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 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 
 DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 OF CALVOBHIft 
 LOS ANGELBS 
 
 RELIGION 
 AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 R. G. COLLINGWOOD 
 
 FELLOW AND LECTURER OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1916
 
 COPYRIGHT
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IT was my intention to write this book as an essay in 
 philosophy, addressed in the first instance to philosophers. 
 But the force of circumstances has to some extent modi- 
 fied that plan. To make of it an academic treatise, 
 armed at all points against the criticism of the professed 
 specialist, would require time far beyond the few years 
 I have spent upon it. The claims of a " temporary " 
 occupation, very different from that in which I began 
 to write, leave no opportunity for the rewriting and 
 careful revision which such a work demands, and I had 
 set it aside to await a period of greater leisure. But 
 the last year has seen a considerable output of books 
 treating of religion from a philosophic or intellectual 
 rather than either a dogmatic or a devotional point of 
 view ; and I believe that this activity corresponds to a 
 widespread reawakening of interest in that aspect of 
 religion among persons not specially trained in techni- 
 cal philosophy or theology. In the hope of making 
 some small contribution to this movement, I venture to 
 publish this book as it stands. 
 
 No one can be more conscious than myself of its 
 shortcomings ; that they are not far greater is largely
 
 vi RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 due to the patience with which certain friends, especi- 
 ally E. F. Carritt, F. A. Cockin, and S. G. Scott have 
 read and criticised in detail successive versions of the 
 manuscript. It must not be supposed, however, that 
 they are in agreement with all my views. 
 
 69 CHURCH STREET, KENSINGTON, W. 
 July 30, 1916.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 P 
 
 INTRODUCTION . . . . . ' x 
 
 PART I 
 THE GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY ..... 
 
 1. The intellectual element in all Religion (creed). Anti- 
 
 intellectual theories of Religion : 
 (a) Religion as Ritual. 
 (6) Religion as Conduct. 
 (c) Religion as Feeling. 
 
 2. Identity of creed with Theology. 
 
 3. Identity of creed with Philosophy : 
 
 (a) Negation of a special Philosophy of Religion. 
 
 (b) Identity of Religion and Philosophy. 
 
 (c) The supposed irreligious elements in Science. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY . . . - . 
 
 i. The existence of a practical content in all Religion. Contra- 
 dictory views : 
 
 (a) An historical argument. 
 
 (b) An anthropological argument. 
 
 (c) Religious determinism. 
 
 (d) Antinomianism. 
 
 (e) Quietism. 
 
 vii
 
 viii RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 2. The mutual dependence of thought and action : 
 
 (a) Action always presupposes thought. 
 
 (b) Thought always presupposes will. 
 
 3. The identity of thought and action : 
 
 (a) Religious expression of this identity in the term "love." 
 
 (b) Criticisms of the ordinary distinction. 
 
 (c) The identity does not destroy real differences between 
 
 different kinds of life. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 RELIGION AND HISTORY . . . . -37 
 
 i. One-sided historical views of Religion (historical positivism): 
 
 (a) Psychology and Comparative Religion. 
 
 (b) History of Dogma or of the Church. 
 z. Anti-historical views : 
 
 (a) Anti-historical scepticism. 
 
 (b) Dualism of History and Philosophy. 
 
 3. The mutual dependence of Philosophy and History : 
 
 (a) History depends upon Philosophy. 
 
 (b) Philosophy depends upon History. 
 
 4. The identity of Philosophy and History. 
 
 5. Application to Religion : doctrine cannot be severed from its 
 
 historical setting. 
 
 PART II 
 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ON PROVING THE EXISTENCE OF GOD . co 
 
 i. Theology must prove the existence of God : 
 
 (a) Attempt to evade this difficulty by the analogy of physics. 
 () Physics proves the existence not of matter in the 
 abstract, but of this or that kind of matter ; this 
 proof, in fact, is physics itself. 
 
 (f) In the same way theology has to prove not the exist- 
 ence of any and every God, but of some particular God.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 2. The traditional Theistic Proofs : 
 
 (a) They are not the illicit product of thought in bondage 
 
 to authority, but serious philosophical arguments. 
 
 (b) Their method is reasonable and inevitable. 
 
 3. Scheme of the remaining Chapters of Part II. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 MATTER ....... 72 
 
 1. The dualism of Matter and Mind : 
 
 (a) Not satisfactory as a working hypothesis. 
 
 (b) Interaction between the two is impossible. 
 
 (c) They cannot be distinguished. 
 
 2. Materialism : 
 
 (a) Materialism derives no support whatever from physics. 
 
 (b) The paradox of causation : 
 
 i. Nothing is a cause or an effect except a total state 
 
 of the universe, 
 ii. The explanation given by causal methods is either 
 
 a tautology or an infinite regress, 
 iii. Nothing is ever explained at all unless it is first 
 
 assumed that the universe, though material, can 
 
 cause its own states, i.e. is not subject to the law 
 
 of causation. 
 
 3. Materialism and Idealism (or Immaterialism) : 
 
 (a) The scientist's objection to Idealism : uniformity. 
 
 (b) The plain man's objection : objectivity. 
 
 (c) Idealism and the higher Materialism. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 PERSONALITY . . . . . .96 
 
 1. The identity of persons with each other : 
 
 (a) In communication. 
 
 (b) In co-operation. 
 
 2. Identity and difference : 
 
 (a) This identity rests on, does not destroy, the freedom 
 
 of the various wills concerned. 
 
 (b) Nor does it destroy the infinite differences of truths 
 
 and aims. 
 
 3. Abstract and concrete identity : 
 
 (a) The necessary identity of parts in a whole, distinct as 
 abstract identity from the concrete (contingent) iden- 
 tity above described.
 
 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 () Importance of this distinction in philosophy or religion. 
 An "Absolute," or a God, must be concrete. 
 
 (c) A perfectly good and wise God is conceivable, but it 
 seems necessary to conceive him as finite, i.e. qua God 
 non-existent. This is the Problem of Evil. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 EVIL ....... 
 
 1. Statement of the problem : 
 
 (a) The problem not peculiar to religion ; it is a philo- 
 
 sophical problem, and therefore not insoluble. 
 
 (b) Subordinate questions : 
 
 i. Pain. 
 
 ii. How does evil arise ? 
 
 iii. What is evil ? Failure to answer this question ; 
 how far fatal to the inquiry. 
 
 2. Some inadequate views of evil : 
 
 (a] As non-existent. 
 
 (6) As a finite point of view : 
 
 i. Morality relative to the social system, 
 ii. " Goodness " not the only value, 
 iii. Sceptical theory of knowledge. 
 
 (c) As means to good. 
 
 (d) As merely negative. 
 
 (e) As a superseded phase of evolution. 
 
 3. The main problem : 
 
 (a) The elimination of error by truth. 
 (A) The elimination of evil by good. 
 
 PART III 
 FROM METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE SELF-EXPRESSION OF GOD IN MAN . . .147 
 
 i. The Person of the Christ in relation to God : 
 
 (a) The two senses of identity : (i.) the abstract identity 
 of every man with God ; (ii.) the concrete identity of 
 thought and will in the Christ.
 
 CONTENTS xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 (/>) Objection, that the infinite cannot be completely mani- 
 fested in the finite. Criticism. 
 
 (c) Objection, that such a person would be like God only, 
 not divine. Criticism. 
 
 (d} Objection, that to appear as human, God must undergo 
 "self -limitation." Criticism. Omnipotence and 
 omniscience ; their nature. 
 The Christ in relation to Man : 
 
 (a) The complete reality of his manhood, i.e. his personal 
 
 human individuality. 
 
 (b) His complete unification with his disciples. 
 
 (c) His union with fellow-workers not nominally disciples. 
 
 The Christ as unique, universal and all-inclusive : 
 
 (a) Objection from pantheism, that there are infinite sides 
 
 to God's nature. Criticism. 
 
 (b) Objection from logic, that every particular equally dis- 
 
 plays the universal. Criticism. 
 
 (c) The historical uniqueness of Christ. 
 
 (d) As the absolute experience he summarises all reality 
 
 and all history. The problem of immortality. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN .... 169 
 
 1 . The contradictory duties of Punishment and Forgiveness : 
 
 (a) Forgiveness cannot be dismissed as an illusion. 
 
 (b) Neither can punishment : 
 
 i. Breakdown of revenge theory, 
 ii. Breakdown of deterrent theory. 
 
 (c) The contradiction is absolute. 
 
 2. The solution of the contradiction : 
 
 (a) Further analysis of punishment. 
 
 (b) Identity of punishment and forgiveness. 
 (<:) Empirical distinction between them. 
 
 3. The conception of redemption : 
 
 (a) Objectively as grace of God. 
 
 (b) Subjectively as effort of man. 
 (f) Identity of the two sides. 
 
 4. The principle of vicarious penitence : 
 
 (a) Its reality in the mind of God. 
 
 (b) Its mediation through man.
 
 xii RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PACK 
 
 MIRACLE . ... 194 
 
 1. The common definition, God's interference with Nature. 
 
 General objections to such a dualism, philosophical and 
 theological : 
 
 (a) The common definition denies God by implication. 
 
 (b) It also denies Nature. 
 
 2. Two possible methods of escape from the dualism : 
 
 (a) Nature the sole reality. Miracle now defined as emer- 
 
 gence of a higher law. This conception inconsistent 
 with the idea of Nature and law. 
 
 (b) God the sole reality. Miracle now defined as one 
 
 special type of divine activity : 
 
 i. e.g. abnormal as opposed to normal. Criticism 
 of the ideas of normality and of a normative 
 code of conduct. Rules of conduct either empty 
 or not true ; valueless in proportion to agent's 
 perfection. 
 
 ii. Immediate as opposed to mediate. This is neither 
 a tenable distinction nor a relevant one. 
 
 3. The conception of miracle as a separate category abandoned : 
 
 (a) This agrees with the religious view of life and is necessi- 
 
 tated by the fact of human freedom. 
 
 (b) It does not conflict with the uniformity of Nature as 
 
 rightly understood : for 
 
 i. Mind shows the same uniformity as nature, and 
 
 uniformity does not prove determinism, 
 ii. Uniformity is relative to the point of view ; where 
 superficial knowledge sees identity and mono- 
 tony only, deeper knowledge sees differentiation 
 and freedom. 
 
 INDEX ... .215
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THIS book is the result of an attempt to treat the 
 Christian creed not as dogma but as a critical solution 
 of a philosophical problem. Christianity, in other 
 words, is approached as a philosophy, and its various 
 doctrines are regarded as varying aspects of a single 
 idea which, according to the language in which it is 
 expressed, may be called a metaphysic, an ethic, or a 
 theology. 
 
 This attempt has been made so often already that no 
 apology is needed for making it again. Every modern 
 philosophy has found in Christianity, consciously or 
 unconsciously, the touchstone by which to test its power 
 of explanation. And conversely, Christian theology has 
 always required the help of current philosophy in stating 
 and expounding its doctrines. It is only when philosophy 
 is at a standstill that the rewriting of theology can, for 
 a time, cease. 
 
 But before embarking on the main argument it 
 seemed desirable to ask whether such an argument is 
 really necessary : whether it is right to treat Christianity 
 as a philosophy at all, or whether such a treatment, so 
 far from being the right one, really misses the centre 
 and heart of the matter. Is religion really a philosophy? 
 May it not be that the philosophy which we find 
 associated with Christianity (and the same applies to 
 Buddhism or Mohammedanism) is not Christianity itself 
 but an alien growth, the projection into religion of the 
 philosophy of those who have tried to understand it ?
 
 xiv RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 According to this view, religion is itself no function 
 of the intellect, and has nothing to do with philosophy. 
 It is a matter of temperament, of imagination, of emotion, 
 of conduct, of anything but thought. If this view is 
 right, religion will still be a fit and necessary object of 
 philosophic study ; but that study will be placed on 
 quite a different footing. For if Christianity is a 
 philosophy, every Christian must be, within the limits 
 of his power, a philosopher : by trying to understand 
 he advances in religion, and by intellectual sloth his 
 religion loses force and freshness. Above all, if 
 Christianity is a philosophy, it makes a vital difference 
 whether it is true ; whether it is a philosophy which will 
 stand criticism and can face other philosophies on the 
 field of controversy. 
 
 On the other hand, if religion is a matter of tempera- 
 ment, then there are no Christian truths to state or to 
 criticise : what the religious man must cultivate is not 
 intellectual clearness, but simply his idiosyncrasy of 
 temperament ; and what he must avoid is not looseness 
 of thought and carelessness of the truth, but anything 
 which may dispel the charmed atmosphere of his 
 devotions. If Christianity is a dream, the philosopher 
 may indeed study it, but he must tread lightly and 
 forbear to publish the results of his inquiry, lest he 
 destroy the very thing he is studying. And for the 
 plain religious man to philosophise on his own religion 
 is suicide. How can the subtleties of temperament and 
 atmosphere survive the white light of philosophical 
 criticism ? 
 
 It is clearly of the utmost importance to answer this 
 question. If religion already partakes of the nature of 
 philosophy, then to philosophise upon it is to advance 
 in it, even if, as often happens, philosophy brings doubt 
 in its train. He knows little of his own religion who 
 fears losing his soul in order to find it. But if religion 
 is not concerned with truth, then to learn the truth 
 about religion, to philosophise upon it, is no part of a
 
 INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 religious man's duties. It is a purely professional task, 
 the work of the theologian or the philosopher. 
 
 These issues have been raised in the First Part of 
 this book, and it may be well to anticipate in outline 
 the conclusions there advanced. 
 
 In the first place, religion is undoubtedly an affair of 
 the intellect, a philosophical activity. Its very centre 
 and foundation is creed, and every creed is a view of 
 the universe, a theory of man and the world, a theory 
 of God. If we examine primitive religions, we shall 
 find, as we should expect, that their views of the universe 
 are primitive ; but none the less they are views of the 
 universe. They may be rudimentary philosophies, but 
 they are philosophies. 
 
 Secondly, religion is not, as philosophy is generally 
 supposed to be, an activity of the "mere" intellect. It 
 involves not only belief but conduct, and conduct 
 governed by ideals or moral conduct. Religion is a 
 system of morality just as much as a system of philo- 
 sophical doctrines. Here, again, systems vary : the 
 savage expresses a savage morality in his religion, but it 
 is a morality ; the civilised man's religion, as he becomes 
 more civilised, purges itself of savage elements and 
 expresses ideals which are not yet revealed to the savage. 
 
 Thirdly, the creed of religion finds utterance not 
 only in philosophy but in history. The beliefs of a 
 Christian concern not only the eternal nature of God 
 and man, but certain definite events in the past and the 
 future. Are these a true part of religion at all ? could 
 not a man deny all the historical clauses in the Creed 
 and still be in the deepest sense a perfect Christian ? or 
 be a true Moslem while denying that Mohammed ever 
 lived ? The answer given in Chapter III. is that no such 
 distinction can be drawn. Philosophy and history, the 
 eternal and the temporal, are not irrelevant to one 
 another. It may be that certain historical beliefs have 
 in the past been, or are now, considered essential to 
 orthodoxy when in fact they are not, and are even
 
 xvi RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 untrue ; but we cannot jump from this fact to the 
 general statement that history is irrelevant to religion, 
 any more than we can jump from the fact that certain 
 metaphysical errors may have been taught as orthodox, 
 to the statement that metaphysics and religion have 
 nothing in common. 
 
 A fourth question that ought to be raised concerns 
 the relation between religion and art. The metaphorical 
 or poetical form which is so universal a characteristic of 
 religious literature seems at first sight worlds removed 
 from theology's prose or the " grey in grey " of 
 philosophy. Is the distinction between religion and 
 theology really that between poetry and prose, meta- 
 phorical and literal expression ? And if so, which is the 
 higher form and the most adequately expressive of the 
 truth ? 
 
 To deal with these questions we must enter at length 
 into the nature of poetry and prose, literal and meta- 
 phorical expression, and the general philosophy of 
 language. And having raised the problem, I must ask 
 the reader's pardon for failing to deal with it. The 
 existence of the problem must be noticed ; but its 
 complexity and difficulty are so great that it was found 
 impossible to treat it within the limits of a single chapter. 
 I have accordingly omitted any detailed treatment of 
 these questions, and can only add that I hope to make 
 good the deficiency in a future volume. 
 
 Philosophy, morality, art and history do not exhaust 
 all the sides of human life, because no list of faculties 
 or activities can ever, in the nature of the case, be 
 exhaustive. They are taken as typical ; and if each is 
 found to be necessary to religion, it is perhaps not very 
 rash to conclude that whatever others exist are equally 
 essential. Thus religion is not the activity of one 
 faculty alone, but a combined activity of all elements in 
 the mind. Is it, then, a true unity ? Must we not say, 
 " Philosophy I know, and history I know, but religion 
 seems to be merely a confused name for a combination of
 
 INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 activities, each of which is really distinct and separate"? 
 Does not religion dissolve into its component elements 
 and disappear ? 
 
 No ; because the elements will not dissolve. They 
 contain in themselves the power of natural attraction 
 which forbids us ever to effect the separation. Or 
 rather, each by its own internal necessity generates all 
 the others, and cannot exist as a concrete thing till that 
 necessity has run its course. And religion is a concrete 
 thing, a life, an activity, not a mere faculty ; and there- 
 fore it must consist of all at once. So far from religion 
 decomposing into its elements, every individual element 
 expands into a concrete fulness in which it becomes 
 religion. 
 
 " Then is there no other life than religion ? " So 
 it would appear. Just as every man has some work- 
 ing theory of the world which is his philosophy, some 
 system of ideals which rule his conduct, so every one has 
 to some degree that unified life of all the faculties which 
 is a religion. He may be unconscious of it, just as 
 every man is unconscious of having a philosophy before 
 he understands what the word means, and takes the 
 trouble to discover it ; and it may be a good or a bad 
 religion, just as a man's system of conduct may be a 
 good or bad morality. But the thing, in some form, is 
 necessarily and always there ; and even the psychological 
 accompaniments of religion though they must never 
 be mistaken for religion itself the feeling of awe and 
 devotion, of trust in powers greater than oneself, of 
 loyalty to an invisible world, are by no means confined 
 to persons gifted with the " religious temperament." 
 
 " But at least," it will be replied, " that is not the 
 way we use the word ; and you can't alter the usage of 
 words to suit your own convenience." I am afraid we 
 cannot escape the difficulty by any method so simple as 
 recourse to the dictionary. The question is not what 
 words we use, but what we mean by them. We apply 
 the term religion to certain types of consciousness, and
 
 xviii RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 not to others, because we see in the one type certain 
 characteristics which in the others we suppose to be 
 absent. Further investigation shows that the character- 
 istic marks of religion, the marks in virtue of which we 
 applied the term, are really present in the others also, 
 though in a form which at first evaded recognition. 
 To refuse to extend the term on the ground that you 
 have never done so before is as if one should say, " I 
 mean by a swan a bird that is white ; to describe this 
 black bird as a swan is merely abusing language." 
 
 We must make up our minds what we really do 
 mean by religion ; and if we choose to define it super- 
 ficially, by the colour of its feathers instead of by its 
 comparative anatomy, we must renounce the attempt to 
 philosophise about it, or to preach it, or to put our 
 whole trust in it ; because none of these things can 
 decently apply to superficialities. But if we really try 
 to discover what is the inward heart and essence of the 
 thing we call religion, we must not be alarmed if we 
 find that our practised vision sees it in places where, till 
 now, we had not expected to find it.
 
 PART I 
 THE GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 To determine the relation in which religion stands to 
 the other activities of the mind, philosophy, conduct, 
 and so on, might seem impossible without previously 
 defining both religion itself and the other activities or 
 forms of consciousness. But we cannot frame a defini- 
 tion until we have investigated these relations ; and to 
 offer it dogmatically at the outset would be to beg the 
 very question we wish to solve. This is a difficulty 
 common to all philosophical, and indeed in the last 
 resort to all other investigations. No science is really 
 in a position to define its subject-matter until it has 
 brought its discoveries to a close. 
 
 Consequently we offer no definition of religion at 
 the beginning, but hope to arrive at one in the course 
 of our inquiry. In fact, these introductory chapters 
 are intended to lead to a general conception of religion ; 
 abstract indeed, because its content will only be examined 
 in the latter part of this book, but sufficient for the 
 purpose of preliminary definition. We start here with 
 only one presupposition : namely, that the form of con- 
 sciousness called religion really does exist. What it is, 
 and of what it is the consciousness, are questions we 
 shall try to answer in the course of our inquiry. 
 
 i. The first relation to be examined is that between 
 
 religion and the intellect, that activity of the mind by 
 
 which we think and know. The question before us is 
 
 whether religion involves this activity or not ; whether 
 
 3
 
 4 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION n . i 
 
 or not the intellect has a part in the religious life. At 
 present we do not ask whether it constitutes the whole 
 of religion, and whether religion contains also non- 
 intellectual elements. We only wish to determine 
 whether it has an intellectual element ; and if so, what 
 is the general nature of this element. 
 
 This question naturally leads us to investigate certain 
 views of religion which place its essence in something 
 other than thought, and exclude that faculty from the 
 definition of the religious consciousness. It has, for 
 instance, been held that religion consists in the per- 
 formance of ritual acts, and that all else is secondary 
 and irrelevant ; or that it is neither more nor less than 
 a system of practice or morals ; or again that it is a 
 function of a mental faculty neither intellectual nor 
 moral, known as feeling. We shall examine these 
 views as mere types, in the abstract, not criticising 
 any particular exposition of them, but rather treating 
 them on general grounds as alternative possible theories. 
 
 (#) The view that religion consists in ritual alone 
 does not result from a study of the more highly 
 developed religions. In these ritual may be very im- 
 portant and have a prominent place ; but no one, 
 probably, would maintain that they ever make ritual 
 their sole content to the exclusion of creed. The 
 theory springs rather from an examination of the 
 religions of the lower culture : the evidence for it is 
 " anthropological " in the common sense of that word. 
 Anthropologists sometimes lay down the principle that 
 the beliefs of primitive peoples are less worth studying 
 than their practices. All ceremonial, whether of primi- 
 tive or advanced religion, is definite and instructive ; 
 but to question a savage as to his creed is at best a 
 waste of time, since his powers alike of self-analysis 
 and of self-expression are rudimentary, and at worst, 
 for the same reasons, positively misleading. How 
 valuable this principle is every one must recognise who 
 has compared its practical results with those of the old-
 
 CH. i RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 5 
 
 fashioned catechising method. But in order to explain 
 its value, anthropologists have sometimes been led to 
 assert that religion primarily consists in ritual alone, 
 and that dogma or creed is at first non-existent, and 
 only arises later through the invention of " astiological 
 myth." The important thing, we are told, is that a 
 savage does such and such actions at such and such 
 times ; the story he tells, when pressed by an inquiring 
 neophyte or a privileged stranger to explain why he 
 does them, is a subsequent accretion and no part of 
 the real religious impulse. Now this explanatory story 
 or aetiological myth is supposed to be the germ which 
 develops into creed ; and therefore it follows that creed, 
 with all its theological and philosophical developments, 
 is not an integral part of any religion at all. 
 
 Such a position, however plausible it may seem at 
 first sight, involves a host of difficulties. To begin 
 with, it is at least unsafe to assume that religion in us 
 is essentially the same as religion in the savage. No 
 proof of this is forthcoming. It may well be the case 
 that the emphasis we lay on creed has quite transformed 
 religion, so that it is to us a different thing, incapable 
 of explanation by analogy with that of the savage. 
 Thus anthropologists tell us that the purpose of cloth- 
 ing, in the most primitive culture, is to attract the eye, 
 evil or otherwise, of the spectator ; not to keep out 
 the weather. Am I therefore to resist the inclination 
 to wear a greatcoat when I go to the post on a wet 
 night, on the ground that it is a mere freak of vanity, 
 and useless because no one will see me ? 
 
 Even if the account of savage religion is true, it 
 does not follow that it is a true account of the religion 
 of other cultures. It is useless to appeal to the principle, 
 if principle it is, that to understand a thing we must 
 know its history and origin ; for if religion has really 
 undergone a radical change, that principle is a mere 
 cloak for giving irrelevant information : the history 
 offered is the history of something else.
 
 6 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT . i 
 
 Secondly, such an account of savage religion itself 
 seems to be incomplete. It fails to give any reason 
 why the savage practises his ritual, for ex hypothesi the 
 astiological myth only gives a fictitious reason. No 
 doubt it is possible to say that there is no reason at 
 all, that he has no motive, no special feelings, impelling 
 him to these ceremonies. And it may be true that the 
 accounts given by savages of their motive in ritual are 
 unsatisfactory and inconsistent. But ritual is not mere 
 motiveless play. If it is ritual at all, some definite im- 
 portance is attached to it ; it is felt to have a value 
 and to be obligatory or necessary. What is the nature 
 of this importance which the savage attaches to his 
 ritual? It cannot be a mere "feeling of importance" 
 in the abstract ; such a feeling is not a possibility. 
 However difficult it may be to explain why we feel 
 something to be important, there must be an expressible 
 reason for our feeling ; for instance, the belief that this 
 ritual averts evil consequences of actions done, or en- 
 sures benefits of some kind. It is not necessary that 
 the conception be very sharply defined ; but some such 
 conception necessarily underlies every ritual action, and 
 indeed every other action that is not regarded as an end 
 in itself. Ritual is not in this sense an end in itself; 
 it is not performed as a pleasure but as a necessity ; 
 often as practised by savages a most painful and ex- 
 pensive necessity. 
 
