals are nearly always superior not only in strength, grace and
+     agility but in intelligence. There are exceptions to this rule;
+     some snakes eat monkeys (thanking Providence), and the elephant is
+     content with foliage; but compare cats and wolves with the
+     ungulates that make a first concoction of herbs for their sake. It
+     is true that our monkey kin are chiefly frugivorous; for it may be
+     plausibly argued that man was first differentiated by becoming
+     definitely carnivorous, a sociable hunter, as it were, a wolf-ape.
+     Hence the advantage of longer legs, the use of weapons, the upright
+     gait and defter hands to use and make weapons, more strategic
+     brains, tribal organisation, and hence liberation from the tropical
+     forest, and citizenship of the world. The greater part of his
+     subsequent history is equally unedifying: having made the world his
+     prey, he says that God made the world to that end, and those who
+     have preyed upon their fellows, and enslaved them, and flourished
+     upon it, have declared that to have been the intention of nature.
+     (_The Metaphysics of Nature_; pp. 344-5).
+
+
+A perpetual pulling down and building up, and the building altogether
+dependent upon the demolition. The tiger built with tastes and
+capacities for catching the gazelle: the gazelle built with capacities
+that enable it to escape the tiger. There is no evidence here of the
+existence of a single mind working out an intelligent plan. At most we
+have either the proof for a number of warring powers, each one striving
+to destroy what the other is striving to create, or a single mind that
+has deliberately fashioned things so that each part may work for the
+destruction of the other part, the whole to presently end in a grand
+catastrophe.
+
+But that is not all. If we limit our attention to man, can it be said
+that we find in the human structure what we might reasonably expect to
+find if man be indeed the crown of the divine plan, the event to which,
+for untold ages, all things were designedly tending? What we actually do
+find is that the structure of man, physically and mentally, is such as
+to altogether negative the notion of complete or harmonious adjustment
+to environment. That the human has within it a large number of vestigial
+structures--some scientists place it as high as one hundred and
+seventy--is now well known, and forms at the same time one of the
+evidences of evolution and an impeachment of the theistic theory. There
+is only need to instance now the vermiform appendage, which forms the
+seat of appendicitis, the "wisdom" teeth, of very little use, and one of
+the most fruitful of causes of disease of the teeth, the hair which
+covers the human body, now of no use whatever, except to form a lodgment
+for microbes, and so makes the acquisition of disease the more certain.
+In addition to the number of rudimentary organs that actually encourage
+disease--Metchnikoff counts among these the larger intestine--the body
+is full of rudimentary muscles and structures that when not positively
+harmful, impose a tax on the organism for which no corresponding service
+is performed.
+
+The meaning and significance of these structures are, however, so well
+recognised that one need not dwell upon their existence. Not so well
+known is the complementary fact that just as in his physical structure
+man bears evidence of his emergence from lower forms of life, which
+result in a certain degree of disharmony between him and an ideal
+environment, so in his psychic life his instincts and feelings are often
+such as to prevent that ideal adaptation which so many desire. The
+earlier conception of optimistic evolutionists that the instincts of man
+were, through the operation of natural selection, converted into
+beneficent guides is quite faulty. In itself this was probably a
+survival of the theism which tried to prove that this was the best of
+all possible worlds, and which led evolutionists to try and prove that
+their theory was also ethically desirable. At any rate, the theory of
+the wholly beneficent nature of human instincts is not tenable. Our
+instincts are inherited from our animal ancestors; they were brought to
+fruition under conditions different in form from those which obtain with
+human beings, with the result that whether an instinct is helpful or the
+contrary depends largely upon the educational quality of the
+environment, and even then inherited tendencies may be so strong as to
+make them a source of danger to the community rather than of benefit.
+
+It is noted, for example, that a deal of what may be called crime, or at
+least lawlessness, is the result of an individual being born with
+tendencies developed in a way that fits him for an environment of
+centuries ago, rather than an environment of to-day. Very many of our
+national heroes of a few centuries ago would rank as criminals to-day,
+just as many of our criminals to-day would, had they been born a few
+centuries since, have been handed down to us as examples of chivalry or
+of national heroism. Instead of what one may call the natural endowments
+of man pointing towards a more civilised form of life, they point to a
+less civilised form, while it is the artificially or socially induced
+feelings and ideas that point to a better future.
+
+Thus, if we take the primitive or brute feeling of retaliation we find
+it assuming the form of war. And without discussing the value of war in
+the past, or even its admissibility in special circumstances in the
+present, I do not think it will be seriously disputed that the great
+need of the present is to transfer that feeling from the lower level of
+brute force to the higher one of adventure in the interests of science
+and human betterment. Here it is not the existence of a lofty
+"god-given" endowment that puts man out of harmony with his environment;
+it is, on the contrary, the operation of an earlier form of feeling
+manifestation which retards the coming of a better day.
+
+There is, in fact, not a single quality of human nature that can be
+said to act with inerrancy. The baby seizes objects indiscriminately and
+puts them in its mouth. The man falling into the water does the very
+thing he should not do--throws up his arms. Intense cold lulls to
+somnolency, instead of rousing to activity. The love of children, on
+which the preservation of the race depends, is absent with many; while
+with others the sexual instinct undergoes strange and morbid
+manifestations. A complete list of these disharmonies would fill a
+volume--indeed, Metchnikoff, in his "Nature of Man," has filled half a
+volume with describing some of the instances of physiological
+disharmony, and then has not exhausted the list.
+
+It would indeed seem as if nature, with its method of never creating a
+new organ or structure, but only transforming and utilising an old one,
+had attached a penalty to every successful attempt to rise above a
+certain level. If man will walk upright she sees to it that his doing so
+shall involve a great liability to hernia. If he will live in cities,
+she has ready the ravage of consumption. If he will use clothing she
+makes him carry round a coating of useless hair as a method of trapping
+disease microbes. So soon as one disease is conquered another is
+discovered. Pleasures have their reverse side in pains, and to some
+pains the pleasures bear a small relation, being chiefly of the
+character of the pains being absent. As a social animal man is only
+imperfectly adapted to the state, there going on a constant warfare
+between his egoistic and altruistic impulses. In fact, it would
+certainly be an arguable proposition, if we allow intention in nature,
+to say that man was intended to remain at the animal level, and that,
+having so far defeated nature's intention, he is dogged by a
+disappointed creator, and made to pay the fullest price that can be
+exacted for every step of progress achieved.
+
+Of course, of proof of design in nature there is positively none.
+Design, as I have said, is not a natural fact, but a purely human
+construction. But, if admitted, it is a two edged weapon. For, if
+assumed anywhere, it must be assumed to exist everywhere. And designing
+intelligence must be made responsible for the whole scheme. But this the
+most extravagant piety refuses to do. Either we have the primitive
+theory of a devil who divides with God the responsibility for the state
+of the world, or we have the plea that evil may be only good disguised,
+or good in the making, or it is argued that we have to contemplate the
+"plan" as a whole, and must wait for some future state to pass judgment.
+And whichever view we take, there is the implied admission that the plan
+of creation as we know it cannot be harmonised with the theory of God
+that modern theism places before us. And instead of man being the
+miracle of perfection that an earlier generation saw in his structure,
+we know that the human structure is such that, given the power to
+create, science could really fashion, in the light of its present
+knowledge, a better organism.
+
+Finally, disharmony is implied in and necessitated by the very fact of
+progress. Progress means a better adjustment, and the discomfort of
+maladjustment is the spur to improvement. A perfect equilibrium is as
+impossible as perpetual motion, and it is only with a perfect
+equilibrium that change, which is the condition of progress, would
+cease. The ceaseless desire for something better is, therefore, in
+itself an impeachment of things as they are. It is an indication of
+there being something wanting, of the existence of a want of complete
+harmony between man and his surroundings. Nor is the case of the theist
+bettered if he retorts that without the sense of imperfection or of
+dissatisfaction there would be no such thing as a conscious striving
+after improvement. That may be admitted, but that is only proving that
+perfection can never be achieved, and that even in this last resort
+"God" has so designed things as to make a mock of man at the end. The
+want of complete harmony that is seen in the physical structure of man
+is carried over into his mental life. If theism be true man is mocked by
+a mirage. And the knowledge is made the more depressing by the belief
+that the plan is not accidental, it is not a product of the working of
+non-conscious forces, it is the preordained outcome of a plan that was
+deliberately resolved on by a being with full power to devise some thing
+wiser and better. At the side of that, any theory of things is, by
+comparison, hopeful and inspiring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+GOD AND EVOLUTION.
+
+
+There is no logical connection between what is called the "Moral
+government of the universe" and the belief in God, but it must be
+confessed that the criticism of the belief from the point of view of
+moral feeling is of considerable importance. This is in itself a
+striking illustration of the reaction of social developments on
+religious beliefs. For there is originally no connection between
+morality and the belief in God. Man does not believe in the gods because
+they are moral, but because they are there. If they are, to his mind,
+good, that is so much the better. But whether they are good or bad they
+have to be faced as facts. The gods, in short belong to the region of
+belief, while morality belongs to that of practice. It is in the nature
+of morality that it should be implicit in practice long before it is
+explicit in theory. Morality belongs to the group and is rooted in
+certain impulses that are a product of the essential conditions of group
+life. It is as reflection awakens that men are led to speculate upon the
+nature and origin of the moral feelings. Morality, whether in practice
+or in theory, is thus based upon what is. On the other hand, religion,
+whether it be true or false, is in the nature of a discovery. However
+crude or uninformed the thinking, the belief in God must be regarded as
+the product of reflection. The situation is not unfairly described by
+Dr. Jastrow:--
+
+
+     The various rites practiced by primitive society in order to ward
+     off evils, or to secure the protection of dreaded powers or
+     spirits, are based primarily on logical considerations. If a
+     certain stone is regarded as sacred, it is probably because it is
+     associated with some misfortune, or some unusual piece of good
+     luck. Someone sitting on the stone may have died; or on sleeping on
+     it may have seen a remarkable vision, which was followed by a
+     signal victory over a dangerous foe.... In all this, however,
+     ethical considerations are remarkable for their absence.... Taking
+     again so common a belief among all peoples as the influence for
+     good or evil exerted by the dead upon the living and the numerous
+     practices to which it gives rise ... it will be difficult to
+     discover in these beliefs the faintest suggestion of any ethical
+     influence. It is not the good but the powerful spirits that are
+     invoked; an appeal to them is not made by showing them examples of
+     kindness, justice, or noble deeds, but by bribes, flatteries, and
+     threats. (_The Study of Religion_; Ch. VI.).
+
+
+So we have Tylor also endorsing this opinion by remarking that, "The
+popular idea that the moral government of the universe is an essential
+tenet of natural religion simply falls to the ground. Savage animism is
+almost devoid of that ethical element which, to the educated, modern
+mind, is the very mainspring of religion." And Hoffding says that, "In
+the lowest forms of it with which we are acquainted religion cannot be
+said to have any ethical significance. The gods appear as powers on
+which man is dependent, but not as patterns of conduct or administrators
+of an ethical world order.... Not till men have discovered ethical
+problems in practical life and have developed an ethical feeling ... can
+the figures of the gods assume an ethical character." ("Philosophy of
+Religion"; pp. 323-4).
+
+It is quite unnecessary to multiply evidence, the truth of the matter
+would seem obvious. One cannot conceive man actually ascribing ethical
+qualities to his gods before he becomes sufficiently developed to
+formulate moral rules for his own guidance, and to create moral laws for
+his fellow man. The moralisation of the gods will then follow as a
+matter of course. And thereafter we can plainly observe the operation of
+the moral sense on the belief in god, and upon the recognition of crude
+power. Man really modifies his gods in terms of the ideal human being.
+Paul's picture of a god who uses man as the potter uses his clay could
+never flourish in a society which believed in the "rights of man." And
+so soon as that conception developes so soon does man begin to revise
+his conception of god. So with almost every great change in the form of
+government or in the notions of right and wrong. In a slave state, God
+favours slavery. When slavery gives place to another form of labour the
+gods are equally vigorous in its condemnation. The history of the belief
+in witch burning, heresy hunting, eternal damnation, etc., all
+illustrate the same point--religious teachings are all modified and
+moralised in accordance with the changing moral conceptions of mankind.
+It is not the gods who moralise man, it is man who moralises the gods.
+
+The gods have their beginnings as mere powers. They are feared because
+they are, not for the moral value of what they are. Social development
+does all the rest. But with that development the feeling of
+helplessness, of weakness, decays and there arises the demand that if
+god is to be worshipped he must prove worthy of it. The conviction
+arises very gradually, but it is there, and it becomes a powerful
+solvent of religious ideas. Merely to govern is not enough, God must
+govern well, and in terms of what we have come to understand by the word
+"Justice." And to the minds of millions of moderns, when tried by that
+test the idea of god breaks down. That there is a god who rules the
+universe is one question; that he rules it well and in accord with what
+is understood when we talk of morality, is quite another. The two
+questions are quite distinct since the first might be true and the
+second false. We have already seen how slender are the grounds for
+believing in the first; we have now to show that the reasons for
+believing in the second are quite as unsatisfactory.
+
+Theism has been defined as consisting in the belief in a God who is
+wise, powerful, and loving, and who has selected man as the object of
+his preferential care, and to this may be added the statement that most
+modern theists would extend that care to the whole of sentient life.
+"God's care" must be "over all his creatures," and although this care
+may be subservient to some wide and far-seeing plan, there must be
+nothing that looks like obvious carelessness or criminal neglect.
+
+To what conclusion do the facts point when they are examined in the
+light of modern knowledge? Does the world supply us with the kind of
+picture that one would expect to see if it were really presided over by
+divine love under the guidance of divine wisdom, and backed by divine
+power? The proof that it does not is shown in the almost endless
+attempts made to harmonise the world as it is with the world as theory
+would have it be. And a theory that needs so much defending, explaining,
+and qualifying must have something radically weak about it. That there
+is evil in the world all admit, that it offers _prima facie_ objection
+to the theistic hypothesis is confessed by the many attempts made to fit
+in this evil with the existence of God, to prove that it works in some
+mysterious way for some larger good, or that its presence cannot be
+dispensed with profitably. The question of why the world is as it is
+with a god such as we are told exists, is, as Canon Green says, "the
+really vital question, for it touches the very heart of religion." ("The
+Problem of Evil"; p. 46.) How, then, does the Theist deal with it?
+
+Broadly, two methods are adopted. In the one case we are presented with
+the order of the world, or the course of evolution, as indicative of a
+beneficent scheme. This claims to freely adopt all that science has to
+say concerning the development of life and to prove that this is in
+harmony with the legitimate demands of the moral sense. The second is
+the more orthodox way, and taking the world as it is, claims that pain
+and suffering play a disciplinary and educational part in the life of
+the individual. We will take these in the order named.
+
+When dealing with the argument from design little was said concerning
+the evolutionary explanation of the special adaptations that meet us in
+the animal world. It was thought better to fix attention on the purely
+logical value of the argument presented. It is now necessary to look a
+little closer at the ethical implications of the evolutionary process.
+
+It has been pointed out that all life involves a special degree of
+adaptation between an organism and its environment. Destroy that
+adjustment and life ceases to exist. How is that adjustment secured? The
+answer of the pre-Darwinian was that it represented a deliberate design
+on the part of God. Against this Darwinism propounds a theory of
+automatic or mechanical adjustment which makes the calling in of deity
+altogether gratuitous. And it remains gratuitous, no matter how far the
+scope of the theory of natural selection may be modified. But given the
+continuous variations which we know to exist with all kinds of life,
+given any sort of competition between animals as to which shall live,
+given even a degree of adaptation below which an animal cannot fall and
+live, and it is at once plain that the better adaptations will live and
+the poorer adapted will be eliminated. This process is analogous to that
+by which man has managed to breed so many varieties of domesticated
+animals and plants, some of the varieties presenting so marked a
+difference from the original type that if found in a state of nature
+they would often be classed as a distinct species. Man _selects_ the
+variation that pleases him, eliminates or segregates the type that does
+not, and by following up the process eventually produces a distinct and
+fixed variation. It was because of the likeness of what goes on in the
+case of the breeder to what we see actually going on in nature that
+Darwin used the phrase "Natural Selection" as descriptive of the
+process. It was not an exact phrase, and it was not meant to be exact.
+For one thing--a very important thing, while a breeder selects, nature
+eliminates. Man's action, in relation to the type preserved, is
+positive. Nature's attitude in relation to the type preserved is
+negative. This is a very important distinction; and it is one that is
+fatal to the claims of theism. For if it points to a plan in nature it
+points to one that aims at killing off all that can be killed, and only
+sparing those who are able to protect themselves against its attack. And
+one is left wondering at the type of mind which can see goodness and
+wisdom in a plan that goes, on generation, after generation
+manufacturing an inferior or defective type in enormous numbers in order
+that a few superior specimens may be found, these in their turn to
+become inferior by the arrival of some other specimens a little more
+fortunate in their endowment. One hardly knows at which to marvel the
+most--at the clumsiness of the plan, or at the brutality of the design.
+
+It was soon realised that the old argument from design was no longer
+possible. But if one can only get far enough away from the possibility
+of proof or disproof there is always a chance for the Goddite. So it was
+argued that inasmuch as natural selection meant the emergence of a
+"higher" type, and as there was no room for design within the process,
+might not the process itself be an expression of design? There might
+still be room for what Huxley, with one of those foolish concessions to
+established opinion which is the bane of English thought, called the
+"wider teleology." This was a teleology which placed a designing mind at
+the back of the evolutionary process, and arranging it with a view to a
+preconceived end. The process then becomes, to use Spencer's phrase, a
+"beneficent" one, since it eliminates the poorer specimens and leaves
+the better ones to perpetuate the species. We are thus asked to imagine
+a divine wisdom selecting the better and destroying the inferior much as
+an omniscient Eugenist might destroy at birth all human beings of an
+undesirable type.
+
+The weakness of the thesis lies primarily in the fact that in the case
+of the breeder he has to take the animal as he finds it, subject to the
+play of forces, the characteristics of which are determined for him. He
+has to make the best of the situation. In the case of the deity he
+creates the animals with which he is assumed to be experimenting, he
+creates the forces with all their qualities, and thus determines the
+nature of the situation. Quite certainly no breeder would waste his time
+in breeding over a number of generations if he could secure the desired
+type at once. The whole of the argument of the advocate of the wider
+teleology is that God wanted the higher type. But if that is so why did
+he not produce it at once? What useful purpose could be served by
+producing at the end of a lengthy and murderous process what might just
+as well have been secured at the beginning? It is not wisdom but
+unadulterated stupidity to take thousands of years securing what might
+have been as well done in the twinkling of an eye.
+
+There is, in short, no justification in the creation of a process so
+long as the end at which the process is aiming can be reached by a less
+tortuous method. As Mr. F. C. S. Schiller says:--
+
+
+     So long as we are dealing with finite factors, the function of pain
+     and the nature of evil can be more or less understood, but as soon
+     as it is supposed to display the working of an infinite power
+     everything becomes wholly unintelligible. We can no longer console
+     ourselves with the hope that "good becomes the final goal of ill,"
+     we can no longer fancy that imperfection serves any secondary
+     purpose in the economy of the universe. A process by which evil
+     _becomes_ good is unintelligible as the action of a truly infinite
+     power which can attain its end without a process; it is absurd to
+     ascribe imperfection as a secondary result to a power which can
+     attain all its aims _without_ evil. Hence the world process, and
+     the intelligent purpose we fancy we detect in it must be
+     illusory.... God can have no purpose, and the world cannot be in
+     process.... If the world is the product of an infinite power it is
+     utterly unknowable, because its process and its nature would be
+     alike unnecessary and unaccountable. (_Riddles of the Sphinx_; pp.
+     318-19).
+
+
+Besides, as I have already pointed out, in the process as it meets us in
+nature there is not a selection for preservation, but a selection for
+killing. With the breeder preservation is primary. It is of no value to
+him to kill, it is the preservation of a desired type that is all
+important. In nature, so far as we can see, the whole aim is to destroy.
+It is not the fittest that are preserved so much as it is the unfittest
+that are killed. The fittest are left alive for no other apparent reason
+than that nature is unable to kill them. The truth of this is seen in
+the fact that where there is no death there is no evolution of a
+"higher" type. In the case of diseases that kill there is a gradual
+development of an immune type--which introduces the paradox that the
+healthiest diseases from which a race may suffer are those that are most
+deadly. Where a disease does not kill there is no development against
+it. It is the winnowing fan of death that makes for the development of
+animal life. And the correct picture of nature--if we must picture an
+intelligence behind it--would be that of an intelligence aiming at
+killing all, and only failing in its purpose because the natural
+endowment of some placed them beyond its power.
+
+And, without examining the question begging word "higher," it may be
+said that natural selection does not make for the uniform covering of
+the earth with representatives of higher types. If in some parts of the
+world the higher have replaced the lower types, elsewhere the lower have
+replaced the higher. Natural selection, in fact, works without reference
+to whether the form which survives is "higher" or "lower." All that
+matters is adaptation. The germ of malaria renders whole tracts of the
+earth uninhabitable to those whom we consider representative of the
+higher culture. In other parts an alteration of the rainfall may crush
+out a civilisation, and leave a handful of nomadic tribes as the sole
+denizens of lands where once a lofty civilisation flourished. Throughout
+the whole of nature there is never the slightest indication that forces
+operate with the slightest reference to what we are accustomed to
+consider the higher interests of the race.
+
+Moreover, from the standpoint of an apologetic theism, we are entitled
+to ask precisely what is meant by this justification of the evolutionary
+process in terms of the production of a higher type. The justification
+of a painful or a costly experience by an individual is two-fold. First,
+it is the only way, perhaps, in which certain things may be learned or
+accomplished, and, second, it is the individual who passes through the
+experience who benefits thereby. But suppose a person entered on a
+course of training with the absolute certainty that he would never
+survive it. Should we be justified in forcing the course on him?
+Clearly not. The whole would be regarded as a wasted effort and as an
+exhibition of gratuitous cruelty.
+
+Now when we look closely at this evolutionary process, who is it that
+benefits thereby? In a vague way we speak of the race benefiting. But
+the race is made up of individuals, and while it may be said the
+individual benefits from the experience through which the race has
+passed, it cannot be truthfully said that he is the better because he
+has gained from experience. He does not pass through the discipline, he
+simply registers, so to speak, the result. And, therefore, so far as he
+is concerned, he is exactly in the position that the first man would
+have been had he possessed the endowment, social, and individual, which
+the present man has. There is no greater fallacy than that contained in
+the common saying that man learns through experience. Individually, so
+far as civilisation is concerned, that is not true. Were it true,
+civilisation would be impossible. If each man had to start where our
+primitive ancestors started, and learn from experience, we should end
+where the first generation of socialised human beings ended, and the
+generations of men would represent an endless series of first steps to
+which there would be no second ones. What the individual learns from
+experience is very little and would never serve to lift him from out the
+ranks of savagery. What he learns from the experience of the race is
+much, and gives the whole distinction between the civilised man and the
+savage. It is the discipline of the race, that experience which meets
+each of us in the form of traditions, counsels, institutions, etc.,
+from which we get the really vital lessons of life. But if that is so
+the attempted justification of natural processes on the ground that God
+designed them as they are so that man might learn from experience breaks
+down. The individual does not so learn, but is presented with the
+products of the experience of others, and which he accepts in the vast
+majority of cases without even putting it to the test. And, therefore,
+the method by which man learns was open from the start. Had there been
+some _man_ who could have told us generations ago all that has been
+slowly discovered since, we should all have been the better for it, and
+we should have learned then exactly as we have learned since. And if God
+was really anxious to teach us, what possible objection could there be
+to his teaching us in some such way? In other words, how can we justify
+the process if the result is possible by any other method?
+
+The standpoint of the theist is that God develops the species in order
+to benefit the individual. But the order is that the individual is
+sacrificed to benefit the species--so far as any benefit can be traced.
+For it must be noted that it is not the individual who has passed
+through all the suffering, who has lived through the years of
+semi-animal life, or through the years of tyranny, that finally emerges
+strengthened and triumphant. It is a different individual altogether.
+The greatest benefit is secured by those who come latest, and who have
+done the least to secure it. The reward bears no relation to the
+personal desert. And at the end what happens? If we are to be guided by
+the lessons of science, we must believe that one day the human race
+will cease to exist, just as certainly as one day it began to exist.
+And what are we to think of the almighty wisdom and goodness which is
+responsible for all? An almighty intelligence designs a process to
+produce a perfect animal through the sufferings of myriads of other
+animals. It takes thousands and thousands of generations to complete the
+process, and meantime every year is bringing the whole plan nearer to
+extinction. Divine wisdom! Anything nearer complete stupidity and
+futility it would be difficult to conceive.
+
+I know that at this point it will be said that I am leaving out of
+account the future life, and that the story of human growth is to be
+continued elsewhere. But that will certainly not meet all that has been
+said above. And it is a curious manner of meeting an objection based
+upon the only phase of existence that we know with assurance to tell us
+that our indictment will receive a complete refutation in another state
+of existence of which we know nothing at all. The reply is in itself an
+admission of the truth of the charges. If life admitted of a moral
+justification here there would be no need to appeal to some other life
+in which these blemishes are made good. If some other life is needed to
+correct the moral abnormalities of this one, then the indictment of the
+Atheist is justified. And one is left again wondering why, if almighty
+intelligence could make all things straight in the next world, why the
+same intelligence could not have made the necessary corrections in this
+one.
+
+The truth is that the God of the evolutionary process is as much a myth
+as is the god of special creation. He has all the blemishes of the other
+one--one step removed. The Paleyan God had at least the merit of coming
+to close grips with his work. The evolutionary one shields himself
+behind the fact that the work is done by his agents, and then it is
+found that he created the agents for this special work and all that they
+do is the product of the qualities with which he endowed them. If
+anything the evolutionary deity is more objectionable than the older
+one. And if theists will examine nature candidly and with an open mind,
+they will see that it is so. I do not know that anyone has drawn a more
+truthful picture of natural processes as they appear from the point of
+view of being the product of a divine intelligence than has Mr. W. H.
+Mallock, and his picture is the more deadly as coming from a champion of
+theism. If, he says, theists will look the facts of the universe
+steadily in the face:
+
+
+     What they will see will astonish them. They will see that if there
+     is anything at the back of this vast process, with a consciousness
+     and a purpose in any way resembling our own--a being who knows what
+     he wants and is doing his best to get it--he is instead of a holy
+     and all-wise God, a scatter-brained, semi-powerful, semi-impotent
+     monster. They will recognise as clearly as they ever did the old
+     familiar facts which seemed to them evidences of God's wisdom,
+     love, and goodness; but they will find that these facts, when taken
+     in connection with the others, only supply us with a standard in
+     the nature of this Being himself by which most of his acts are
+     exhibited to us as those of a criminal madman. If he had been
+     blind, he had not sin; but if we maintain that he can see, then his
+     sin remains. Habitually a bungler as he is, and callous when not
+     actively cruel, we are forced to regard him, when he seems to
+     exhibit benevolence, as not divinely benevolent, but merely weak
+     and capricious, like a boy who fondles a kitten and the next moment
+     sets a dog at it, and not only does his moral character fall from
+     him bit by bit but his dignity disappears also. The orderly
+     processes of the stars and the larger phenomena of nature are
+     suggestive of nothing so much as a wearisome Court ceremonial
+     surrounding a king who is unable to understand or to break away
+     from it; whilst the thunder and whirlwind, which have from time
+     immemorial been accepted as special revelations of his awful power
+     and majesty, suggest, if they suggest anything of a personal
+     character at all, merely some blackguardly larrikin kicking his
+     heels in the clouds, not perhaps bent on mischief, but indifferent
+     to the fact that he is causing it....
+
+     The truth is, if we consider the universe as a whole, it fails to
+     suggest a conscious and purposive God at all; and it fails to do so
+     not because the processes of evolution as such preclude the idea
+     that a God might have made use of them for a definite purpose, but
+     because when we come to consider these processes in detail, and
+     view them in the light of the only purposes they suggest, we find
+     them to be such that a God who could deliberately have been guilty
+     of them would be a God too absurd, too monstrous, too mad to be
+     credible. (_Religion as a Credible Doctrine_; pp. 176-8).
+
+
+As we have already seen, the attempt to find a plan in the processes of
+evolution breaks down hopelessly. On analysis, the supposed plan turns
+out to be nothing more than a perception of some sort of regularity, and
+as regularity is an inescapable condition of existence, all that it
+proves _is_ existence. On that point there is no dispute. And the moral
+justification of the cosmic process while intellectually indefensible,
+adds an element of moral repulsion. That the process as we know it is
+morally repugnant is shown by the appeal to the future, the request to
+suspend judgment till such time as the plan is completed, when it is
+hoped that the end will justify the means. God, it is trusted, will
+justify himself in the future. But in his anxiety to impress upon us
+the fact that God has a moral future the theist forgets that he has had
+a past, and that past is a black one. The uncounted generations of
+suffering in the past is not to be compensated by a probable happiness
+in the future. The myriads of organisms that have lived incomplete
+lives, and ended them in deaths of suffering are not cancelled by the
+probability that at some time, still in the future, a comparatively
+small number will lead lives of happiness. The record is there, "there
+is blood upon the hand," and not all the apologies of a self-convicted
+animism can ever wipe it clean.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE PROBLEM OF PAIN.
+
+
+The problem of how to harmonise the existence of a God as believers
+picture him to be with a world such as experience discloses, is as old
+as theology. And the problem will disappear only when theology is given
+up as an aggregate of question begging words and gratuitous hypotheses
+based upon a foundation of primitive ignorance and inherited delusion.
+For the majority of those questions that are properly called theological
+are not of the necessary order. Questions such as those connected with
+the mutations of matter, the development of life, the growth of society,
+or the nature and clash of human passions cannot be evaded. They are
+present in the facts themselves. But the problems of theology are
+self-created; they arise out of certain beliefs, and have no existence
+apart from those beliefs. They are the joint product of beliefs which
+are wholly useless, in conflict with facts with which they cannot be
+squared.
+
+What is known as "The Problem of Evil" is an apt illustration of the
+truth of what has been said. Here there is created a problem which is
+not alone quite gratuitous, but it succeeds in inverting the real
+question at issue. For unless we accept the world as the product of a
+good and wise God, there is no problem of evil for us to explain. The
+problem of evil is, given such a deity, how to account for the existence
+of evil, or, if it exists, how account for its continuance. The problem
+is created by the theory. Dismiss the theory and no problem is left.
+And it is in line with what is done in other directions, that, having
+created the difficulty, the theist should present it to the non-theist
+as one of the questions that he must answer.
+
+In reality there is no problem of evil in connection with ethics. The
+ethical problem is not the existence of evil, but the emergence of good;
+not, that is, why do men do wrong, but why do they do right. That life
+should cease to be is not at all wonderful, but that with so many
+potential dangers around the organism, the actions of living beings
+should become so automatically adapted to their surroundings as to shun
+the actions which destroy life, and perform such actions as maintain
+it--at least, to such an extent as secures the preservation of the
+species--may well arouse surprise and give birth to enquiry. So with the
+question of evil and suffering in the world. That these exist is
+undeniable, but the enquiry they suggest is only on all fours with the
+enquiry suggested by any other natural fact, while the ethical problem
+centres, not around the existence of wrong action, but around the
+emergence of right conduct. It is the evolution of happiness that forms
+the kernel of the ethical problem, not the evolution of pain.
+
+The earlier form of the Christian apologetic took the form of a
+dualistic theory of the world. There were two powers, God and the devil,
+and between them they shared the responsibility for all good and evil.
+So far, good. But this was clearly saving the goodness of God at the
+expense of his omnipotence. Moreover, if God was to be thought of as the
+creator of the universe, the theory, as Mill said, paid him the
+doubtful compliment of making him the creator of Satan, and, therefore,
+the creator of evil once removed. Or, if not, God and the devil were
+left as rival monarchs quarrelling over a territory that appeared to
+exist apart from and independent of either.
+
+But nowadays the devil has gone out of fashion. Very few of the clergy
+ever mention him, and although an attempt was made to reinstate him some
+years ago by the author of "Evil and Evolution," the endeavour was a
+failure. And bereft of the convenient scapegoat, the devil, the present
+day theist is compelled to attempt an apology for evil that will appeal
+to natural and verifiable facts for confirmation, or which must, at
+least, not be in conflict with them. If theism is to stand, a place and
+a meaning must be found for the evil in the world, and found in such a
+way that it either relieves God of the responsibility for its existence
+or its being can be shown to harmonise with his assumed character. It is
+no longer possible to fall back on Paul's position that the potter is at
+liberty to doom one pot to honour and the other to dishonour. The moral
+responsibility for the kind of pots he turns out cannot be so easily
+evaded. As Professor Sorley says, "If ethical theism is to stand, the
+evil in the world cannot be referred to God in the same way as the good
+is referred to him." Somehow, he must be relieved of the responsibility
+for its existence, or a purpose for it must be found.
+
+Now, curiously enough, modern theists hover between the two positions.
+Professor Sorley, representing one position, says that the only way to
+avoid referring evil to God is by "the postulate of human freedom."
+("Moral Values and the Idea of God," p. 469.) This is also the way out
+adopted by Canon Green in "The Problem of Evil," and it turns upon a
+mere play on words. Thus, Canon Green says that there is one thing God
+could not do. "He could not force him to be good, i.e., to choose virtue
+freely, for the idea of forcing a free being to choose involves a
+contradiction." And Professor Sorley says more elaborately that "things
+occur in the universe which are not due to God's will, although they
+must have happened with his permission ... a higher range of power and
+perfection is shown in the creation of free beings than in the creation
+of beings whose every thought and action are pre-determined by their
+Creator," and while he admits there is limitations to man's power of
+choice, he holds that there is one form of choice that is always there,
+and that is the choice of good and evil. ("Moral Values and the Idea of
+God," pp. 469-70.)
+
+In all this one can see little more than verbal confusion. To commence
+with Canon Green, which will also cover much that Prof. Sorley says on
+the same point. When we are told man must choose virtue freely in order
+that what he does shall partake of the character of morality, it is
+plain that he is using the word "forced" in two senses. In the one sense
+force may mean no more than a determinant. Thus we may say that our
+sympathies _force_ us to act in such and such a way. Or the religious
+man may say that the love of God forces him to act in such and such a
+manner. Force here means any consideration that will lead to action, and
+no one can object to its use in this sense.
+
+A second meaning of force is that of compulsion from without, as when a
+strong man gets hold of a weak one and by exertion of physical strength
+compels him to do something that he is disinclined to do, or when one
+forces another by threat of punishment. In this latter sense no one
+dreams of harmonising force with moral action. Neither law nor common
+sense does so. But compulsion in the sense of one's actions being forced
+by a mental or moral disposition no one outside an asylum would dispute.
+And what Canon Green does is to ask us to reject the idea of a moral
+action being forced, in the sense of external compulsion, and then uses
+it in the sense of an absence of dispositions that will lead to certain
+courses of conduct.
+
+It is probable that the Canon would reject this interpretation of his
+statement, but if it does not mean this, then his argument is
+unintelligible. For if it is admitted that what man does is the product
+of his mental or moral dispositions, in other words, of his nature, and
+if, as is undeniable, the nature with which he fronts the world is the
+product of heredity and environment, he would no more be "forced" to do
+good had God given him impulses strong enough to overcome all tendency
+to evil than he is now when his impulses come to him from his ancestors
+and his general social heredity.
+
+All that is implied in a moral act is free choice. But choice is free,
+not when it is independent of organic promptings; that is absurd; but
+when those organic promptings are allowed to find expression. There is
+no other rational meaning to "choice" than this. Choice does not tell us
+how it is determined, on that point it can say nothing, any more than a
+child can say why it chooses sugar in preference to cayenne pepper. Its
+choice, we say, is determined by its taste. And its taste is determined
+by--? To answer that question we must call in the chemist and the
+physiologist, and they probably will tell us why our choice moves in one
+direction rather than in another.
+
+When men like Canon Green talk of the morality of an action being
+dependent upon our _choice_ between right and wrong, what they probably
+have in their minds is the perception of right and wrong. For we may
+perceive the possibility of one course while we are performing another.
+But the power of choice is clearly limited. A man cannot choose to be a
+mathematician, however much he may see the desirability of becoming one.
+And many a man may in the moral sphere see the advisability of his being
+different in character from what he is, but may altogether lack the
+capacity of becoming such. And the power of choice differs not only with
+each individual, but with the same individual at different times.
+Finally, the more fixed the character of the individual the less
+conscious he is of choice, or of a sense of freedom to do differently
+from what he actually does, and as this applies with equal force to
+character, whether it be good or bad, we reach, finally, the suicidal
+position that the more fundamentally moral a man becomes, the less moral
+he is.[5]
+
+Now seeing that all our educational processes aim at making the good
+character, so to speak, automatic, that is, to quite fill the mind with
+worthy motives and wise power of choice, and seeing also that a
+character is good so far as this is done, will some one explain in what
+way moral character would have suffered had God so made man that he
+would have had intelligence enough to always choose the good and reject
+the bad? For, be it noted, the apology put forward for the present state
+of affairs is that man is in a state of probation, he is passing through
+a course of moral discipline, and it is essential that he should
+experience the possibility to do wrong, and even to occasionally do the
+wrong. And the end of the process of tuition is, what? The production of
+a perfect being in whom there shall not be a proneness to do wrong, to
+whose purified moral nature wrong doing shall be quite foreign. That is
+to say that we are to reach as a result of this long roundabout process,
+with all its waste and bungling, just what might have been established
+at the beginning. For either the perfect moral being is without the
+quality which we have just been assured is essential to morality, or the
+whole argument is reduced to nonsense.