 If we could get at the savage's real mind, he would 
 surely reply, when we asked him why he performed 
 certain ceremonies, that otherwise crops would fail, rain 
 would not fall, the spirits which surrround his path and 
 his bed would turn against him. These fears constitute, 
 or rather imply and express, the savage's creed. They, 
 and not aetiological myth, are the germ which develops 
 into creed as we know it. They differ from aetiological 
 myth precisely in this, that whereas they are the real 
 motive of ritual, the latter expresses not the real motive 
 but a fanciful motive, invented when the self-analysis
 
 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 7 
 
 of the primitive mind has failed to discover the real 
 one. That it should try to discover its motive is in- 
 evitable ; that it should fail to do so is not surprising. 
 Nothing is more difficult than to give a reasonable 
 answer to the question why we behave as we do. And 
 the anthropologist is right in refusing to take such 
 myths as really accounting for ritual ; he is only wrong 
 if his dissatisfaction with fanciful accounts makes him 
 doubt the possibility of a true and adequate account. 
 
 The point, then, which is independent of any view 
 as to the relation of magic and religion, because it applies 
 to both alike, is that ceremonial is based on creed. It 
 is not the foundation of creed ; it depends upon it. 
 The word creed is here used in a quite rudimentary 
 sense, as indicating any theory of the nature of the 
 power which governs the universe. You perform a 
 ritual act because you believe that it pleases that power 
 and induces it to make rain, or compels it to make rain, 
 or simply makes rain come automatically ; whatever 
 particular form your creed takes, it is always creed and 
 nothing but creed that impels you to ritual. 
 
 The principle of the centrality of ritual and the 
 secondary nature of belief seems thus to be a result of 
 insufficient analysis ; and though we have examined it 
 only in its relation to savage religion, it is equally true 
 of all religion that ritual is explicable by, and founded 
 in, positive creed ; and that apart from creed ritual 
 would always be meaningless and unmotived. 
 
 () The second an ti- intellectual view of religion 
 asserts that it is exclusively a matter of conduct, and 
 that doctrine, so far as it does not immediately bear 
 upon conduct, is no true part of religion at all. Now 
 we may grant at once that religion has much to do with 
 conduct ; we may even say that no part of it is irrelevant 
 to conduct ; and yet we may be right in refusing to 
 expel the intellectual element from it. For truth and 
 conduct are not absolutely unrelated. Every piece of 
 conduct depends on the realisation of some truth, since
 
 8 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT. i 
 
 we could not act efficiently, or indeed at all, without 
 some knowledge of the situation with which we are 
 dealing. The problem " How am I to act ? " is only 
 soluble in the light of knowledge. And conversely 
 there is no piece of knowledge which has not some 
 practical corollary ; either it supplies us with the solu- 
 tion of a practical problem, or it suggests a new problem 
 for future solution. There is no such thing as conduct 
 divorced from knowledge or knowledge divorced from 
 conduct. 
 
 The view we are considering seems to depend upon 
 a form of scepticism. It admits (and we should agree) 
 that one action is better than another and that there is 
 a duty to promote good actions ; and it asserts that the 
 best religion is that which promotes the best life. But 
 it goes on to maintain that the doctrines of religion 
 have no other value except their moral value ; that to 
 describe one religion as true and another as false is 
 meaningless. This implies that the intellectual problems 
 of religion are insoluble and that no one answer to them 
 is truer than any other ; whereas the practical difficulties 
 of the moral life are real and can be overcome or 
 alleviated by religious means. Or if it is not main- 
 tained that the problems are insoluble, it is denied that 
 religions solve them ; it is perhaps supposed that they 
 are soluble by means of another kind of thinking ; by 
 science or philosophy. 
 
 Empirical difficulties against this purely moral view 
 of religion arise from the fact that atheists and persons 
 who differ from their neighbours in religion do not 
 necessarily differ in morality. If a man living in a 
 Christian society rejects Christianity, on this theory 
 the only possible meaning of his action is that he 
 rejects the Christian morality, for Christianity is denned 
 as being precisely the Christian morality. But in 
 practice this does not necessarily follow ; his morality 
 may remain what it was before. The theory can only 
 deal with such a case in two ways. Either it must say
 
 CH. i RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 9 
 
 that he rejects Christianity in name only, while un- 
 willing to uproot it out of his heart ; or else it must 
 maintain that he rejects not the real Christianity (the 
 morality) but Christianity falsely so called, the in- 
 tellectual system which is arbitrarily annexed to it. 
 Both these are unsatisfactory ; the first, because it 
 makes a virtuous atheist into a mere hypocrite, and the 
 second because the " arbitrary " connexion of an in- 
 tellectual system with a moral one is precisely the fact 
 that requires explanation. 
 
 If the intellectual system (though false) is really 
 necessary as a psychological basis for morals, 1 how can 
 the former be rejected and the latter kept ? If not, 
 why should the two ever be united at all ? The moral- 
 istic theory of religion comes to grief over the fact that 
 there is such a thing as creed. On the theory, there 
 ought not to be ; but, nevertheless, it is there. Why 
 is it there ? Because we cannot evade the answer it 
 is believed to be true. Creed may be, among other 
 things, a means to morality ; but it cannot be a means 
 to anything unless it is first held as true. For a belief 
 that no one believes can have no influence on any one's 
 conduct. A morality assisted by creed is a morality 
 founded upon the intellect ; for to judge something as 
 true is the characteristic function of the intellect. 
 
 Further, if the action induced by a belief is to be 
 really good as well as really due to the belief, then 
 the belief must be true. We may stimulate our moral 
 consciousness by fictions, as that this day is our last on 
 earth ; but the resulting action, so far as it is good, is 
 due not to the belief but to the reawakened moral con- 
 sciousness. Any action really due to the belief, such 
 as taking farewell of our families and making arrange- 
 
 1 " It is necessary to most people, but not to every one " is a useless answer, not 
 only because it implies that different people's minds may be constructed on absolutely 
 and radically divergent lines an assumption which any.one is at liberty to make if 
 he likes, and if he will take the trouble to see where it leads him but because it 
 begs the question. Necessary for some people but not for others, as regular exercise, 
 or a nap after lunch, or a thousand a year, means, as we are using terms, not 
 necessary.
 
 io GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION n . i 
 
 ments for the funeral next day, would be merely silly. 
 So, if our creeds are not truths but only means to good 
 action, those actions which are good are not really due 
 to them, and those which are due to them are a waste 
 of labour. That is to say, they are a hindrance, rather 
 than a help, to right conduct. 
 
 This form of scepticism, like most other forms of 
 the same thing, is in fact less a philosophy than a pro- 
 paganda. It is not a theory of what religion is ; it is 
 a proposal to reconstitute it on the principle of leaving 
 out the creed and only keeping the commandments. 
 There might, perhaps, be such a thing as non-religious 
 moral teaching. We will not at present deny that. 
 But it would not be religion. And we are not 
 asking what improvements might be made in religion, 
 or what better thing might be substituted for it ; 
 we only want to discover what it is. This humbler 
 inquiry may possibly be of value even to those who, 
 without asking what it is, have decided to abolish or 
 reform it. 
 
 (f) The recognition of religion as having an intel- 
 lectual content throws it open to intellectual criticism ; 
 and in order to withdraw it from such criticism it has 
 sometimes been placed in that faculty of the mind 
 whose function is feeling. 
 
 The term feeling seems to be distinctively applied 
 by psychologists to pleasure, pain and emotions in 
 general. But emotion is not a totally separate function 
 of the mind, independent of thinking and willing ; it 
 includes both these at once. If I feel pleasure, that is 
 will in that it involves an appetition towards the 
 pleasant thing ; and it is also knowledge of the pleasant 
 thing and of my own state. There is no emotion which 
 does not entail the activity of the other so-called 
 faculties of the mind. Religion is doubtless an emotion, 
 or rather involves emotions ; but it is not emotion in 
 the abstract apart from other activities. It involves, for 
 instance, the love of God. But the love of God implies
 
 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 1 1 
 
 knowing God on the one hand and doing his will on 
 the other. 
 
 Moreover the term itself is ambiguous. The word 
 feeling as we use it in ordinary speech generally denotes 
 not a particular kind of activity, but any state of mind 
 of a somewhat vague, indefinite or indistinct character. 
 Thus we have a feeling of the truth of something when 
 we hardly say yet that we are convinced of its truth ; 
 a feeling of the right treatment of a recalcitrant picture 
 or sonnet, when we are not quite convinced of the right 
 treatment ; a feeling that we ought to do something 
 when we are not really sure. In this sense religion 
 is decidedly not a matter of feeling. Some people's 
 religion is doubtless very nebulous ; but religion as a 
 whole is not distinguished from other things by its 
 vagueness and indefiniteness. Religion is sometimes 
 said to be a "low " degree of thought in the sense that 
 it contains half-truths only, which are in time super- 
 seded by the complete truths of philosophy or science ; 
 but in the meantime it errs (if the description is true) 
 not by being vague but by being much more definite 
 than it has any right to be. To define religion as mere 
 feeling in this sense would amount to complaining that 
 it is not sufficiently dogmatic. 
 
 In another commonly-used sense of the word, feeling 
 implies absolute and positive conviction coupled with 
 inability to offer proof or explanation of the conviction. 
 In that case, to " feel " the truth of a statement would 
 merely mean the same as to know it ; and this use 
 of the word therefore already asserts the intellectual 
 content of religion. The problem of the relation of this 
 conviction to proof is noticed below (Part II. Ch. I.). 
 
 2. These types of theory all seem to fail through 
 the same fault ; namely, their common denial of the 
 necessity of creed in religion. They describe character- 
 istics which religion does undoubtedly often or always 
 possess ; but they try to explain it as consisting chiefly 
 or only of these characteristics, and to avoid admitting
 
 12 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION FT. i 
 
 its basis in positive creed. Without examining further 
 theories of the same kind, therefore, we may venture 
 to assert that religion cannot exist without a definite 
 belief as to the nature of God. This contention would 
 probably be borne out by any careful investigation of 
 actual religions ; every religion claims to present as 
 true and intellectually sound a doctrine which may be 
 described as a theory of God. 
 
 This statement of belief as to the nature of God, 
 which of course includes beliefs as to the relations of 
 God and the world, God and man, and so forth, is the 
 intellectual content of religion ; and it is not a thing 
 outside or different from the religion itself. It may be 
 only one aspect or element of religion ; but at least it 
 is an element, and an indispensable element. I call it 
 intellectual, even if it has not been reached by 
 " scientific " processes, because the intellect is the name 
 of that activity by which we think, know, hold con- 
 victions or draw inferences ; and a non-intellectual 
 conviction would be a contradiction in terms. 1 
 
 Now the Doctrine of God is of course theology ; it 
 is in fact the translation of that word. Accordingly, a 
 creed is a theology, and there is no distinction whatever 
 between Theology and Religion, so far as the intel- 
 lectual aspect of religion is concerned. My theology 
 is the beliefs I hold about God, that is to say, my creed, 
 the intellectual element of my religion. 
 
 This identification is often controverted. In the 
 first place, a distinction is sometimes made between 
 religion and theology with a view to reconciling the 
 claims of criticism with those of ecclesiastical authority. 
 Criticism (it is supposed) merely affects theology ; 
 orthodoxy is a matter of religion and is untouched by 
 critical arguments. Such a distinction enables us to 
 make two promises : first, to believe whatever the 
 
 1 The word intellect is sometimes used to distinguish one type of cognition from 
 other types called reason, intuition and so on. Such distinctions are, in my belief, 
 based on mistaken psychology ; and accordingly I use the various words indiscrimin- 
 ately to cover the whole of the facts of knowing.
 
 CH.I RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 13 
 
 church believes ; and secondly, to accept whatever 
 criticism proves. But the two spheres cannot be 
 separated in this way. There is an abstract possibility 
 that criticism should prove the Gospel a forgery and 
 that philosophy should demonstrate God to be an 
 illusion ; and the second promise involves readiness to 
 accept these results as promptly as any others. But 
 this implication already denies any weight to the 
 authority of the church ; for no church would allow its 
 members to accept such conclusions. The proposed 
 modus vivendi is as valueless in practice as it is 
 indefensible in theory. 
 
 Some writers, again, distinguish theology, as the 
 thought which takes religion as its starting-point and 
 builds a superstructure upon it, from the religion upon 
 which it builds. But this is no distinction at all ; for 
 if religion supplies the premisses from which theology 
 infers other new truths, the two are only related as 
 premisses and conclusion in one syllogism, and one and 
 the same syllogism cannot be split up into two distinct 
 kinds of thought. Rather, this argument would prove 
 the identity of the two ; for there is no difference 
 between putting together the premisses and drawing the 
 conclusion. It is only in the abstractions of formal 
 logic that they are separated. The distinction therefore 
 would be an entirely abstract one; we could never 
 point to two different concrete things and say " this is 
 religion and that theology." 
 
 The same objection would apply to the opposite 
 distinction, according to which theology, instead of 
 using religion as its starting-point, takes its pronounce- 
 ments as conclusions, and endeavours to provide proofs 
 for them. This does seem to be a way in which the 
 word theology is sometimes used ; thus the conviction 
 of the existence of God might be described as religion, 
 and the proofs of his existence as theology. But in 
 that case theology would include the whole intellectual 
 side of religion in itself, and religion would be merely
 
 i 4 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT . i 
 
 the name for an incomplete and mutilated fragment of 
 theology the conclusion without the evidence which 
 when its deficiencies were made good would coincide 
 with theology. 
 
 A somewhat similar distinction is that between 
 religion as the personal experience of the individual and 
 theology as the systematic statement of religious experi- 
 ence as a whole. If religion means " that fragment of 
 theology, of whose truth I have had personal experience," 
 the distinction between the two can never be made at 
 all. Theology is the whole ; religion my particular 
 part of it. For me within my knowledge the two 
 are in every way identical. Whatever theology I know 
 is to me religion ; and the rest I do not know. 
 
 There is certainly a kind of thought which takes 
 religious dogmas and tries to discover their logical 
 result ; and one which tries to prove their truth ; and 
 one which arranges and expresses them all in a systematic 
 way. And if we like to call any or all of these 
 theology, we have no doubt a right to do so. But we 
 must remember, if we use the term, that theology so 
 described is not different from religion. A religious 
 truth does not cease to be religious truth and turn into 
 theological truth because it is proved, or arranged in a 
 system, or reflected upon. 
 
 In general, then, it does not seem that we can 
 distinguish religion as creed from theology at all. 
 Each of the above distinctions, as we have said, does 
 correspond to a real difference in the way in which 
 we use the words ; and they may be summed up by 
 saying that in ordinary language religion means some- 
 thing less deliberate, less consciously logical, than 
 theology. Religious experience gives us a number of 
 truths arranged anyhow, just as they come to the 
 surface ; all is knowledge, all the fruit of intellectual 
 activity, since intellect means nothing but the attain- 
 ment of knowledge ; but it is knowledge unsystematised. 
 Theology then, according to this view, arranges and
 
 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY " 15 
 
 classifies the truths already given in religion ; it creates 
 nothing new, but rather, so to speak, tidies up the 
 workshop where religion has finished work for the 
 day. But even this simile overstates the difference ; 
 for in the apparent chaos of the unsystematised 
 experience, system is in fact already present. The 
 work of co-ordination which we have ascribed to 
 theology is already characteristic of religion itself ; it 
 supplies us not with a number of disconnected con- 
 ceptions of the nature of God, but with a conception. 
 
 3. (a] If religion as creed is identical with theology, 
 it remains to consider the further conception of the 
 philosophy of religion. The philosophy of any subject 
 means careful reflexion upon that subject ; thus we 
 have the philosophy of art, of conduct, of science and 
 so on. To do a thing, and to understand what one 
 is doing and how one does it, seem to be different 
 things ; and this distinction, it is thought, can be 
 applied to intellectual as well as practical processes. 
 To commit a crime is action ; to reflect upon one's 
 crime is ethics. Similarly, to conduct an argument is 
 science, to reflect upon it is logic ; to be conscious of 
 God is religion, to analyse that consciousness is the 
 philosophy of religion. Such is the common doctrine ; 
 but it does not seem to provide us with a basis for 
 distinguishing the philosophy of religion from other 
 philosophies. Consciousness of truths is common to 
 religion and all other kinds of thought ; the only 
 distinction between religious and other knowledge 
 would be that they were concerned with different 
 objects. But the theory of knowledge or logic does 
 not consider differences of the object, but only pro- 
 cesses of the subject ; and therefore there is no dis- 
 tinction between the philosophy of religion (as theory 
 of religious knowledge) and the theory of knowledge 
 in general. If there is a general philosophy of know- 
 ing, it includes religious knowledge as well as all 
 other kinds ; no separate philosophy is required.
 
 1 6 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION 
 
 Similarly, if religion involves certain types of 
 conduct, the whole theory of conduct in general is 
 treated by ethics. That side of the philosophy of 
 religion merges in ethics precisely as the intellectual side 
 merges in the general theory of knowledge or logic. 
 There can only be a distinct philosophy of religion 
 if religion is a quite separate function of the mind 
 involving neither knowledge, volition, or any other 
 specifiable activity. But unless this hypothesis can be 
 maintained (and we know already that it cannot), we 
 must give up the idea of a special departmental 
 philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and hand over 
 the study of religion to philosophy in general. 
 
 (If) If the philosophy of religion is indistinguish- 
 able from philosophy as a whole, what is the relation 
 of philosophy as a whole to religion or theology? 
 Philosophy is the theory of existence ; not of existence 
 in the abstract, but of existence in the concrete ; the 
 theory of all that exists ; the theory of the universe. 
 This is frequently denied ; it is said that philosophy 
 has problems of its own, and science has problems of 
 its own ; that they progress by attending each to its 
 own business and using its methods where they are 
 suitable, and that when philosophy tries to answer the 
 questions proper to science the result is chaos. The 
 example of natural science under the domination of 
 Aristotelian philosophy in the later middle ages is 
 quoted as a warning to philosophy to confine its 
 activities within its own province. Such a view seems 
 to depend on a misconception as to the nature of 
 philosophy. Sciences live by the discovery and em- 
 ployment of methods which facilitate their particular 
 operations and are inapplicable to other kinds of 
 research. Differentiation of problems and methods is 
 the very essence of the natural sciences. It is 
 important to realise that philosophy has in this sense 
 no methods of its own at all ; that it is through and 
 through homogeneous, straightforward thinking where
 
 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 17 
 
 formulae and labour-saving devices are not used. This 
 absence of definite and ready-made method is at once 
 the strength and the weakness of philosophy ; its 
 weakness, because it makes philosophy much more 
 difficult than any of the sciences ; its strength, because 
 failure through defects in the apparatus is avoided, and 
 there is no limitation to one particular subject such 
 as is necessarily entailed by a fixed method. Philosophy 
 is the free activity of critical thought, and is applicable 
 to any problem which thought can raise. The chaos 
 of which the scientist complains is partly his own 
 feeling of helplessness when confronted by philosophical 
 questions to which his methods supply no answer, and 
 partly real blunders like those of mediaeval science, 
 whose cause he imagines to be the invasion of science 
 by Aristotelian philosophy ; whereas they are really due 
 not to the overbearingness of Aristotelian philosophy 
 but to the defects of Aristotelian science. 
 
 Now if philosophy is the theory of the universe, 
 what is religion ? We have said that it was the 
 theory l of God, and of God's relations to the world 
 and man. But the latter is surely nothing more nor 
 less than a view of the universe. Indeed religion is 
 quite as comprehensive as philosophy. For the 
 religious consciousness in its true and complete form 
 nothing is irrelevant, nothing is without its own unique 
 and individual value. Religion and philosophy alike 
 are views of the whole universe. 
 
 But are they therefore (it may be asked) identical ? 
 May they not be views, but conflicting views? or 
 views from different points of view ? Not the latter, 
 because it is the aim of each alike to transcend par- 
 ticular points of view, to overcome the limitations of 
 individual interest. And to ask whether religion and 
 
 1 It is possibly worth while to guard against a verbal . pitfall. " Philosophy is 
 theory, but religion is not ; it is Fact." This common and wrong use of the 
 word seems to imply that a theory ceases to be a theory when it is true, or when it 
 is a matter of vital interest or strong conviction. It was Mephistopheles who said, 
 " Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, und grim des Lebens goldner Baum."
 
 1 8 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT. i 
 
 philosophy may not disagree is to assume a general 
 agreement among religions, which certainly does not 
 exist, and the same among philosophies, which exists 
 if possible even less. No doubt this or that philosophy 
 would conflict with this or that religion. The religion 
 of Homer is inconsistent with the philosophy of 
 Auguste Comte ; but Comte's own religion and his 
 philosophy are fully consistent with one another ; they 
 are indeed identical. If religion and philosophy are 
 views of the same thing the ultimate nature of the 
 universe then the true religion and the true philosophy 
 must coincide, though they may differ in the vocabulary 
 which they use to express the same facts. 
 
 But, it may be insisted, we have at least by this 
 enforced agreement condemned unheard all philosophies 
 but those which believe in a God ; for we have defined 
 religion as the theory of God, and many philosophies 
 deny or doubt or never mention God. This difficulty 
 may perhaps be cleared up by recollecting that we 
 have not assumed the " existence of God " hitherto in 
 any definite and concrete sense ; we have not, for 
 instance, assumed a personal God. The God of whom 
 we have been speaking was a purely abstract one, a 
 mere name for the philosophical Absolute, the solution 
 of the cosmological problem. Thus we said that 
 savage ritual (religious or magical) implies a creed ; 
 but it may not imply anything we should call a theistic 
 creed. The savage may believe that his ritual operates 
 directly on the rain without any intervention on the 
 part of a single supreme will. This is his ** theory of 
 God " ; his " God " is not a person but a principle. 
 The Buddhist believes in no personal God at all, but 
 he has a definite scheme of the universe and doctrine 
 of salvation ; he believes in certain eternal principles ; 
 that is his " theory of God." Atheism itself, if it is a 
 positive theory and not mere scepticism, is in this 
 abstract sense a " theory of God " ; the only thing that 
 is not a theory of God is scepticism, that is to say, the
 
 CH.I RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 19 
 
 refusal to deal with the problem at all. God, so far 
 as our conception has travelled, is merely at present a 
 name for the unifying principle of the world, however 
 that principle is regarded. Every philosophy has a 
 God in this sense, just in so far as it is a philosophy 
 and not a mere collocation of disconnected doctrines ; 
 in which case it has a number of different Gods whose 
 relations it has not yet determined. And this is the 
 only sense in which some religions (such as Buddhism) 
 have a God. In the sense, then, in which all religions 
 require a God, one is equally required by all philosophy. 
 
 (c) Since religion, on its intellectual side, is a 
 theory of the world as a whole, it is the same thing as 
 philosophy ; the ultimate questions of philosophy are 
 those of religion too. But can we say the same of 
 science ? Is not science, at least as interpreted by many 
 of its exponents, anti-religious in its materialism and its 
 frequent atheism ; and even if these characteristics 
 were not present, does it not differ necessarily from both 
 religion and philosophy in being a view of the universe 
 not as a whole but in minute particular details only ? 
 
 To the first question it must be replied that, para- 
 doxical though it may seem, materialism and atheism 
 are not necessarily irreligious. Philosophy, as well as 
 science, may be both materialist and atheist ; indeed 
 there may be, as we have said, religions which show 
 the same features. We may even be so bold as to 
 assert that atheism and materialism are necessarily 
 religions of a kind ; for not only do they spring from 
 the impulse to solve the intellectual problem of the 
 universe, but they owe their form to an essentially 
 religious dissatisfaction with existing solutions. Thus 
 an atheist may well be an atheist because he has a 
 conception of God which he cannot reconcile with the 
 creeds of other people ; because he feels that the 
 ground of the universe is too mysterious, too august 
 to be described in terms of human personality and 
 encumbered with mythological impertinences. The
 
 20 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT . i 
 
 materialist, again, may find in matter a real object of 
 worship, a thing more worthy of admiration than the 
 God of popular religion. The materialist Lucretius 
 adores not the careless gods of the interstellar space, 
 but the " alma Venus," the immanent principle of 
 nature itself. And can we deny that such materialism 
 or atheism is more truly religious, does more honour 
 to the true God, than many theistic superstitions ? 
 
 The materialism and atheism of modern science if 
 indeed these qualities are rightly ascribed to it, which 
 is very doubtful may or may not be preferable, 
 considered as a view of the universe, to that offered by 
 traditional Christianity. But whichever is right, each 
 alike is a religion, and it is only because of this fact 
 that they can ever come into conflict. 
 