+
+For it is impossible to assume that the bad man chooses to be bad with a
+full perception of the consequences of his actions, and at the same time
+with the power to do otherwise. We all agree that the _right_ choice is
+ultimately a _wise_ choice, and that if we could all trace out the
+consequences of all we do, we should realise that it was to our real
+interest to act rightly. And if that is admitted, it follows that the
+"choice" to do evil is the product of short-sightedness, or of some
+defect of temperament which prevents our standing up against the
+temptations of the moment. And our ethical education is mainly directed
+to making good this defect in our make up. But suppose that amount of
+wisdom or strength had been an endowment of our nature from the outset,
+is there any conceivable way in which we should have been the worse for
+it? For even as it is there are some people who do make a fairly wise
+and right choice, and whose high-water mark of excellence is not reached
+through the crime and folly of the revival meeting convert. Are they the
+worse because they have never yielded to evil? Is the naturally good man
+really a less worthy character than the one whose comparative goodness
+is only reached through and after a lengthy course of evil living? And
+if not, in what way would the race have been worsened had we all been as
+fortunately circumstanced? If it was really God's purpose to have a race
+of men and women who should be both good and wise, it remains for the
+theist to show in what way the plan would not have been as well served
+by making them at once with a sufficiency of intelligence to act in the
+real interests of themselves and of all around them.
+
+Coming closer to earth the theist attempts to find a justification for
+the existing order of things by finding a use for pain and suffering in
+their educational influence on human nature, and in the impossibility of
+altering for the better the consequences of natural law.
+
+The real question at issue, says one of the most eloquent of modern
+theists, the late Dr. Martineau, is "whether the laws of which complaint
+is made work such harm that they ought never to have been enacted; or
+whether, in spite of occasional disasters in their path, the sentient
+existence of which they are the conditions has in its history a vast
+excess of blessing." (Study of Religion II., p. 91.) And Canon Green,
+who uses some of Dr. Martineau's ideas without the latter's eloquence or
+power of reasoning, asks, "If God were to say, 'You condemn me for this
+suffering! Well, take my creative power and re-create the world to
+please yourself and to suit your own sense of justice and mercy'" could
+we think out a world that should be better than this one? (Problem of
+Evil, p. 48.)
+
+Now both these methods of raising the question--and they are
+representative of a whole group--serve but to confuse the issue. For no
+one denies that some benefit may result from the present cosmical
+structure. But that does not touch the complaint that the structure is
+not such as fits in with the existence of a presiding intelligence such
+as theism asks us to accept. And the question of Canon Green's whether
+we could turn out a better universe than the one that actually exists,
+is wide of the mark also. If I purchase a motor car as the work of a
+genius in car-building, and find when I get my purchase home that it
+cannot be made to run, it does not destroy the justice of my complaint
+to ask whether I could build a better one or not. The important thing is
+that the car is not what it should be, and judging by the product the
+builder is not what he is represented to be either. Dr. Martineau was
+far too keen a controversialist to adopt Canon Green's foolish retort,
+but he does seek to parry the force of the atheist criticism by saying
+that God "if once he commits his will to any determinate method, and for
+the realisation of his ends selects and institutes a scheme of
+instrumental rules, he thereby shuts the door on a thousand things that
+might have been done before." (_Study_, p. 85). To that one may reply,
+so much the worse for his judgment; while if the fact of his having once
+adopted a "determinate method" caused him to resolve to stick to it, in
+spite of its consequences in practice, and irrespective of the
+beneficial results that might have followed its modification, we can
+only regret that the deity was not acquainted with Emerson's opinion
+that "a foolish consistency is the bugbear of little minds." Even what
+is said to be the greatest mind of all might easily have benefited from
+the warning.
+
+Canon Green tries another line of reply, which is not in the least more
+convincing. He pictures to us a father who, by misappropriating trust
+funds, brings disgrace to the whole of his family. The mother is driven
+to despair and drink. The sister dies for want of food, the brother
+finds his career ruined. The disaster is complete, and Canon Green says
+it is inevitable because we cannot have a world in which the relations
+of parents and children exist without having them suffer from each
+other's faults. So far as the present world goes that is true. But it is
+certainly a strange reply to the complaint that an arrangement is unjust
+to say that as the injustice results from the arrangement, therefore, we
+have no cause for complaint. And that _we_ are unable to make a better
+world is beside the mark. Between the perception of an injustice, and
+the ability to remove it there is a world of difference, and although we
+may be unable to remedy the defect the defect remains.
+
+But, indeed, human nature does try to produce a world in which such
+happenings as those depicted shall either not occur or their
+consequences shall be reduced to a minimum. We do not hang a son for
+his parents' crime, nor do humane people blame children for the
+shortcomings of their parents. To some extent we try to correct the
+consequences that follow, and even though the endeavour be futile, that
+is in itself an indictment of the existing order. Man does at least try
+to correct the injustices his God is said to have created.
+
+It is overlooked also that the evils which follow from wrong actions are
+not confined to those immediately connected, and who may conceivably
+have their resentment to some extent dulled, if not lessened, by that
+fact. People in no way connected, and who can have no perception of the
+cause of their suffering, who are unconscious of everything, save the
+one fact that they are suffering, feel its consequences. When a great
+war spreads devastation all over the world, can it be said that any
+useful purpose is served by the sufferings of millions who are not in
+the slightest degree aware of the cause of their agony? When a shady
+financial operation brings an innocent man to ruin, and effects all the
+consequences which Canon Green imagines resulting from the defaulting
+parent, how can it be said that the catastrophe admits of ethical
+justification? In many cases the thought of the injury experienced acts
+itself as a fresh cause of degradation. It creates a rankling and a
+bitterness which depresses and inhibits the power to struggle, unless it
+be the desire to struggle for revenge against a condition of things of
+which the evil results are only too apparent. People are not merely
+punished for the evil they do; they are punished for the evil that
+others do, and the punishment, so far as we can see, bears no observable
+relation to the wrong done. There is no _ethical_ relation between
+actions and consequences. Not alone is the incidence of an action
+dependent upon personal qualities--some will suffer more from having
+accidentally told an untruth than others will suffer from having
+committed gross and deliberate fraud--but nature is absolutely careless
+of whether what I do is motived by good or bad intentions. If I get a
+wetting through going out to help some one in distress, the consequences
+will be exactly the same as though I had got wet going out to commit a
+burglary or a murder. And when Dr. Martineau talks of the "natural
+penalties for guilt," and adds that "sin being there, it would be simply
+monstrous that there should be no suffering and would fully justify the
+despair which now raises its sickly cry of complaint against the
+retributory wretchedness of human transgression" (_Study_ II., p. 106),
+the reply is that there are no such things as "_natural_ penalties for
+guilt." There are only consequences of actions, and they are the same
+whatever be the moral quality of the actions performed. In the same way
+that nature may in the course of an earthquake destroy the homes of a
+dozen worthy families and leave a gambling hell untouched, so it will in
+other directions punish where a man, from good intentions, places
+himself in the path of punishment, and refrain from afflicting one whose
+selfishness or greed has guarded him against attack. There are natural
+consequences of actions, there are no natural penalties for guilt, and
+there are no natural rewards for innocence. Rewards and penalties are
+the creation of man, and it is only in the form of a figure of speech
+that we can apply them to nature.
+
+It is equally idle to speak of pain as a form of discipline. Professor
+Sorley says that if the pain in the world can be turned to the increase
+of goodness, then its existence offers no insuperable objection to "the
+ethical view of reality." So Dr. Martineau says that suffering is "the
+moral discipline" through which our nature arrives at its "true
+elevation." It is needless to multiply quotations; such statements are
+the commonplaces of theistic controversy, and almost any book that one
+cares to pick up will supply further illustrations, if they be required.
+None can reject them, because no theist can afford to candidly admit
+that the world we know offers no justification for his belief. The
+belief in the goodness of God, as Canon Green says, is a belief that is
+"absolutely fundamental to all religion," and if the facts as we see
+them do not support the belief, some apology must be found that will
+marry the theory to the fact.
+
+Nevertheless, the belief in the disciplinary power of pain or suffering
+is, if not quite illusory, so nearly so that it is useless for the
+purpose for which it is brought forward. In the first place, it does not
+require very profound study to see that whatever are the lessons taught
+by suffering they are seldom proportionate to the conduct which cause
+them, nor do those who suffer reap the alleged disciplinary benefit of
+their suffering. Let us take a common case. A mother goes out and leaves
+a child near an unguarded fire. The mother returns to find the child
+burned to death. Where is the discipline here? Certainly the child
+cannot have gained any. But there is, of course, the mother. The mother
+has learned such a lesson that she will never forget it, and will never
+again commit the same blunder. There we have it. A child is allowed to
+die by a hideously cruel death in order that a mother may learn a lesson
+in carefulness. It is good to learn from other sources that God's ways
+are not our ways. A man who tried to imitate them, and who burned one of
+his children in order to teach its mother how to look after the rest,
+would soon find himself in the criminal court, or in an asylum. But what
+would be insanity or criminal cruelty in the case of man, becomes, in
+the alembic of religious apologetic, goodness and wisdom in God.
+
+The theory that it is the function of pain to elevate and to discipline
+is simply not true. One has only to look to see that in countless cases
+the effect of pain is disaster. The world's best work is not born of
+pain but of pleasure. There is no pain and no suffering, there is hardly
+even toil, in the work of a genius. In all the higher walks of music, of
+art, of literature, the work is perfect in proportion as the worker
+finds himself in agreeable and pleasant surroundings. And what is true
+of the higher aspect of art is true also of life in general. Life may be
+lived in spite of pain, as good work may be done in spite of
+discouraging circumstances, but one might as well talk of a plant
+flourishing because of poor soil, or sharp frosts, as to speak of life
+becoming better because of pain.
+
+The normal function of pain is to depress, that of pleasure is to
+heighten. As Spencer said, every pain lowers the tide of life; every
+pleasure raises the tide of life. It is one of the commonest of sights
+to see those suffering from illness becoming more self-centred, less
+careful of others, and to see the disintegrating consequences of
+disease on character. Here and there one may find a character that has
+had its rough edges smoothed down by suffering, but for every case of
+that kind one may find a score of an opposite order. It is not the
+underfed, badly clothed, neglected child that is likely to make the best
+citizen, but the one that has the best chance of developing itself in
+healthy surroundings. And it is a curious commentary, if it were true,
+to argue that a good and wise God so arranged things that pain and
+suffering, even undeserved suffering, should be the main way for the
+development of character.
+
+A strange but not uncommon argument is used by Canon Green in dealing
+with the suffering incidental to the various disasters that overtake
+mankind from time to time. Suffering, he says, has a certain element of
+martyrdom about it. Even evils due to human greed and carelessness bring
+some benefit in their train. Thus, apropos of the _Titanic_ disaster:--
+
+
+     Every such disaster tends to produce some improvement for future
+     generations. Shipowners are forced to supply more boats, wireless
+     instalment is required on all ships; the idle rich are led to think
+     less of saving useless time and more of saving lives, their own and
+     those of men in the stokeholds. In a sense those who perish may be
+     said to be unwilling martyrs who by their deaths purchase some
+     advantage for others. It will be said that it is a great price to
+     pay for a small advantage, and one which might have been cheaply
+     gained in some other ways. That is so. But so too the ways of
+     nature are cruel. So many seeds must be sown, so many young animals
+     or birds or fishes born, so many must be trampled out of existence,
+     that only the best may survive. (_Problem of Evil_; pp. 163-4).
+
+
+That certainly puts all the owners of slum property, all the grasping
+shipowners, all those who batten and fatten on other people's welfare in
+a most favourable light. We have been thinking them almost criminals
+when they were in reality public benefactors. They lead to many
+improvements, and even though the improvements come too late to benefit
+those who suffer from the evils, yet they do come--sometimes. Certainly
+it might give some comfort if the sufferers knew what it was they were
+being sacrificed for, and that others would be benefited by their death.
+But they do not, and we are therefore bound to conclude that whatever
+satisfaction is felt is by those who survive. When a _Titanic_ sinks it
+must be the people on shore who see the element of goodness in it since
+it makes travelling easier for _them_. And the kindness developed in one
+who can excuse the brutalities of nature because it brings some benefit
+to himself is of a rather startling nature.
+
+The fundamental fault in all reasoning of this order lies in the
+assumption that pain ceases to be pain if it can be shown to bring good
+to _some_ one. But that it not so. Pleasure and pain are not
+quantitative things, increments of which can be carried on from
+generation to generation and a balance struck at the end, much as one
+strikes a balance between the profits and losses of a year's trading.
+All suffering and all enjoyment are of necessity personal. Suffering is
+not increased by extending it over a million instances. There was not
+more pain because a larger number happened to be be killed in the
+European war than are killed in a borderland skirmish. There were a
+larger _number_ of people involved in the one case than in the other,
+but that is all. Multiplying the number of cases makes a greater appeal
+to a sluggish imagination, but it adds nothing substantial to the fact.
+Feeling, whether it be pleasant or painful, is a matter of individual
+experience, and that being so it is not the number of people who suffer
+through no fault of their own, and, so far as one can see, without any
+benefit proportionate to the suffering experienced, but the fact of
+there being this suffering at all. That is the point the theist must
+face; it is the one point he systematically avoids.
+
+Another form of the same argument meets us in the familiar plea that
+bodily pain "sounds the alarm bell of disease in time for its removal."
+In some sense it may be admitted that a painful feeling, in certain
+circumstances, does act as a warning that persistence will lead to
+disaster. But it is not universally true in the sense and in the degree
+that is needed to justify the argument, and it is a "warning" out of all
+proportion to the danger faced. In the first place, pain cannot be a
+warning against disease, it can only be an indication of its presence.
+It does not warn us against the dangers of a contemplated course of
+conduct, nor can it tell us what conduct has led to the pain
+experienced. And in the case of contagious diseases, what amount of
+warning is there given? In some case the victim is stricken and is dead
+in so short a time as not to know with what it is he has been afflicted,
+and certainly without any chance of being warned. What warning is there
+in the case of a violent poison? Or what relation is there between pains
+felt and dangers run? The most dangerous diseases may have painless
+beginnings, and be well rooted in the system before the victim is
+driven by discomfort to seek medical advice. On the other hand, a corn
+or a toothache, neither of them very deadly ailments, create pain out of
+all proportion to their gravity. And if we take the case of excessive
+cold we have here an instance where instead of pain acting as a warning,
+the danger just acts as an anaesthetic. The victim is oppressed by
+drowsiness, sinks into insensibility, finally death. Here it is not the
+approach of death that is painful, but the return to life, the pain of
+restoring circulation being very severe indeed.
+
+Fear, which may be classed as a species of pain, appears to act, in the
+majority of instances, as an enemy, rather than as a friend to the
+animal experiencing it. Thus Professor Mosso points out that in the
+animal organism there exists a number of harmful reactions that increase
+in number the graver the peril becomes. We have all read of the
+"fascination" of the bird by the serpent, and there are other animals
+that in the presence of an enemy become so palsied with fear as to
+become incapable of defence, even that of flight. And with man it is not
+as the danger becomes most acute that his nerves become steadier and his
+courage firmer. The opposite is probably more often the case. In all
+these cases it is as though nature had lured the animal or man into a
+position of grave danger, and then does its best to divest him of
+adequate means of defence against it.
+
+Common sense revolts against the doctrine that pain is a good thing, and
+the fact of this is everywhere seen in the attempt of man to get rid of
+it. No one trusts it as a sure warning against disease, no one turns to
+it as a means of purifying character. All these pleas are the mere
+platitudes of a religious apologetic trying to harmonise a primitive
+theory of things with a larger knowledge and a more developed moral
+sense. Pain and suffering in the world remain facts whether we believe
+in the existence of a God or not, but we are at least freed from the
+paralysing horror of the belief that all the suffering and pain in
+nature is part of a plan. If man realised all that that belief involved
+it might indeed rob his mind of all strength to struggle against the
+forces that make for his destruction. Fortunately no race of people
+could act upon the logical implications of the theistic theory and
+maintain its existence. In practice, as well as in theory, theism has
+had to come to terms with facts. And now the series of adjustments have
+almost reached their end. The belief in God has been traced to its
+origin, and we know it to have issued in an altogether discredited view
+of the world and of man. We know that man does not discover God, he
+invents him, and an invention is properly discarded when a better
+instrument is forthcoming. To-day the hypothesis of God stands in just
+the same relation to the better life of to-day as the fire drill of the
+savage does to the modern method of obtaining a light. The belief in God
+may continue awhile in virtue of the lack of intelligence of some, of
+the carelessness of others, and of the conservative character of the
+mass. But no amount of apologising can make up for the absence of
+genuine knowledge, nor can the flow of the finest eloquence do aught but
+clothe in regal raiment the body of a corpse.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[5] I have discussed this question at length in my "Determinism or Free
+Will."
+
+
+
+
+Part II.
+
+SUBSTITUTES FOR ATHEISM.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A QUESTION OF PREJUDICE.
+
+
+It affords some ground for surprise that there should be so great a
+resentment shown against religious disbelief in general and against
+Atheism in particular. We have here more than the mere rejection of a
+theory or view of life. There is a certain emotional resentment, a
+shrinking from the one who is guilty of disbelief, such as is not
+explainable on ordinary grounds. The attitude is ridiculous, so
+ridiculous that many who adopt it are ashamed to openly acknowledge it,
+but it is there, and its existence calls for explanation.
+
+We believe this is to be found in the peculiar history of the god-idea
+combined with primitive theories of social life. Like many frames of
+mind that persist in civilised society, this attitude towards disbelief
+has its roots in a conception of the world that has been generally
+discarded and in social conditions that have ceased to exist among
+civilised people. To begin with, we have the fact that religion
+dominates the life of primitive man to a degree that is almost
+inconceivable to the modern mind. The anger of the tribal gods has to be
+always reckoned with. What they desire must be done, what they do not
+desire must be avoided. In the next place there exists a very strong
+sense of collective responsibility. What one member of a tribe does the
+whole of the tribe is responsible for, both to the members of other
+tribes and to the gods. We see a survival of this in the reversion to a
+more primitive state of things that takes place during a war. In some
+circumstances hatred of the whole of a people with whom a nation is at
+war becomes a duty, and all are responsible for the offences of each. So
+in primitive times an offence against the gods became an act of treason
+against the tribe. It might expose the whole of the tribe to disaster.
+
+It is not, it must be noted, that primitive man is fond of the gods, or
+jealous of their honour; he is not any more fond of them than is the
+modern citizen of the tax-collector. And no one will ever really
+understand the question of religion until he rids himself of the notion
+that primitive man spends his time _looking_ for gods or that he is
+happy in their company. He is simply afraid that a single unruly member
+may get the whole tribe into a serious difficulty. The savage is
+severely practical; his conduct rests upon grounds of, to him, the most
+obvious utility, and his treatment of the heretic leaves little to be
+desired on the score of effectiveness. The unbeliever is a dangerous
+person, and he is promptly suppressed. The first heretic died a martyr
+to the tribe; the last heretic will die a martyr to the race.
+
+Primitive conditions die out, but primitive feelings linger, and
+although in theory we have reached the stage of believing that each
+person must bear the consequences of his own religious opinions, the
+deeply rooted dislike to the man who rejects the rule of the gods
+remains.