 In reply to the second question, the suggestion that 
 science, as the knowledge of detail, is irrelevant to 
 philosophy the knowledge of the whole, and therefore 
 not itself religious in character, it must be remembered 
 that we cannot have a whole which is not a whole of 
 parts, nor parts which are not parts of a whole. 
 Philosophy, as well as science, is concerned with detail ; 
 it does not exist in the rarefied atmosphere of a world 
 aloof from facts. Nor does science take its facts in 
 absolute isolation one from another and from a general 
 scheme of the world ; it is essential to science that the 
 facts should be related to one another and should find each 
 its place in the scientist's view of the whole. And any 
 religion must take account of detail ; for it is only in 
 the details that the nature of the whole is manifested. 
 
 It is no doubt possible to forget the whole in laying 
 stress on isolated parts, as it is possible to forget details 
 in the general view of a whole. But each of these is 
 a false abstraction ; we cannot identify the former with 
 science and the latter with religion or philosophy. 
 The ideal, alike for philosophy and science, is to see 
 the part in its place in the whole, and the whole 
 perfectly exemplified in the part.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY 
 
 WE have arrived at the conclusion that all religion has 
 an intellectual element ; that this element is a creed or 
 theology and at the same time a cosmology or philo- 
 sophical theory of the world ; and that therefore religion 
 is so far identical with philosophy. But we have still 
 to determine what other elements it contains, and how 
 these elements are related to one another. 
 
 Religion, we are told again and again, is more than 
 mere intellect, more than mere thought, more than 
 philosophy. It may indeed find room within itself for 
 an intellectual element, but that is not the whole 
 of religion ; there are other elements of equal value. 
 Indeed, intellect is only one single aspect of life ; and 
 if philosophers sometimes treat it as if nothing else 
 existed, that is only because philosophers are human 
 enough to magnify their office. Granting freely that 
 religion has its intellectual side, it has also a practical 
 side which is no less important. 
 
 If this language is justified, religion is not merely 
 a theory of the world ; it is also a system of conduct. 
 Just as any definite religion prescribes to its adherents 
 certain definite convictions, so it inculcates certain 
 definite modes of action. We have to ask whether 
 this is true ; and if we find that religion does really 
 contain these two distinct elements, we shall be com- 
 pelled to determine so far as possible the nature of their 
 connexion.
 
 22 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION . i 
 
 i. Parallel to the anti-intellectual theories examined 
 in the preceding chapter are certain anti-moral theories 
 of religion. These are directed to proving that religion 
 does not dictate definite actions at all, or that if it does, 
 this is not because these actions are moral but for some 
 other reason. 
 
 (a) As a matter of common experience, it is often 
 said, religion sometimes inculcates actions which are 
 flagrantly at variance with the principles of a sound 
 morality. Can we look back on all the crimes done 
 in the name of religion, the human sacrifices, the per- 
 secutions, the horrors of religious warfare, the corrupt 
 connivance at wickedness, the torture inflicted on simple 
 minds by the fear of hell tantum relligto potuit suadere 
 malorum and still maintain that religion stands for 
 morality ? Undoubtedly we can. The argument is a 
 rhetorical jump from half-understood instances to an 
 unfounded generalisation. We might equally well 
 quote the absurdities of ancient and the errors of 
 modern scientists as proof that science does not aim 
 at tr'uth. If a great scientist makes a mistake, the 
 importance of that mistake, its widespread effect, is due 
 to the very fact that the man who makes it is a high 
 intellectual authority ; it is the exception which proves 
 the rule that you can generally believe what he says. 
 Religious persecution may be a crime, but it happens 
 only because the persecutor believes it to be a duty. 
 The crimes of the Church are a testimony to the fact 
 that religion does dictate duties, and is believed to do 
 so, for the most part, in a worthy manner. 
 
 Nor can we draw a distinction between the two cases 
 on the ground that religious crimes are sometimes 
 already condemned by their contemporaries and are 
 therefore doubly unjustifiable, whereas the mistakes of 
 a great scientist represent a point in the progress of 
 thought as yet unattained by any one, and are therefore 
 pardonable. This would be to reduce the argument 
 to a mutual recrimination between Church and State,
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY 23 
 
 each trying to fasten upon the other the odium of 
 being the worse sinner. Into such a discussion we can 
 hardly be expected to enter. Our distinction is 
 between right and wrong, truth and falsehood ; and 
 if science teaches error or religion inculcates crime, 
 extenuating circumstances are beside the mark. 
 
 If the argument were successful, it would prove not 
 that religion was irrelevant to conduct (for the cases 
 quoted prove the reverse ; they are cases of religion 
 definitely dictating conduct), but that it devoted its 
 energies to the positive pursuit of immoral ends. And 
 this would be to admit our main contention, that 
 religion has a practical side ; while maintaining that 
 this practical side was the apotheosis not of good but of 
 evil. But this fantastic notion would be advanced by 
 no serious student of the facts, and we need not trouble 
 to refute it. We are not concerned to prove that every 
 particular mouthpiece of every particular religion is 
 morally infallible ; just as we do not assume it to be 
 intellectually infallible. We tried to show in the last 
 chapter that it was an essential note of religion to lay 
 down certain statements, and to say, " Believe these " ; 
 and that could only mean, " Believe these, for they are 
 true." Truth is the governing conception, even if the 
 dogmas propounded fail of reaching it. Similarly, 
 religion always lays down certain courses of action and 
 says, " Do these," that is to say, " Do these, because they 
 are right." Not merely " because they are God's will," 
 for God is a righteous God ; nor merely " for fear he 
 should punish you," for his punishments are just. 
 
 Historically, religions may have been guilty of 
 infinite crimes ; but this condemnation is a proof, not 
 a disproof, that their fundamental aim is moral. They 
 represent a continual attempt to conform to the good 
 will of God, and the fact that they err in determining 
 or in obeying that will does not alter the fact that the 
 standard by which they test actions is a moral standard. 
 But is the will of God always conceived as good ? May
 
 24 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION n . i 
 
 it not be conceived as simply arbitrary ? One phase of 
 this question is considered in the next section. 
 
 () A second argument, of a type somewhat akin 
 to the last, is drawn from anthropology. It appears 
 that in primitive societies the morality of the tribe 
 develops on lines independent of its religion. It is 
 therefore supposed that morality and religion are two 
 quite different things, which only in course of time 
 come to be united in what is called the " moralisation 
 of religion." This argument takes it for granted and 
 indeed it can hardly be questioned that the higher 
 religions are moralised ; that they conceive God's will 
 as necessarily good. 
 
 As in the last chapter, we may dismiss this argument 
 by showing that it is irrelevant. For us religion is 
 already moralised, and we must accept it as it is and 
 not pretend that religion as known to us is still the 
 same thing that (on the theory) it is to the savage. 
 
 But as in the case of the anti-intellectual argument 
 from anthropology we were not content with dis- 
 missing it as irrelevant, but found it necessary to 
 inquire more carefully into its own statements, so here 
 it is desirable not simply to dismiss but to examine 
 the argument. The word " moralisation " is the real 
 difficulty. If a thing has at the outset nothing to do 
 with morality, no jugglery or alchemy will bring it 
 into relation with the moral consciousness. You 
 cannot arbitrarily impose a category on a thing which 
 is unfitted to receive it. And to suggest that " social 
 evolution" can confer a moral value on a type of 
 activity which has as yet no moral bearings whatever, is 
 calling in a deus ex machina to perform feats which 
 involve a contradiction in terms. 
 
 The moralisation of religion the bringing of it 
 into conformity with our moral standards is certainly 
 a real thing. But it is not a single event, once for all 
 accomplished, in which religion leaves behind its old 
 indifference to morality and learns to take cognisance
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY 25 
 
 of moral values. It is a continual process in which 
 old standards are left behind and better ones adopted. 
 If we look at the conduct of a class or nation or culture 
 very different from our own, we are apt to imagine 
 for a moment that it has no morality at all. But what 
 we mistake for an absence of morality is really the 
 presence of a different morality. Primitive religion 
 does not inculcate civilised morality ; why should it ? 
 It inculcates primitive morality ; and as the one grows 
 the other grows too. 
 
 (c) We now pass to a group of theories which arise 
 not from the external, historical or psychological, 
 investigation of the religious consciousness, but within 
 that consciousness itself. These are determinist, 
 antinomian, and quietist respectively. 
 
 Religious determinism results from a conviction of 
 the omnipotence and universality of God, so inter- 
 preted that no power of initiation whatever is left to 
 the human will. All that is done is done by God ; 
 God's plans are not conditional upon man's co-operation 
 or overthrown by his rebellion, because God knew 
 these things before, and indeed was himself the cause 
 of them. This creed lays upon its adherent no 
 commands in the ordinary sense of the word, for it 
 does not hold him free to execute them. On the 
 other hand, it does issue commands in the only sense 
 in which it allows itself to do so ; it teaches that one 
 type of conduct is pleasing to God and another 
 un pleasing, so that, if a man were free to choose, it 
 would not hesitate to point out the kind of behaviour 
 that ought to be chosen. And indeed those who hold 
 views of this kind often surpass all others in the 
 rigorism and puritanism of their actual lives. This 
 theory therefore does not really banish conduct from 
 religion. 
 
 (d) Antinomianism springs from the same con- 
 ception, as to the relation between God's will and 
 man's, which underlies determinism. It causes, there-
 
 26 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION n . , 
 
 fore, no fresh difficulty. But it is perhaps desirable 
 to point out the element of truth which it contains. 
 If morality is conceived as what St. Paul calls a " law 
 of works," an external and apparently unreasonable 
 code of imperatives, then such a morality is certainly, 
 as the antinomian believes, superseded and done away 
 by religion. The external, compulsive law has been 
 replaced by an inner spring of life. If a man is 
 perfectly religious it is true that it does not matter 
 what he does ; not in the sense that he may commit 
 crimes with impunity, but in the sense that he will not 
 commit them, even if you forget to tell him not to. 
 Thus religion appears as a release from the servitude of 
 morality. 
 
 But this view depends on a false description of 
 morality. The man to whose mind a moral law is a 
 mere external command, grudgingly obeyed under 
 compulsion, falls short not merely of religion but of 
 morality. He is not really moral at all. He is in a 
 state of heteronomy ; it is not his own will, freely 
 acting, that produces the result but the imposition 
 upon his will of alien force. The very nature of the 
 moral law is this, that it is not imposed upon us from 
 without. We do not merely obey it ; we make it. 
 The member of the " kingdom of ends," the truly 
 moral society, is not a mere subject ; he is a sovereign. 
 Thus the moral law has already that character of 
 spontaneity, that absence of compulsion, which is 
 typical of religion. The transition from heteronomy 
 to autonomy which for St. Paul is marked by the 
 passage from Judaism to Christianity from the law of 
 works to the law of faith is not a transition from 
 morality to religion, but a transition into morality 
 from some infra-moral state. 
 
 What, then, is this infra-moral state ? We might be 
 tempted to describe it as the stage of positive law, of 
 civil law. But this would be equally unsatisfactory. 
 Just as the really moral consciousness makes its own
 
 CH. ii RELIGION AND MORALITY 27 
 
 laws, and does not merely obey them blindly, so the 
 really social will finds in the law of its society its own 
 self-expression, and is sovereign as well as subject in 
 the state in which it lives. This is an ideal, doubtless, 
 to which few societies attain ; but it is the ideal, none 
 the less, of civil life as such. And, therefore, we 
 cannot distinguish civil from moral law as characterised 
 by heteronomy and autonomy respectively. 
 
 The difference is not between two types of law but 
 between differences of attitude to one and the same law. 
 The law may be divine, moral, or civil ; in each case 
 there are two ways of obeying it, either from within, 
 when the law becomes the free self-expression of the 
 acting will, or from without, the law appearing as a 
 tyrannical force blindly and grudgingly obeyed. This 
 is the distinction which the antinomian has in mind. 
 
 Antinomianism in the commonest sense, however, 
 makes the mistake of supposing that the transition to 
 autonomy cancels the duties which heteronomy enforced. 
 Even this is in one sense true, for any " law of works " 
 contains numbers of superfluous commands, presenting 
 as duties actions which the autonomous will rightly sees 
 to be valueless. But in so far as the external law enjoins 
 real duties, the internal law comes not to destroy but to 
 fulfil. Thus whatever in morality is really moral is taken 
 up into religion ; and the state of mind which marks it 
 as religious, the free and joyful acceptance of it, is not 
 peculiar to religion as distinct from morality. It is 
 essential to morality as such. 
 
 (e) It remains to examine the view known as 
 quietism. This view may be analysed as a development 
 from certain types of expression very common in all 
 religion ; for instance, that religion is not self-assertion 
 but self-surrender ; that in the religious life we wait 
 upon God and accept his good will instead of imposing 
 ours upon him ; that the individual is lost in union 
 with God, and is no longer an independent will. Such 
 language is often called mysticism, and the word may
 
 28 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT.I 
 
 be usefully employed in this sense. It is, however, 
 well to remember that the experience to which this 
 language refers is an experience not peculiar to certain 
 people called mystics, but common to every religious 
 mind. Subject to this caution, we may use the word 
 mystical as a description of that aspect of the religious 
 life which consists in the fusion of the individual with 
 God. 
 
 This question is one which we shall treat at length 
 in a later chapter ; and we shall there see reason to 
 believe that this mystical language, so far from being 
 a fanciful or confused description of the facts, gives a 
 perfectly accurate account of that relation to God which 
 is the essence of personal religion. At present we are 
 concerned not with mysticism but with its offshoot, 
 or rather perversion, quietism. Mysticism asserts the 
 union of my will with the will of God, the total and 
 complete fusion of the two into one. Quietism asserts 
 that my will is negated, that it has simply disappeared 
 and the will of God has taken its place. I am utterly 
 lost in the infinity of God. The two things are really 
 quite distinct ; the former asserts a union of two wills 
 in one person, the latter asserts that the person has only 
 one will, and that not his own but God's. Theologians 
 will recall the relation of the Monothelite heresy 1 to 
 the orthodox Christology of the Church; and indeed we 
 may suggest that quietism was only a revival in another 
 context of the essential doctrine of Monothelitism, 
 whereas mysticism exactly expresses the orthodox view 
 as to the relation of the divine and human wills. 
 
 Quietism thus denies that conduct is a part of 
 religion, because it believes that in religion the individual 
 will disappears ; religion is a state of complete passivity. 
 This doctrine is due to the assumption (which we shall 
 criticise later) that two wills cannot be fused into one, 
 
 1 Consisting in the assertion that Christ had not (as laid down at Chalcedon) two 
 wills, one human and one divine, but one only, the divine, and no human will at 
 all. This was heretical as destroying the humanity of Christ. The subject is 
 treated below in Part III. Ch. I.
 
 CH. ii RELIGION AND MORALITY 29 
 
 and therefore, feeling bound to preserve the unity of 
 the individual, the quietist denies the human and keeps 
 the divine. Pending our inquiry into the underlying 
 principle, it is enough to point out certain objections, 
 (i.) The act of self-abnegation is definitely an act of 
 will, and is represented as a duty, and a religious duty ; 
 therefore the practical content of religion is not in 
 point of fact denied, (ii.) This act is not done once 
 for all ; it is a continual attitude of the self to God, 
 an attitude capable of being discontinued by an act of 
 will, and therefore itself maintained by an act of will, 
 (iii.) The union with God thus attained does not 
 deprive the individual of all activity. Rather it directs 
 and makes more fruitful and potent this activity. It 
 affords a solution of all his practical difficulties, and 
 gives him the strength to carry out the solution ; but 
 it does not remove them from his consciousness and 
 place him in a simply inactive sphere of life. In a 
 word, the self-dedication of the will to God is not the 
 end of the individual life, but the beginning of a new 
 and indeed of a more active life. The union with God 
 is a real union, not the annihilation of the self. 
 
 2. We have perhaps sufficiently shown that religion 
 never exists apart from conduct. Just as all religion 
 involves thought, as every religion teaches doctrine and 
 a true religion teaches true doctrine, so all religion in- 
 volves conduct ; and whereas a good religion teaches 
 good conduct, a bad religion teaches bad. And further, 
 just as we found that all knowledge was already in 
 essence religious, so we must now say that all morality 
 is already religious ; for, as we have seen, morality 
 properly understood already shows in itself the freedom, 
 the autonomy and devotion, of religion. It seems, there- 
 fore, that religion is not a simple but a complex thing, 
 containing two (or, for all we yet know, more) different 
 elements. It is necessary that we should do something 
 towards determining the relation of these elements to 
 one another. If they are really separate ingredients of
 
 30 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT . i 
 
 a compound, then religion is merely the name for a life 
 which contains both thought and action side by side ; 
 it is no third thing over and above these, but simply 
 the one plus the other. Such a conclusion really negates 
 the conception of religion altogether ; for the different 
 independent elements of which it is composed are 
 capable of complete analysis and description each by 
 itself, and there is no whole (religion) but only parts 
 (thought, action). 
 
 As a means of approach to this difficulty, it would 
 be well to ask whether it is necessary that the two 
 elements should always coexist ; or whether they are 
 alternative modes of operation which can only exist one 
 at a time, so that to speak of a kind of consciousness 
 which unites the two, as we maintain that religion does, 
 is meaningless. 
 
 (a ) In any case of action, it is easy to see that some 
 thought must be present. When we discussed the 
 ritualistic theory of religion we found that unless ritual 
 was simply meaningless and unmotived play it must be 
 based on some definite creed. We may extend this 
 principle further. Unless action is based on some 
 knowledge it cannot take place at all. The most that 
 can happen is some automatism of which the person, 
 whose action we call it, is unconscious. An action is 
 necessarily based on a large number of judgments, of 
 which some must be true or the action could not be 
 carried out ; while others may be true or false but must 
 at least be believed. If, for instance, a man wants to 
 drown himself, he must know " here lies the water : 
 good : here stands the man : good " : otherwise he is 
 not able to do it ; and also he must believe rightly or 
 wrongly that he will improve his circumstances and get 
 rid of his present miseries by putting an end to his 
 life ; otherwise he will not desire to do it. Thus every 
 act depends for its conception and execution upon 
 thought. It is not merely that first we think and then 
 we act ; the thinking goes on all through the act. And
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY 31 
 
 therefore, in general, the conception of any activity as 
 practical alone, and containing no elements of knowing 
 or thinking, is indefensible. Our actions depend on our 
 knowledge. 
 
 (b) The converse is equally true. If we can only 
 do what we know how to do, we only know what we 
 wish to know. Knowing is an activity just as walking is, 
 and, like walking, requires to be set in motion by the 
 operation of the will. To think requires effort ; it can 
 be described as harder or easier ; it is the outcome of 
 a choice which deliberately determines to think and 
 selects a subject of thought. There can be no activity 
 of thought apart from activity of the will. 
 
 If this is so, it is no longer possible to uphold the 
 familiar distinction between a life of thought and a life 
 of action. The man of action, the statesman or the 
 soldier, would never be able to act at all but for his 
 intellectual grip on the problems of his profession. The 
 best man of action is not simply the man of iron will, 
 dear to the popular imagination, but the man who has 
 the clearest insight into the necessities and peculiarities 
 of the given situation. Indeed the notion of a strong 
 will in itself, apart from strength of intellect, and still 
 more the worship of an abstract "will to power" or 
 " blind will," are mere absurdities. A will to power 
 must know what kinds of power there are to have, and 
 which kind it wants ; and a blind will that did not know 
 what it was doing or what there was to be done would 
 never do anything at all. The student or man of con- 
 templation, on the other hand, does not simply know 
 without willing. He wills to know ; and his knowledge 
 is the result of positive hard labour. No moment of 
 thought is conceivable which is not also a volition, and 
 no moment of will is possible which is not also an act 
 of knowledge. 
 
 Thus if there is such a thing as the religious life, it 
 must be one which, like any other, involves both think- 
 ing and acting ; and the religious life, so conceived, is
 
 32 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT . i 
 
 not, any more than a philosopher's life or a states- 
 man's, the mere sum of two different lives. For of 
 the two ingredients neither can ever exist by itself. It 
 must exist in union with the other or not at all. Any 
 real life must contain both elements, each playing as 
 important a part as the other. 
 
 3. But although the duality, of which religion now 
 seems to consist, cannot be broken up, in the concrete, 
 into two separable elements, it is still a duality. 
 Thought and action remain simply side by side and 
 absolutely distinct, though each is necessary to the 
 other. Religion, it appears, is simply a compound of 
 philosophy and morality, though philosophy always in- 
 volves morality and morality can never exist without 
 philosophy ; and therefore all life, as such, shows the 
 composite character which is the mark of religion. It 
 is not simply religion, but all the life of the mind, that 
 is now subject to the dualism ; and therefore there is 
 the greater need of understanding it. What is this 
 dualism between thought and action ? We have seen 
 that the two things mutually depend upon one another, 
 but we have not inquired very minutely into the nature 
 of this dependence. 
 
 (a) In the theory of the religious life offered by 
 religion itself, there is no dualism at all between know- 
 ing and acting. The two things are united, for instance 
 by the author of the fourth Gospel, in such a way that 
 they are absolutely indistinguishable. The term used 
 to express their unity is " love," an activity which in 
 its perfect manifestation is represented as the perfection 
 of the religious life. The whole of the great final 
 discourse in John is an exposition of this conception ; 
 nothing can be clearer than the way in which the spirit 
 of love is identified on the one hand with that of truth, 
 and on the other with that of morality or obedience. 
 And the two elements are not connected merely ex- 
 ternally ; knowledge is the way of obedience and 
 obedience the approach to truth. The connexion
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY 33 
 
 between the two is the most intimate conceivable ; 
 just as the perfect life involves the denial of all distinction 
 between man and man, so it involves the denial of all 
 distinction between man's two faculties of thought and 
 will. 
 
 () Such denials of our ordinary distinction, even if 
 they cannot in themselves be taken as conclusive, serve 
 at least to arouse doubts as to its sufficiency. And if 
 we ask how thought and action are actually distinguished, 
 the answer is not very satisfying. They are not the 
 operations of two different parts of the mind ; that is 
 admitted on all hands. The whole self wills, and the 
 whole self thinks. Then are they alternative activities, 
 like sleeping and waking ? No ; we have already seen 
 that they are necessarily and always simultaneous. The 
 only thing we can say seems to be that thinking is not 
 willing and willing is not thinking. And this is simply 
 to assert the existence of a distinction without explaining 
 wherein the distinction consists. We cannot say that 
 in willing we do not think, or that in thinking we 
 do not will, for both these, as we have seen, we 
 certainly do. 
 
 If I will to think, there are not two elements in this 
 act but one. When I will to walk, I do not separately 
 experience an internal resolve on the one hand, and a 
 movement of my legs on the other ; the act of will is 
 the voluntary moving of the legs. To say " I will to 
 walk " is the same thing as saying " I walk of my own 
 initiative," that is, " I walk." And so " I will to 
 think " means not two things but one thing : " I think." 
 We never simply will in the abstract ; we always will 
 to do something ; what we turn into a separate organ 
 and call " the will " is only the fact of free activity, the 
 voluntary doing of this thing or that. Walking is 
 thus not something distinguishable from willing, a 
 result, so to speak, of the operation of " the will " ; it 
 is nothing more nor less than the willing itself, the 
 particular form which, on this occasion, free activity 
 
 D
 
 34 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT . i 
 
 takes. Thus walking is a kind of willing, not some- 
 thing else ; and equally, thought is a kind of willing. 
 
 But is there any other kind of willing ? Walking 
 is only one kind ; is thinking only one kind ? No ; 
 for if it were, there would be kinds of willing in which 
 thought was not present. This, we have already 
 admitted, there cannot be; and therefore, just as all 
 thinking is willing, so all willing is thinking. Or, to 
 put it in other words, there is neither consciousness 
 nor activity considered as a separate reality, but always 
 the activity of consciousness and the consciousness of 
 activity. Nor can we say that in this second case there 
 is a dualism between the activity of a mind and its own 
 consciousness of that activity ; for an activity is already 
 by its very nature conscious of itself, and if it were 
 not, it would be not an activity but a mechanism. 
 
 We conclude, therefore, not that one and the same 
 thing, mind, has two manifestations, consciousness and 
 volition, and that these two always exist side by side, 
 but that all consciousness is volitional, and that all 
 volition is conscious. The distinction between the two 
 statements is not merely verbal. The former way of 
 putting it suggests that there is such a thing as a mind, 
 regarded as a thing in itself; and that this thing has 
 two ways of behaving, which go on at once, as a 
 machine might have both a circular and a reciprocating 
 motion. This idea of the mind as a thing distinguish- 
 able from its own activities does not seem to be really 
 tenable ; the mind is what it does ; it is not a thing 
 that thinks, but a consciousness ; not a thing that wills, 
 but an activity. 
 
 (c) This somewhat tedious discussion was necessary 
 in order to vindicate the real unity of the religious life 
 against the view that it is a falsely conceived juxta- 
 position of heterogeneous functions with no unity and 
 no interconnexion. There is, we have argued, only 
 one kind of activity ; namely, that which is at the same 
 time thought and will, knowledge and action ; and if
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY 35 
 
 religion is the name of this activity, then all true life is 
 religion. We cannot distinguish three kinds of life, 
 the thinking life, the active life, and the religious life 
 that unites the two. So far as anybody thinks, he wills 
 to think, and is so far already in possession of the 
 complete or religious life ; and the same is true of 
 any one who wills. 
 