+
+Historically we have also to reckon with the operations of an interested
+priesthood, but leaving that on one side as a secondary development it
+would seem that one must trace to some such cause as the one above
+indicated the deep and widespread dislike to such a term as atheism,
+even by many who to all intents and purposes are atheist in their
+opinion. Certainly in this country, where compromise is more fashionable
+than in many other places, the dislike to the word is partly due to its
+uncompromising character. It is clear cut and definite. Its connotations
+cannot be misunderstood by any one who takes the word in its literal
+meaning. The Theist is one who believes in a personal God. The Atheist
+is one who is without belief in a personal God. The meaning is clear,
+and the implied mental attitude is plain. It is opposed to theism, and
+has no significance apart from Theism. And, as will be seen, when
+non-theists quarrel with it, it is only because it is mis-stated or
+misunderstood.
+
+But most people dislike clear cut terms. They prefer to exist in an
+atmosphere of mental ambiguity and intellectual fog which blurs outlines
+and obscures differences. Unbeliever is preferable to some,
+sceptic--presumably because of its age and philosophical associations,
+is a greater favourite, and Agnostic is more beloved than either--the
+latter has indeed been pressed into the service of a more or less
+nebulous "religion." As it is said, "We are all Socialists nowadays," so
+it is said that we are unbelievers or Agnostics nowadays. But no one
+says we are all Atheists nowadays. Timidity can find no use for a word
+of that character. Of course, if a man believes that some word other
+than Atheism best describes his state of mind, he has a perfect right to
+select the one that seems fittest. But when one finds non-theists
+repudiating the name of Atheist with as much moral indignation as though
+they had been accused of shoplifting, one cannot help the suspicion
+that the heat displayed is not unconnected with some lurking fear of the
+"respectabilities." It does seem that while many may have outgrown all
+fear of the God of orthodoxy, the fear of the god of social pressure
+remains.
+
+So far as the Theist is concerned it is quite understandable that his
+objection to Atheism should involve a certain moral element. That would
+result from what has already been said concerning the cause of the fear
+of heresy. Still one would have thought that in these days it would
+require a person of almost abnormal stupidity to assume that disbelief
+in God has its roots in a defective moral character. The facts would
+warrant a quite opposite conclusion. In the first place, the rejection
+of any well-established belief argues a degree of independence of mind
+that is, unfortunately, not common. The ordinary mind follows the common
+route. It is the extraordinary mind that strikes out from the beaten
+path. The heretic, whether in politics or in religion, may be wrong, but
+there is always with him the guarantee of a certain measure of mental
+strength that is not, on the face of the matter, present with one who
+follows the orthodox path. And that in itself represents a type of mind
+of no little social value. Moreover, I for one, am quite ready to assert
+that, class for class, the Freethinker does represent a type of mind
+considerably above the average. That this is not more generally
+recognised is due to the policy of the religious advocate in contrasting
+the uneducated Freethinker with the educated believer.
+
+Secondly, it strikes one as almost insane to assume that in a Christian
+country Atheism should be professed as a cloak or as an excuse for
+misconduct. They who talk in this strain greatly undervalue the
+accommodating power of religion. Is there a single form of rascality
+known to man for which religion has not been able to provide a sanction?
+If there is I have failed to come across it. The use of religion made by
+tyranny in all ages and in all countries is proof of how accommodating
+it is to man's passions and interests. The picture of the dying murderer
+meeting his end, filled with the consolation of religion, and certain of
+his speedy salvation, contains a lesson that all may read if they will.
+
+Error there may be in any case where opinion is concerned, but
+profession of an opinion that paves the way for suspicion and
+persecution provides a _prima facie_ guarantee of honesty that cannot be
+furnished by the advocacy of one that stands high in the public favour.
+For aught I know to the contrary, every one of England's Bishops may be
+quite honest men. But there can be no certainty about it so long as the
+profession carries with it all it does. The dice are loaded in favour of
+conviction. But the man who faces social ostracism, and even loss of
+liberty in defence of an opinion, is giving a hostage to truth such as
+none other can give.
+
+This association of heresy with a defective moral character is a very
+old game. It has been played by all religions, and, it must be admitted,
+with considerable success. Writing in the second century Lucian shows us
+the same policy at work in his day. In one of his dialogues, when the
+Atheist has refuted one after another the theistic arguments of his
+opponent, the defender of the gods turns on his opponent with--
+
+
+     You god robbing, shabby, villainous, infamous, halter-sick
+     vagabond! Does not everybody know that your father was a
+     tatterdemalion, and your mother no better than she should be? that
+     you murdered your brother and are guilty of other execrable crimes?
+     You lewd, lying, rascally, abominable varlet.
+
+
+That type of disputant is still with us, and is still supporting his
+beliefs with the same tactics. And it is successful with some. There is
+a certain snobbishness in human nature that makes it seek the
+association of well-known names and shun all of those with an
+unfashionable reputation. To observe the way in which some people will
+introduce into their conversation, speeches, or writings, the names of
+well-known men, is a revelation of this mental snobbery. And the moral
+equivalent of this is the fear of being found in the company of an
+opinion that has been branded as immoral. Such people have all the fear
+of an unpopular opinion that a savage has of a tribal taboo--it is, in
+fact, a survival of the same spirit that gave the tribal taboo its
+force. It is, thus, not a very difficult matter to warn people off an
+undesirable opinion. Samuel Taylor Coleridge relates how the clergy
+raised the cry of Atheism against him, although he had never advanced
+further than Deism. And it is to his credit that in referring to this
+charge he said:--
+
+
+     Little do these men know what Atheism is. Not one man in a thousand
+     has either strength of mind or goodness of heart to be an Atheist.
+     I repeat it. Not one man in a thousand has either strength of mind
+     or goodness of heart to be an Atheist.
+
+
+And we have also the oft-quoted testimony of the late Professor
+Tyndall:--
+
+
+     It is my comfort to know that there are amongst us many whom the
+     gladiators of pulpit would call Atheists and Materialists, whose
+     lives, nevertheless, as tested by any accessible standard of
+     morality would contrast more than favourably with the lives of
+     those who seek to stamp them with this offensive brand. When I say
+     "offensive," I refer merely to the intention of those who use such
+     terms, and not because Atheism or Materialism, when compared with
+     many of the notions ventilated in the columns of religious
+     newspapers has any particular offensiveness to me. If I wish to
+     find men who are scrupulous in their adherence to engagements,
+     whose words are their bond, and to whom moral shiftiness of any
+     kind is subjectively unknown, if I wanted a loving father, a
+     faithful husband, an honourable neighbour, and a just citizen, I
+     would seek him among the band of Atheists to which I refer. I have
+     known some of the most pronounced amongst them, not only in life,
+     but in death--seeing them approaching with open eyes the inexorable
+     goal, with no dread of a "hangman's whip," with no hope of a
+     heavenly crown, and still as mindful of their duties, as if their
+     eternal future depended upon their latest deeds.
+
+
+Still the moral cry is too useful with the crowd to lead to the
+conviction that anything one could say would lead to its disuse. In the
+dialogue of Lucian's to which we have referred, and after the theist has
+been refuted by the Atheist, Hermes consoles the chief deity, Zeus, by
+telling him that even though a few may have been won over by the
+arguments of the Atheist, the vast majority, "the whole mass of
+uneducated Greeks and the Barbarians everywhere," still remain firm in
+their faith. And although Zeus replies that he would prefer one sensible
+man to a thousand fools, when a case depends upon the adherence of the
+relatively foolish, numbers will always bring some consolation to the
+champions of an intellectually distressed creed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+WHAT IS ATHEISM?
+
+
+Between Atheism and Theism there is no logical halting place. But there
+are, unfortunately, many illogical ones. Few possess the capacity for
+pushing their ideas to a logical conclusion, and some position is
+finally discovered which has the weakness of both extremes with the
+strength of neither. With many there is vague talk of a "Power"
+manifested in the universe, and by giving this the dignity of capital
+letters it is evidently hoped that ether people will recognise it as an
+equivalent for God. But power, with or without capitals, is not God. It
+is not the existence of a "Power" that forms the kernel of the dispute
+between the Theist and the Atheist, but what that power is like. The
+issue arises on the point of whether it is personal or not. That it is,
+is what the religious man believes. As Mr. Balfour says, when the plain
+man speaks of God he means "a God whom men can love, to whom men can
+pray, who takes sides, who has purposes and preferences, whose
+attributes, however conceived, leaves the possibility of a personal
+relation between Himself and those whom he has created." ("Theism and
+Humanism," p. 21.) What the genuine believer has in view is not the
+worthless abstraction of a rationalised metaphysic, but the personal
+being of historic theology.
+
+It is now my purpose to take a few of these substitutes for Atheism by
+the aid of which some persons seek to mark themselves off from a
+declared and reasoned unbelief. As outstanding examples of this one may
+take two men of no less eminence than Herbert Spencer and Professor
+Huxley. Both of these men have rendered great service to advanced
+thought, but both have only succeeded in repudiating Atheism by
+misstating and misrepresenting it. In addition to the service that
+Spencer unwittingly rendered the current religion by his use of the
+"Unknowable" (with which we deal fully later), a further help was given
+by his destruction of an Atheism that had no existence. This remarkable
+performance will be found in the first part of his "First Principles."
+Respecting the origin of the universe, he tells us, there are three
+intelligible propositions--although neither of these, on his own
+showing, is intelligible. We may assert that it is self-existent, that
+it is self-created, or that it is created by an external agency. All
+three propositions, he proceeds to show, are equally inconceivable. The
+noticeable thing about the performance is that Atheism is identified
+with the proposition that the universe is self-existent. A very slight
+acquaintance with the writings of representative Atheists would have
+shown Mr. Spencer that "the origin of the universe" is one of those
+questions on which Atheism has wisely been silent, and it has also
+insisted that all attempts to deal with such a question can only result
+in a meaningless string of words. To the Atheist, "the universe"--the
+sum of existence--is a fact that no amount of reasoning can get behind
+or beyond. To think of the universe as a whole is an impossibility;
+while to talk of its origin is to assume, first, that it did originate,
+and, second, that we have some means by which we can transcend all the
+known limits of the human mind. The Atheist can say, and has said, with
+Mr. Spencer himself--whose final statement of Agnosticism differs in no
+material respect from Atheism, that in discussing the "origin of the
+universe," we can only succeed in multiplying impossibilities of thought
+"by every attempt we make to explain its existence." No one has pointed
+out more clearly than Mr. Spencer that "infinity" is not a conception,
+but the negation of one. The pity is that he did not realise that in
+taking up this position he was on exactly the same level of criticism
+that Atheists have pursued. For them the universe is an ultimate fact;
+all that we can do is to mark the ceaseless changes always going on
+around us, and to develope our capacity for modifying their action in
+the interests of human welfare. Farther than this our knowledge does not
+and cannot go; and it may be added that even though our knowledge could
+go beyond the world of phenomena, such knowledge would not be of the
+slightest possible value.
+
+It may also be pointed out that, just as it is not true that Atheism
+attempts to explain the origin of the universe, so it is unfair to tie
+the Atheist down to any particular theory of cosmic evolution. As a
+mental attitude Atheism is quite independent of any theory of cosmic
+working, so long as that theory does not involve an appeal to deity. As
+we shall see, Atheism, from the point of view both of history and
+etymology, stands for the negation of theism, and its final
+justification must be found in the untenability of the theistic
+position.
+
+Rightly enough it may be argued that the acceptance of Atheism implies a
+certain general mental attitude towards both cosmic and social
+questions, but the Atheist, as such, is no more committed to a special
+scientific theory than he is committed to a special theory of
+government. Of course, it is convenient for the Theist to first of all
+saddle his opponent with a set of social or scientific beliefs, and then
+to assume that in attacking those beliefs he is demolishing Atheism, but
+it is none the less fighting on a false issue. All that Atheism
+necessarily involves is that all forms of Theism are logically
+untenable, and consequently the only effective method of destroying
+Atheism is to establish its opposite.
+
+Professor Huxley's treatment of Atheism proceeds on similar lines to
+that already dealt with, but is more elaborate in character. Discussing
+the nature of his own opinions he repudiates all sympathy with Atheism,
+because:
+
+
+     "the problem of the ultimate cause of existence is one which seems
+     to me to be hopelessly out of reach of my poor powers. Of all the
+     senseless babble I have ever had occasion to read, the
+     demonstrations of those philosophers who undertake to tell us about
+     the nature of God would be the worst, if they were not surpassed by
+     the still greater absurdities of the philosophers who try to prove
+     there is no God." (_On the Hypothesis the Animals are Automata._)
+
+
+And on another occasion, replying to a correspondent, he expresses the
+opinion that "Atheism is, on philosophical grounds, untenable, that
+there is no evidence of the god of the theologians is true enough, but
+strictly scientific reasoning can take us no further. When we know
+nothing we can neither affirm nor deny with propriety." (_Life and
+Letters_, p. 162.)
+
+Here, again, we have the common error that Atheism seeks in some way to
+explain the ultimate cause of existence. And this in spite of continuous
+disclaimers that all search for a "first cause," or for a "cause of
+existence" is midsummer madness. The fault here, we suspect, is that
+both writers took their statement of Atheism, not from Atheistic writers
+but from their opponents. But it is none the less surprising that it was
+not recognised that both "a first cause" and an "ultimate cause of
+existence," are, strictly speaking, theistic questions. I do not mean
+that these questions may not suggest themselves to non-theists, but that
+when they are raised clearly and definitely they are seen to belong to a
+class of questions to which no rational answer is possible. To the
+Theist, however, the questions arise from his primary assumptions. His
+theory is one of final causes; his deity is postulated as the cause of
+existence, and he cannot give up the questions as hopeless without
+admitting his position to be indefensible. It is quite usual for the
+theist to propound problems which only arise on his own assumptions, and
+then call upon his opponents for answers to them, but there is no
+justification whatever for non-theists playing the same game. Atheism
+has nothing to do with final causes, and therefore is not concerned with
+defending its illogicalities. Theism is a doctrine of final causes, and
+in arguing that it is absurd to express an opinion upon the subject
+Professor Huxley was adding a good reason in support of the position he
+believed himself to be destroying.
+
+Huxley's other objection to Atheism is that it perpetuates the absurdity
+of trying to prove there is no God. How far is that true? Or in what
+sense is it true? The danger in all discussion on this point lies in our
+taking it for granted that "God" conveys a definite and identical
+meaning to all people. But this is very far from being the case. What
+anyone means by "God" it is impossible to say until some further
+description has been given. When this has been done, and not until then,
+"God" may become the subject of affirmation or denial. Until then we are
+playing with empty words. By itself "God" means nothing. It offers the
+possibility of neither negation nor affirmation.
+
+Now Professor Huxley would have readily admitted that the truth of a
+proposition may be denied whenever its terms involve a contradiction.
+And the ground of this is the sheer impossibility of bringing the terms
+together in thought. That a circle may be square, or that parallel lines
+may enclose a space, are propositions the truth of which may be denied
+offhand. The ground of this is that the conception of squareness and
+circularity, of straight lines and an enclosed space are mutually
+destructive, they cancel each other. And so far as Atheism may be said
+to involve the denial of particular gods that denial is based upon
+precisely similar grounds. When defined it is seen that the attributes
+of this defined god cancel each other as effectually as squareness rules
+out the idea of a circle; either this or they are simply unthinkable.
+You cannot have an infinite personality any more than you can have a
+six-sided octagon, nor can you posit an infinite personality without
+divesting the terms of all meaning.
+
+It may also be noted in passing that both the theist and the Agnostic
+actually do deny the existence of particular gods without the least
+hesitation. No rational Agnostic would hesitate to deny the existence of
+Jupiter, Javeh, Allah, or Brahma. No Christian would hesitate to deny
+the existence of the gods of a tribe of savages. Even believers in the
+current theology have evolved beyond the stage of the primitive
+Christians, who accepted the existence of the Pagan deities with the
+proviso that they were demons. And it is a mere verbal quibble to say
+that these people merely deny each other's conception of deity. Each
+man's conception of god _is_ his god, and to say that no being answering
+to that conception exists is to say that his god does not exist, and in
+relation to the god denied the denier is in exactly the position in
+which he places the Atheist.
+
+So far then the Atheism of each is just a question of degree or of
+relation. So far as Atheism involves the denial of deity the follower of
+one religion is an Atheist in relation to the followers of every other
+religion. Each religion--among civilised people--is atheistic from the
+standpoint of the followers of other gods. The affirmation of one god
+involves the denial of other gods. This would really seem to be the
+historical significance of the term. The early Christians were called
+atheists by the Pagans, and some of them accepted it without demur. At a
+later date Spinoza, Voltaire, Paine, and others were called atheists,
+and the epithet has lost its force to-day only because the evolution of
+thought has broken down many religious barriers, and is rapidly dividing
+people into two groups--those who believe in some god and who believe
+in none at all. Now all that Atheism--conscious and reflective
+Atheism--does is to carry a step further the restricted denial of the
+ordinary religionist. The Christian theist denies every god but his own.
+The Atheist, seeing no more evidence for the existence of the Christian
+deity than for the existence of any of the deities discarded by the
+Christian, seeing, further, that there are exactly the same
+contradictions involved in assuming the existence of any one of the
+world's deities, places the Christian deity on the list as among those
+gods in whose existence he does not believe, and whose existence, so far
+as it is defined, may be logically denied.
+
+The really distinguishing feature of philosophic Atheism is its
+comprehensiveness, the ranking of all known deities, big and little,
+ancient and modern, savage and civilised, gross and subtle, upon the
+same level. Historically, we see them all originating in the same
+conditions, passing through substantially the same phases of
+development, finally to meet with the same fate as civilisation
+developes. In this respect Atheism has to be considered in its historic
+developments. It begins, as we have seen in the rejection of a
+particular god, in favour of some other deity. It is only at a very much
+later stage that the whole idea of god is subjected to examination and
+analysis in such a way as to lead to the rejection of the conception of
+god as a whole. But with that aspect of the subject we shall be
+concerned later.
+
+But does Atheism deny the existence of any possible god? This question
+might admit of a simple answer if one only knew precisely what it meant.
+It is easy enough to understand what is meant by God so long as we keep
+to any or all of the gods of the world's religions. But what is meant by
+god standing alone and undefined? Historically "God" means a deity
+believed in by some people, some where, at some time. And if we put on
+one side these particular gods we have nothing left that can be either
+affirmed or denied. God in the abstract is not a real existence any more
+than tree in the abstract is a real existence. There is a pine tree, a
+pear tree, an apple tree, etc., but there is and can be no "tree" apart
+from some particular tree. So with "god." There are particular gods, but
+if we do away with these, we have no god left as a separate existence.
+"God" then becomes a mere word conveying no meaning whatever. Atheism
+does not deny the existence of _a_ god for the same reason that it does
+not deny the existence of Abracadabra--both terms mean as much, or as
+little. And it is more than absurd for people who have rejected theism
+to continue using the word "god" as though it had a quite definite
+meaning apart from the gods of the various theologies. We have Professor
+Huxley admitting that "there is no evidence of the existence of the god
+of the theologians," and we imagine that he would have met the
+affirmation of their existence with a flat contradiction. At any rate he
+would have been quite justified in doing so. But when he asserts, with a
+show of logical precision, but in reality with great looseness, that "it
+is preposterous to assert that there is no god because he cannot be such
+as we think him to be," he is using language for which no precise
+meaning can be found. To be intelligible, the sentence implies that we
+have some conception answering to the terms used, and this, as we have
+pointed out with almost wearisome insistence, is not the case. It is not
+a case of saying to the theist, "I fully understand your hypothesis, but
+as at present I do not see enough evidence to convince me of its truth
+or to demonstrate its error I must suspend judgment." We do _not_
+understand it. And when we seek to we discover that the terms of the
+proposition we are asked to accept refuse to be brought together within
+the compass of a single conception. Suspended judgment where the subject
+under discussion is understandable is right and proper, but it is quite
+out of place, and indeed cannot exist, where the proposition before us
+is void of meaning. In such circumstances suspended judgment is absurd,
+and it may be added that the affirmation or negation of such a
+proposition is absurd likewise.
+
+Only one other word need be said on this point. It may be urged that
+educated believers mean by "God" not the anthropomorphic deity of the
+theologies, but a personal intelligence controlling things. But this is
+really not less anthropomorphic than the form in which the god idea
+meets us in the popular theologies. Its anthropomorphism is only, to
+unobservant minds, less apparent. The conception of an intelligent,
+personal being controlling nature is not fundamentally less
+objectionable than the frankly man-like being of the early theologies.
+Intelligence, as we know it (and to talk of an intelligence that is
+unlike the intelligence we know is absurd) is as much a characteristic
+of human, or animal, organisation, as arms and legs are. Mind, after
+all, is only known to us as a function of an organism. That it is more
+than this, or other than this, is a pure assumption. And to divest "God"
+of all physical parts, while retaining his functions, is sheer nonsense.
+There is the personal intelligence of Smith, or Brown, or Robinson, but
+it is absurd to wipe out all the particular Smiths, and Browns, and
+Robinsons, and then talk as though their qualities continue in
+existence. So with God. If we reject all the gods of the theologies one
+after another, what god have we left to talk about? All we have left is
+the memory of a delusion.
+
+It is equally fallacious to talk of "God" as an equivalent of force in
+the abstract, or as the equivalent of some non-intelligent force. This
+is not what people ever meant, or mean, by god. What religious folk
+believe in, what they pray to, is a person who can hear them, and who
+can do things. A god only dimly apprehended may be tolerated, but for
+how long will faith continue to worship an existence that can neither do
+nor hear nor sympathise? There is a limit to even religious folly. And
+even a savage only worships "sticks and stones" _after_ he endows them
+with life and intelligence.
+
+Finally, if there is one thing clear to the modern mind it is that
+science has no room in its theory of things for an over-ruling
+intelligence. Sir Oliver Lodge well sums up the attitude of science in
+the following sentences:--"Orthodox science shows us a self-contained
+and self-sufficient universe, not in touch with anything above or beyond
+itself--the general trend and outline of it known--nothing supernatural
+or miraculous, no intervention of beings other than ourselves, being
+conceived possible." (_Man and the Universe_, p. 14, Popular ed.)
+Personally, we question whether there are any scientists of repute who
+really believe in the existence of a personal intelligence above or
+beyond nature. Some may make professions to the contrary, but it will
+usually be found that the qualifications introduced rob their
+professions of all value. Certainly their teaching is destitute of any
+such conception. Modern scientific thought leaves no room for the
+operations of deity. The miraculous is generally discarded. Response to
+prayer is whittled down to a species of self-delusion, to be valued on
+account of its subjective influence only. The scientific theory of
+things, incomplete as it may be in many of its details, leaves no room
+for the operations of a god. Not alone does it leave no room for a god,
+but if the scientific conception of the world is to stand, then it would
+be necessary to repeat Bakunine's _mot_, and to say, "If there were a
+god it would be necessary to destroy him." You simply cannot have at one
+and the same time a universe in which all that occurs is the consequence
+of calculable and indestructible forces, the operations of which can be
+foreseen and relied upon, and a universe controlled by a
+self-determining deity, capable of modifying the action of these same
+forces. You may have one or the other, but it is sheer lunacy to imagine
+that you can have both. Either uniformity with invariable causation, or
+a world in which every scientific calculation must be prefaced with the
+"D.V." of a prayer meeting. And the Atheist, who accepts the principles
+of modern science, says, not merely that he is without a belief in god,
+but that he fails to see any necessity for his existence, or anything
+for him to do if he did exist. He passes the gods of the world in review
+and categorically dismisses each one as a myth. In doing this he has the
+concurrence of all theists in discarding every god save one--his own.
+The Atheist simply applies the same rule to each, and metes out the same
+judgment to all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE.
+
+
+We have already referred to the use made by religionists of Spencer's
+"Unknowable." This theory was not without its forerunners, and in
+England was already in the field in the teachings of Hamilton and
+Mansel. Spencer gave it a still greater vogue. As he presented it, it
+came before the world with all the prestige attaching to its association
+with one of the most comprehensive of modern thinkers, and one of the
+most influential in the schools of evolutionary philosophy. It was also
+connected with a world theory that claimed to be strictly scientific in
+its character. It became not only a fashion in certain circles, it
+founded a school, and gained numerous followers in the religious world.
+Its author propounded it as a basis on which to reconcile religion and
+science, and many were ready to accept it as such. Printed in all the
+glory of capital letters, appearing sometimes as "The Ultimate Reality,"
+sometimes as the "Unconditioned," sometimes as an "Infinite and Eternal
+Energy," it was equally impressive under all its forms. It provided just
+that solemn kind of formula that the religious mind is accustomed to
+hear, and if it was as meaningless as the Athanasian Creed, is was, for
+that reason, quite as satisfying. It gave all the comfort of a religious
+confession of faith, and it has been the parent of a whole host of more
+recent apologies for God.
+
+In itself the "Unknowable" was harmless enough. Its philosophic value
+is not great, its scientific utility is nil. To say that everything
+proceeds from an "Ultimate Reality" is not very helpful, and to follow
+on with the declaration that we know nothing about it, and that it would
+be of no use to us if we did, does not sound very encouraging. It
+reminds one of the description of the horse that had only two
+faults--one that it was hard to catch, and the other that it was no good
+when it was caught. We repeat with all solemnity the formula that all
+things proceed from an infinite and eternal energy, and that this is the
+Ultimate Reality, and then find that in relation to any and every
+question we are precisely where we were. Its acceptance in certain
+religious circles, and its use later, may be taken as evidence of the
+fact that what the pious mind longs for is not sense but satisfaction.
+
+Still there remains cause for wonder that this "Unknowable" should ever
+have been taken as affording foundation for the belief in deity. The
+most extreme materialist or Atheist need not be in the slightest degree
+disconcerted on being told things proceed from an "Infinite and Eternal
+Energy." It is only what the Atheist has said, minus the capital
+letters. He has affirmed his conviction, that all phenomena result from
+the permutations of matter and force, which are eternal because no time
+limit can be placed to their operations. And you do not add anything
+material to the statement by printing it in capital letters. That the
+Spencerian abstraction should have been taken as a substitute for deity
+proves how desperate the situation is. Drowning men clutch at straws,
+and a disintegrating deity hopes to renew his strength by the lavish
+use of capital letters.
+
+For, after all, what the theist needs is, not an eternal energy, but a
+personality. An inscrutable existence will not do. There is no dispute
+that something exists. There is no quarrel over mere existence. It is
+with the nature of what exists and the mode of its operation that the
+issue arises. The theist needs a special kind of energy, a special form
+of existence, a special kind of "reality" if his case is to be
+established. It will not do for Mr. Spencer to assure him that this
+"Ultimate Reality" is higher than personal. How Mr. Spencer knows that
+something, the nature of which is unknown, is higher than something
+else, is more than one can tell. But that does not matter. Higher or
+lower, it is all the same. Either way it is different from personal, and
+if it is different it is not the same, it is not personal. Whatever
+other qualities this "Ultimate Reality" has or lacks, it must have that
+one if it is to be of use to the theist. And to say that it is higher
+than personal is to say that it is not personal at all, and to repeat in
+a roundabout manner what the Atheist has been saying all the time.
+
+What now is Spencer's theory of an ultimate reality that must for ever
+remain unknowable? Following a line of thought that had been steadily
+gaining ground since Hume--although much older than Hume--Spencer holds
+that in final analysis all our knowledge is a knowledge of mental states
+and their relations. Beyond this we _know_ nothing, and can never know
+anything. Nevertheless, while we cannot know anything beyond
+consciousness, the conditions of thinking oblige us to assume that
+something exists as the cause of our states of mind. Just as black
+implies something that is not black, hard something that is not hard, so
+we must conceive, as against the conditioned, relative existence of our
+conscious states, an unconditioned, absolute existence as their cause.
+It is this assumed, but completely unknown cause of our conscious
+states, and of all else, that Spencer distinguishes as the Unknowable,
+the Unconditioned, the Absolute, etc., and which appears to have brought
+so much consolation to hard-pressed theists.
+
+I have no intention of discussing here the philosophic value of the
+"Unknowable." But one may say, in passing, that even from that point of
+view Spencer is untrue to his own Agnosticism in speaking of the
+Unconditioned as the _cause_ of phenomena. For causation is a category
+of the conditioned, it belongs to the world we know. It is not something
+that exists beyond consciousness, it is something that is supplied by
+consciousness and which possesses validity only within the world of
+phenomena. On Spencer's own theory of relativity a cause only exists in
+relation to an effect. Destroy the one and you destroy the other. Thus,
+if the Unknowable is a cause of phenomena it ceases to be the
+unconditioned and becomes part of the phenomenal order. If, on the other
+hand, it is not part of the phenomenal sequence, it cannot stand to
+phenomena in a genuine casual relation. It is, however, only fair to
+point out that between the Unknowable and the evolutionary philosophy of
+Spencer the only connection between them is that they are both in the
+same work. In all probability it is an unconscious survival of
+Spencer's earlier theism, which was active at the time the Synthetic
+Philosophy was originally planned, but which became more and more
+attenuated as Spencer grew older, and disappears entirely from the more
+important volumes of the series. And but for the help it has been
+supposed to give the belief in god, the "Unknowable" would only have
+ranked as a harmless speculation of no value to anyone or to anything.
+This is substantially admitted in a postscript to the 1899 edition of
+"First Principles." At the conclusion of the section entitled "The
+Unknowable," he says:--
+
+
+     The reader is not called on to judge respecting any of the
+     arguments or conclusions contained in the foregoing five chapters
+     and in the above paragraphs. The subjects on which we are about to
+     enter are independent of the subjects thus far discussed; and he
+     may reject any or all of that which has gone before while leaving
+     himself free to accept any or all of that which is now to come.
+
+
+In other words, the "Unknowable" is a pure abstraction, having no
+organic connection with the Synthetic Philosophy, or indeed with any
+philosophy of value. Mr. Spencer's warning to his readers seems to quite
+justify Mr. Bradley's rather caustic comment, "I do not wish to be
+irreverent, but Mr. Spencer's attitude towards his Unknowable strikes me
+as a pleasantry, the point of which lies in its unconsciousness. It
+seems a proposal to take something for God simply and solely because we
+do not know what the devil it can be." (Note to p. 128 of _Appearance
+and Reality_.)
+
+The curious thing is that Mr. Spencer really offers his readers two
+theories of the nature of religion. One is contained in his "Principles
+of Sociology," and so far as it traces all religious ideas to the
+delusions and illusions of the primitive savage is substantially that
+held by all modern anthropologists. The other is contained in his "First
+Principles," and the two theories, like parallel lines, never meet.
+Though born in the same brain they are quite distinct, and even
+contradictory.
+
+The substance of this second theory may be summarised as follows:--
+
+1. The conditions of human thought compel the recognition of an
+unknowable reality of which all phenomena are the expression.
+
+2. The function of religion, from the earliest time, has been the
+assertion of the existence of an unknowable reality, and to keep alive a
+consciousness of the insoluble mystery surrounding it.
+
+3. The function of science is to deal with the known and the knowable,
+with all that is presented in experience, with the world of phenomena
+exclusively.
+
+4. Religion having for its subject matter the unknown and unknowable,
+while science has for its subject matter the known and the knowable,
+religion and science are not antagonistic, but complementary. Conflicts
+only arise when one trespasses on the other's department, and a
+recognition of the true line of demarcation effectually reconciles these
+hitherto hostile forces.
+
+A very obvious criticism of number one is in affirming a consciousness
+of an "Unknowable," its quality of unknowableness is annihilated.
+Existence can only be predicated of that which affects consciousness in
+some manner; and so far as I have the slightest apprehension or
+consciousness of anything existing, to that extent it ceases to be the
+unknowable. Our knowledge of it may be imperfect or altogether
+erroneous; we may feel it impossible that we should ever rightly
+understand it; but so far as we think about it we are bound to
+assimilate it to the best of our knowledge, even though it be only under
+the category of force. In brief, "unknowableness" is not a property or
+quality by which a thing may be apprehended; it is a name for complete
+mental vacuity. It does not refer to the thing itself, it refers only to
+us. It is a pure negation which Spencer, by sheer verbal play converts
+into a quasi-positive conception. A consciousness of things unknown can
+never be more than a consciousness of ignorance. There is only one way
+to prove the existence of an unknowable, and that is to know nothing
+about it--not even to know that there is something about which we know
+nothing.
+
+But, says Spencer, "to say that we cannot know the absolute is, by
+implication, to affirm that there is an absolute." Certainly, if we take
+an infirmity of language to be the equivalent of a necessity of
+existence, not otherwise. When I say that we cannot know a four-sided
+triangle I do not affirm by implication that a four-sided triangle
+exists. I am asserting that the phrase, a four-sided triangle, involves
+conceptions that cannot be brought together in consciousness, and so
+dismiss it as being without meaning.
+
+The truth is that every one of Spencer's attempts to prove the existence
+of an unknowable turns out on examination to be no more than a proof of
+the existence of an unknown, and this is not disputed at any time or by
+anyone. Thus, after being told that a known cannot be thought of apart
+from an unknown, we are informed:--
+
+
+     Positive knowledge does not, and never can, fill the whole region
+     of possible thought. At the utmost reach of discovery there arises,
+     and must ever arise, the question, What lies beyond? As it is
+     impossible to think of a limit to space so as to exclude the idea
+     of space lying outside that limit, so we cannot conceive of any
+     explanation profound enough to exclude the question, What is the
+     explanation of the explanation?
+
+
+With this we can all agree, but it does not bring us any nearer an
+"unknowable." It is perfectly true that thought can never be
+comprehensive enough to exhaust the possibilities of existence, since it
+is of the essence of thinking to limit and define. But it is a sheer
+impossibility to think of what lies beyond the boundary of our knowledge
+as unknowable, so far as we think of it at all, we must conceive it as
+the unknown but possibly knowable. The unknown can only be thought of
+thus because it is only as it is, by assumption, brought into line with
+what is already known that it can be thought about at all. We are
+compelled to think of what lies beyond the limits of our actual
+knowledge in the same way as a traveller thinks of the fauna and flora
+of an untravelled country. The new region may present many new features,
+but until actual observation has taken place, these new features will
+only be thought of as more or less unusual combinations of known animal
+and vegetable life. They are substantially identical with what is
+already known.
+
+No stranger notion ever occurred to a great thinker than that religion
+and science represent parallel and distinct lines of development, each
+having its own sphere of operation. It is all the more remarkable when
+we remember that with Spencer "religion" means all religion, past and
+present, civilised and savage. And no one is more precise in pointing
+out how all religious ideas find their beginnings in the conditions of
+primitive life. And that being the case, one wonders whether we are to
+picture primitive man as a profound metaphysical philosopher,
+speculating on that which lies behind phenomena, contemplating an
+"insoluble Mystery," and paying homage to an "Ultimate Reality"? Nothing
+could be more absurd. Thinking begins in concrete images, not in
+abstractions. We have only to note the development of intelligence in
+children to realise this. And primitive man, not being a mystic nor a
+metaphysician, bases his religion, not upon a reality that transcends
+experience, but upon a presumed fact, and what is to him the best known
+of all facts. And even with modern men it may safely be said that they
+worship God for what they believe they know about him, not because they
+believe him to be unknown and unknowable.
+
+Spencer himself may be cited in support of this. In his "Principles of
+Sociology," where the Unknowable plays no part whatever, he concludes
+after an elaborate survey of the facts, that the imagination of
+primitive man is reminiscent, not constructive; his power of thought is
+feeble, he is without the quick curiosity of civilised man, there is an
+absence of the conception of causation, he accepts things as they
+appear, without any vivid desire to inquire into their real nature or
+their connection with other events, and is without abstract ideas.
+Clearly, here is not a very promising subject from which to derive even
+the germ of the idea of a "Reality transcending experience." Spencer
+also, and quite properly, insists that religious ideas are, under the
+condition of their origin, national ideas; that we must accept the truth
+that the laws of thought are everywhere the same, and that, given the
+data as known to primitive man, the inference drawn by him is a
+reasonable inference.
+
+With this we agree, but it gives the death blow to the previous
+statement as to the essential nature of religion, and its essential
+differentiation from science. For given the constitution of the
+primitive mind, its ignorance of causation and general lack of
+knowledge, religion commences not in some search after an eternal
+reality, but in a natural misunderstanding of observed facts. Primitive
+religion is just a reasoned misunderstanding of phenomena that in later,
+and better informed ages, are given an altogether different explanation.
+
+That this is so, Spencer himself makes plain. For he shows, step by
+step, how the experience of dreams, echoes, shadows, etc., combine to
+produce the belief in unseen agencies differing in no essential from man
+save that of possessing greater power and in being invisible. From
+dreams and other subjective experiences he derives the idea of a double,
+from death that of a ghost. Hence the ceremonies round the grave, and
+the attention paid to the double of the dead man, which subsequently
+developes into ancestor worship. The same train of thought gives a
+double to objects other than human beings. Hence Animism, Totemism, and
+their numerous subsidiary developments. Spencer insists, not only that
+"all religions have a natural genesis," but also that "behind
+supernatural beings of all orders" there has been in every case a human
+personality--in other words, every god is developed from a ghost,
+"ancestor worship is the root of every religion." To this he will admit
+no exception, and referring to the Jewish religion, he asks
+contemptuously:--
+
+
+     Must we recognise a single exception to the general truth thus far
+     verified everywhere? While among all races in all regions, from the
+     earliest times down to the present, the conceptions of deities have
+     been naturally evolved in the way shown, must we conclude that a
+     small clan of the Semitic race had given to it supernaturally a
+     conception which, though superficially like the rest, was in
+     substance absolutely unlike them.
+
+
+And in about half a dozen pages he shows conclusively that the Biblical
+God had exactly a similar origin to other gods.