 It may be desirable to remark at this point that to 
 say there is only one possible complete life, and that 
 the religious, does not in the least abolish the differences 
 between different people's abilities and ideals, or set 
 up one out of a number of lives as the one to which 
 all ought to conform. In a sense, it is to do the very 
 opposite of this ; for we have pointed out that what- 
 ever life is really livable, whatever is a life at all, is 
 already for that very reason religious in its degree ; 
 and that no one type of life has any right to claim for 
 itself the title of religious at the expense of any other. 
 
 In one sense we do certainly make a restriction in 
 the variety of ideals ; not in the number of possible 
 lives, but in the ways in which such lives may be 
 classified. While fully agreeing that there is a difference 
 between the work of a statesman and that of a 
 philosopher, for instance, we should not admit that 
 this difference is of such a kind that the former can be 
 correctly described as a man of action and the latter as 
 a man of thought. And in the same way, we should 
 not wish to deny the difference between a priest and a 
 layman ; but we should deny that the life of the one 
 was religious and the life of the other secular. As 
 every life includes, and indeed is, both thought and 
 action, so every life is essentially religious ; and the 
 secular life, if that means a life negatively defined by 
 the mere absence of religion, does not exist at all. If, 
 however, the " secular " life is defined positively as 
 consisting of interests from which priests are excluded, 
 or of interests lying altogether outside the sphere of 
 religion, we shall reply that no legitimate interest is
 
 36 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT . i 
 
 foreign to all religious life ; and that the question 
 what is and what is not lawful for a priest, though a 
 perfectly legitimate question, cannot be decided by 
 an appeal to the conception of religion. Every man 
 has his own duties, and every class of men has duties 
 proper to itself as a class ; but just as the " man of 
 action " is not freed from the obligation to truth, nor 
 the " man of contemplation " from the obligation to 
 morality, so the layman is as much bound as the priest 
 by the ideals of the religion which in some form or 
 other he cannot help professing.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 RELIGION AND HISTORY 
 
 WE have till now, in our treatment of the intellectual 
 side of religion, confined our attention to the philosophic 
 or theological content ; but if we are right in suppos- 
 ing the religious life to be all-inclusive, it must also 
 include the activity of historical thought. Religion, as 
 Coleridge says, must contain " facts " as well as " ideas." 
 
 The historical aspect of religion is not likely to 
 suffer neglect at the present time. The application to 
 religious problems of historical research has been the 
 most conspicuous and brilliant feature in the theology 
 of the last half-century. Even thirty years ago, so 
 little was generally known of the origins and antecedents 
 of Christianity that when the Apocalypse of Enoch 
 was first produced in English in 1883, its editor could 
 gloat with an almost comic delight over the publication 
 of " the Semitic romance from which Jesus of Nazareth 
 borrowed his conceptions of the triumphant return of 
 the Son of Man." To-day no writer, however ignorant 
 of recent research, could compose such a sentence. 
 Every one knows that Christianity was deeply rooted in 
 Judaism, and the relations of the two can be discussed 
 without shocking the orthodox or causing malicious 
 glee to the critics. 
 
 This great historical movement in theology has 
 
 taken two chief forms. They cannot indeed be sharply 
 
 separated, but they may be broadly distinguished for 
 
 the sake of convenience. One is Comparative Religion, 
 
 37
 
 38 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT. i 
 
 with its anthropological and psychological branches ; 
 the other is Historical Theology, concentrating upon 
 the antecedents, origin, history, and development of 
 Christian doctrine. Each of these has made enormous 
 and most valuable contributions to theology ; indeed 
 whatever progress has been made in the last fifty years 
 has been due almost entirely to their help. 
 
 i. The danger at the present time is not so much 
 that the religious importance of history may be for- 
 gotten as that it may be overrated. The great successes 
 of historical theology and of comparative religion 
 sometimes lead theologians to expect more from these 
 methods than they ever really supply. There is a 
 tendency to regard historical methods as the only 
 respectable approach to religious truth ; to suppose 
 that the vexed questions of theology are soluble by 
 historical means or not at all ; in fact to imagine that 
 theology has tried the method of speculation and 
 found it wanting, and that it has now at length found 
 the right method, a method which properly used will 
 yield all the truth that can ever be known. 
 
 This theory I shall describe as historical positivism, 
 by analogy with Comte's view that human thought was 
 in his time emerging from a " metaphysical " stage 
 and entering on a " positive " ; casting aside barren 
 a priori speculation and waking up at last to the reality 
 and all-sufficiency of a posteriori science ; passing out 
 of the region of ideas into the region of facts. Comte's 
 forecast, it may be observed in passing, was just. 
 Thought did from his time assume for a while a notably 
 less metaphysical and more positive character. It had 
 been well frightened by its own philosophical daring in 
 the previous period. It had jumped in and found 
 itself out of its depth ; and Comte was the mouthpiece 
 by which it recorded its vow never to try to swim 
 again. Who has not made a similar vow ? and who, 
 after making it, has ever kept it ? 
 
 As in the case of Comtian positivism, so this
 
 CH. in RELIGION AND HISTORY 39 
 
 historical positivism in theology seems to imply a 
 definitely anti-philosophical scepticism ; it is a merely 
 negative attitude. It is characteristic of two religious 
 types which at first sight seem to have little in common. 
 On the one hand, it is expressed by that extreme anti- 
 speculative orthodoxy which takes its stand on the bald 
 historical fact "so the Church believes and has believed"; 
 on the other, it is found in the extreme anti-dogmatic 
 view of many Liberal Protestants, to whom "metaphysic" 
 is anathema. These positions we shall not criticise in 
 detail. We have already laid down in a former chapter 
 the necessity to religion of a speculative creed, and 
 there is no need to repeat the arguments there used. 
 Instead of proving the impossibility of a totally un- 
 philosophical theology, we shall consider two instances 
 of unphilosophical representations of religion and try 
 to show where and why they break down. These 
 instances are abstract or one-sided forms of the two 
 sciences mentioned above ; namely, (a) comparative 
 religion, and () historical theology. 
 
 (a) Comparative religion is the classification and 
 comparison of different religions or of different forms 
 of the same religion. Its aim is to determine the 
 precise beliefs of such and such a people or sect. It is 
 therefore on the one hand anthropological, as involving 
 the comparison of different human types, and on the 
 other psychological, as determining the religious beliefs 
 of this or that individual considered as a member of a 
 certain class, sect, or nation. Comparative religion or 
 religious anthropology is therefore not really to be 
 distinguished from the Psychology of Religion. 
 
 If we ask what constitutes psychology and dis- 
 tinguishes it from other sciences, we cannot answer 
 merely that psychology is the study of the mind or 
 soul. The philosophical sciences, logic, ethics, and so 
 forth, attempt to study the mind ; and they are not 
 psychological. Nor can we say (as some psychologists 
 say) that this is the reason of their unsatisfactory
 
 4 o GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT . i 
 
 character ; for these sciences exist on their own basis, 
 and it is no criticism of one science to point out that 
 it is not a different one. Again, we cannot define 
 psychology as the study of conduct ; because that title 
 is already claimed by ethics. From these philosophical 
 sciences psychology is distinguished not by its subject 
 but by its method. 
 
 The method peculiar to psychology may perhaps be 
 described as follows. The psychology of knowing 
 differs from logic or the philosophical theory of know- 
 ledge in that it treats a judgment the act of knowing 
 something as an event in the mind, a historical fact. 
 It does not go on to determine the relation of this 
 mental event to the " something " known, the reality 
 beyond the act 1 which the mind, in that act, apprehends. 
 Such a further investigation would be metaphysical in 
 character and is therefore avoided by psychology. Now 
 this formula can be universalised, and thus gives us the 
 definition of psychological method. Take the mental 
 activity as a self-contained fact ; refuse, so far as that 
 is possible, to treat of its metaphysical aspect, its relations 
 with real things other than itself; and you have 
 psychology. Thus in scientific thought as studied by 
 logic we have a judgment in which the mind knows 
 reality : psychology, treating the judgment as a mere 
 event, omits its reference to reality, that is to say, does 
 not raise the question whether it is true. 2 In religion, 
 we have people holding definite beliefs as to the nature 
 of God. Psychology studies and classifies those beliefs 
 without asking how far they correspond with the real 
 nature of God. In conduct generally we have certain 
 actions, individual or social, designed to attain the ends 
 of morality, utility, or the like ; psychology will study 
 
 1 The description of judgment as a mental event or act which refers to a reality 
 beyond the act is borrowed from Mr. F. H. Bradley's Logic. I use Mr. Bradley's 
 language not because I entirely accept such a description of the judgment, but 
 because I believe it to express the view on which psychology is based ; and therefore 
 psychology cannot be defined without reference to it. 
 
 2 The same omission or abstraction is made by Formal Logic, which I take to 
 be a psychological rather than a philosophical science.
 
 CH. in RELIGION AND HISTORY 41 
 
 these actions without asking whether they are right or 
 wrong, but taking them merely as things done. In 
 general, the characteristic of psychology is the refusal 
 to raise ultimate questions. And since that is so, it is 
 plainly not in a position to offer answers to them : or 
 rather, in so far as it does offer answers these rest on an 
 uncritical and quite accidental attitude towards the 
 problems. For instance, the psychology of religion, 
 consisting as it does in the collection of beliefs about 
 God without determining their truth, evidently does 
 not aim at discovering what God is and which opinions 
 give the best account of his nature. The psychology 
 of religion, therefore, unlike the philosophy of religion, 
 is not itself a religion ; that is, it has no answer of its 
 own to the question " What is God ? " It has, in fact, 
 deliberately renounced the investigation of that question 
 and substituted the other question, " What do different 
 people say about him ? " 
 
 Of course a religious psychologist may be willing 
 to offer an answer of his own to the first question. 
 But in so far as he does that he is abandoning the 
 psychology of religion and falling back on religion itself; 
 changing his attitude towards religion from an external 
 to an internal one. When I describe the attitude of 
 psychology as " external " my meaning is this. There is 
 an air of great concreteness and reality about psychology 
 which makes it very attractive. But this concreteness 
 is really a delusion and on closer inspection vanishes. 
 When a man makes a statement about the nature of 
 God (or anything else) he is interested, not in the fact 
 that he is making that statement, but in the belief, or 
 hope, or fancy that it is true. If then the psychologist 
 merely makes a note of the statement and declines to 
 join in the question whether it is true, he is cutting 
 himself off from any kind of real sympathy or participa- 
 tion in the very thing he is studying this man's mental 
 life and experiences. To take an example, a certain 
 mystic says, " God is a circle whose centre is everywhere
 
 42 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT . i 
 
 and whose circumference is nowhere." The psycho- 
 logist, instead of answering, "Of course," or, "Really?" 
 or, "I don't quite see what you mean," replies, "That 
 is an example of what I call the Religious Paradox." 1 
 
 The mind, regarded in this external way, really 
 ceases to be a mind at all. To study a man's conscious- 
 ness without studying the thing of which he is conscious 
 is not knowledge of anything, but barren and trifling 
 abstraction. It cannot answer ultimate questions, 
 because it has renounced the attempt ; it cannot enter 
 into the life it studies, because it refuses to look with 
 it eye to eye ; and it is left with the cold unreality of 
 thought which is the thought of nothing, action with 
 no purpose, and fact with no meaning. 
 
 These objections against the ideal of religious psy- 
 chology or of the science of comparative religion only 
 hold good so long as, from such collections of opinions, 
 the philosophical impulse towards the determination of 
 their truth is completely excluded. And the fact that 
 this impulse is never really absent is what gives re- 
 ligious value to such studies. Indeed, this impulse alone 
 gives them scientific value ; for some degree of critical 
 or sympathetic understanding is necessary before the bare 
 facts can be correctly reported. It is notorious that 
 the unintelligent observer cannot even observe. It is 
 only owing to surreptitious or unconscious aberrations 
 from its ideal of " objectivity " that psychology ever 
 accomplishes anything at all. 
 
 () The ideal of a history of the Church as a 
 substitute for philosophical theology is plainly open to 
 the same general objections. It profits nothing to 
 catalogue the heresies of early Christianity and get 
 them off by heart, unless one enters with some degree 
 of sympathy into the problems which men wished to 
 solve, and tries to comprehend the motives which led 
 them to offer their various answers. But this sympathy 
 and understanding are purely religious, theological, 
 
 1 This instance is not imaginary.
 
 CH. in RELIGION AND HISTORY 43 
 
 philosophical ; to understand a heresy one must 
 appreciate the difficulty which led to it ; and that 
 difficulty, however expressed, is always a philosophical 
 difficulty. The merely external history of dogma 
 killeth ; it is the internal history the entering into 
 the development of thought that maketh alive. 
 
 The same applies, again, to the origins of 
 Christianity. The " historical Jesus " can never 
 solve the problem of Christianity, because there never 
 was a "historical" Jesus pure and simple; the real 
 Jesus held definite beliefs about God and himself and 
 the world ; his interest was not historical but theological. 
 By considering him as a mere fact in history, instead 
 of also an idea in theology, we may be simplifying 
 our task, but we are cutting ourselves off from any 
 true understanding and sharing of his consciousness. 
 Historical theology is always tempted to lose itself in 
 the merely external task of showing what formulas he 
 took over from current religion, and what he added 
 to them, and what additions and alterations were 
 superadded by the early Church ; whereas all this is 
 but the outward aspect of the reality, and the true 
 task of historical theology is to find out not only what 
 was said, but what was meant ; what current Judaism, 
 to begin with, meant by its formulae, and how far its 
 meaning was a satisfactory theology. Then we should 
 be in a position to understand from within the new 
 doctrines of Jesus, and really to place ourselves at the 
 fountain-head of the faith. To speak of studying the 
 mind of Jesus from within may seem presumptuous ; 
 but no other method is of the slightest value. 
 
 2. Historical positivism thus fails to give any 
 answer to theological questions. It can tell us that 
 the Church has anathematised certain doctrines. But 
 what those doctrines mean, or why any one ever held 
 them, or what the Church meant to assert by con- 
 demning them, or even why it follows that we ought 
 to condemn them too, pure history can never tell us.
 
 44 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT. i 
 
 For the solution of these problems we are thrown back 
 on speculative thought. 
 
 Hence, through condemnation of the over-emphasis 
 laid on historical truth, emerges a contrary theory : 
 namely, that history is useless as a basis for theology. 
 This anti-historical view may take two forms : (a) that 
 history is itself too uncertain to bear such an important 
 superstructure as theology ; (b) that the two things are 
 truths of different orders, so that one cannot have any 
 bearing on the other. 
 
 (a) However well attested a historical fact may be, 
 it is never more than merely attested. It is always 
 possible that it may be wrong ; we have no means of 
 checking it ; it is always conceivable that evidence 
 might turn up sufficient to discredit the best established 
 historical belief. And still worse the evidence 
 might never turn up, and we should simply go on 
 believing what was totally untrue. Seeing, then, how 
 desperately uncertain history must always be, can we, 
 dare we, use it as the foundation for all our creeds ? 
 
 This argument introduces a new form of scepticism, 
 which we may describe as anti-historical scepticism. 
 It is in essence a statement of the unknowability of 
 past fact simply as such, on the abstract ground that 
 failure of memory, breach of the tradition, is always 
 possible. This is entirely parallel to the anti- 
 philosophical scepticism which declares that no inference 
 is sound because of the unavoidable abstract possi- 
 bility of a logical fallacy. Each is a fantastic and 
 hypercritical position, and neither is really tenable. 
 If inference as such is to be distrusted, the evidence 
 that leads us to distrust it is discredited with the rest. 
 If attested fact as such is liable to be misreported, the 
 facts on which we base this generalisation are as doubt- 
 ful as any others. Indeed the theory puts a stop to 
 every kind of activity ; for if the human memory as 
 such is the seat of the supposed fallacy, we cannot 
 count upon any continuity whatever in our mental
 
 RELIGION AND HISTORY 45 
 
 life ; it may always be the case that my memory of 
 five minutes ago is completely misleading. If I may 
 not base a theory on facts reported in books of history, 
 am I more entitled to trust those recollected by 
 myself? Plainly there is no difference of kind here. 
 But if the sceptic falls back on a question of degree 
 and says that some facts are better attested than others, 
 then of course one agrees with him and admits that 
 one is always bound to ask whether these facts are 
 well enough attested to serve as basis for this theory ; 
 whether the facts are two thousand years or two 
 minutes distant in time makes no real difference. 
 
 () The other argument against the use of history 
 in theology asserts that there are two categories of fact, 
 historical and philosophical ; and that since they are 
 totally distinct, theological propositions, which are 
 essentially philosophical in character, cannot be proved 
 or disproved or in the least affected by historical 
 arguments ; just as discussions about the authorship 
 of a poem do not in the least affect its beauty. 
 
 This argument is plainly right if it merely means 
 that you cannot as if by magic extract a philosophical 
 conclusion from non-philosophical premisses. If you 
 understand history as something entirely excluding 
 philosophical elements, then any philosophical con- 
 clusion which you " prove " by its means will be 
 dishonestly gained. But in this sense the statement 
 is no more than the tautology that you cannot extract 
 from an argument more than its premisses contain ; 
 it does not help us to recognise a purely historical or 
 philosophical argument when we meet one, or even 
 convince us that such things exist. 
 
 It may, secondly, be interpreted to mean that when 
 we cite instances in support of philosophical views the 
 philosophical conclusion depends not on the historical 
 fact but on the " construction," as it is called, which we 
 put upon the fact. We look at the fact in the light of 
 an idea ; and the philosophical theory which we describe
 
 46 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION n . i 
 
 as proved by the fact is due not to the fact but to the 
 idea we have read into it. Here again there is a certain 
 truth. When A finds his pet theory of human selfish- 
 ness borne 'out by C's action, and B uses the same 
 action as an .illustration of his own theory of human 
 altruism, it seems natural to say that each starts from 
 the same fact but with different preconceived ideas : 
 and that the fact is really equally irrelevant to both the 
 theories which it is used to prove. But this account of 
 the matter is quite inaccurate. A's " idea " is that C's 
 act was a selfish act ; B's " idea " was that it was altru- 
 istic. But of these ideas neither was a mere "idea" ; 
 one was a historical fact and the other a historical error. 
 Thus the distinction between the fact and the construc- 
 tion put upon it is false ; what we call the construction 
 is only our attempt to determine further details about 
 the fact. And since the question whether C was acting 
 selfishly or not is a question of historical fact, the 
 doctrine that people act in general selfishly or altruistic- 
 ally is based entirely on historical fact, or on something 
 erroneously imagined to be historical fact. The attempt 
 to dissociate philosophy and history breaks down because, 
 in point of fact, we never do so dissociate them. One 
 simply cannot make general statements without any 
 thought of their instances. 
 
 3. Positivism and scepticism both break down under 
 examination. We cannot, it appears, do without either 
 philosophical or historical thought. We seem therefore 
 to have here a distinction within the region of the 
 intellect parallel to that of intellect and will in the mind 
 as a whole ; and consequently we must investigate the 
 relation between philosophy and history with a view to 
 determining as accurately as possible the nature of the 
 distinction. 
 
 (0) In the first place, it appears that history cannot 
 exist without philosophy. There is no such thing as 
 an entirely non-philosophical history. History cannot 
 proceed without philosophical presuppositions of a highly
 
 CH. in RELIGION AND HISTORY 47 
 
 complex character. It deals with evidence, and there- 
 fore makes epistemological assumptions as to the value 
 of evidence ; it describes the actions of historical char- 
 acters in terms whose meaning is fixed by ethical 
 thought ; it has continually to determine what events 
 are possible and what are not possible, and this can 
 only be done in virtue of some general metaphysical 
 conclusions. 
 
 It is not, of course, implied that no historian is 
 qualified for his work without a systematic education 
 in academic philosophy. Still less is it to be supposed 
 that a philosopher dabbling in history is better able 
 than the historians to lay down the law as to the value 
 of such and such a historical argument. It must be 
 remembered that by philosophy we mean, here as else- 
 where, thought concerned with metaphysical problems : 
 not acquaintance with technical literature and the 
 vocabulary of the specialist. 
 
 () It is equally certain that philosophy is impossible 
 without history ; for any theory must be a theory of 
 facts, and if there were no facts there would be no 
 occasion for theory. But in asserting the necessity of 
 history to philosophy we must guard against certain 
 misunderstandings. 
 
 In the first place, the above statement may be inter- 
 preted to mean that philosophy develops or evolves 
 along fixed lines, has a definite history of its own in 
 the sense of a movement in which each phase emerges 
 necessarily from the preceding phase, and therefore 
 philosophy (i.e. the state of philosophical thought now) 
 depends absolutely upon history (i.e. its own previous 
 history). 
 
 As against such a view it must be pointed out that 
 philosophy is a human activity, not a mechanical 
 process ; and is therefore free and not in any sense 
 necessitated either by its own past or anything else. 
 Doubtless every philosopher owes much to his pre- 
 decessors ; thought is a corporate activity, like every
 
 48 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION PT. i 
 
 other. But the dependence of Hegel upon Kant, say, 
 is of quite a different kind from the dependence in- 
 dicated by the above theory. Hegel's work is based 
 upon Kant, in the sense that many of Kant's truths are 
 Hegel's truths too ; but Kant also makes errors which 
 Hegel corrects. The error is not the basis of the truth 
 but the opposite of it. It may, and indeed in a sense 
 must, lead to it ; because an error cannot be refuted till 
 it has been stated. But the statement of the error is 
 not the cause of its refutation. The word " cause " is 
 simply inapplicable ; for we are dealing with the free 
 activity of the mind, not with a mechanical process. 
 And therefore this theory uses the word dependence in 
 a misleading sense. 
 
 Secondly, philosophy may be said to depend on 
 history in the sense that history, the gradual and 
 cumulative experience of facts, is necessary before we 
 can frame philosophical theories on a broad enough 
 basis. The wider a man's experience, the more likely 
 his generalisations are to be true. The same applies to 
 the human race in general ; we have been accumulating 
 facts little by little for centuries now, and consequently 
 we are a great deal better equipped for philosophising 
 than were, for instance, the Greeks. 
 
 This theory expresses a point of view which is 
 always widely held ; it is an attitude towards the world 
 whose technical name is empiricism, and of which the 
 dominant note is the abstract insistence on mere number 
 or size. It reckons wisdom by the quantity of different 
 things a man knows, and certainty by the number of 
 different times a statement comes true ; it holds that a 
 man broadens his views by travelling, and stunts them 
 by living at home ; it measures everything in two 
 dimensions, and forgets the existence of a third. As 
 a matter of fact one is almost ashamed of having to 
 utter such truisms he who accumulates information 
 alone is very likely to accumulate not merely sorrow 
 but indigestion of the mind ; if he cannot understand
 
 CH. in RELIGION AND HISTORY 49 
 
 himself, he is not necessarily the wiser for trying to 
 understand others ; if he cannot learn truth at home, 
 he will certainly not learn it abroad. It is true that 
 more facts of some kinds are known to the learned 
 world now than in the time of Socrates ; but it does 
 not follow that we are all wiser than Socrates. The 
 notion of establishing theories on a broad basis is, in 
 short, an error ; itself based upon a broad, but ex- 
 tremely superficial, theory of logic. What matters in 
 the foundations of a theory is not their breadth but 
 their depth ; the thorough understanding of a single 
 fact, not the feverish accumulation of a thousand. 
 
 History must be regarded not as a mechanical process, 
 nor yet as a gradual accumulation of truths, but simply 
 as objectivity ; as the real fact of which we are conscious. 
 History is that which actually exists; fact, as something 
 independent of my own or your knowledge of it. In 
 this sense there would be no philosophy without it ; 
 for no form of consciousness can exist without an object. 
 We are not expelling from history the notion of move- 
 ment ; for if we are asked, what is the nature of this 
 reality of which we are conscious ? we shall reply that 
 it is itself activity, growth, development ; but not 
 development in any automatic or mechanical sense. 
 
 4. We are now able to , suggest more fully the 
 relation of history to philosophy. Neither can exist 
 without the other ; each presupposes the other. That 
 is to say, they are interdependent and simultaneous 
 activities, like thought and will. The question is 
 whether, like thought and will, they are fully identical. 
 
 Each is knowledge ; and if they are different, they 
 must be the knowledge of different objects. How can 
 we distinguish these objects ? History, it is sometimes 
 said, is knowledge of the particular, philosophy know- 
 ledge of the universal. But the particular is no mere 
 particular ; it is a particular of this or that universal ; 
 and the universal never can exist at all except in the 
 form of this or that particular. " The universal " and
 
 5 o GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION FT . i 
 
 " the particular " considered as separate concrete things 
 are fictions ; and to equate the distinction of philosophy 
 and history with such a fictitious distinction is to admit 
 at once that it is untenable. 
 
 Nor can we distinguish them as the knowledge of 
 the necessary and of the contingent respectively. This 
 distinction is due to the fact that a theory explains 
 some things but leaves others unexplained ; and this 
 remnant, relatively to the theory, appears as " the 
 contingent." Contingent, therefore, is only a synonym 
 for unexplained ; it cannot mean inexplicable, for if 
 there is a sense in which anything is explicable, we 
 cannot assume that anything is in this sense not 
 explicable. In the last resort necessary probably means 
 no more than real: when we say that a thing is 
 necessarily so, we mean that we understand it to be 
 really so. And therefore whatever is real is neces- 
 sarily real. In point of fact, it is possible that the 
 distinction between necessity and contingence is only 
 a restatement of that between the universal and the 
 particular. 
 
 It would, again, be a repetition of the same idea if 
 we tried to distinguish things that happen in time 
 (history) from things that are true independently of 
 time (philosophy). For there is one sense in which 
 every truth is temporal ; as for instance the nature of 
 God is historically revealed, and the fact that twice two 
 is four is grasped by adding, on a definite occasion, 
 two and two ; and there is another sense in which 
 every fact is independent of time ; as it is still true and 
 always will be true that the battle of Hastings was 
 fought in 1066. The difference between a temporal 
 event and a timeless truth is a difference not between 
 two different classes of thing, but between two aspects 
 of the same thing. This attempt to distinguish philo- 
 sophy and history suggests a dualism between two 
 complete worlds ; the one unchanging, self- identical, 
 and known by philosophy, the other subject to change
 
 CH. in RELIGION AND HISTORY 51 
 
 and development, and known by history. But a world 
 of mere self-identity would be as inconceivable as a 
 world of mere change ; each quality is the reverse side 
 of the other. To separate the two is to destroy each 
 alike. 
 
 History, like philosophy, is the knowledge of the 
 one real world ; it is historical, that is, subject to the 
 limitation of time, because only that is known and 
 done which has been known and done ; the future, not 
 being mechanically determined, does not yet exist, and 
 therefore is no part of the knowable universe. It is 
 philosophical, that is, all-embracing, universal, for the 
 same reason ; because historical fact is the only thing 
 that exists and includes the whole universe. History 
 a parte objecti the reality which historical research 
 seeks to know is nothing else than the totality of 
 existence ; and this is also the object of philosophy. 
 History a parte subjecti the activity of the historian 
 is investigation of all that has happened and is happening ; 
 and this is philosophy too. For it is incorrect to say 
 that philosophy is theory based upon fact ; theory is not 
 something else derived, distilled, from facts but simply 
 the observation that the facts are what they are. And 
 similarly the philosophical presuppositions of history 
 are not something different from the history itself: 
 they are philosophical truths which the historian finds 
 historically exemplified. 
 
 History and philosophy are therefore the same thing. 
 It is true, no doubt, that each in turn may be interpreted 
 abstractly ; abstract history being the mere verbal 
 description of events without any attempt at under- 
 standing them, philosophy the dry criticism of formal 
 rules of thinking without any attempt at grasping their 
 application. Abstract history in this sense is a failure 
 not because it is unphilosophical, but because it is un- 
 historical ; it is not really history at all. And similarly 
 abstract philosophy becomes meaningless, because in 
 eliminating the historical element it has unawares
 
 5 2 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION n .i 
 
 eliminated the philosophical element too. Each alike 
 must also be the other or it cannot be itself ; each in 
 being itself is also the other. 
 
 5. The value of historical theology, then, consists 
 in the fact that it is already philosophical. It does not 
 merely supply philosophical theology with materials ; 
 it is itself already grappling with the philosophical 
 problems. Religion cannot afford to ignore its historical 
 content, nor can it treat this content as something in- 
 essential to the establishment of its speculative doctrines. 
 History must bear the weight of speculative super- 
 structure to the best of its ability ; but in return it 
 may derive help from philosophical light thrown there- 
 by on its own difficulties. In this way the distinction 
 between philosophical and historical theology disappears ; 
 there is seen to be only one theology, which is both 
 these at once. It may be presented with comparative 
 emphasis on constructive doctrine, as in the later 
 chapters of this book ; but if so, it does not omit or 
 ignore history. It is woven of strands each of which 
 is historical in character, and the whole presents itself 
 as a historical fact. Similarly, theology may be written 
 from a historical point of view, with the emphasis on 
 temporal development ; but it is only theology so long 
 as it is clear that the thing that is developing is really 
 doctrine all the time. 
 
 An illustration may serve to indicate the necessity 
 to theology of its historical aspect. In view of the 
 criticisms often brought against the records of the life 
 of Jesus, many are inclined to take up a sceptical 
 attitude and to declare that our tradition is hopelessly 
 incorrect. But, they go on to ask, what then? We 
 learn many valuable lessons from the Good Samaritan, 
 though we do not believe him to have existed. We 
 learn, too, from Homer, even if Homer never wrote 
 what we ascribe to him. We have the tradition in 
 black and white ; it bears its credentials on its face ; 
 all else is a side-issue. Is there anything we learn from
 
 CH. HI RELIGION AND HISTORY 53 
 
 the Christ-history that we could not equally learn from 
 the Christ-myth ? 
 
 The simple religious mind would, I believe, emphati- 
 cally reject such a suggestion. And this would be 
 perfectly right. It is easy to say that the " Christ- 
 myth " embodies facts about God's nature which, once 
 known, are known whether they are learnt from one 
 source or from another. That is by no means the 
 whole truth. The life of Christ gives us, conspicuously, 
 two other things. It gives us an example of how a 
 human life may satisfy the highest possible standards ; 
 and it puts us in contact with the personality of 
 the man who lived that life. 
 
 The whole value of an example is lost unless it is 
 historical. If an athlete tries to equal the feats of 
 Herakles, or an engineer spends his life trying to 
 recover the secret of the man who invented a perpetual- 
 motion machine, they are merely deluding themselves 
 with false hopes if Herakles and the supposed inventor 
 never lived. The Good Samaritan's action is the kind 
 of thing that any good man might do ; it is typical of 
 a kind of conduct which we see around us and know 
 to be both admirable and possible. But if the life of 
 Jesus is a myth, it is more preposterous to ask a man 
 to imitate it than to ask him to imitate Herakles. 
 Any valid command must guarantee the possibility of 
 carrying it out ; and the historical life of Jesus is the 
 guarantee that man can be perfect if he will. 
 
 Further, in that perfection, or the struggle towards 
 it, the religious man somehow feels that he is in 
 personal touch with a risen Christ. We do not at 
 present demand an explanation of this feeling, or ask 
 whether there is a real intercourse ; it is enough that 
 the feeling exists and is an integral part of the Christian 
 consciousness. The presence of Christ is as real to the 
 believer as the love of God. But it can hardly be real 
 if Christ is a myth. 
 
 It must be observed that we are not arguing to the
 
 54 GENERAL NATURE OF RELIGION FT. i 
 
 reality of Christ's presence now, or his historicity in 
 the past, on the strength of this feeling. Such an 
 argument would be extremely hazardous. We are 
 merely concerned to show that Christianity would not 
 be absolutely unchanged by the demonstration that 
 these things were mythical. The belief that Christ 
 really lived, whether it is true or false, colours the 
 whole consciousness of the believer. 
 
 The same holds good even of purely " intellectual " 
 doctrine. If a doctrine is simple and easy, containing 
 nothing very new or paradoxical, a fiction is enough 
 to drive it home. But if it is difficult to grasp and 
 conflicts with our preconceived notions, our first 
 impulse is to challenge the reality of the fact which 
 serves as an instance. A scientist propounds some 
 new and revolutionary doctrine ; at once we ask 
 whether the experiments on which it is based were 
 fairly carried out as he describes them. If not, we 
 dismiss the doctrine. No doubt to an absolutely 
 perfect mind a fiction would be as illuminating as a 
 fact, because ex hypothesi such a mind would have no 
 special difficulty in grasping any truth, however subtle, 
 and would stand in no need of, so to speak, forcible 
 conviction. A person who was the equal or superior 
 of Jesus Christ in spiritual insight could give up his 
 historicity and not lose by it. But such a description 
 only applies to God. And in God, we can no longer 
 distinguish between the historical and the imaginary. 
 If, speaking in a Platonic myth, we describe the course 
 of history as a story told to himself by God, it makes 
 no difference whether we say the story is imaginary 
 or true. 
 
 But for us objective fact, history, is necessary. We 
 all have something of the spirit of Thomas, and must 
 know a thing has happened before we can believe its 
 teaching. Is this, perhaps, one reason for the difference 
 between the parables that Jesus spoke and the parable 
 he acted ? He knew the limitations of his audience ;
 
 CH.III RELIGION AND HISTORY 55 
 
 he saw what they could understand and what they could 
 not. Some things about God he could tell them in 
 words, and they would believe his words ; but one last 
 thing how could he tell that ? and if he could find 
 words to tell it, who would not mock him for a visionary 
 or shrink from him as a blasphemer ? There was only 
 one way ; to act the parable he could not speak. We 
 are accustomed to think of the death of Jesus as the 
 sacrifice for our sins. Was it not also, perhaps, a 
 sacrifice for our stupidity ?
 
 PART II 
 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 57
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ON PROVING THE EXISTENCE OF GOD 
 
 i. IT might be maintained that the first duty of a 
 philosophical theology, indeed of any theology, is to 
 prove the existence of the God whose nature it professes 
 to expound. The difficulty of this preliminary task is 
 so great that theology tries in general to escape it ; 
 pointing out that every science starts from some data, 
 some fact taken for granted. The physicist is not 
 called upon to prove the existence of matter, nor the 
 historian to prove the existence of his documentary 
 authorities. Granted that matter exists, the physicist 
 will tell you what it is like ; and theology must claim 
 to exercise the same freedom in the choice of a starting- 
 point. 
 
 (a) This defence is in part justified, and in part, I 
 think, mistaken. It may be true that no empirical 
 science would submit its foundations to such rigorous 
 criticism as is here applied to theology. And if theology 
 is to be a merely empirical science, it has a correspond- 
 ing right to make uncriticised assumptions. But the 
 sting of the criticism lies in the fact that theology claims 
 to be more than this. It presents itself as a philosophy, 
 a view of the universe as a whole, the ultimate ground 
 of reality ; and philosophy can take nothing for granted. 
 A historian may say, " I give you here a sketch of the 
 character of Julius Caesar. It is based on all the 
 available evidence ; but though I have weighed the 
 documents as well as I could, and allowed for the 
 59
 
 60 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 partisanship of one writer and the prejudice of another, 
 I still feel that the evidence is very slight and scanty, 
 and that no high degree of certainty is possible. We 
 have to remember in dealing with remote history that 
 no proof of a statement can ever be offered which will 
 stand against the objections of a determined scepticism." 
 If a theologian prefaced his account of the nature of 
 God by a statement in terms analogous to these, he 
 would doubtless win the approval of many for his 
 toleration and breadth of mind ; but all sincerely 
 religious people would, I am convinced, feel that his 
 detached and judicial attitude was not merely an outrage 
 on their feelings but exhibited a certain intellectual 
 obtuseness and incapacity to appreciate the point at 
 issue. We should have the same feeling if a philosopher 
 said, "Such, in my opinion, is the nature of morality. 
 We must not, however, forget that some people deny 
 the existence of morality altogether, and it is quite 
 possible that they are right." To such language we 
 should reply that a philosopher has no right to construct 
 the nature of morality out of his inner consciousness, 
 and end in the pious hope that the reality may corre- 
 spond with his " ideal construction." His business as 
 a philosopher is to discover what actually are the ideals 
 which govern conduct, and not to speak until he has 
 something to tell us about them. In the same way, the 
 theologian's business is to understand, at least in some 
 degree, the nature of God ; if he cannot claim to do 
 this, he has no claim on our attention. A hypothetical 
 science, one which says, " These are the characteristics of 
 matter, or number, or space, granted that such things 
 really exist " may be incomplete, but it is at any rate 
 something ; a hypothetical philosophy or theology is 
 not merely mutilated but destroyed. 
 
 If we say to a scientist, " First prove to me that 
 matter exists, and then I will hear what you have to say 
 about it," he will answer, " That is metaphysics, and I 
 have nothing to do with it." But theology is already
 
 CH.I ON PROVING EXISTENCE OF GOD 61 
 
 metaphysical through and through ; so it would appear 
 that when we say to a theologian " I must have proof 
 that God exists before I can be expected to listen to 
 your description of him," the theologian is bound to 
 supply the proof, and his science must stand still until 
 he has done it. But this is at least not what theologians 
 actually do ; and though it may be replied that none 
 the less they ought to do it, is the demand quite fair 
 either to them or to the scientists ? 
 
 (b) The scorn with which the scientist utters the 
 word "metaphysics" shows that he does not think the 
 worse of physics for refusing to embark upon the argu- 
 ments so entitled. And yet surely the physicist cannot 
 suppose that it makes no difference to physics whether 
 matter exists or not. Nor is it strictly true to say, as 
 is often said, that he assumes matter to exist ; that is to 
 say, begs the metaphysical question in his own favour. 
 His real position is quite different from this. " How 
 can I prove the existence of a thing " (he might say) 
 " whose nature is totally undefined ? Did Newton first 
 prove to a mystified world the existence of fluxions, and 
 only afterwards deign to explain what he meant by the 
 word ? If you will listen to me and hear what I have 
 got to say about matter, you can then go on to criticise 
 it, that is, to ask whether the thing which I call matter 
 really exists. But this metaphysics, arguing about the 
 reality or unreality of a thing you have never tried to 
 describe, seems to me a waste of time." 
 
 (c) The theologian, I think, ought to put in the same 
 plea. A proof of the existence of God is all very well, 
 but there are " Gods many," if by God you understand 
 whatever this or that man happens to mean by the word. 
 Would a proof of the existence of God prove that 
 Apollo and Hathor and Krishna and Mumbo Jumbo 
 all existed ? and if so, what becomes of any religion, if 
 every other is exactly as true ? Plainly, if the God of 
 one religion exists, the God of a contradictory religion 
 cannot exist ; and the proof of one is the disproof of
 
 62 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . n 
 
 the other. Let us first determine what we mean by 
 God, and then and only then we can profitably ask 
 whether he exists. 
 
 This second demand is more reasonable than the 
 first ; but it still has one grave defect. The determina- 
 tion of what I believe (about God or about anything 
 else) is not a different thing from the question whether 
 that belief is true. To believe a thing is to regard it 
 as true ; and to attach a meaning to a word, to believe 
 that this and no other is the right meaning, is to assert 
 that the thing which you so name exists, and exists in 
 this form and no other. Nor can we escape this con- 
 clusion by quoting the time-honoured instance of the 
 dragon, in which, it is supposed, we attach a meaning 
 to a word without believing that the thing so named 
 really exists ; for dragons do exist in Fairyland, and it 
 is only in Fairyland that the word has any meaning. 
 
 To attach a meaning to a word, then, is to claim 
 that this meaning is the right one : that is, that the 
 thing whose name it is really exists, and that this is its 
 actual nature. To distinguish between the question, 
 " What do I mean by God ? " and the question, " Does 
 God exist, and if so what is he like ? " is impossible, for 
 the two questions are one and the same. It is, of 
 course, possible to distinguish the meaning I attach to 
 the word, or my conception of God, from another 
 person's meaning or conception ; and it may be possible, 
 comparing these two, to discover which is the better 
 and to adopt it. But in any case, the statement of 
 what we mean by God (or anything else) is not the 
 mere expression of a " subjective idea " or of the "mean- 
 ing of a word" as distinct from the "nature of a thing." 
 It is already critical, so far as we have the power of 
 making it so ; it presupposes that we have reasons for 
 believing that idea, that meaning, to be the right one. 
 
 Thus the proof of the existence of God is not 
 something else without which theology is incomplete ; 
 it is theology itself. The reasoned statement of the
 
 CH. i ON PROVING EXISTENCE OF GOD 63 
 
 attributes of God is at the same time the proof that the 
 God who has those attributes is the God who exists. 
 Similarly, physics does not require to be supplemented 
 by a metaphysical proof that matter exists ; it already 
 supplies that proof in the form of an answer to the 
 question, " What conception of matter is the right 
 conception ? " 
 
 It may be objected to this way of putting it that 
 the existence of matter in the one case and God in the 
 other really has been dogmatically assumed : and that 
 thus we are falling into the very error which we set out 
 to avoid. This is not the case. The assumption that 
 some form of matter exists is only an assumption if a 
 meaning is already attached to the word matter ; and 
 since to supply the meaning is the function of physics, 
 the word cannot mean anything at the outset. Actually, 
 of course, this vacuum of meaning never exists, because 
 the science is never at its absolute starting-point ; each 
 new scientist begins with the meaning conferred on the 
 word by his predecessors. But does he therefore assume 
 that matter exists in a form precisely corresponding to 
 that meaning ? If so, it would indeed be a monstrous 
 assumption. But he does not. If he did, he would 
 not be a scientist. His whole function as a scientist is 
 to ask whether the matter conceived by his predecessors 
 exists at all. He may discover that their conception 
 was radically false, in which case there is no limit to 
 the degree of change which the meaning of the word 
 " matter " will undergo in his hands. 
 
 The answer to the question what we mean by the 
 word God, then, is identical with that to the question 
 whether God exists. " What do we mean by the word 
 God? " resolves itself into the question, " What is the 
 right meaning to attach to the word ? " and that again 
 is indistinguishable from the question, " What sort of 
 God exists ? " To suppose that this doctrine rules out 
 atheism is merely to misunderstand it ; for it might 
 quite well be that the word God, like the word dragon,
 
 64 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . n 
 
 means something which exists only in the realm of the 
 imagination. 
 
 It follows that we shall not begin by proving the 
 existence of God, nor indeed offer any formal proof at 
 all. But this is not because the existence of God 
 cannot, in the nature of things, be proved. It is often 
 maintained that ultimate truths are incapable of proof, 
 and that the existence of God is such an ultimate truth. 
 But I venture to suggest that the impossibility of proof 
 attaches not to ultimate truths as such, but only to the 
 truths of " metaphysics " in the depreciatory sense of 
 the word ; to truths, that is, which have no definite 
 meaning. We cannot prove that Reality exists, not 
 because the question is too " ultimate " (that is, because 
 too much depends on it), but because it is too empty. 
 Tell us what you mean by Reality, and we can offer an 
 alternative meaning and try to discover which is the 
 right one. No one can prove that God exists, if no 
 definite significance is attached to the words ; not 
 because as is doubtless the case the reality of God 
 transcends human knowledge, but because the idea of 
 God which we claim to have is as yet entirely inde- 
 terminate. In the same way, we cannot prove or 
 disprove the existence of matter until we know what 
 sort of matter is meant ; but something can certainly 
 be done to prove the existence or non-existence of the 
 matter of Democritus or Gassendi or Clerk Maxwell. 
 
 I do not wish to imply that hesitation and diffidence 
 are mistaken attitudes in which to approach these 
 questions. There is a false mystery, which consists in 
 the asking of unreasonable and unanswerable questions ; 
 but there is also a true mystery, which is to be found 
 everywhere and supremely in that which is the centre 
 and sum of all existence. In approaching these hardest 
 of all problems, only the most short-sighted will 
 expect to find their full solution, and only the least 
 discriminating will think at the end that he has found 
 it. Herein lies the real ground for humility ; not that
 
 CH. i ON PROVING EXISTENCE OF GOD 65 
 
 our faculties exhaust themselves in a vain struggle to 
 compass the unknowable, but that however well we do 
 we have never done all we might or all we could ; and 
 are, after all, unprofitable servants of the supreme 
 wisdom. 
 
 2. The common charge of inconclusiveness brought 
 against the traditional proofs of God's existence is thus 
 to a certain extent justified ; for these proofs are, in 
 their usual forms, isolated arguments, detached from 
 any positive theology and attempting to demonstrate 
 the existence of a God whose nature is very vaguely 
 conceived. This fact is sometimes expressed by saying 
 that they are purely negative. It would be better to 
 say that they are highly abstract, and that a full state- 
 ment of any one of them would amount to the con- 
 struction of a complete theological metaphysic. No 
 argument can be purely negative, for it is impossible to 
 deny one principle except by asserting another, however 
 little that other is explicitly developed. 
 
 (a) But there is another charge often brought against 
 these proofs, which relates less to their positive value 
 than to the temper in which they are conceived. It 
 is supposed that they are the fruit not of free specula- 
 tion but of an illicit union between dogmatism and 
 philosophy, authority and criticism. They are believed 
 to be typical of a benighted period when ecclesiastical 
 tradition fixed not only the limits but the very con- 
 clusions of metaphysical thought ; when reason was 
 so debased as to submit to accepting its results blindly 
 at the hands of an unquestioned dogmatism, and to 
 demean itself to the task, apologetic in the worst sense, 
 of bolstering up by sophistical ingenuity these un- 
 criticised beliefs. 
 
 This view of the traditional proofs, though popular 
 at the present time, is neither historical nor fully reason- 
 able. The Middle Ages were undoubtedly a period 
 when the authority of the Church counted for much ; 
 but these proofs are so far from being typically mediaeval
 
 66 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS . n 
 
 that they run, in one form or another, through the 
 whole of philosophy. If the history of speculation 
 begins with Socrates, Socrates was the first person 
 known to us who definitely formulated the Argument 
 from Design ; and Socrates was no blind supporter of 
 dogma. The Ontological proof, first I believe clearly 
 stated by the sceptical philosopher Sextus Empiricus in 
 refutation of the reckless dogmatism of contemporary 
 atheists, enters modern philosophy indeed with Anselm 
 in the Middle Ages, but was not accepted by the orthodox 
 scholastic tradition, and the recognition of its importance 
 was left to Descartes in the full tide of the Renaissance. 
 Since then it has never lost its place as one of the 
 central problems of the theory of knowledge. The 
 third traditional proof, from the contingency or im- 
 perfection of the world to some cause outside the 
 world, is mediaeval only because it was already Aristo- 
 telian, and Aristotle, whatever his shortcomings, cannot 
 any more than Socrates be represented as an example 
 of the priest-ridden intellect. 
 
 The objection seems to consist in the notion that 
 a proof of some belief which is itself held on other 
 grounds is illegitimate and insincere. Let us so the 
 notion runs employ our reason in the discovery of 
 new truths, not in the invention of proofs for truths, 
 if truths they be, which we learnt from another source 
 and shall continue to believe even if the proof breaks 
 down. By the latter course we learn nothing new, 
 even if it is successful ; we only delude ourselves 
 into mistaking the source from which our beliefs are 
 derived. 
 
 But this objection will not stand examination. In 
 the first place, it would apply with equal force to the 
 discovery of a proof in the case of, let us say, a mathe- 
 matical theorem ; where we often see the thing to 
 be true but cannot offer any proof of it. Here the 
 discovery of a proof is subsequent to the existence of 
 the belief, and the belief does not disappear if we fail
 
 CH. i ON PROVING EXISTENCE OF GOD 67 
 
 to discover any proof at all. Why then is it desirable 
 to prove the theorem ? 
 
 First, perhaps, in order to make sure that our 
 original conviction was not a mere error. If we never 
 tested our first impressions by such means, the mistakes 
 of which we make quite enough already would be 
 indefinitely multiplied. Secondly, in order that by 
 means of the proof we may impart our conviction to 
 persons less gifted than ourselves with the faculty of 
 mathematical intuition. And thirdly, because in dis- 
 covering the proof we really do attain new knowledge. 
 Even if we do no more than make explicit the steps 
 by which our mind leapt to its first conclusion, 
 knowledge of our mental processes is gained ; and, 
 moreover, no proof can be constructed without discover- 
 ing new facts about the relation of this theorem to 
 other things which we already knew. And the dis- 
 covery that one truth necessitates another is a discovery 
 worth making. 
 
 "The parallel," it may be said, "is unfair. The 
 discovery of a proof is in this case valuable precisely 
 because it is homogeneous with the original intuition. 
 Each was an example of mathematical thinking, and 
 therefore each bears on and is relevant to the other. 
 But the belief in the existence of God is not the fruit 
 of the same kind of thought as the formal proof of 
 his existence. The one is passively taken on authority, 
 the other critically constructed by the reason." 
 
 Authority does enter largely into the formation of 
 all our beliefs, not excluding those of religion. But it 
 is not peculiar to religion. Even in mathematics, a 
 surveyor, an astronomer, a navigator uses countless 
 formulae which he has never proved and never dreams 
 of testing. In science, the learner takes a vast pro- 
 portion of his beliefs on the authority of his teacher or 
 the writer of his handbook. It would be strange if in 
 religion alone there were no place for authority. 
 
 (b) And it is doubtless true that there is a distinction
 
 68 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . n 
 
 between believing a thing because one is told it by an 
 expert, and believing it because one has been into the 
 evidence for oneself. It is precisely the distinction 
 between the man in the street and the original investi- 
 gator, philosopher, physicist, mathematician, or whatever 
 he may be. But the objection which we are consider- 
 ing puts a peculiar interpretation on this distinction. 
 Because a man has once been a learner, it maintains, he 
 cannot become an independent investigator unless he 
 first forgets what he has learnt. If he attempts to philo- 
 sophise about God, he must first cease to believe in 
 his existence. But is this reasonable ? Must we cele- 
 brate the beginning of our research into a subject by 
 denying all we have been taught about it? "Not 
 perhaps by denying, but certainly by questioning." 
 Yes, no doubt : by asking whether we do believe : 
 and, if we find we still do, by asking why we believe. 
 Philosophy may start as well from one place as from 
 another : and the fact that a man does actually believe 
 in the existence of God, or of his fellow-man, or of an 
 external material world, is no barrier to his becoming 
 a philosopher. The modern "broad-minded" critic 
 would have him dissimulate these convictions, if he 
 cannot get rid of them ; and maintains that to come 
 on the field with opinions ready made is to be hopelessly 
 prejudiced. But the alternative, to come on the field 
 with no opinions at all, is unfortunately impossible. It 
 does not matter where you start, but you must start 
 somewhere ; and to begin by making a clean sweep of 
 all your beliefs is only to deprive yourself of all material 
 on which to work. Or rather, since the feat can never 
 be really accomplished, it is to put yourself at the mercy 
 of those surreptitious beliefs and assumptions which your 
 broom has left lurking in the darker corners. 
 