+
+Now if this account of religious origins means anything at all (and in
+spite of differences between anthropologists it is in substance the
+account of the origin of religion given by all) it means that instead of
+religion and science moving along parallel lines, religion is simply
+primitive science. Religion and science, as a very able theistic writer
+says, "touch and oppose each other as rival methods of explaining, not
+solely or mainly the life and nature of man, but the universe taken as a
+whole, man forming a part of it." (W. H. Mallock, _Religion as a
+Credible Doctrine_, p. ii.) Both are concerned with the same facts, and
+their respective claims to consideration depend entirely on their
+ability to explain the facts. For the reasons given by Spencer, man's
+earliest interpretation of things is inevitably vitalistic. Ghosts--the
+primitive protoplasm from which the gods are made--are assumed, and once
+assumed dominate the savage intelligence. Fear combines with ignorance
+to resist any conception that will wrest power from the hands of these
+extra-natural agents, "Nature's haughty lords," rule all, and their
+dynasty is the hardest of all to overthrow.
+
+In spite, however, of all opposition the mechanical theory of things
+develops, and in developing establishes a clear division between the two
+conceptions of nature. But the line of demarcation is not that stated by
+Spencer. Religion no more asserts the existence of an "Unknown Verity,"
+than it asserts a fourth dimension of space. Nor is science concerned
+with denying the existence of something of which we know nothing, and
+can never know anything. The essential feature of religion is that it
+offers a vitalistic explanation of the world as against the mechanical
+explanation offered by science. And in this religion stands for the
+earlier as against the later expression of human knowledge. It is the
+eternal champion of savage thought against civilised intelligence. Its
+whole significance lies in the persistence of animistic modes of
+thinking under civilised conditions.
+
+This conclusion, be it observed, is one that is quite borne out by
+Spencer's own explanation of the nature of religion. Nor do we know of a
+more remarkable instance of a front rank thinker propounding in one
+part of his work a theory bearing no relation whatever to the remaining
+portion, and in addition disproving his own theory at every point.
+
+Spencer's reconciliation of science and religion, which in one form or
+another is continually in evidence, is only one degree less remarkable
+than the fact of its being accepted by so many religionists as
+satisfactory. Following the line of his untenable theory that religion
+and science pursue parallel lines, he points out that "the agent which
+has effected the purification (of religion) has been science." That is,
+the growth of the mechanical theory has driven back the vitalistic one.
+This is purification only in the sense that a defaulting cashier
+purifies the firm he robs. "As fact or experience proves that certain
+familiar changes always happen in the same sequence, there begins to
+fade from the mind the conception of a special personality to whose
+variable will they were before ascribed." This process of annexation is,
+says Spencer, science teaching religion its true function. As a matter
+of fact, science has given religion no instruction, it has merely issued
+prohibitions. It has warned religion that there are certain things it
+must not meddle with, certain departments on which it must not encroach.
+In this way religion has been forced farther and farther back, until it
+is left with what? Not with anything that can be known, or is known; it
+is left supreme in the kingdom of nowhere, ruling over an empire of
+nothing at all. And so long as religion strives for a more tangible
+possession so long must there be a conflict between science and
+religion. But--"as the limits of possible cognition are established, the
+causes of possible conflict will diminish. And a permanent peace will be
+reached when science becomes fully convinced that its explanations are
+proximate and relative; while religion becomes fully convinced that the
+mystery it contemplates is ultimate and absolute." So, when science has
+monopolised the entire field of human knowledge, actual and possible,
+and when religion is satisfied that it knows nothing, and never can know
+anything of the object of its worship, that it can offer nothing in the
+shape of counsel or advice, but that its function is to sit in owl-like
+solemnity, contemplating nothing, meanwhile offering man an eternal
+conundrum that he must everlastingly give up, then, and not till then,
+there will be peace between science and religion. And this is called a
+reconciliation. Mr. Spencer finds two combatants engaged in deadly
+conflict, he murders one and offers the other the corpse, with the hope
+that now they will live peacefully together. The scientist is asked to
+be content with all there is. The religious man is asked to find comfort
+in the reflection that science must eventually monopolise the entire
+field of knowledge, but that, in return, religion will be left free to
+work in an unknowable region, to occupy itself with an unknowable
+object, and to eternally cry "all is mystery" in an amended philosophic
+version of the Athanasian Creed.
+
+As a piece of humour this is superb. So also is the following: "Science
+has been obliged to abandon the attempt to include within the boundaries
+of knowledge that which cannot be known, and so has yielded up to
+religion that which of right belonged to it." Capital! Science gives up
+to religion that which cannot be known, and as it does not know what it
+is, that cannot be known, it surrenders to religion absolute vacuity as
+the proper sphere for its operations. And even this is accompanied with
+the proviso that if it happens to have made a mistake, the ceded
+territory will be at once reclaimed. Science would certainly be
+vindictive if after having murdered religion it declined to live
+peaceably with its corpse.
+
+The distinction between science and religion is, in truth, neither
+fundamental nor original. It is one that arises gradually in the history
+of mental development. And, therefore, when a man such as Professor
+Arthur Thomson describes religion as being concerned with the
+recognition of the existence of an independent "spiritual reality," the
+reply is that religion commences as just an explanation of nature in
+terms of the then existing knowledge and culture. Religion is just a
+crude form of science. The separation of the world into a religious and
+a scientific sphere arises when the religious interpretation of natural
+happenings gets discredited by advancing knowledge. If one takes such an
+illustration as that of witchcraft the nature of the process is clear.
+First we have the interpretation of certain forms of dementia and
+delusion in terms of religion. Later we have the same facts interpreted
+in terms of positive knowledge and the religious explanation is
+rejected. And that, in a sentence is the whole history of religion, once
+we have cleared away the verbiage with which the subject is surrounded.
+
+The truth of what has just been said is often obscured by
+unintelligible talk of growth in religion. It is claimed that we acquire
+truer views of deity, and a process of growth is asserted analogous to
+that which meets us in knowledge in general. Let us see what truth there
+is in this.
+
+In ordinary instances when we speak of growth we imply one of three
+things. Either there is increase in size, or there is an enlargement of
+function, or there is an increase in knowledge. So long as we keep to
+these plain meanings of "growth" there can be no confusion. But none of
+these meanings fit the case of religion. Certainly there has been no
+increase in the size of religion--it does not, that is, cover a larger
+area. On the contrary it is continually being warned off more and more
+territory. It becomes more and more a negligible quantity. One need not
+go back to primitive times to prove this, any country will supply
+instances. The displacement of religious by other considerations is
+observable on all sides.
+
+There has certainly been no growth in the functions exercised by
+religion. Its function as law-giver in the physical world is now
+definitely abandoned, and all it asks is that science will let it alone.
+In ethics and sociology it still maintains a precarious kind of an
+existence, but it no longer claims supreme power. It is content to urge
+its utility as a source of inspiration, to rank as one among a number of
+other forces that are frankly secular in nature. Finally there has been
+no growth in the shape of an extension of knowledge of the object of
+religious belief. Of the nature of deity we know no more than did our
+earliest ancestors. In earlier generations the nature of God, his aims
+and intentions, were discussed with the same degree of confidence that
+one now sees displayed in discussing schemes of sanitation. The modern
+believer is now more anxious to impress upon the world how little he
+knows about God, or how little it is possible for him to know. This is
+not surprising except in the fact that it is called religious growth.
+And if this be a sign of growth one wonders what would be considered
+indications of decay. Historically religious life presents us, not with
+a process of growth, but one of shrinkage. To reduce the gods from many
+to few, and from a few to one is not growth. To limit the functions of
+deity from those of a direct, particular, and universal character, to an
+indirect, general form is not growth. To refine the idea of a personal
+deity until it becomes that of a mere abstract force, is not growth. All
+these are so many modifications of the religious idea under pressure of
+advancing knowledge--so many attempts to state religion in such a way
+that it can conflict with nothing we know to be true because it answers
+to nothing of which we are certain.
+
+The idea of God, the idea of religion, does not begin in a mystery or in
+some abstract conception, but in an assumed knowledge of certain
+concrete facts of experience. Man believes in the gods because of what
+he thinks he knows about them, not because of what he does not know. The
+talk of a mystery is the jargon of a priesthood which finds it
+profitable to keep the lay mind at a distance. Increased emphasis is
+placed on mystery because religious teachers are alive to the danger of
+basing their beliefs upon matters that can be brought to the test of
+experience. Mystery mongering is not the beginning of religion, but a
+sign of its approaching demise. Mysticism, too, is no more than a cover
+for a sanctuary that has been emptied of all worthy of respect. But if
+religion is to really live, it must have some knowledge, no matter how
+little or how imperfect, of the subject with which it professes to deal.
+A religion that does not possess this, but is compelled to hand over the
+whole of life to secular science, signs its own death warrant. It
+commits suicide to save itself from execution. And as people realise
+this they turn to clear-eyed science for guidance, leaving religion to
+such representatives of primitive animism as still survive in a
+civilised community.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+AGNOSTICISM.
+
+
+The primary difficulty in dealing with Agnosticism is its elusive
+character. It is a word of various and vague meanings, and many of those
+who use it seem to have no great anxiety to fix its meaning with any
+degree of precision. It is used now in a philosophic and now in a
+religious sense, and its use in the one connection is justified by its
+use in another. It has become, in the half century of its existence, as
+indefinite as "religion," and about as enlightening. On the one side it
+appears as a counsel of mental integrity with which everyone will agree,
+and on the other, the religious side, it will vary from a form that is
+identical, with that much-dreaded "Atheism," to a religious or
+"reverent" Agnosticism that reminds one--mentally and morally--of
+Methodism minus its creed. Indeed, to say that a man is an Agnostic
+nowadays tells one no more than calling a man religious indicates to
+which one of the world's sects he gives his adherence.
+
+The only aspect of Agnosticism that we are here vitally concerned with
+is its relation to religion, or specifically with the god-idea. But it
+will be necessary to say a word, in passing, on at least one other
+phase.
+
+And first as to the origin of the term. The credit for the first use of
+the term has always been given to the late Professor Huxley. Mr. R. H.
+Hutton says that Huxley first suggested the word at a meeting of friends
+in the house of Mr. James Knowles in 1869. Professor Huxley says that he
+deliberately adopted it because, "When I reached intellectual maturity
+and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a
+pantheist; a materialist, or an idealist, a Christian, or a freethinker,
+I found that the more I learned and reflected the less ready was the
+answer, until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art
+nor part with any of these denominations except the last.... So I took
+thought and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of
+'agnostic.'" And he goes on to explain that the term was used as
+antithetical to the "gnostic" of Church history who knew all about
+things of which Huxley felt himself in ignorance. To all of which one
+may say that Huxley appears to have given himself a lot of needless
+trouble. In philosophy there was the term "Sceptic," and in relation to
+religion the term "Atheist" was ready to hand. The latter term certainly
+covered all that Huxley meant by Agnosticism as applied to the god-idea.
+The plain, and perhaps brutal truth, is that Huxley was just
+illustrating the fatal tendency of English public men to seek for a
+label that will mark them off from an unfashionable heresy even more
+clearly than it separates them from a crumbling orthodoxy. It is
+certainly suggestive to find, in this connection, a French writer of
+distinction, M. Emile Boutmy, pointing out that in France, Spencer,
+Mill, and Huxley would all have been professed atheists. (_The English
+People_, p. 44.) But France is France, and has always possessed the
+courage to follow ideas to their logical conclusion.
+
+When it comes to a definition of Agnosticism Professor Huxley's position
+becomes still more difficult of understanding. Agnosticism, he says, is
+a method the essence of which may be expressed in a single principle.
+"Positively the principle may be expressed; in matters of the intellect
+follow your reason so far as it will take you without regard to any
+other consideration. And negatively; in matters of the intellect, do not
+pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or
+demonstrable." So far as this goes we have here perfectly sound advice.
+But why call it Agnosticism? It is no more than the perfectly sound
+advice that we must be honest in our investigations, and make no claim
+to certainty where the conditions of certainty do not exist. But we have
+no more right to call this Agnosticism than we have to give the
+multiplication table a sectarian or party label.
+
+Nor do we believe for a moment that what Huxley had in view, or what
+other agnostics have in view, is no more than a counsel of intellectual
+perfection. What is really at issue here is one's attitude of mind in
+relation to the belief in God. It is in pretending to know about God
+that the theist finds himself at issue with the Agnostic, and it is to
+mark himself off from the theist that the Agnostic gives himself a
+special label. And the trouble of the Agnostic is that so soon as he
+begins to justify his position, either he states the atheistic case or
+he fails altogether to make his case good.
+
+There is, perhaps, one other topic on which agnosticism may be
+professed, and that is in connection with the question of what is known
+as the problem of existence. We may profess our belief in the reality of
+an external world, but deny that any _knowledge_ of it is possible. Here
+we assert that what "substance," or "reality," or "thing in itself," is
+we do not know and cannot know. But while many attempts are made under
+the name of "the Absolute," etc., to identify this with "God," it is
+really nothing of the kind. The belief or disbelief in an external
+"reality" is a problem in philosophy, it has no genuine connection with
+theology. To identify the two is a mere dialectical subterfuge. Mere
+existence is an ultimate fact that must be accepted by all. It is only
+on the question of its nature that controversy can arise.
+
+Whatever may be claimed on behalf of Agnosticism, it certainly cannot be
+claimed that it carries a clear and a definite meaning. As we have seen,
+Professor Huxley used the word to indicate the fact that he was without
+knowledge of certain things. But what things? To answer that we have to
+go beyond the word itself--that is, we have to define the definition. As
+it stands we may profess agnosticism in relation to anything from the
+prospects of a general election within a given period to the question of
+whether Mars is inhabited or not. If, then, it is said that what is
+implied is that the Agnostic is without a knowledge of God, or without a
+belief in God, the reply is that is exactly the position of the Atheist.
+And there was no need whatever to coin a new word, if all that was
+wanted was to express the atheistic position. Still less justifiable was
+it to proceed to misinterpret Atheism in order to justify a departure
+that need never have been made.
+
+One cannot at this point forbear a word on Mr.--afterwards Sir--Leslie
+Stephen's curious justification of his choice of the word Agnosticism.
+After the enlightening remark that the word "Atheist" carries with it an
+unpleasant connotation, he says:--
+
+
+     Dogmatic Atheism--the doctrine that there is no God, whatever may
+     be meant by God--is to say the least of it a rare phase of opinion.
+     The word Agnosticism, on the other hand, seems to imply a fairly
+     accurate appreciation of a form of creed already common and daily
+     spreading. The Agnostic is one who asserts--what no one
+     denies--that there are limits to human intelligence. (_An
+     Agnostic's Apology_; p. 1).
+
+
+And he then goes on to assert that the subject matter of theology lies
+beyond these limits.
+
+Now putting on one side this perversion of the meaning of Atheism, was
+it really worth while to coin a new word to affirm what no one denies?
+Theists do not deny the limitations of knowledge, on the contrary, they
+are always affirming it. Neither do all theists deny that "God" is
+unknowable. That has been affirmed by them over and over again. What
+they have claimed is that "God" is apprehended rather than known, and
+they affirm his existence on much the same grounds that others assert
+the real existence of an external world. Professor Flint's comments on
+Stephen's performance are quite to the point, and the more noteworthy as
+coming from a clergyman. He says:
+
+
+     The word Atheist is a thoroughly honest, unambiguous term. It means
+     one who does not believe in God, and it means neither more nor
+     less. It implies neither blame nor approval, neither desert of
+     punishment nor of reward. If a purely dogmatic Atheism be a rare
+     phase of opinion critical Atheism is a very common one, and there
+     is also a form of Atheism which is professedly sceptical or
+     agnostic, but often in reality dogmatic or gnostic. (_Agnosticism_;
+     p. 69).
+
+
+The more carefully one examines the reasons given for the preference for
+the word Agnosticism, the clearer it becomes that the real motive is not
+the wish to obtain mental clarity, but the desire to avoid association
+with a term that carries, religiously, disagreeable associations. The
+care taken by so many who call themselves Agnostics to explain to the
+religious world that they are not atheists, is almost enough to prove
+this. Indeed, the position is well summed up by Mr. John M. Robertson:--
+
+
+     The best argument for the use of the name Agnostic is simply that
+     the word Atheist has been so long covered with all manner of
+     ignorant calumny that it is expedient to use a new term which
+     though in some respects faulty, has a fair start, and will in time
+     have a recognised meaning. The case, so stated, is reasonable; but
+     there is the _per contra_ that whatever the motive with which the
+     name is used, it is now tacked to half a dozen conflicting forms of
+     doctrine, varying loosely between Theism and Pantheism. The name of
+     Atheist escapes that drawback. Its unpopularity has saved it from
+     half-hearted and half-minded patronage.
+
+
+So that, on the best showing, we are to take "Agnostic" on the professed
+ground that it is more exact than "Atheism," but on the real ground that
+it is less unpopular, waiting meanwhile for the time when it shall have
+become more exact than it is by becoming accepted in the same sense as
+the Atheism that has previously been rejected. Courage and
+straightforwardness saves a lot of trouble.
+
+Mr. Bailey Saunders (_Quest of Faith_, p. 7) calls agnosticism "a plea
+on behalf of suspended judgment," and this is a favourite expression.
+It gives one an air of impartiality, with the comforting reflection that
+it will please the socially stronger side. But suspended judgment on
+what? To hold one's judgment in suspense implies that we have at least a
+workable comprehension of the subject in dispute, and that judgment is
+suspended because the evidence produced is not adequate to command
+decision. But is that the case here? Does the Agnostic claim that the
+evidence produced by the theist is merely inadequate, or that it is
+irrelevant? Surely he holds the latter position. And if that is the
+case, then he does not suspend judgment, for the simple reason that
+there is no case made out concerning which judgment is to be suspended.
+There is simply no case before the court. For the Agnostic, no more than
+the Atheist, can attach no intelligible meaning to "God." He must have
+it defined to understand it, and when it is defined he rejects it
+without ceremony. And it is quite obvious that when an Agnostic says, "I
+know nothing about God," he means more than that; otherwise it would not
+be worth the saying. He really means that no one else knows either. He
+asserts that a knowledge of god is impossible to anyone, because it does
+not present the possibility of being known. "God," standing alone is a
+meaningless word, and how can one suspend judgment concerning the truth
+of an unintelligible proposition?
+
+For here are the plain facts of the situation. If we ask the Agnostic
+whether he suspends judgment concerning the existence of the gods of any
+savage peoples, the reply is in the negative. If we put the same
+question concerning the god of the Bible, or of the Mohammedan, or of
+any other of the world's theologies we receive the same answer. There is
+nothing here to suspend judgment about, the characters and qualities of
+the gods being such that there admits of no doubt as to their imaginary
+character. Or if it is said that the Agnostic, while dismissing the gods
+of the various theologies, savage and civilised, as being impossible,
+suspends judgment as to the existence of a "supreme mind," or of a
+"creative intelligence," the reply is that one cannot suspend judgment
+as to the possible existence of an inconceivability. For "mind" must be
+mind, as we know it. And it is a downright absurdity to speak of the
+possible existence of a "mind" while divesting it of all the qualities
+that characterise mind as we know it. Really between the statement that
+A. does not exist, and the affirmation that A. does exist, but differs
+in every conceivable particular from all known A.'s there is no
+difference whatever. We are denying its existence in the very act of
+affirming it.