 We are dealing not with abstract ideals, but with 
 the ways and means of ordinary life and everyday 
 thinking. No actual man can ever claim that his mind 
 is, thanks to his sedulous avoidance of prejudice, a
 
 CH. i ON PROVING EXISTENCE OF GOD 69 
 
 perfect and absolute blank as regards the matter he 
 proposes to investigate. There is only one course open 
 to any critic : to discover what he actually does think, 
 and then to find out, if he can, whether his first idea 
 was just or not ; that is, to prove it or to disprove it. 
 Systematic scepticism is the essence of all philosophy 
 and all science ; but scepticism, if it means pretending 
 not to entertain convictions which in fact one finds 
 inevitable, soon passes over into systematic falsehood. 
 
 Bearing in mind, then, that the preliminary state- 
 ment of belief must be already, to some extent, critical, 
 we can see that the method of argument to which ex- 
 ception was taken is not only inevitable in practice, 
 but theoretically sound. The kind of thinking which 
 accepts truths on authority is not " passive," not funda- 
 mentally distinct from that which criticises every step 
 in detail. The authority is not accepted without some 
 reason, and the fact that it is accepted does not in- 
 capacitate us from analysing the reasons for acceptance 
 and from discovering further reasons. 
 
 3. This may serve to explain the scheme of the re- 
 maining chapters of this book. We shall not formally 
 lay down the Christian, or any other, theory of God and 
 then attempt to prove it either in itself or against alter- 
 natives. This would be both wearisome and artificial ; 
 for the exposition cannot be separated from the criticism. 
 Neither shall we attempt a metaphysical construction, 
 free from all presuppositions, which should demonstrate 
 a -priori the truth of the Christian theology ; for this 
 would entail the same arbitrary separation of the two 
 things, even if it were not setting ourselves an initial 
 task far beyond our power. 
 
 I intend rather to state as simply as possible certain 
 beliefs concerning God and the world which are at 
 least central to the Christian theology, and then to 
 examine certain alternatives to these, or objections 
 alleged against them, which are familiar to modern 
 readers. In this way it may be possible to develop in
 
 7 o RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 the following three chapters a general view of the 
 nature of God ; and in the remaining part I shall apply 
 the results so obtained to some problems which, I 
 imagine, would be commonly described as belonging 
 less to metaphysics than to theology. The distinction 
 between these two spheres, however, must not be 
 insisted upon. The problem of the Incarnation is 
 simply that of the true nature of man and his relation 
 to the absolute spirit ; the Atonement presents in theo- 
 logical terms the purely ethical question of the relation 
 between the good will and the bad ; and the problem 
 of Miracle is not in the last resort to be distinguished 
 from that of the freedom of the will. 
 
 The points I wish to examine in this part are as 
 follows. Christian theology regards God as spirit, 
 exercising creative power, however conceived, over the 
 world of matter. This material world is supposed truly 
 to exist, that is, to be no mere illusion : but yet to be 
 not self-existent but to depend for its existence and 
 nature on will. This view brings it into conflict with 
 materialism, which regards matter as self-existent and 
 indeed as the only true reality. This antithesis will 
 form the subject of the next chapter. 
 
 Secondly, God is conceived as a person ; but a 
 person not exclusively related to other persons. His 
 spirit his mind may enter into, may become an 
 element of, indeed the very self of, a given human 
 mind. And this is attained without loss of freedom or 
 individuality on the part of that human mind. This 
 paradox is in conflict with the popular view of person- 
 ality as always exclusive and independent, which makes 
 every person absolutely self-contained and autonomous : 
 and the distinction between the Christian and this latter 
 or individualistic theory of personality will be discussed 
 in Chapter III. 
 
 Thirdly, God is perfectly good and yet, as omnipo- 
 tent, he is the ruler or creator of a universe in which 
 good and bad exist side by side. Christianity can give
 
 CH.I ON PROVING EXISTENCE OF GOD 71 
 
 up neither of these doctrines ; it is equally hostile to a 
 theism which restricts God's power, that is, makes him 
 only one of a number of limited or finite beings, for 
 the sake of preserving his goodness, and to a pantheism 
 which denies his goodness in the interest of his infini- 
 tude. This dilemma must be faced to the best of our 
 ability in Chapter IV. 
 
 These three inquiries do not exhaust even the lead- 
 ing points and difficulties in the Christian conception 
 of God ; but they are enough to take us into the 
 most perilous regions of metaphysics, where the angelic 
 doctors fear to tread. The problem of matter has 
 hardly yet been settled by the advance of philosophy : 
 that of personality is the subject of continual con- 
 troversy : and that of evil is often given up as in- 
 soluble. We cannot expect to achieve at best more 
 than a partial solution of the infinite questions which 
 these problems raise : and that not only because philo- 
 sophy still has far to go, but because it is the nature 
 of truth to present itself under infinite aspects and to 
 offer an endless variety of problems where at first only 
 one is seen.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 MATTER 
 
 POPULAR metaphysic distinguishes two categories of 
 reality, mind and matter. Mind is a reality whose 
 qualities are thought, will, and so forth ; it is not 
 extended over space or divisible into parts. Matter, 
 on the other hand, occupies space, and is homogeneously 
 subdivisible into smaller parts ; it has no consciousness 
 of itself as mind has, nor can it originate any train 
 of events of its own free will. Mind is active, and 
 acts according to its volitions ; matter is passive, and 
 the changes in its condition, all of which are forms of 
 motion, must be brought about either by the influence 
 of other portions of matter, or by that of mind. 
 Matter is thus subject to the law of causation, the 
 law that whatever happens has a cause, external to 
 itself, which determines it to happen in this way and 
 in no other. This law of causation does not apply 
 to mind, whose changes of state are initiated freely 
 from within, in the form of acts of will. These acts 
 of will may influence matter, but they cannot alter or 
 in any way affect the operation of the laws which 
 govern the movements of matter. 
 
 The importance of this distinction from our 
 point of view is that most religions, and notably 
 Christianity, teach a metaphysic different from this. 
 They hold that whatever happens in the world is 
 brought about not by automatic causation but by 
 the free activity of one or more spirits ; and conse- 
 72
 
 CH.II MATTER 73 
 
 quently they place mind not side by side with matter 
 as a co-ordinate reality but above it. On the other 
 hand, materialism reverses this order, ascribes every- 
 thing to the operation of matter, or causation, and 
 denies to spirit any arbitrament in the course of the 
 world's history. We have thus three hypotheses 
 before us. Either the world is entirely material, or it 
 is entirely spiritual, or it is a compound of the two. 
 When it is said that the world is " entirely " material 
 or spiritual it is not meant that the phenomena 
 commonly described as mind or matter are simply 
 illusory ; it is of course allowed that they exist, but 
 they are explained in such a way as to reduce them 
 to the position of instances of the opposite principle. 
 Thus materialism will admit the existence of thought, 
 but will try to explain it as a kind of mechanism ; the 
 opposite theory (which for the sake of convenience I 
 shall call idealism) l will admit the existence of 
 mechanism, but will try to describe it in such a way 
 that its operation is seen to be a form of spiritual 
 activity. 
 
 i. Of these three alternatives we shall begin by 
 examining the most popular ; that is to say, the 
 dualism which regards the world as composed of two 
 different and clearly-distinguishable things, mind and 
 matter. This theory, or some theory of the kind, 
 may be described as the plain man's metaphysic. And 
 as such, it has all the strength and all the weakness 
 of an uncritical view. It is not led by a desire for 
 unity, illegitimately satisfied, to neglect or deny one 
 class of fact because it seems irreconcilable with 
 another. The temper which gives every fact its full 
 weight is necessary to any one who pretends to scientific 
 thought ; but it is one-sided and dangerous to the 
 
 1 This sense of the word must be carefully distinguished from Idealism as a 
 theory of knowledge. The former, concerned with the antithesis between mind and 
 matter, has no connexion whatever with the latter, which concerns the quite 
 different antithesis of subject and object, and is opposed not to Materialism but to 
 Realism.
 
 74 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . n 
 
 truth unless balanced by its apparent opposite, the 
 determination to draw the right conclusions from 
 premisses even if these conclusions seem to contradict 
 the facts. Faith in facts the belief that every fact, 
 if correctly observed, has its own unique value is not 
 really antithetical, but rather identical, with the faith 
 in reason which believes that any rightly-drawn in- 
 ference is as true, as much knowledge of reality, as the 
 observed fact from which it started. It is a common 
 mistake to imagine that the philosopher who says, 
 " This fact is incompatible with my theory, and there- 
 fore my theory is probably wfong," is superior in 
 intellectual honesty to him who says, "This fact is 
 incompatible with my theory, and therefore 1 must 
 ask whether it is a fact." The only true intellectual 
 honesty would lie in putting both these points of 
 view at once. This may seem a truism ; but there 
 is a real danger of treating " facts " with so much 
 respect that we fail to inquire into their credentials, 
 and into the fine distinction between observed fact 
 and inferred or imagined implication. 
 
 The plain man's dualism, then, seems to be an 
 example of one half of this attitude without the other. 
 It shows a genuine desire to do justice to all the facts, 
 but fails to supply them with that interrelation apart 
 from which it is hardly yet a theory at all. In other 
 words, the plain man's dualism is always conscious of 
 an unsolved problem, the problem of the relation of 
 mind and matter ; and this problem is not a mere 
 by-product of the theory, not a detail whose final 
 settlement is of comparatively small importance ; it is 
 the theory itself. Until some solution of the problem 
 has been suggested, the dualistic theory has never been 
 formulated. For that theory cannot be the mere 
 statement that there are two things, mind and matter ; 
 to be a theory, it must offer some account of the way 
 in which they are related ; and that is just what it 
 seldom if ever does.
 
 MATTER 75 
 
 (a) But a theory which has not solved all its 
 difficulties even one which has not solved the most 
 elementary and conspicuous of them may still be 
 practically useful, and may indeed contain a certain 
 amount of philosophical truth. It remains to be seen, 
 therefore, whether dualism has these advantages. In 
 the first place, it may be represented as a working 
 hypothesis, if no more ; a method of classifying the 
 sciences and of distinguishing two broad types 
 sciences of matter and sciences of mind. Such a 
 distinction is a 'matter of convenience, whether it does 
 or does not represent a metaphysical truth ; and we 
 must ask whether from this point of view the dis- 
 tinction is of value. 
 
 Considered as a working hypothesis, it is almost 
 painfully evident that the distinction between matter 
 and mind does not work. The division of sciences 
 into those of mind and those of matter does not give 
 satisfaction to the practical scientist ; it baulks and 
 hinders, rather than helps, his actual work. A few 
 examples will perhaps make this clear. 
 
 If we take the case of biology, we find a remarkable 
 instance of an entire province of knowledge claimed on 
 the one hand by mechanists in the name of the material 
 sciences, and on the other by vitalists old and new in 
 the interest of the sciences of mind. The former point 
 out that the essence of all vital functions is contained in 
 the facts studied by bio-physics and bio-chemistry, and 
 they further maintain that there is no ultimate distinc- 
 tion between bio-physics or bio-chemistry and physics 
 or chemistry in general ; material substances are not 
 absolved from the operation of their normal laws 
 because for the time being they happen to be parts of 
 an organism. The vitalists, on the other hand, assert 
 that no kind of machine whose operation was limited 
 by the nexus of cause and effect could possibly behave 
 as a living body behaves. We are not concerned to 
 ask which side is in the right ; the point is merely that
 
 76 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS FT. n 
 
 to the question "Is an organism mind or matter?" 
 biologists have no unanimous answer ready. And this 
 is enough to show that the methods actually used in 
 biology, the existence and progress of the science, do 
 not absolutely depend on an answer being given. That 
 is to say, the practical scientist so * far from finding 
 dualism a help to his work finds that it creates new 
 difficulties, and therefore he simply ignores it. 
 
 A still more curious case is that of empirical psycho- 
 logy, where the functions of the mind itself are treated 
 by methods which have been developed in connexion 
 with the sciences of matter. Mind, according to these 
 methods, is treated exactly as if it were matter ; and 
 psychologists claim that by these methods they have 
 solved or can solve problems with which the philosophy 
 of mind has for ages grappled in vain. 
 
 We need not ask whether these claims are justified ; 
 whether psychology is, as some believe, a new and 
 brilliantly successful method of determining the true 
 nature of mind, or whether as others maintain it is only 
 an old fallacy in a new guise. It is enough for our 
 present purpose to point out that it exists ; that the 
 distinction proposed by dualism as a working hypothesis 
 is not actually accepted as helpful by the scientific men 
 for whose benefit it is propounded. 
 
 Nor is it possible for dualism to step in and prevent 
 these things, by compelling each method to keep to its 
 own side of the line and prosecute trespassers. The 
 difficulty is that the distinction between mind and 
 matter, which seems so clear to the plain man, vanishes 
 precisely according to his increase of knowledge about 
 either. Until he has studied physics, physiology, psycho- 
 logy, he thinks he knows the difference ; but as soon 
 as he comes to grips with the thing, he is compelled to 
 alter his opinion. The plain man in fact bases his 
 dualism on a claim to knowledge far more sweeping 
 than that made by any scientist, and indeed the know- 
 ledge which the plain man claims seems actually to
 
 CH. ii MATTER 77 
 
 contradict the scientist's most careful and mature 
 judgment. 
 
 () Nor can we entirely pass over the difficulty of the 
 relations between mind and matter, even though we 
 have been warned in advance that the theory does not 
 undertake to solve this problem. For it does, as 
 commonly held, make certain statements about their 
 relations. It holds that mind can know matter, that it 
 can move matter by an act of will, and that it is some- 
 how connected with a piece of matter known as the 
 body of that particular mind ; also that matter by its 
 motions can produce certain effects in mind, for instance, 
 pleasure and pain, derangement and death. These are 
 merely examples ; it matters little what examples we 
 choose. 
 
 But is it really so easy to conceive how two things, 
 defined in the way in which we have defined matter 
 and mind, can act on each other? Matter can only 
 operate in one way, namely, by moving ; and all motion 
 in matter is caused either by impact or by attraction or 
 repulsion ; influences exerted in either case by another 
 piece of matter. 1 If therefore mind influences matter, 
 that is to say, moves it, it can only do so by impinging 
 on it or attracting it. But we do not associate these 
 powers with mind as ordinarily conceived. They can 
 (we should say) only belong to a thing which is spacial, 
 possesses mass, and is capable of motion. Therefore 
 mind cannot affect matter in any way in which matter 
 can be affected, unless mind has properties characteristic 
 of matter itself. That is to say, only matter can affect 
 matter : mind can only affect matter if mind is itself 
 material. 
 
 Can matter then influence mind? clearly not ; for 
 its influence consists in causing motion, and this it can 
 
 1 Attempts have been made to reduce the cause of all motion to impact ; but 
 these have, I believe, never been entirely successful, and are quite foreign to modern 
 physics. Nor are they of much value as a simplification ; for if the origin of motion 
 by gravitation and by the attraction and repulsion of electric charges is hard to 
 understand, its communication by impact is, properly considered, no less so ; though 
 we have no space here to develop in detail the obscurities involved in the conception.
 
 78 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 only do in something capable of motion, something 
 spacial ; that is, in matter. The two halves of the 
 universe go each its own way, each alike uninfluenced 
 by the other. Mind cannot, by an act of will, move a 
 piece of matter as I imagine that I am moving my pen ; 
 and no change in the position of a material body can 
 disturb, still less annihilate, the activity of a mind. 
 The difficulty is not merely that the dualistic theory 
 omits to explain how these things happen, or that it 
 offers an unsatisfactory account of them ; it definitely 
 implies that they cannot happen at all. 
 
 (<r) There is still a third difficulty in connexion with 
 the dualistic theory ; namely, the question how matter 
 and mind are to be distinguished. At first sight this 
 question is ridiculous ; for the whole theory consists of 
 nothing but the clear and sharp distinction between 
 the two. But it does not follow that this distinction is 
 satisfactory. Matter is conceived as having one group 
 of qualities, position and motion : mind as having a 
 different group, thought and will. Now we distinguish 
 two different pieces of matter by their having different 
 positions ; and we distinguish mind from matter as a 
 whole, presumably, by its having no position at all. 
 But has mind really no position? If that were the 
 case, position would be irrelevant to consciousness as it 
 is, for instance, to time ; and my consciousness would 
 be all over the universe precisely as 11.15 A - M - 
 Greenwich time is all over the universe. But my 
 consciousness is not all over the universe, if that means 
 that I am equally conscious of all the universe at once ; 
 when I look out of the window, I see only Wetherlam, 
 not Mont Blanc or the satellites of Sirius. There may 
 be, and doubtless is, a sense in which the mind rises 
 above the limitations of space ; but that is not to say 
 that space is irrelevant to the mind. 
 
 It would appear, in fact, that things can only be 
 distinguished when they are in some way homogeneous. 
 We can distinguish two things of the same class or
 
 MATTER 79 
 
 type without difficulty : we can point out that the 
 difference lies in the fact that one weighs a pound and 
 the other two pounds, or that one is red and the other 
 blue. Differentiating things implies comparing them : 
 and if we are tp compare things they must be compar- 
 able. If two things have no point of contact, they are 
 not comparable, and therefore, paradoxical as it may 
 seem, they cannot be distinguished. Now in our 
 original definitions of mind and matter, there was no 
 such community, no point of contact. Each was de- 
 fined as having unique properties of its own, quite 
 different in kind from the properties of the other : and 
 if this is really so, to compare and distinguish them 
 becomes impossible. 
 
 But in practice the dualistic view is more lenient 
 than this. It is not at all uncommon to hear mind 
 described as if it were a kind of matter ; for instance, 
 as a very subtle or refined matter : and it is equally 
 common to hear matter spoken of as if it had that 
 self -consciousness and power of volition which are 
 characteristic of mind. These are dismissed as con- 
 fusions of thought, mythological and unscientific ; but 
 even if they cannot be defended they may be used as 
 illustrations of the difficulty which mankind finds in 
 keeping the ideas of matter and mind really separated. 
 Once grant that mind is a kind of matter, and it 
 becomes for the first time possible to distinguish them ; 
 you have only to say what kind of matter mind is. 
 
 But, strictly interpreted, it seems that we can hardly 
 accept the dualistic view whether as a metaphysic or as 
 a hypothesis of science. It seems more hopeful to 
 examine the other alternatives, materialism and idealism. 
 
 2. Materialism has been for many centuries, if not 
 the most popular of all philosophies, at least among the 
 most popular. Its popularity in all ages seems to be 
 due very largely to the simplicity of the theory which 
 it offers. Simplicity and clearness, the conspicuous 
 characteristics of most materialistic theories, are very
 
 8o RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 high merits in a philosophy, and no view which is not 
 simple and clear is likely to be true ; but the search 
 after these qualities may easily lead to the false sim- 
 plicity of abstraction and the false clearness of arbitrary 
 dogma. 
 
 The most familiar criticism of materialism is that 
 which points out its failure to account for certain facts 
 in the world, and demonstrates the inadequacy of all 
 materialistic explanations of such things as thought, 
 action, aesthetic and moral values. Such a criticism 
 emphasises not the fact that no materialistic explanation 
 of these things has ever yet proved satisfactory ; for 
 that would be a superficial and unfair method of attack, 
 seeing that no theory can claim to account for every- 
 thing ; but rather the fact for it does seem to be a 
 fact that the very method and presuppositions of 
 materialism prevent it from ever coming any nearer to 
 an adequate description of these things. To take one 
 case only, that of action : the peculiarity of action is 
 that it is free and self-creative, not determined by any 
 external circumstance ; but according to the materialistic 
 presupposition, action must be a kind of motion in 
 matter, and therefore, like all other motion, cannot be 
 free and must be causally determined by external 
 circumstances. This is not to explain action, but to 
 deny its existence. And therefore materialism seems 
 to be an instance of the opposite error to dualism ; the 
 error of denying the existence of a fact because it will 
 not fit into a system. But it must not be forgotten 
 that this error too is half a virtue ; and the respect 
 with which philosophers such as Hegel treat materialism 
 is due to the recognition that the materialist has the 
 courage of his convictions and faith in his logic. 
 
 We shall not develop this criticism at length. It 
 has been often and brilliantly done by abler hands. 
 We shall confine our attention to certain difficulties 
 which arise not from the deficiencies of materialism in 
 its relation to the facts of life, but from its own internal
 
 MATTER 8 i 
 
 obscurities. The theory itself, in its simplest terms, 
 seems to consist of two assertions : first, that all 
 existence is composed of a substance called matter, and 
 secondly, that all change is due to and controlled by a 
 principle known as causation. The simplicity and 
 clearness of the theory, therefore, depend upon the 
 simplicity and clearness of these two conceptions, matter 
 and causation ; and we shall try to find out whether 
 they are really as simple and as clear as they appear 
 to be. 
 
 (a) Materialism offers us a philosophy, an explana- 
 tion of the real world. It aims at showing the under- 
 lying unity of things by demonstrating that everything 
 alike is derived from the one ultimate matter ; that 
 everything is one form or another of this same universal 
 principle. Now to explain a thing by reference to a 
 principle implies that the principle itself is clear and 
 needs no explanation : or at least that it needs so little 
 explanation that it is more readily comprehensible than 
 the things which it is called in to explain. If it were 
 no more comprehensible than these, it would not serve 
 to explain them, and the explanation would take us no 
 further. 
 
 At first sight, matter does seem to be perfectly 
 simple and easy to conceive. If it is regarded as a 
 homogeneous substance, always divisible into portions 
 which, however small, are still matter divisible, that is, 
 in imagination, even if not physically separable we 
 can no doubt imagine such a thing, and its simplicity 
 makes it very well fitted to serve as a metaphysical 
 first principle. And this conception of matter was 
 certainly held at one time by physicists. According to 
 the ancient atomic theory, matter was in this sense 
 homogeneous and infinitely divisible, in thought if not 
 in fact ; that is to say, you could not actually cut an 
 atom in half, but it had halves, and each half was still 
 a piece of matter. But this is not, I believe, held by 
 scientists at the present time. The whole subject of
 
 82 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS r-r.n 
 
 the composition or structure of matter is one of extreme 
 difficulty ; but if, for the sake of argument, we accept 
 the view most widely held, we shall be compelled to 
 say that matter is not, so far as we know, homogeneous, 
 but is differentiated into a large number of distinct 
 elements ; that these elements do seem to be made of 
 the same stuff, that is to say, they are all composed of 
 similar electrons arranged in groups of different types ; 
 but that the way in which these different arrangements 
 give rise to the different characteristics of the elements 
 is a profound mystery. Further, the electron does not 
 seem to be itself a minute mass of matter, like the old- 
 fashioned atom ; it has none of the properties of matter, 
 which are produced only (if I understand the theory 
 rightly) by the collocation of electrons. Thus matter 
 is a complex of parts which are not in themselves 
 material. If we are pressed to describe these smallest 
 parts, we shall perhaps have to say that they consist of 
 energy. At any rate, they do not consist of matter. 
 
 The tendency of modern physics, then, if a layman's 
 reading of it is to be trusted, seems to lie in the 
 direction of abandoning matter as a first principle and 
 substituting energy. This at least may be said without 
 fear of contradiction : that matter is for physics not a 
 self-evident principle of supreme simplicity, but some- 
 thing itself highly complex and as yet very imperfectly 
 understood. 
 
 The simplicity of matter as conceived by ordinary 
 materialism seems to be merely the simplicity of ignor- 
 ance. Matter was supposed to be the simplest and 
 least puzzling thing in the universe at a time when 
 physics was in its infancy, when the real problems that 
 surround the nature and composition of matter had 
 not yet arisen. To-day, as Mr. Balfour says in a 
 characteristic epigram, we know too much about matter 
 to be materialists. 
 
 (b~) But though the composition or structure of 
 matter is thus too obscure a problem to serve as a
 
 CH.II MATTER 83 
 
 support for materialism so that even if everything is 
 made of matter we are, metaphysically or in the search 
 for comprehension, no further advanced, since we cannot 
 say what matter is it may still seem that the operation 
 of matter is comprehensible and clear. The behaviour 
 proper to matter is that controlled by causality ; its 
 motions are due not to its own spontaneous initiation 
 but to external compulsive causes. Matter, if we 
 cannot define it by its structure, can at least be defined 
 as the field in which efficient causes are operative, in 
 which we find the nexus of cause and effect universally 
 maintained. We must turn therefore to this concep- 
 tion of causality, to see how far it will serve as an 
 ultimate principle of explanation. 
 
 (i.) Causation is not merely a general principle of 
 connexion between events ; it is particular, not general, 
 concrete, not abstract. That is to say, it does not 
 simply account for the fact of change, but for the fact 
 that this particular change is what takes place. One 
 of the objections brought by the Renaissance scientists 
 against the " final causes " or teleological explanations 
 of Aristotelian science was that they supplied only 
 general explanations, and gave no reason why the 
 particular fact should be what it is ; whereas according 
 to the conception of efficient causes each particular fact 
 has its own particular cause, and there is a definite 
 reason why every single thing should be exactly what 
 it is. 
 
 If we search for the particular cause of a given 
 particular effect, we shall find this cause to be invariably 
 complex, even when it is often described as simple. 
 Thus, the gale last night blew down a tree in the 
 garden. But it would not have done so except for 
 many other circumstances. We must take into account 
 the strength of the tree's roots, its own weight, the 
 direction of the wind, and so on. If some one asks, 
 " why did the tree fall ? " we cannot give as the right 
 and sufficient answer, "because of the wind." We
 
 84 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 might equally .well give a whole series of other answers : 
 " because the wind was in the north-west " ; " because 
 the tree had its leaves on " ; " because I had not 
 propped it " ; and so on. Each of these answers is a 
 real answer to the question, but none of them is the 
 only answer or the most right answer. No one of them 
 can claim to give the cause in a sense in which the 
 others do not give the cause. Is there then, we may 
 ask, such a thing as the cause at all ? is there not simply 
 a number of causes ? No, there does seem to be one 
 cause and no more ; but that cause is not one simple 
 event but a large, indeed an infinitely large, number 
 of events and conditions all converging to the one 
 result. 
 
 If we really wish to know the whole truth when we 
 ask for the cause of an event, then, it seems that we 
 shall have to enumerate all the conditions present in 
 the world at the time ; for we cannot assume any of 
 them to be irrelevant. The only real cause seems to 
 be a total state of the universe. 
 
 Further, if the whole present state of the universe 
 causes the fall of the tree, it also for the same reason 
 causes everything else that happens at the same time. 
 That is to say, the cause of the fall of my tree is also 
 the cause of an earthquake in Japan and a fine day in 
 British Columbia. But if one and the same cause 
 accounts for all these things, we can no longer suppose 
 that one particular event or set of events causes another 
 particular event, as such. Just as the only true cause 
 is a total state of the universe, so the only true effect 
 is a total state of the universe. To say that this gale 
 causes this tree to fall is doubly inadequate ; we should 
 say that the total state of the universe of which this 
 gale is a part causes the total state of which the fall 
 of this tree is a part. The nature of the connexion 
 between the gale and the fall of the tree in particular 
 has receded into impenetrable mystery. The only sense 
 in which causation explains the fall of the tree is that
 
 CH. ii MATTER 85 
 
 we accept that event as part of the effect-complex and 
 the gale as part of the cause-complex ; though why this 
 should be so is quite unintelligible. 
 
 (ii.) Instead of many chains of cause and effect 
 running as it were parallel, there is now only one such 
 chain. But here again a very difficult problem arises. 
 We generally think of the cause as preceding the effect ; 
 the chain is a temporal chain, spread out over time. 
 Indeed, this is the only possible way of regarding the 
 matter ; for if we regarded the cause as simultaneous 
 with the effect, since each is a total state of the 
 universe, each must be the same state ; and therefore 
 the cause and the effect are not two different things but 
 absolutely identical, and the law of causation would 
 merely mean that the state of the universe at any given 
 moment is what it is because it is what it is. 
 
 To avoid such a tautology we must define the cause as 
 preceding the effect. This certainly involves difficulties ; 
 for of the causes we could enumerate, not all are events, 
 and therefore it does not seem that they could precede 
 the effect. The weight of the tree, for instance, does 
 not in the" ordinary sense of the word precede its 
 fall. We speak of permanent causes, meaning such 
 things as gravitation, which are never conceived as 
 events. 
 
 But if we dismiss these difficulties and regard the 
 cause as an event preceding the effect, we are equally 
 far from explaining the effect. Admitting it to be 
 comprehensible how the total state A causes the total 
 state B, and B, C, we have merely explained C as the 
 effect of A ; and this is only an explanation if we 
 understand, and do not need an explanation of, A. 
 And yet if C is a total state of the universe and A is 
 another such state, why should one need an explanation 
 and the other not ? We have, it seems, avoided the 
 absurdity of tautology at the expense of falling into the 
 equal absurdity of infinite regress. It is important, 
 though at first sight not easy, to realise that this is an
 
 86 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . n 
 
 equal absurdity. There is a tendency to which we are 
 all subject, to imagine that by deferring a problem we 
 have made some progress towards solving it ; that if 
 we are asked what made C, it is more scientific to 
 answer " B made C, and A made B, but I don't know 
 what made A," than to reply, " It made itself." One 
 answer may be true, and the other false : but if we 
 are in search of an explanation, there is no a -priori 
 superiority in either. Possibly the latter is slightly 
 preferable, as it is better to give up a question one 
 cannot answer than to answer it with an empty 
 phrase. 
 
 (iii.) The view of causation as successive, then, does 
 not seem really superior to that which regards it as 
 simultaneous. The latter interpretation would make C 
 its own cause, which contradicts the very definition of 
 causality ; the former makes it the effect of something 
 equally unexplained. That is to say, the causal view 
 of the universe only accounts for the present state of 
 things if it is allowed to take for granted, without ex- 
 planation, the state of things in the past. Allow it to 
 assume the universe as a going concern, and it can 
 deduce you its successive states. The assumption is no 
 doubt enormous ; but,' after all, a theory is judged not 
 by what it assumes but by what it does with its assump- 
 tions ; and if materialism really shows the connexion 
 between different successive states of the universe, it 
 has good reason to be proud of its achievement. But 
 on closer inspection it appears that this result is only 
 attained by means inconsistent with the materialistic 
 assumptions. 
 
 Whether causation be regarded as simultaneous or 
 as successive, the ultimate result is the same. The 
 universe considered as a whole whether a simultaneous 
 or a successive whole is conceived as causing its own 
 states. There is in fact one supreme cause, which is 
 the cause of everything, namely, the total universe. 
 Now on the principles of materialism, on the principle,
 
 CH. ii MATTER 87 
 
 that is to say, that everything is caused by something 
 else, we must go on to ask what causes the universe. 
 Plainly nothing can do this ; for there is nothing out- 
 side the universe to cause it. It seems, then, that in 
 order to make any progress at all, materialism has to 
 conceive the universe as an exception to its own funda- 
 mental laws. The first law of matter is that it cannot 
 originate states in itself. But the universe as a whole, 
 if it has any states, must originate them itself ; and yet 
 if it does so it breaks the first law of matter ; for it is 
 itself a material thing. But the universe only means 
 all that exists ; so if the universe is an exception to the 
 law of causation, everything is an exception to it, and 
 it never holds good at all. 
 
 It is hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that 
 materialism only succeeds as far as it does by implicitly 
 abandoning its own principles. If it were rigidly held 
 down to the axiom that everything must be accounted 
 for by reference to something else, it could never make 
 headway. As it is, it tacitly assumes that self-creation, 
 self-determination, is real and omnipresent ; and this 
 assumption underlies all its progress. 
 
 (<;) The materialist is not unconscious of this diffi- 
 culty ; he tries to evade it by pointing out that the series 
 of causes is infinite, and that therefore the problem of 
 ultimate causation does not arise ; because there is no 
 such thing as " the universe as a whole." This argu- 
 ment does not really remove the difficulty. There are 
 certainly very famous and very difficult problems in- 
 volved in the conception of an infinite series whether 
 of causes and effects or of anything else. And it is 
 true that these problems are not solved by breaking the 
 series and interpolating a " first cause." That would be 
 simply to lose patience with the problem and to upset 
 the chess-board. But if I understand the argument, 
 its purport is that we cannot really ever supply an 
 explanation at all ; that we have presented to our gaze 
 a mere fragment of a reality which stretches away into
 
 88 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 darkness on either side of it ; the fragment being in 
 itself, in the isolated condition in which we know it, 
 necessarily incomprehensible because depending for its 
 meaning on data which are concealed from us. 
 
 This sceptical turn to an argument which has, till 
 now, erred rather on the side of confidence in its own 
 simplicity need not greatly surprise us ; but it would 
 perhaps be ungracious to acclaim it as marking the 
 conscious bankruptcy of materialism and to pass on 
 without further thought. It is doubtless true that all 
 our knowledge is partial, and that unless we to some 
 degree know everything we do not know anything fully. 
 This is a difficulty which no theory can entirely avoid, 
 and no theory, perhaps, can entirely solve. But in 
 spite of its universality, it is, I cannot help thinking, 
 more fatal to materialism than to other theories. 
 Materialism presents us with a whole formed by the 
 mere addition of parts which remain absolutely external 
 to one another : and if this is so, it certainly seems that 
 the infinite whole is unknowable, never really attained 
 and therefore really non-existent. And the incompre- 
 hensibility or non-existence of the whole destroys the 
 intelligibility and reality of the parts. If, on the other 
 hand, it is possible to conceive a whole which is some- 
 how not a mere sum of an infinite number of parts, but 
 implicit in each single part while each part is implied in 
 the rest, then such a whole would be knowable in spite 
 of this sceptical argument ; for to the dilemma " either 
 know the whole or do not pretend to know even this 
 one part " we could reply that the knowledge of this 
 single part is already knowledge of the whole. If we 
 ask the time-honoured question, " How is knowledge 
 possible?" we can, I think, reply that if the universe 
 were as the materialist depicts it, an infinite whole of 
 finite parts in endless series, then knowledge of it 
 would be impossible ; and that if the universe is to be 
 knowable at all, it must be a different kind of whole, 
 one of which we could say that each part by itself was
 
 CH. ii MATTER 89 
 
 already in some sense the whole. But a whole of this 
 kind cannot be a merely material body. 
 
 3. It seems that the term matter is highly ambiguous. 
 In one sense, it means merely something objective, some- 
 thing real, something which one handles or thinks about 
 or uses, as we speak of the subject-matter of a book or 
 the raw material of an industry ; these things may be 
 either " material " or " spiritual." Secondly, it means 
 the reality studied by physics in particular ; the 
 chemical elements and their structure and relations. 
 Thirdly, it means a homogeneous, inert and passive 
 substance, whose changes are mechanically caused. 
 
 In the first sense, a colloquial rather than a philo- 
 sophical sense, matter means merely reality. It is not 
 opposed to mind ; mind is one class of it. Everything 
 is matter in this sense. 
 
 In the second sense, the scientific sense, matter is 
 equally real and perhaps equally universal. The third 
 sense alone is philosophical ; and in this sense it would 
 appear that matter does not exist at all. If, therefore, 
 we deny the existence of matter, it must not be sup- 
 posed that we wish to deny the reality of this chair and 
 this table ; nor yet that we are casting doubt on the 
 truth of physics. The view to which we seem to be 
 led is that these things exist, but are not in the philo- 
 sophical sense material ; that is to say, they are not 
 composed of that homogeneous matter whose existence 
 has been disproved by physics, and their behaviour is 
 not dictated by the mechanical causation which we have 
 criticised. 
 
 (a) This last point may create difficulty. It may 
 be said that the whole work of the scientist consists 
 of determining causes ; how then can we maintain 
 that there are no causes, and not imply that his work 
 is valueless ? 
 
 But it seems to be very doubtful whether science is 
 really the search for causes, or even whether scientists 
 themselves so conceive it. They would, perhaps,
 
 90 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS n .n 
 
 say that they were more concerned with the " how " 
 of things than with their " why " : that they would 
 be satisfied with accurately describing observed 
 sequences, and rather suspect than welcome attempts 
 to explain the underlying causes. Such attempts 
 smack not of true scientific method but of the " occult 
 qualities " of an unscientific age. In a word, science is 
 the study of behaviour, the behaviour of men, plants, 
 animals, or metals: and in no case need it advance 
 any hypothesis as to why the behaviour of a certain 
 thing should be what it is. It is difficult, perhaps 
 impossible, to avoid framing such hypotheses ; but the 
 hypothesis itself is not science but philosophy. Modern 
 science is generally associated in practice with a 
 materialistic philosophy ; but there is nothing in 
 physics incompatible with the hypothesis that the 
 complex of behaviour which the physicist calls matter 
 is the outcome of a will or society of wills ; that the 
 personality which directs our own bodily movements 
 is present to some degree in each material atom, and 
 that every event in the universe is willed. 
 
 It cannot be denied that at the present time 
 scientists are very reluctant to accept such a hypo- 
 thesis. It may be (they say) that some such view is 
 widely held among philosophers ; or, at least, that 
 few philosophers will accept a plain and sensible 
 materialism. So much the worse for the philosophers. 
 The position is a curious one, and perhaps worth 
 brief consideration. The scientist does not regard 
 the philosopher as an expert in his own line, whose 
 opinion on a metaphysical point can be accepted 
 without question, just as an astronomer's would be 
 accepted by a chemist. He regards philosophy as a 
 subject on which he is entitled to an opinion of his 
 own : and he expresses that opinion with perfect 
 confidence, in defiance of the expert. 
 
 Such an attitude is really rather gratifying to the 
 philosopher, who is always maintaining that philosophy
 
 CH. ii MATTER 91 
 
 is everybody's interest, and not the private preserve of 
 academic specialists. Most philosophers, however, are 
 ungrateful enough to turn a deaf ear to the scientist's 
 overtures, and recommend him to mind his own 
 business. But the scientist genuinely regards philo- 
 sophy as vital to his own science ; though he may 
 not use the word, which he tends to reserve as a term 
 of opprobrium for other people's philosophy. More 
 especially, he seems to regard materialism as the very 
 foundation of his methods. Now if this were so, 
 science would be in a highly precarious position ; for 
 its methods would be founded on a theory which 
 criticism has long ago discredited. For that materialism 
 is discredited no student of philosophy can doubt. 
 
 On the other hand, materialism would never have 
 arisen at all, unless it had to some extent satisfied the 
 need for a theory. It may be wrong, but no theory 
 is wrong from end to end. And this particular theory 
 does rightly emphasise certain truths which are of 
 great importance to the scientist. If it is asserted 
 that all events are due to free volition, the scientist 
 will very likely object to such a view because it seems 
 to destroy the order and regularity of the universe. 
 Make everything a matter of free choice, he would say, 
 and you get chaos. Now this is not really true. A free 
 will is not inherently chaotic ; to suppose that it is so 
 is to confuse freedom with caprice and the absence of 
 compulsion for the absence of rationality. But it is 
 true that a free will may lapse into chaos, and that 
 freedom may degenerate into caprice. A science, then, 
 which is concerned primarily with regularities and 
 generalisations depends for its very existence on the 
 fact that the object it studies does not exhibit caprice : 
 and this fact might be expressed by saying, " these 
 things may be free, and act in this way because they 
 choose to, but they act as uniformly and regularly as if 
 they could not help it." 
 
 Science, however, does not remain permanently in
 
 92 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT. n 
 
 this stage of observing uniformities only. In its 
 higher developments it comes to deal less with the 
 general and more with the particular ; less with 
 abstract classes and more with concrete individuals. 
 This does not force it to abandon the hypothesis of 
 mechanical causation ; for such a hypothesis is quite 
 compatible with recognising that every individual is 
 unique and must react in a unique way to the causes 
 which move it. And in this uniqueness different 
 individuals may still show resemblances. All this is 
 true whether the changes that take place are willed 
 or caused ; for as mechanism does not exclude unique- 
 ness, so liberty is .not incompatible with resemblance. 
 The recognition that this is so removes the most 
 reasonable and deeply rooted of all the prejudices in 
 favour of materialism. 
 
 (b) Another merit of materialism is its insistence 
 on fact, on reality as something beyond the power of 
 the individual mind to create or alter. Matter is 
 supremely objective. And when it is said that mind 
 is the only reality, the suggestion at once arises that 
 the world is less solid, less satisfying, less " real " than 
 we believed. Not that we do not think of mind as 
 real ; the plain man knows that his sorrows are mental, 
 but does not think them any the less real for that. 
 But he feels that to call his boots mental would be 
 ridiculous. Some things, he supposes, are states of 
 mind, and others not. And the attempt to define 
 a non-mental thing (or "thing" par excellence) as a 
 state of mind can only lead to the conception of some- 
 thing like it which is a state of mind namely, the 
 " mental picture" or imagination of a boot. 
 
 This consequence, the dissolution of the objective 
 world into mere images or illusions, is one of the 
 dangers against which materialism is very properly 
 concerned to protest. But we have already argued 
 that the distinction between two categories of reality, 
 mind and matter, is no real help. And the danger
 
 CH. II 
 
 MATTER 93 
 
 against which the protest is made may perhaps be 
 removed or diminished by pointing out that a con- 
 fusion is implied between two senses in which we 
 commonly use the word " thinking." In the first 
 place, we use the word of real knowing, actual con- 
 sciousness of some real thing ; in the second, of 
 imagination, fancy, dreaming, or the mere play of 
 opinion as opposed to knowledge. Now the imaginary 
 boot belongs to the category of thinking only in the 
 second, the inferior, sense of the word ; it is not 
 thought at all as the term is used in philosophy. The 
 " real " boot alone is in this sense fully worthy of the 
 name thought ; it is the embodiment of the boot- 
 maker's mind ; the " imaginary " boot is not a thought, 
 only a fancy. What is wrong with it is not that it is 
 only mental, but that, so to speak, it is not mental 
 enough ; just as a cheap and superficial argument fails 
 not because it is mere logic, but because it is not logical 
 enough. 
 
 In the case of human products, indeed, we get 
 nearer to their reality, not further away, by describing 
 them as mental. A boot is more adequately described 
 in terms of mind by saying who made it and what he 
 made it for than in terms of matter. And in the case 
 of all realities alike, it seems that the materialistic 
 insistence on their objectivity is too strong ; for it is 
 not true that we are unable to alter or create facts, 
 or even that we cannot affect the course of purely 
 "inanimate" nature. Materialism, in short, is right 
 as against those theories which make the world an 
 illusion or a dream of my own individual mind ; but 
 while it is right to insist on objectivity, it goes too far 
 in describing the objective world not only as something 
 different from, and incapable of being created or 
 destroyed by, my own mind, but as something different 
 and aloof from mind in general. 
 
 (c) It appears, then, that we cannot conceive matter 
 without ascribing to it some qualities of mind, nor
 
 94 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT. n 
 
 mind without ascribing to it some qualities of matter. 
 Matter cannot be subject to the law of causation, 
 because that law itself, if our analysis can be trusted, 
 breaks down under examination. Causation is pure 
 passivity, and therefore cannot exist except relatively 
 to some activity. If matter exists, mind must exist 
 too. But we cannot conceive them as existing side by 
 side ; we have already tried and failed to do so. We 
 must think of matter as active as well as passive, and 
 mind as passive as well as active. In one sense, then, 
 everything is mind, for everything has in some degree 
 the consciousness and volition which we described as 
 mental. In another sense everything is material : for 
 the real world does show that orderliness and objectivity 
 for which materialism is fighting. But can we say that 
 everything is matter with the same confidence with 
 which we can say that everything is mind ? 
 
 Only if we bear in mind the ambiguity of the word. 
 We distinguished three senses. In the first, the 
 colloquial sense, all is certainly matter, for all is real 
 and the possible object of knowledge. In the second 
 or scientific sense, it may be true that everything is 
 ultimately resolvable into the chemical elements, and 
 that nothing exists except the matter of physics ; but 
 we cannot (I think) assert this at the present stage of 
 our knowledge. To ask whether mind is a form of 
 matter or matter a form of mind is very largely a 
 question of words. The important thing is that we 
 should be able to bring the two into relation at all; 
 that we should hold such a conception of matter as 
 does not prevent us from admitting truth, morality, 
 and life as a whole to be real facts, and that we should 
 hold such a conception of mind as does not reduce the 
 world to an illusion and experience to a dream. 
 
 The first of these errors is that of crude materialism, 
 and the second that of an equally crude idealism. The 
 view for which we are contending would claim the 
 title of idealism rather than materialism, but only
 
 CH. ii MATTER 95 
 
 because the current conception of mind seems a more 
 adequate description of the world than the current 
 conception of matter. We are laying stress on the fact 
 that the world is the place of freedom and consciousness, 
 not of blind determinism ; and at present this can best 
 be conveyed by saying that mind is the one reality. 
 On the other hand, we do not wish to exclude, and 
 should indeed warmly welcome, a higher materialism 
 which could proceed on the understanding that the 
 world while fully material was a conscious will or 
 society of wills, and that its changes were not caused 
 but chosen. Such a view would place matter neither 
 above mind nor below it, would make it neither the 
 eternal background nor the transitory instrument of 
 spirit. It would regard matter as nothing else than 
 mind itself in its concrete existence, and mind as the 
 life and operation of matter. 
 
 The realisation of this higher materialism must wait 
 till physics has advanced to a fuller conception of the 
 nature of matter. No one, of course, can claim to 
 possess now the knowledge which that fuller conception 
 would bring ; but it may be possible to discern the 
 direction in which progress is likely to come, and this 
 we have attempted to do. The principle that all 
 matter is in its degree a form of life seems to be 
 continually suggesting itself as the solution of many 
 problems in modern science, and appears in the most 
 varied forms ; underlying both the assertion that 
 nothing exists but matter and the counter-assertion 
 that reality as we know it is not material at all.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PERSONALITY 
 
 WE found in the last chapter that the issue lay less 
 between materialism and idealism, in the sense of 
 theories describing the world as matter and mind 
 respectively, than between the passivity which we found 
 to be falsely associated with the idea of nature, and the 
 conscious freedom of mind. The former we found 
 unsatisfactory as an account of the world, whether 
 regarded from the side of science or that of philosophy ; 
 physics, as well as metaphysics, seeming only possible if 
 the notion of blind causality were abandoned. 
 
 But if the universe is a whole of consciousness, of 
 activity, of something that is at least better described 
 as mind than as matter, in what relation does each part 
 of it stand to the other parts and the whole ? Is every 
 part an independent and entirely individual mind (or 
 piece of matter, if we prefer to call it so), or is there 
 only one mind, of which every separate thing in the 
 universe is a fragment and no more ? 
 
 These two alternatives are generally known as 
 pluralism and monism respectively. A thorough-going 
 pluralism is intended to preserve at all costs the freedom 
 and reality of the individual : but it does not tell us in 
 what relation the individual stands to other individuals ; 
 indeed, it does not tell us what in the first place 
 constitutes individuality. For if the human being is an 
 individual, what of the atoms of which his body is com- 
 posed, or the many acts which make up the history of 
 96
 
 CH. in PERSONALITY 97 
 
 his mind ? Are they not individuals also ? And if so, 
 how can he be at once a single individual and a group 
 of individuals ? 
 
 It is equally easy for a thorough-going monism to 
 assert the reality of the whole at the expense of the 
 parts ; to deprive the human being of all true freedom 
 and self-existence, and to reduce him to the position of 
 a mere incident in the life of the universe. Of these 
 extreme theories neither is satisfactory ; and in the 
 present chapter we shall attempt to reach a less one-sided 
 view of the nature of personality. 
 
 What constitutes the self-identity of a person ? 
 What is it that makes him one ? And what, on the 
 other hand, is the bond which makes a society one ? 
 Are these two bonds at bottom the same ; that is, can 
 a mind be at the same time one person and many 
 persons, or is the self-identity of a person one thing and 
 that of a society something totally different ? 
 
 i. In order to answer these questions we shall not 
 inquire into the abstract meaning of the word personality. 
 Many people maintain that personality, in its very 
 meaning, implies limitation, finitude, imperfection, 
 distinction from other persons, and the like ; and to 
 make or to reject such assumptions at the outset would 
 be to beg the question which we wish to answer. We 
 shall begin by examining the relations which subsist 
 between different persons as we know them, in the hope 
 of thereby throwing some light on the nature of 
 personality itself ; and these relations are the facts which 
 we describe, on the side of thought, as communication, 
 and on the side of will, as co-operation. For this 
 purpose we can define a personality as this, if nothing 
 more : the unity of a single consciousness ; while a 
 society might be defined as the unity of different and 
 co-operating consciousnesses. These definitions are 
 only provisional ; but more than this we cannot say at 
 the present stage of the inquiry. 
 
 (a) The fact of communication seems to be that two 
 
 H
 
 98 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS . u 
 
 or more persons can actually share the same knowledge. 
 The condition is not satisfied by supposing that the one 
 has a piece of knowledge merely resembling, however 
 closely, the knowledge possessed by the other ; the two 
 pieces of knowledge must be the same. There is a 
 theory of knowledge which maintains that what I know 
 is always peculiar to my mind, an " idea," as it is some- 
 times called, not an " object " ; a state of my own 
 consciousness, not an independently existing thing. If 
 this were the case, no two people could have the same 
 knowledge, any more than two objects can have the same 
 weight ; their weights might be equal, but the weight of 
 each would be its own weight and not the other's. One 
 thing cannot communicate its weight to another ; but 
 one mind can, as we believe, communicate its thoughts 
 to another. If this belief is true, knowledge is not a 
 state or attribute of my mind in the sense in which 
 weight is an attribute of objects. 
 