+
+Further, we quite agree with Mr. F. C. S. Schiller (_Riddles of the
+Sphinx_, pp. 17-19) that in practice such suspense of judgment is
+impossible. We suspend our judgment as to whether we shall die to-morrow
+or at some indefinite future date, and for that reason we make our
+arrangements in view of either contingency. We suspend judgment as to
+the honesty of an employee, and our attitude towards him is governed by
+that fact. And so with the question of a god. In one way or another we
+are bound to indicate our judgment on the subject. We must act either as
+though we believe in the possibility or in the impossibility of "divine"
+interference. If the mental hesitancy of the respectable Agnostic were
+accompanied by a corresponding timidity in action life would be
+impossible.
+
+A less common plea on behalf of Agnosticism, but one on which a word
+must be said, is that the agnostic attitude is more "reverential" than
+that of atheism. But why in the name of all that is reasonable should
+one profess reverence towards something of which one knows nothing?
+Reverence, to be intelligible, must be directed towards an intelligent
+object, and we must have grounds for believing it to be worthy of
+reverence. Reverence towards our fellow creatures is a reasonable enough
+sentiment, but what is there reasonable in an expression of reverence
+towards something that can only be thought of--and even this is
+unwarranted--as a force? The truth is that this expression of reverence
+is no more than the flickering survival of religion. Numbers have
+reached the stage at which they can perceive the unreasonable nature of
+religious beliefs, but they have not yet managed to achieve liberation
+from the traditional emotional attitude towards these beliefs. In other
+words, the development of the emotional and the intellectual sides of
+their nature have been unequal, and for these the "Unknowable" has
+simply served as a peg on which to hang religious feelings that have
+been robbed of all intellectual support. The semi-religious Agnostic
+thus represents a transition form, interesting enough to all who observe
+how curiously decaying types strive to perpetuate themselves, but which
+is bound to disappear in the process of intellectual evolution.
+
+Finally, one would like from the Agnostic some authoritative
+announcement as to his position in relation to what is known concerning
+the origin of the god-idea. So far as professed theists are concerned
+one expects this to be ignored. On the part of non-theists one expects a
+more logical attitude. In this case it is common ground with the Atheist
+and the Agnostic that the idea of god owes its beginnings to the
+ignorance of primitive man. We know the facts on which this idea was
+based, and we know that all these are now differently explained. The
+belief that there is a god governing nature is just one of those
+blunders made by primitive man, and is on all fours with the numerous
+other blunders he makes concerning himself and the world around him.
+Knowing this, and accepting this, believing that "god" springs from the
+same set of conditions that gave rise to fairies and spirits of various
+kinds, one would like to know on what ground the Agnostic definitely
+rejects the grounds on which the idea of god is based, while professing
+a state of suspended judgment about the existence of the object created
+by this primitive blunder. It is certainly surprising to find those who
+accept the natural origin of the god-idea, when they come to deal with
+current religion talk as though it were merely a question of the
+inconclusiveness of religious arguments. It is nothing of the kind. The
+final reply to the arguments set forth on behalf of Theism is, not that
+they are inconclusive, but that they are absolutely irrelevant to the
+question at issue. We cannot remain undecided because there is nothing
+to remain undecided about. We know that the idea of god is pure myth,
+and was never anything but myth. A belief that began in error, and which
+has no other basis than error, cannot by any possible argument be
+converted into a truth. The old question was, "Can man by searching find
+out God?" The modern answer is an emphatic affirmative. Substantially we
+have by searching found out God. We know the origin and history of one
+of the greatest delusions that ever possessed the human mind. God has
+been found out. Analytically and synthetically we understand the
+god-idea as previous generations could not understand it. It has been
+explained; and the logical consequence of the explanation is--Atheism.
+
+Ultimately, then, we come to this: (1) The Agnosticism that concerns
+itself with a confession of ignorance concerning the nature of
+"existence," has no necessary connection with religion, and is only made
+to have such by a confusion of two distinct things. (2) The plea of a
+suspended judgment is invalid, since there is nothing about which one
+can suspend a decision. (3) The Agnosticism that professes a
+semi-religious feeling of reverence towards the "Unknowable" is
+fundamentally upon all fours with the religious feelings of the ordinary
+believer. Worshipping the Unknowable is more ridiculous than worshipping
+Huxley's "wilderness of apes." The apes _might_ take some intelligent
+interest in the antics of their devotees; but to print our hypostatised
+ignorance in capital letters and then profess a feeling of veneration
+for it is as ridiculous a proceeding as the world has seen. After all,
+an absurdity is never quite so grotesque as when it is tricked out in
+scientific phrases and paraded as the outcome of profound philosophic
+thinking. (4) The only Agnosticism that seems capable of justifying
+itself is an Agnosticism that is indistinguishable from Atheism. To
+again cite Professor Flint, Atheist "means one who does not believe in
+God, and it means neither more nor less." The Agnostic is also one who
+is without belief in a god, every argument he uses to justify his
+position is and has been used as a justification of Atheism. Atheist is
+really "a thoroughly honest, unambiguous term," it admits of no
+paltering and of no evasion, and the need of the world, now as ever, is
+for clear-cut issues and unambiguous speech.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+ATHEISM AND MORALS.
+
+
+Looking at the world as it is one cannot forbear a mild wonder at the
+fears expressed at the probable consequences to morals of a general
+acceptance of Atheism. One would have thought that the world would not
+run a very great danger of becoming worse on that account, and that,
+seeing the way in which all forms of rascality have flourished, and
+still maintain themselves, without in the least disturbing people's
+religious convictions, one might even feel inclined to risk a change in
+the hopes of improvement. Mainly, indeed, one might say that those who
+are affected by religious belief are such as can very well do without
+it, while those who stand in urgent need of moral improvement seldom
+show that their religious belief has any very beneficial effect on their
+conduct.
+
+Yet nothing is more common than to find the theist, when driven off all
+other grounds of defence, protesting against a deliberate propaganda of
+Atheism on the ground of its probable harmful consequences to morals.
+This, not because those who have publicly professed Atheism are open to
+the charge of loose living, but on account of those who at present
+believe in religion, and whose loss of belief would possibly upset their
+moral equilibrium. It is a curious position for a theist to take up,
+since it implies that while the Atheist as we know him shows no
+deterioration of character in consequence of his loss of belief, we
+cannot be so certain of the present believers in deity. They are formed
+of poorer clay, and once convinced that there is no God with whom they
+have to reckon, there is no telling what will happen. So we are urged to
+let well alone, and leave believers with their illusions lest their loss
+should present us with a very unpleasant reality.
+
+This fear is expressed in various ways, but in one way or another it is
+tolerably common. The following which reached me from a well known man
+of letters probably puts the argument as fairly and as temperately as it
+can be put, and therefore in dealing with that I cannot be accused of
+taking the theist at an unfair advantage. His conclusions are summarised
+in the following paragraphs. (The summary is the author's, not mine.)
+
+(1) The decentish code of morals which prevails in this twentieth
+century is the outcome of all the human ages. From the very first,
+everywhere and all the time, it has, and continues to be, inextricably
+intertwined and influenced by Theistic beliefs, even when and where such
+beliefs have been the crudest and most debased form of polytheism.
+
+(2) The ethical atmosphere in which we now live, after having had such
+an origin and history, remains strongly and frankly pervaded by religion
+of a Theistic type. Atheist, Agnostic, and Theist alike have to live in
+this atmosphere, and consciously or unconsciously, are subject to its
+influence.
+
+(3) Even if we could set up a wholly secular code of morals, derived
+entirely from the exigencies of, tribal, communal, and national life, I
+take it that such a code would be inadequate to form the type of
+individual character we most admire, and which acts under a sense of
+"ought" rather than of "must." The latter is often the mere demand of
+gregarious or individual comfort and convenience; the former may be
+quite opposed to the inclinations of the individual, and yet bring into
+play irksome but ennobling springs of action which a purely secular code
+cannot touch.
+
+Now these statements put the case for the theist as moderately and as
+well as it can be put, and I think that they are worthy of a little
+careful examination. It may be observed that there is no insinuation
+that Atheists are actually worse than other people, only the fear that
+in the absence of some form of theism the higher ethical motive cannot
+be roused, and that therefore character will suffer. Well, we are none
+of us free from the contagion of our environment, and the most powerful
+influences are often enough those that it would be difficult to specify
+in any given instance. It is not only that the influence of the higher
+members of society affect the lower. The lower is not without its
+influence on the higher. But the question here is not really whether we
+are all exposed to the general influence of the group to which we
+belong, that, I think, is undeniable, the real question at issue is
+whether the determining influence on conduct is theistic or not. And I
+think it will be found that while the one thing is asserted it is the
+other that is proven.
+
+So far as the first proposition is concerned it may be taken for granted
+that our present state is the product of all past evolution, and that in
+the course of that evolution theistic beliefs have been closely--not
+inextricably--connected with morals. But this is not alone true of
+morality, it is true of every branch of human thought and of every
+aspect of human life. Art, science, literature, have all been closely
+connected with religious beliefs. Necessarily so. Early human history is
+spent under the shadow of superstition, and its dominating influence
+affects the form of every aspect of life. But as the course of
+development has been to separate the essential from the non-essential
+and to place most of each department of life on a self-supporting basis,
+it would not seem an unreasonable conclusion that ethics will follow the
+same lines. In fact, it is following the same lines. There are few
+educated people nowadays who would claim that morality cannot exist
+apart from religion, they are content to say, as my correspondent does,
+that in the absence of religion belief the higher aspects of morality
+will suffer.
+
+Our morality, we are told, is the outcome of all the human ages. I go
+further than that and assert that it is the outcome of all the human and
+of all the animal ages. There is no break in nature, and to the
+evolutionist the development of the human from the animal is plain. And
+it should scarcely need pointing out nowadays that nearly every one of
+the fundamental qualities of man can be seen in germ in the animal
+world. I only emphasise the point here because it is so often forgotten
+that morality is fundamentally the expression of those conditions under
+which associated life is found possible and profitable, and that so far
+as any quality is declared to be moral its justification and meaning
+must be found in that direction. The question of incentive we will come
+to later; for the moment it is enough to insist upon the fact that
+morality is fashioned, in its fundamentals, with reference to facts, not
+with reference to speculative beliefs. Beliefs may influence morality
+for awhile, but the persistent operation of social selection secures a
+general conformity between conduct and the conditions upon which life
+depends. That is the fundamental fact to be remembered in all
+discussions of morality, although it is the fact that is most often
+ignored. Ultimately life determines moral teaching, it is not moral
+teaching that determines life.
+
+Life not alone determines morality, but it determines religion as well.
+What else is the meaning of all those discarded forms of religious
+belief, those bodies of dead gods, that meet the student of history as
+the remains of extinct animals meet the geologist in his unravelment of
+the story of the earth's vicissitudes? They are the result of a lack of
+adaptation to new conditions to which they could not accommodate
+themselves. Once the gods lorded it over man as the gigantic dinosaur
+lorded it in his day over lesser animals. And in the one case, as in the
+other, a change in the environment brought about their doom. Natural
+selection determines the survival of religions as of animal forms, and a
+religion to survive must become increasingly utilitarian in character,
+certainly there is a point beyond which the opposite tendency cannot be
+carried.
+
+Assume, for example, that a religion existed of a grossly anti-social
+character, one that teaches doctrines that are subversive of the general
+social well-being. One of two things must result. If the religion is
+strong enough to enforce its teaching the society it dominates will
+disappear, and the religion will die out with it. If, on the other hand,
+it cannot enforce its teaching, or can get it accepted only in a
+modified form, then either the religion disappears in its original form,
+or it is modified to get itself established. To live, religion must
+establish some sort of harmony between its teachings and the conditions
+of life. It may retard the development of life, but it must not retard
+to the point of destruction. This is all that is really involved in what
+is called the purification of religious teaching. In reality there is no
+such thing. The purification is a modification, and it is modified in
+order that it may become acceptable to the society in which it is
+existing. The ascetic epidemic, the various disgusting sects that have
+sprung into existence from time to time during the course of Christian
+history, have all died out from this cause. As with the individual, so
+with society, the forces of which we are conscious generally move upon
+the surface. Of the underlying ones we are mostly unaware.
+
+The truth is, then, that behind all our consciously elaborated theories
+of life there are operative the unconscious or sub-conscious forces of
+evolution. There is, of course, a certain area of conduct in which
+speculative opinions play their part, and where actions may be
+arbitrarily classed as good or bad. But this area is, of necessity,
+limited, and for the reasons that have been given above. Properly
+understood morality is not something very abstract, but something that
+is very concrete. The underlying reason for morality is always the same,
+and we are compelled to hark back to it for justification. And no
+rejection of religion can alter the basis upon which morality rests.
+
+The proposition that Atheist, Agnostic, and Theist breathe the same
+atmosphere and are affected by the same influences is, therefore, one
+that is two-edged. If our intellectual atmosphere is saturated with
+religious influences, it is also saturated with social influences of a
+much more fundamental character, and which have been perpetually
+correcting religious extravagances. And it is at least open to the
+Atheist to retort that we have to thank this circumstance that religious
+beliefs have not been more injurious than has been actually the case.
+If, for example, the ascetic epidemic of the early Christian centuries
+had increased in force and had continued operative, European society
+would have disappeared. That this was not the case was due to the
+strength of the sexual and social instincts, against which religion was
+unable to maintain its hold. In the change of opinion over the better
+way to spend Sunday, or in the decay of the doctrine of eternal
+damnation, we have the same point illustrated. Right through history it
+has been the social instincts that have acted as a corrective to
+religious extravagance. And it is worth noting that with the exception
+of a little gain from the practice of casuistry, religions have
+contributed nothing towards the building up of a science of ethics. On
+the contrary it has been a very potent cause of confusion and
+obstruction. Fictitious vices and virtues have been created and the real
+moral problem lost sight of. It gave the world the morality of the
+prison cell, instead of the tonic of the rational life. And it was
+indeed fortunate for the race that conduct was not ultimately dependent
+upon a mass of teachings that had their origin in the brains of savages,
+and were brought to maturity during the darkest period of European
+civilisation.
+
+In dealing with the two first propositions I have, by implication,
+answered the third--namely, that a wholly secular authentic code of
+morals would be inadequate to form the highest type of character; it
+might supply a "must," but it could not supply an "ought."
+
+The first and obvious reply to an objection of this kind is that our
+working code of morals is secular already. In life, if we observe
+without prejudice, it is not difficult to see that one's neighbours,
+friends, social class, etc., have far more force in shaping conduct than
+speculative theories. In its widest sense natural selection determines
+what actions shall be declared to be moral. Of this we may take the
+universal feeling against homicide. This is but an expression of the
+truth that social life would be impossible were it otherwise. And when
+we pass from the general to the special we meet with much the same
+principle operating in society. The average burglar pursues his calling
+with no special sense of its wrongness, although he may have a keen
+sense of its dangers. But while burgling with a fairly easy conscience,
+he does flinch at breaking the code of honour set up by his
+fellow-burglars. And at the other extreme we have the "gentleman" with
+his code of honour which forbids him not to pay a gambling debt, but
+takes no count of keeping a poor tradesman out of his money. In each of
+these cases the determining factor is not theory but fact, and the fact
+here is association with our fellow countrymen or with a special social
+class. Morality, in short, is social or nothing. Moral laws are
+meaningless apart from social life. Every moral command implies the
+existence of a social medium, and it is no more than a study in history
+to see how this social medium has been continuously shaping and
+reshaping human nature. The determination here is not conscious, but it
+is real, however much disguised it may be by various forms or theories.
+And when we realise this, it is no more than a truism to say that a
+change in religious belief can no more destroy morality than a change in
+government can destroy society.
+
+But in saying that the essence of morality is unreasoning I do not mean
+that it is unreasonable. All I mean is that it can receive a reasonable
+justification, and that no matter how lofty the development it has its
+basis in the fundamental conditions of associated animal and human life.
+We may surround the subject with a vague and attractive idealistic
+verbalism, but we come back to this as a starting point. The love of
+family, with all its attendant values, rests upon the fact of crude
+sexual desire, refined, of course, during the passing of many
+generations, but dependent upon it all the same. Remove the sexual
+desire and the family feelings are inexplicable. Thus, the _reason_ for
+the existence of the sexual instinct is race preservation, but the end
+has been achieved in a quite unreasoning manner. In the animal world at
+large there is certainly no conscious desire for the production of
+offspring, nor is there with the mass of human beings. There is the
+desire to gratify an impulse, and very little more. And for the
+strengthening of an instinct there need not be, nor is there, any
+consciousness of its social value. All that is necessary is that it
+shall be useful. Natural selection attends to the rest.
+
+This will, I think, supply an answer to the contention that secular
+ethics can supply a "must," but not an "ought"; that is, it may show
+that an individual should act in accordance with his inclinations, but
+in cases where these clash with the social well being, it can supply no
+reason why the former should give way to the latter.
+
+The argument rests upon a dual confusion. First, the moral "ought" is no
+more than an organised and conscious form of "must," and not something
+distinct from it. One may test the matter by taking a case. A man says,
+I ought so to work as to promote the general welfare of society. If we
+seek to find the source of this feeling we come ultimately upon the
+feeling of tribal solidarity in virtue of which certain tribes survive
+in the struggle for existence. It is gregariousness struggling into
+consciousness. The moral "ought" is an idealised form of the primitive
+tribal "must." And the "must" of primitive life is encouraged and
+developed because it is one of the conditions of survival.
+
+The second point of confusion is based upon a supposed opposition
+between individual inclinations and an ideal conception of duty. That
+the two are often, as a matter of fact, in conflict, must be admitted.
+And the cause is that while our inclinations represent a heritage from
+the past, our ideals are a projection into the future. But the
+contention is based upon their supposed permanent hostility, and that
+need not be taken for granted. For the whole course of social evolution
+tends to bring about a substantial identification of personal and social
+well-being. More and more as the race develops it is being recognised
+that there is no real individual life apart from social life, of which
+it is the creation and the expression. Such antagonism as exists is the
+inevitable result of a conflict between an organism and its adaptation
+to a changing environment. And from this point of view the whole growth
+of man is in the nature of an expansion of his sympathies and sense of
+duty over an ever-widening area. The primitive egoism of the tribal
+individual is extended to the nation, that of the nation to the empire,
+and thence to the whole of humanity. There is no destruction or denial
+of self in such cases, it is a development of the sense of self over an
+enlarging area.
+
+Finally, if a secular code of morals will not suffice, it is sheer
+rhetoric to say that religion is powerful enough to operate where
+naturalism fails. On the contrary, in a civilised community religious
+appeals tend to become secular appeals in disguise. On the admission of
+Christian advocates the two most powerful appeals that can be made are
+on the one hand, in the name of the fatherhood of god, and on the other,
+the conception of the Mother and the Child. And what are these but
+appeals to the secular and social feelings of man in the name of
+religion? It may be granted that Atheism in its appeals to mankind often
+fails, but in this respect is it any worse off than religion? Why, one
+of the standing complaints of religious preachers in all ages is that
+their message falls so frequently on deaf ears. There is no more
+certainty that the religious appeal will meet with success, than there
+is that any other appeal will be successful. And there is the
+unquestionable fact that morality has become stronger as the power of
+religion has weakened. The higher qualities have asserted themselves
+during a period of religious disintegration, and the student of morals
+sees in this a promise of a further development in the future.
+
+And to all prophecies as to the effects of Atheism on the morality of
+the future there is the apt reply that they are prophecies and nothing
+else. And in this respect it is dangerous for the Christian theist to
+appeal to history. For while the consequences of Atheism can be no more
+than a forecast, which may or may not be justified, the record of
+Christianity is before the world. And we know that the period during
+which the influence of Christian theism was strongest, was the period
+when the intellectual life of civilised man was at its lowest, morality
+at its weakest, and the general outlook most hopeless. Religious control
+gave us heresy hunts, and Jew hunts, burnings for witchcraft, and magic
+in the place of medicine. It gave us the Inquisition and the _auto da
+fe_, the fires of Smithfield and the night of St. Bartholomew. It gave
+us the war of sects and it helped powerfully to establish the sect of
+war. It gave us life without happiness, and death cloaked with terror.
+The Christian record is before us, and it is such that every Church
+blames the others for its existence. Quite as certainly we cannot point
+to a society that has been dominated by Freethinking ideas, but we can
+point to their existence in all ages, and can show that all progress is
+due to their presence. We can show that progressive ideas have
+originated with the least, and have been opposed by the most religious
+sections of society. What religion has done for the world we know; what
+freethought will do we can only guess. But we are confident that as
+honesty is possible without the falsity of religion, as duty may be done
+with no other incentive than its visible consequences on the people
+around us, so life may be lived in honour and closed in peace with no
+other inspiration than comes from the contemplation of the human stream
+from which we emerge and into which we finally go.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+ATHEISM INEVITABLE.
+
+
+Between Theism and Atheism the logical mind may halt, but it cannot rest
+for long, and in the end the logic of fact works its way. Compromise,
+while it may delay the end without preventing its inevitability, is
+quite out of place in matters of the intellect. In the world of practice
+compromise is often unavoidable, but in that of ideas the sole concern
+should be for truth. When Whately said that the man who commenced by
+loving Christianity more than truth would continue by loving his own
+sect more than any other, and end by loving himself more than all, he
+placed his finger on the great moral danger of compromise where opinion
+is concerned. It begins, ostensibly, by considering the respect due to
+an opponent's case, it continues by sacrificing the respect that is due
+one's own, and it ends by giving a new sense of value to the very
+opinion it aims at destroying. "No quarter" is the only sound rule in
+intellectual warfare, where to take prisoners is only one degree less
+dishonouring than to be taken captive oneself. And the value of an
+opinion is never wholly in the opinion itself. No small part of its
+worth is derived from the way in which it is held, and the importance
+which is placed upon it.
+
+When Professor Tylor said that the deepest of all divisions in the
+history of human thought was that which divided Animism from
+Materialism, he was saying what I have been endeavouring to say, in
+another manner, in the foregoing pages. Atheism and supernaturalism are
+fundamental divisions in human thought, and divisions that connote an
+irreconcilable antagonism. The terms not only mark a division, they are
+the badges of a movement, the indication of a pilgrimage. Dr. Tylor's
+own work and the work of his fellow labourers tell the story in detail,
+and although no one is in a position to write "finis" to it, there is no
+doubt as to what its end will be. And the manner of the pilgrimage is
+quite plain. The starting point is the creation by the befogged
+ignorance of primitive man of that welter of ghosts and gods which make
+so much of early existence a veritable nightmare. The journey commences
+in a world in which the "supernatural" is omnipresent, in which man's
+chief endeavours is given to win the good will or avert the anger of the
+ghosts and gods to whom he has himself given being. And the end, the
+last stage of the pilgrimage, is a world in which mechanical operations
+take the place of disembodied intelligences, or of supernatural powers.
+From a world in which the gods are everything and do everything to a
+world in which the gods are nothing and do nothing. The story of that
+transition is the record of one of the greatest revolutions that has
+happened in the history of mankind. Its real greatness and far-reaching
+significance is not always adequately recognised, even by those who
+welcome it gladly. Indeed, the narrower interests that suffer from this
+revolution are more keenly alive to its importance than are those who
+benefit from its consummation. That is, perhaps, what one ought to
+expect from the known course of human history. For history would not be
+what it is, nor would reforms be so difficult of accomplishment were it
+not possible to persuade the slave that his servitude guards him from
+the very evils it perpetuates.
+
+Incidentally the nature of that revolution has been indicated in the
+preceding pages. But a more connected view will form a fitting close to
+this work. Nothing more than the barest of outlines can be attempted,
+but such as it is it may serve to illustrate the truth that Atheism is
+more than the speculative philosophy of a few, that it is in sober truth
+the logical outcome of mental growth. So far as any phase of human life
+can be called inevitable Atheism may lay claim to being inescapable. All
+mental growth can be seen leading to it, just as we can see one stage of
+social development giving a logical starting point for another stage,
+and which could have been foretold had our knowledge of all the forces
+in operation been precise enough. Atheism is, so to speak, implicit in
+the growth of knowledge; its complete expression is the consummation of
+a process that began with the first questionings of religion. And the
+completion of the process means the death of supernaturalism in all its
+forms.
+
+Religion, it has already been said, is something that is acquired, and
+although that sounds little better than a commonplace, yet reflection
+proves it to contain an important truth. For it is in the nature of the
+acquisition that its significance lies. Whatever be the earliest stages
+of religion it is at all events clear that its earliest form is in the
+nature of a hypothesis, even though only of the semi-conscious kind that
+exists when man is brought into touch with some new and overpowering
+experience. Religious ideas are put forth in explanation of something.
+But all explanation whether by savage or civilised man, must be in terms
+of existing knowledge. No other method is possible. We must explain the
+unknown in terms of the known, and our explanation will be the more
+elaborate and the nearer the truth as our knowledge of the nature of the
+forces are the more exact and extensive. A knowledge of the laws of
+condensation and evaporation enables a modern to give an explanation of
+the meaning of a shower of rain that is simply impossible to man in an
+earlier stage of culture. In every case the facts are the same, and in
+each case the explanation given depends upon the knowledge acquired.
+
+Now one radical distinction between an early and a modern explanation of
+the world is that whereas the former moves from within outward, the
+latter moves from without inward. Uncivilised man explains the world by
+himself; civilised man explains himself by the world. The savage
+describes the world in terms of his own feelings and passions, the
+scientist regards human qualities as resulting from the relation which
+man holds to the forces around him. The process, while presenting a
+radical difference in form, is yet fundamentally one in essence.
+Ignorant of all that we connote by such an expression as "natural
+forces," whatever explanation is offered by the savage is necessarily in
+terms of the only force with which he is acquainted. But it happens that
+the only forces which he then fancies he understands are those
+represented by his own organisation. What he is conscious of doing is
+prompted by his own will and intelligence. He hurts when he is angry, he
+rewards when he is pleased, and he makes the same assumption regarding
+the things around him. So far as he explains nature he vitalises it.
+Vital force becomes the symbol of all force. And this result expresses a
+mental law that is universally operative. The civilised mind differs
+from the savage mind not because the brain functions differently in the
+two cases, but solely in consequence of the wider and truer knowledge of
+the causes of natural phenomena which civilised man possesses. We arrive
+at different conclusions because we start from different premises.
+Inevitably, therefore, the first attempt of man to deal with nature
+takes the form of assuming the operation of a number of personal
+intelligences. Natural objects are alive, and everything that happens to
+man, from the cradle to the grave, is thought of as being either alive
+or controlled by living beings. The world is filled with a crowd of
+ghostly beings exercising more or less discordant functions. Against
+this riot of gods the conception of natural law developes but slowly.
+Quite apart from the natural inertia of the human mind, the fact of
+questioning the power of these assumed beings involves to the primitive
+mind an element of grave danger. All sorts of things may happen if the
+gods are offended, and in self-defence the tribe feels bound to suppress
+the critic of religion and of religious ideas. But once the step is
+taken, the area over which the gods rule is to that extent restricted,
+and with that step Atheism may be said to be born.
+
+What Lange said in the opening sentences of his classic "History of
+Materialism," that "Materialism is as old as philosophy, but not older,"
+may be said with equal truth of Atheism. That, too, is as old as
+philosophy, since it begins with man's attempts to break away from that
+primitive interpretation of nature which sees in all phenomena the
+action of personal intelligences. It is of no importance in which branch
+of knowledge the departure was made, whichever department one takes the
+process can be seen at work. Astronomy appears to have been the branch
+of knowledge in which the powers of the gods were earliest restricted,
+although it was not until the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo,
+Newton, and Laplace were given to the world that "God" vanished
+altogether from that region. Geology follows with the teaching that
+chemical, thermal, and other known forces leave nothing for the gods to
+accomplish. Biology and sociology, dealing with more complex forces, are
+much later in the field, but they tread the same path. They provide a
+refuge for "God" for awhile, but it is evident that their complete
+dispossession is no more than a question of time. And even though the
+very complex character of the forces working in these latter departments
+should prevent us ever acquiring the same degree of prevision that
+exists in other classes, no difference will be made to the general
+result. The principle will be fairly established and our ignorance of
+details will no longer be made the ground for assertions which, if made
+at all, should rest upon the most exact knowledge. "God" will be left
+with nothing to do, and man will not for ever go on worshipping a God
+whose sole recommendation is that he exists, nor will the common sense
+of civilised people hold on to a hypothesis when there is nothing left
+for that hypothesis to explain.
+
+The single and outstanding characteristic of the conception of god at
+all times and under all conditions is that it is the equivalent of
+ignorance. In primitive times it is ignorance of the character of
+natural forces that leads to the assumption of the existence of gods,
+and in this respect the god-idea has remained true to itself throughout.
+Even to-day whenever the principle of "God" is invoked a very slight
+examination is enough to show that the only reason for this being done
+is our ignorance of the subject before us. Why does anyone assume that
+we must believe in God in order to explain the beginnings of life? Why
+is "God" assumed to be responsible for the order of nature? Why must we
+assume "God" to explain mind? The answer to these and to all similar
+questions is that we do not know, in the sense that we know the cause of
+planetary motions, how these things came to be. It is not what we know
+about them that leads to the assumption of god, but what we do not know.
+And the converse of that is that so soon as knowledge replaces ignorance
+"God" will be dispensed with. It is never a case of believing in God
+because of the actual knowledge we possess, but always the appeal to
+weakness and ignorance. From this point of view the colloquial "God only
+knows!" expresses the appeal to ignorance even more clearly than the
+elaborate argument of the sophisticated apologist.
+
+This aspect of the matter was well put by Spinoza. Believers in the
+argument from design, he says, have a method of argument that is a
+reduction, not to the impossible, but to ignorance. Thus,
+
+
+     If a stone falls from a roof on to someone's head and kills him,
+     they will demonstrate by their new method that the stone fell to
+     kill the man; for if it had not by God's will fallen with that
+     object, how could so many circumstances (and there are often many
+     concurrent circumstances) have all happened together by chance.
+     Perhaps you will answer that the event is due to the facts that the
+     wind was blowing, and the man was walking that way. "But why," they
+     will insist, "was the wind blowing, and why was the wind at that
+     very time blowing that way?" If you again answer, that the wind had
+     then sprung up because the sea had begun to be agitated the day
+     before, the weather having been previously calm, and that the man
+     had been invited by a friend, they will again insist: "But why was
+     the sea agitated, and why was the man invited at that time?" So
+     they will pursue their question from cause to cause, till at last
+     you take refuge in the will of God--in other words, the sanctuary
+     of ignorance. (Appendix to _Ethics_; pt. 1)
+
+
+The sanctuary of ignorance "God" has always been, and the sanctuary of
+ignorance it will remain to the end. It has no other function in life. A
+consciousness of this is shown by the upholders of Theism in the
+eagerness with which they welcome every supposed demonstration of the
+impotence of science, and of the resistance everywhere offered to the
+development of scientific advance.
+
+So far, then, as the progress of life makes for the growth of knowledge,
+so far may we safely claim that the development of thought makes for
+Atheism, as we have just said, and to do the religious world justice it
+has always been quick to realise this, and every great scientific
+generalisation--as well as many smaller ones, has been resisted on the
+ground that they were atheistic in character and tended to take the
+control of the world out of God's hands. Present-day theists are apt to
+condemn this attitude of their predecessors, but it can hardly be denied
+that the logic lies with the earlier representatives. A God who does
+nothing might, for all practical purposes, as well be non-existent. And
+a God who is merely in the background of things, who may be responsible
+for their origin, but having originated them surrenders all control over
+their operations, is hardly more serviceable. The modern theist saves
+his God only by leaving him a negligible quantity in a universe he is
+supposed to sustain and govern.
+
+And it cannot be too often emphasised that the whole basis of exact or
+positive science is atheistic--that is, it is compelled to ignore even
+the possibility of the existence of God. Every scientific generalisation
+rests upon the constancy of natural forces. On no other basis is it
+possible to give a scientific interpretation to what has gone before or
+to anticipate what is to happen in the future. Every scientific
+calculation assumes that in the world with which it deals causation is
+invariable and universal. But if we are to assume the operations of a
+"God" at any time or point every scientific calculation would have to be
+accompanied with the D.V. of a prayer meeting. To argue from the past to
+the future would be futile. God might have operated then, no one could
+be certain he will operate now. Or he might have operated in the far
+past, but he might not in the future. In either case the assumption of a
+God would be fatal to exact scientific calculations. Thus in sheer self
+defence, in order to preserve its character as science, science is
+compelled to discard even the possibility of the existence of a
+controlling intelligence. As one eminent theistic advocate admits,
+"Science has no need, and indeed, can make no use, in any particular
+instance of the theistic hypothesis."[6] It is only when supernaturalism
+is partly excluded from human thought that science can be said to really
+commence its existence; and in proportion as our conception of the
+universe becomes that of an aggregate of non-conscious forces--or of a
+single force with many forms producing given results under given
+conditions, only then does our view of the universe reach completion.
+
+A study of the nature and tendency of human development does, therefore,
+provide a very strong presumption in favour of atheism. All growth here
+is in favour of atheism and away from theism. In the beginning we have
+the gods everywhere and dominating everything. They do everything and
+control everything. "God" is the one universal primitive hypothesis. And
+all subsequent development is to its discrediting. There is no growth in
+the idea of god, there is only an attenuation. The gods grow fewer as
+the race approaches maturity. Their activities cease as man becomes
+aware of the character of the forces around him. And it may be further
+noted that this decline of the belief in deity is brought about as much
+by sheer pressure of experience as by pure reason. The majority of
+people do not reason themselves out of the belief in god, they outgrow
+it. People cease to believe in the gods because they experience no
+compulsion to believe in them. The logic of fact is ultimately more
+powerful than the logic of theory, and as environmental forces brought
+the gods into existence, so environmental forces carry them out again.
+
+Now Atheism does but make explicit in words what has long been implicit
+in practice. It takes the god-idea, examines it, and explains it out of
+existence. It admits the reality of gods as it admits the reality of
+ghosts and fairies and witches. They are subjective, not objective,
+realities. Atheism takes the god-idea, explains its origin, describes
+its subsequent development, and in so doing indicates its ultimate fate.
+In this sense Atheism is, as I have said, no more than the final stage
+of a long historical process. The theistic phase of thought is an
+inevitable one in human evolution, but it is no more a permanent one
+than is the belief in hobgoblins. One might here paraphrase Bacon and
+say, "A little philosophy inclineth a man to belief in the gods, but
+depth in philosophy leads to their rejection as a false and useless
+hypothesis." It is true that thinking brought the gods into the world;
+it is also true that adequate thinking carries them out again.
+
+The cardinal truth is, of course, that the hypothesis of mind in nature
+does not owe its existence to an exact knowledge of things but to its
+absence. Its origin must be sought in a pre-scientific age and its
+persistence in a number of extraneous circumstances which have
+perpetuated a belief that would otherwise have inevitably disappeared.
+And it would indeed be a matter for surprise if this belief--said by
+theists to be of all beliefs the most profound--should be the one
+speculation on which savage thought has justified itself. On no other
+question did the primitive mind reach truth. Universally its
+speculations concerning the world were discovered to be wrong. On this
+one topic we are asked to believe that the savage was absolutely right.
+
+From the age of fetichism--rightly called by Comte the creative age in
+theology--the history of the god-idea has been a history of a series of
+modifications and rejections. Scarce an invention that has not slain a
+god, scarce a discovery has not marked the burying-place of a discarded
+deity. Criticism reduced the gods in number and limited them in power.
+Advancing knowledge pushed them back till nature, "rid of her haughty
+lords," is conceived as a huge mechanism, self-acting, self-adjusting,
+and self-repairing. Even in the mouths of religionists "God" to-day
+stands for little more than a force. We must not describe him as
+personal, as intelligent, or as conscious, and between this and the
+existence assumed by atheistic science it is impossible to detect any
+vital difference. Atheism, then, takes its stand upon the observed trend
+of human history, upon a scrutiny of the facts of nature, and upon an
+examination of the origin and contents of the god-idea. And upon these
+grounds it may fairly claim to be irrefutable and inevitable.
+Circumstances may obstruct its universal acceptance as a reasoned mental
+attitude, but that merely delays, it does not destroy the certainty of
+its final triumph.
+
+With the supposed direful consequences that would follow the triumph of
+Atheism I have not dealt with at length. These are the bugbears which
+the designing normally employ in order to frighten the timid and
+credulous. Mental uprightness and moral integrity are certainly not the
+property of one religion, nor can it be said with truth that they belong
+to any. And examining the histories of religion it is a fair assumption
+that in whatever direction the world may suffer from the disappearance
+of religion there will be no moral catastrophe. Looking at the whole
+course of human history, and noting how the vilest and most ruinous
+practices have been ever associated with religion, and have ever relied
+upon religion for support, the cause for speculation is, not what will
+happen to the world when religion dies out, but how human society has
+managed to flourish while the belief in the gods ruled.
+
+Fortunately for human society nature has not left the operation of the
+fundamental virtues dependent upon the acceptance of this or that theory
+of the world. The social and family instincts, which are inseparable
+from our nature as men and women, and which operate in ways of which we
+are largely unconscious, are the grounds of all the higher and finer
+virtues, and while a change in opinion may affect their operation here
+and there, it can never alter their fundamental character. Conduct, in
+short, comes from life, it is not the creation of a theory to be
+dismissed by resolution or refashioned by a vote.
+
+What Atheism would mean in practice would be an enormous concentration
+of energy upon purely human affairs, and a judgment of conduct in terms
+of human happiness and prosperity. And that certainly furnishes no cause
+for alarm. It is, indeed, our greatest need. We need an awakening to the
+untapped power and possibilities of human nature. If the gods die, man
+their creator still lives; and the creative energy which once covered
+the face of nature with innumerable gods, which spent itself in the
+attempt to win their favour, and which called forth a heaven in the
+endeavour to redress the wrongs of earth, may, if properly applied, yet
+cover the earth with homes in which men and women, rendered purer by
+love and stronger by knowledge, will rise superior to the fabled gods
+before whom they once bowed in blind adoration.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[6] Prof. Ward "Naturalism and Agnosticism" Vol. I., p. 23.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Theism or Atheism, by Chapman Cohen
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #25291 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25291)