 But is the belief really true ? Is there such a thing 
 as this communication at all ? Is it not rather the case 
 that no two people ever quite understand one another, 
 or ever see eye to eye ? Do not the facts rather favour 
 the view that every one is sealed up in a world of his 
 own ideas from which there is no egress and no channel 
 of communication into the mind of any one else ? There 
 is much truth in these contentions ; and we may grant 
 at least for the sake of argument that no two people 
 ever quite understand one another, that A never thinks 
 in exactly the same way as B. But is the inference 
 just, that communication is impossible ? We may not 
 succeed in conveying our deepest thoughts to each other, 
 but we continue to try ; and if the thing were an 
 axiomatic and self-evident impossibility, how shall we 
 account for the continuance of the attempt ? After all, 
 a theory of knowledge must accept the fact of know- 
 ledge as a starting-point ; and it cannot be denied that 
 partial, if not complete, communication is a fact. Nor 
 can it be argued that this partial communication, which
 
 CH. in PERSONALITY 99 
 
 is all we can attain, is satisfied by the theory that my 
 knowledge may resemble yours without being identical 
 with it. For however incomplete our communication 
 may be, we have before us the ideal of complete com- 
 munication ; and the very imperfection of our attainment, 
 our consciousness of its imperfection, proves that this 
 ideal is really our constant aim. 
 
 We are justified, then, in dismissing these sceptical 
 objections with the remark that, if they were true, they 
 would falsify not only all else but themselves ; for the 
 sceptic cannot seriously believe his own contentions so 
 long as he tries to communicate his scepticism to us. 
 
 The unity of an individual was defined as the unity 
 of a single consciousness. But if two people are 
 conscious of the same object, have they not thereby the 
 same consciousness ? We may be answered, no ; 
 because there is more in any act of knowing than the 
 mere object. The knowing mind (says the objector) 
 does not, so to speak, lose itself in the thing it contem- 
 plates. If it did, then there would be no difference 
 between my mind and yours so far as we were conscious 
 of the same thing ; but as it is, knowing is a relation 
 between two things, the subject and the object, the 
 knowing mind and the thing known. To forget the 
 object makes communication impossible ; but to forget 
 the subject makes all knowledge impossible. 
 
 This objection brings up one of the most difficult 
 problems in philosophy, and one which it may seem 
 both indiscreet to raise and presumptuous even to attempt 
 to answer in brief. But the attempt must be made, if 
 we cannot hope to give a very satisfactory solution. 
 To say that the mind is one thing and the object another 
 is doubtless true ; but we cannot rest content with the 
 statement. It is true also that the relation between 
 them is unique, and that attempts to describe it by 
 analogy with other relations must always be as misleading 
 as they have been in the past. But it does not follow 
 that, because it cannot be described by analogy, therefore
 
 ioo RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . u 
 
 it cannot be described at all ; still less that because it is 
 unique therefore it cannot be understood. 
 
 Even to say that the mind is one thing and the object 
 another may mislead. The mind is specifically that 
 which knows the object ; and to call it a " thing " 
 already suggests conceiving it as an object one of whose 
 qualities is that it knows other objects as this table is 
 an object one of whose qualities is that it holds my 
 paper or, still worse, as a machine which turns out a 
 kind of work called thinking, as a typewriter or a 
 dynamo turns out its own peculiar product. The mind 
 seems to be not so much that which thinks as the 
 thinking itself ; it is not an active thing so much as an 
 activity. Its esse is cogitare. 
 
 Again, just as the mind is not a self-identical thing 
 persisting whether or no it performs its functions, but 
 rather is those functions ; so the consciousness in which 
 it consists is not an abstract power of thought which 
 may be turned to this object or that, as the current from 
 a dynamo may be put to various uses. All conscious- 
 ness is the consciousness of something definite, the 
 thought of this thing or of that thing ; there is no 
 thought in general but only particular thoughts about 
 particular things. The esse of mind is not cogitare 
 simply, but de hac re cogitare. 
 
 I hardly think that any one will deny all this ; but it 
 may still be said that though A's mind is nothing but 
 his consciousness of #, and B's mind nothing but his, 
 yet A's mind and B's remain absolutely different and 
 individual ; since, though the object is the same and 
 each admittedly knows the object, A's thought of it is 
 distinct from the object itself and therefore from B's 
 thought of the same object. It has already been 
 admitted that each knows the same thing, but it is now 
 argued that each knows it by having a " thought about 
 it " which is peculiar to himself. I suspect this dis- 
 tinction between the object and the thought about it 
 to be an instance of the confusion noted in the last
 
 PERSONALITY 101 
 
 chapter between thinking in the sense of knowing and 
 thinking in the sense of imagining. My imagination 
 of a table is certainly a different thing from the table 
 itself, and to identify the two would be to mistake 
 fancy for fact ; but my knowledge of the table, my 
 thought of it in that sense, is simply the table as known 
 to me, as much of the table's nature as I have discovered. 
 In this sense, my " thought about " the table what I 
 think the table to be only differs from the table itself 
 if and in so far as I am ignorant of the table's real 
 nature. My thought of the table is certainly not 
 something " like " the table ; it is the table as I know 
 it. Similarly, your thought of the table is what you 
 know of the table, the table as known to you ; and if 
 we both have real knowledge of the table, it seems to 
 follow that our thoughts are the same, not merely 
 similar ; and further, if the mind is its thoughts, we 
 seem to have, for this moment at least, actually one 
 mind ; we share between us that unity of consciousness 
 which was said to be the mark of the individual. 1 
 
 If it is said that the mark of the individual is not so 
 much consciousness of an object as self-consciousness, 
 and that each person's self-consciousness is unique, this 
 is in one way, I think, true. It is true in the sense 
 that in all knowing I am conscious of myself as knowing, 
 and also in the sense that I am aware of my own 
 history as an active and conscious being. But I am 
 not aware simply of my own awareness in general, but 
 
 1 I believe that the argument I have tried to express contains little if anything 
 which contradicts the principle* of either Realism or Idealism in their more 
 satisfactory forms. There is an idealism with which I feel little sympathy, and 
 there is a so-called realism which seems to me only distinguishable from that 
 idealism by its attempt to evade its own necessary conclusions. But I do not wish 
 to appear as a combatant in the battle between what I believe to be the better forms 
 of the theories. Indeed, if they are to be judged by such works as Joachim's 
 Nature of Truth on the one hand and Prichard's Kanfs Theory of Knowledge and 
 Carritt's Theory of Beauty on the other, I hope I have said nothing with which both 
 sides would not to some extent agree ; though I can hardly expect to avoid offending 
 one or other or both by the way in which I put it. 
 
 The reader who has not studied the latter works should be warned that the 
 "New Realism" criticised in, e.g., Professor Watson's Philosophical Basis of Religion, 
 pp. 113-135, has no connexion with the realism which they defend.
 
 102 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . n 
 
 of this object as a thing I am thinking about ; I may 
 know that I am thinking, but not that I am thinking 
 in the abstract ; only that I am thinking about this 
 thing. Self-consciousness is not in this sense, so far as 
 I can see, distinguishable from consciousness of reality 
 in general. In the other sense, self-consciousness 
 being taken as knowledge of myself as a historical 
 person, this knowledge is by no means confined to 
 myself ; others may in this sense know me better than 
 I know myself. 
 
 Another possible objection depends on distinguishing 
 two elements in knowledge, or two senses in the word 
 knowing. There is, first, knowledge in the sense of 
 what I know, the object ; and secondly, there is the 
 activity of knowing, the effort which is involved as 
 much in knowing as in anything else. Knowledge as 
 a possession the things we know may be common to 
 different minds, but, it may be said, knowledge in the 
 sense of the activity of knowing is peculiar to the 
 individual mind. It may perhaps be replied that since 
 knowledge is admittedly an activity, an effort of the 
 will, there is no difference between thinking and 
 willing to think. And if two minds are identical in 
 thinking the same thing, they are equally and for the 
 same reason identical in willing to think the same thing. 
 All knowing is the act of knowing, and therefore 
 whatever is true of thinking sans phrase is true of the 
 act or volition of thinking. 
 
 But the objection leads on to the second part of our 
 subject. To distinguish thought as the consciousness 
 of an object from thought as an act of the will is to 
 appeal, as basis for the absolute plurality between 
 persons, from the conception of knowledge to that of 
 action ; and with this point we must proceed to deal. 
 
 () Every person, like every other fact in the world, 
 is unique and has its own contribution to make to the 
 whole ; a contribution which cannot be made by any 
 other. This need not be emphasised, and certainly
 
 CH.IH PERSONALITY 103 
 
 cannot be questioned. It is a's true of the intellect as of 
 the will ; and yet we found that the statement " my 
 knowledge is my knowledge " must not be so inter- 
 preted as to exclude the complementary statement that 
 my knowledge may also be yours. This fact, the fact 
 of communication, led us to the conclusion that if and 
 when knowledge became in this way common property, 
 the minds concerned became the same mind. But if 
 two people can by communication share their know- 
 ledge, it seems equally certain that they may by co- 
 operation share their aims and volitions. My actions 
 are my actions ; but yet they are not exclusively mine. 
 
 Just as our intellectual life 'consists very largely of 
 the acquisition of knowledge from one person and the 
 passing it on, when we have added what we can, to 
 others, so our active life consists very largely of working 
 at ideals which are the common property, if not of all 
 mankind, at least of our particular society. Man does 
 not struggle with either his intellectual or his moral 
 problems in solitude. He receives each alike from his 
 environment, and in solving them he is doing other 
 people's work as well as his own. 
 
 Now if there is in this sense co-operation of wills, if 
 two or more wills are bent on the same object, what is 
 the consequence ? 
 
 A will is not, any more than an intellect, an engine 
 which produces certain results. We are sometimes 
 tempted to think of the will as a central power-installa- 
 tion somewhere in the depths of our personality, which 
 can be connected up with a pump or a saw or any 
 other machine we may desire to use. In this sense we 
 distinguish the will from the faculties, the one as the 
 motive power and the other as the machine which it 
 operates. But the will is not simply crude energy, 
 indifferently applicable to this end or to that. Will is 
 not only the power of doing work but the power of 
 choosing what work to do. It is not in need of another 
 faculty to direct and apply its energy. Will is, in short,
 
 104 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT. n 
 
 always the will to do this or that : it is always particular, 
 never merely general. The distinction between the 
 will and the things which it does is a quite abstract 
 distinction, like that between human nature and men. 
 Human nature simply means the various kinds of men ; 
 and my will is nothing more nor less than the things 
 I do. 
 
 We seem therefore to be led to the same conclusion 
 here as in the case of thought. If two people will the 
 same thing, the personal distinction between them has 
 given way to an identity, in virtue of which the two can 
 be described as one mind. 
 
 2. It may be asked, if this identity were ever really 
 established would it not be in fact self-destructive ? If 
 the distinction between the two persons was absolutely 
 cancelled, of what elements would the unity be com- 
 posed ? For a unity that is composed of no elements 
 at all cannot be anything. Not only does it like Saturn 
 devour its own children but like the Kilkenny cats it 
 devours itself. In short, the stress laid on the com- 
 pleteness of the unity is fatal to the theory ; for it 
 turns the communion of different minds into a mere 
 blank identity which is indistinguishable from a blank 
 nothingness. 
 
 There are, I think, two answers to this question. 
 We have already admitted elsewhere that every whole 
 must be a whole of parts, and that all identity must 
 therefore be an identity of differences. But if we look 
 for the differences in this identity, they appear in two 
 different ways, one from the side of the subject and one 
 from that of the object. 
 
 (a) It must not be forgotten that the unity we have 
 described is a unity of minds. Its very existence 
 depends on the harmony between the minds ; and if 
 by means of the unity one mind ceased to exist, the 
 possibility of the union would vanish with it. For 
 this reason the identity of wills does not result in a 
 Spinozistic determinism of the one substance ; for the
 
 CH. in PERSONALITY 105 
 
 identity consists in the fact that each wills the same thing ; 
 it is an identity not existing as a fixed unchangeable 
 fact but depending for its existence on the continued harmony 
 of the two persons. It does not unite them in spite of 
 themselves, but because they choose to be united. 
 
 Then the distinction is not absolutely cancelled, 
 if the parties are free to dissolve it ; and if so, they 
 retain their exclusive individuality all the time. This 
 looks unanswerable at first sight ; but I think that it is 
 really a quibble. The argument involved is, that if a 
 mind or society is capable of becoming something, that 
 proves that it really is that something all the time. 
 This seems to me to imply principles and consequences 
 which I cannot accept. Because a good man may some 
 day forget himself and commit a crime, that proves 
 (says the argument) that he was not really good at all : 
 it shows that he had in him the germ of the crime. 
 Undoubtedly he had, if by the germ is meant the 
 freedom of will which makes crime possible ; but to 
 describe that as a germ of crime is most misleading, 
 since the same thing is equally the germ of virtue. If 
 by " germ " is meant any more than this if it means 
 a tendency which irresistibly grows into crime then 
 one must boldly reply that minds are not made like 
 that ; what they do, they do not in virtue of irresistible 
 " tendencies " but because they choose to do it. 
 
 So we should admit that because of its freedom a 
 mind may forfeit the unity, whether with itself or 
 another, to which it has attained. But that does not 
 mean that it never attained it. For all the conquests 
 of mind are made and held by its own freedom, held no 
 longer than it has the strength to hold them ; and it 
 can only lose this strength by its own self-betrayal. 
 
 () The identity also includes differences from the 
 side of the object. If the object of the two minds 
 was an abstract, un differentiated one, then the two 
 minds would also be a blank unity without difference. 
 But this is not the case, for such an undifferentiated
 
 io6 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS n . n 
 
 unity nowhere exists. In a sense, no two people ever 
 do, or ever could, think or will exactly the same thing. 
 This is not because unity is impossible ; it is not 
 because under the conditions of this imperfect world 
 we can never get more than an approximation to it. 
 If an ideal were not fully attainable by us here and now 
 it would not be a valid ideal for us here and now. 
 There is never an obligation to achieve the impossible. 
 
 Any truth or ideal of conduct expresses itself under 
 infinitely various aspects. A single truth never means 
 quite the same thing to different minds ; each person 
 invests it with an emphasis, an application, peculiar to 
 himself. This does not mean that it is not the same 
 truth ; the difference does not destroy the identity any 
 more than identity destroys difference. It is only in 
 the identity that the differences arise. 
 
 The same is true of conduct. My own duties are 
 the duties dictated by my situation ; no one else is 
 in precisely my situation and therefore no one else can 
 have the same duties. And for the same reason no one 
 else can have exactly my desires. But there is a com- 
 munity of aims ; and this community is not the barren 
 transmission of unchanging ideals, good or bad, in 
 which social life is sometimes thought to consist, nor 
 yet the equally abstract identity of the categorical 
 imperative, which only applies to everybody and every 
 situation because it abstracts from all the intricacies of real 
 life. The community of aims consists in the fact that 
 what I want is something which I cannot have except 
 with your help and that of every one else. The object 
 of my desire is one part of a whole which can only 
 exist if the other parts exist : or, if that way of putting 
 it is preferred, I desire, the existence of a whole to 
 which I can only contribute one among many parts. 
 The other parts must be contributed by other people ; 
 and therefore in willing my part 1 will theirs also. 
 
 3. The unity whose possibility we are concerned 
 to prove is the fully concrete identification, by their
 
 CH. in PERSONALITY 107 
 
 own free activity, of two or more personalities. This 
 is not a universal condition, but an ideal ; it is the 
 goal, not the starting-point, of human endeavour. 
 But every real advance is like the spiral tunnel of 
 an Alpine railway ; it ends, if not where it began, at 
 least immediately above it. The end is not the 
 antithesis of the beginning, but the same thing raised 
 to a higher power. The end is a unity, and the 
 beginning is also a unity ; but they are not the same 
 unity. There is one perfectly concrete identity which 
 consists in the highest degree of co-operation and the 
 freest interchange of activities, and is destroyed when 
 these fail : and there is another, an abstract, irreducible 
 and indefeasible identity or union which subsists 
 between any two parts of the same whole, and must 
 continue to subsist as long as they remain parts. The 
 whole, in each case alike, may equally be a society or a 
 single person. We cannot maintain that a person is 
 simply a necessary, indefeasible unity of those things 
 which constitute his character, while a society is entirely 
 dependent for its unity on the positive and conscious 
 co-operation of its members, failing which it is no 
 longer a society at all. A person is undoubtedly him- 
 self, and can never help being himself, whatever he 
 does ; but this merely abstract unity, this bare 
 minimum of self-identity, is much less than what we 
 usually call his character or personality. That is rather 
 constituted by the definite and concrete system of his 
 various activities or habits. When we say, " I know 
 his character, I am sure he will do this and not that," 
 we mean that there is this systematic relation 1 between 
 the different things he does, so that we can argue from 
 one of them to the others ; that the connexion between 
 his various actions is not the purely abstract connexion 
 that they happen all to have been done by the same 
 person. If there were no more than this abstract 
 
 1 Not deterministic, because dependent for its very existence, as we said above, 
 on his will 5 and therefore capable of being infringed by his will.
 
 io8 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . n 
 
 unity, we could not say that a man had any positive 
 " character" at all. To say " he is not himself to-day " 
 appears, if we hold to the purely abstract sense of 
 " self," merely ridiculous ; but in the concrete sense 
 of " self," the sense in which the self is conceived as a 
 co-operating unity of purpose, it has a perfectly real 
 meaning. 
 
 The same distinction applies to the unity of a 
 society. In one sense, any kind of relation between 
 two people produces a kind of social union and 
 identification ; in another sense, only the right kind of 
 relation unifies them, and a different relation would 
 destroy the unity. In the first case, their union is 
 what I call the purely abstract unity ; in the latter, it 
 is the concrete unity that has to be maintained by 
 positive and harmonious activity. We cannot there- 
 fore say that, of these two kinds of unity, one is the 
 kind proper to a person, and the other the kind 
 proper to a society ; for each alike may apply to 
 either. But, having examined the nature of the con- 
 crete unity, it is necessary that we should also examine, 
 and indeed demonstrate the existence of, this abstract 
 unity. 
 
 (a) But is unity the same as identity ? There seems 
 at first sight to be a very decided difference between 
 saying that two things are part of the same whole, 
 and saying that they are the same thing ; the parts of 
 one thing seem to be themselves quite separate and 
 self-existent things, possibly depending on each other, 
 but each being what it is itself, and not the others ; 
 while the whole is simply their sum. 
 
 We have already expressed doubts as to the strict 
 truth of this conception. We said in the last chapter 
 that if a whole was to be knowable, it must be of 
 such a kind that the parts are not simply added in 
 series to one another, but interconnected in such a way 
 that we can somehow say that each part is the whole. 
 In that case each part would also be in a sense the
 
 PERSONALITY 109 
 
 others. At the time this may have seemed highly 
 fanciful, if not a counsel of despair. What right, it 
 will be asked, have we to lay down a priori what must 
 be the nature of reality merely on the ground that 
 if it is not thus, it is not knowable ? How do we 
 know that reality is knowable ? And even if we are 
 assured on that point, and legitimately assured, is it 
 not a monstrous inversion of the true order to argue 
 from knowability to reality ? 
 
 I am not sure that it is. Knowledge is as much a 
 fact as any other ; and if the business of a sound 
 theory is to account for the facts, a theory which does 
 not admit of the world's being completely known is, 
 to say the least of it, incomplete. The modern 
 impatience with such forms of argument may be 
 partly based on their connexion with false theories 
 of what knowability means, but it is certainly due in 
 part to the prejudice that the facts of the external 
 world are certain, while the nature of knowledge and 
 the processes of mind are unknown ; so that to argue 
 to the nature of the real world from the nature of the 
 mind is arguing from the unknown to the known, 
 attempting to lay down by insecure deductions from 
 a discredited metaphysic things which could be easily 
 ascertained by appealing to the natural sciences. This 
 " positivistic " attitude is lamentably self- contradictory ; 
 for if we are not to believe in the full knowability of 
 the world, what becomes of the facts of science ? And 
 if we are, why should we hush the matter up ? We 
 cannot pretend ignorance of the nature of knowing 
 while we claim that science gives us real knowledge 
 and philosophy only a sham. 
 
 I think therefore that we need not retract the 
 argument. But as it stood it was incomplete ; for 
 it merely sketched the conditions of a satisfactory 
 view of the relation of the whole to its parts, without 
 explaining how they can be fulfilled. 
 
 Let us take as an instance any whole consisting of
 
 no RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . n 
 
 three parts, x, y, z. It makes no difference whether 
 it is a machine with three working parts, a society of 
 three members, a stanza of three lines, or a syllogism 
 containing three propositions. Each part has its own 
 nature, its own individuality, which is in the strictest 
 sense unique ; and apart from the contribution made 
 by each several element the whole would not exist. 
 Change one part, and the whole becomes a different 
 whole. Not only does the whole change, but the 
 apparently unchanged parts change too. Substitute, 
 in a tragic stanza, a grotesque last word, and the 
 opening lines become suddenly instinct with ridiculous 
 possibilities. Substitute in the society a new third 
 man, and not only is it now a different society but the 
 social value and function of the unchanged members is 
 altered. 
 
 On the other hand, the part that is removed is no 
 longer what it was. A man may resign his place in 
 a society because he feels that he is no longer what the 
 society requires him to be ; and in that case his 
 resignation gives him a new freedom. If he leaves 
 it with no such reason, his personality is mutilated by 
 the separation ; one side of his character is cut off 
 and frustrated. The separation of the part from the 
 whole destroys part and whole alike. The part survives 
 only as something different from what it was ; it has 
 to readjust itself, if it can, and become something else. 
 If it cannot do this, it dies outright. The whole must 
 in the same way readjust itself to the new conditions 
 and become a different whole : otherwise it also dies. 
 
 It follows from this closeness of interconnexion 
 between the whole and its parts that the question 
 " what is x ? " cannot be answered merely by saying 
 '* x is x" X only exists as x in relation to y and z. 
 If y or z were removed, x would no longer be what 
 it was : it would have to become something else, or 
 failing that, cease to exist at all. Consequently if we 
 ask for a definition or description of x the only true
 
 PERSONALITY 1 1 1 
 
 reply is to describe it in its full relations with y and z. 
 That is to say, a definition of x can only take the 
 form of a definition of the whole system xyz. To 
 explain the nature of the part we have to explain the 
 nature of the whole ; there seems to be no distinction 
 between the part and the whole, except that the part 
 is the whole under one particular aspect, seen as it 
 were from one point of view. In the same way and in 
 the same sense y and z are identical each with the 
 whole and with each other and x. Each part is the 
 whole, and each part is all the other parts. 
 
 A distinction is sometimes drawn which avoids this 
 conclusion. There is, we are told, a difference between 
 what a thing is in itself and what it is in relation to its 
 context or to the whole of which it is a part. X as a 
 thing in itself remains (it is said) the same : it is only 
 its relations with other things that change, and these 
 are merely external, and do not affect its real nature. 
 It is true that nothing is really destroyed by depriving 
 it of its context. But this is only because we cannot 
 deprive it of all context. A lintel taken out of its 
 place in a house and laid on the ground has a context, 
 though not an architectural context ; and Robinson 
 Crusoe in his solitude has a perfectly definite environ- 
 ment, though not a human environment. However 
 much we try to remove all context from a thing, we 
 can do no more than to invest the thing with a 
 different context. Indeed, there is a sense in which we 
 may still call the stone a lintel and Robinson Crusoe 
 the member of a human society ; for the history of a 
 thing in the past and its capabilities for the future are 
 as real as its present situation, though in a different 
 way. The isolated stone lying on the ground may 
 still be called a lintel ; but this is so only on account 
 of the house from which it came (strictly, it is a 
 stone that was a lintel), or into which it will be 
 built (it is a stone that will be a lintel), or even be- 
 cause of the imaginary house which we can, so to speak,
 
 ii2 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 construct round it now (it is a stone that might be a 
 lintel). 
 
 The character or self of a thing, what it is, cannot 
 be distinguished from its relations. Architecturally, the 
 stone is a lintel ; that is its own character. But this 
 character only consists in the fact that it stands in a 
 certain relation to other stones which together with it 
 make up the doorway. Geologically, the description of 
 the stone is identical with the description of its place in 
 the geological series. Every characteristic of the thing 
 turns out to consist in a relation in which it stands to 
 something else ; and similarly, if we began at the other 
 end we should find that every relation consists in a 
 quality of the thing itself. This double movement is 
 only not a vicious circle because, of the two things 
 which thus turn into one another, each is already 
 identical with the other. 
 
 The inner nature of the part #, then, is entirely con- 
 stituted by its relations to y and z. And therefore x 
 is simply one way of looking at the whole xyz ; and 
 y and z are other aspects of the same whole. The 
 part is not added to other parts in order to make 
 the whole: it is already in itself the whole, and the 
 whole has other parts only in the sense that it can 
 be looked at from other points of view, seen in other 
 aspects. But in each aspect the whole is entirely 
 present. 
 
 If we take the case of a musical duet, we have a 
 whole which is analysable into two parts. At first 
 sight, we might be tempted to describe the relation 
 between them in some such way as this : there are two 
 separate things, two musical compositions, one called the 
 treble and the other the bass. Each is an independent 
 reality, has a tune of its own, and can be played 
 separately. On the other hand, they are so arranged 
 that they can also be played both at once ; and when 
 this happens, they produce an aesthetic value greater 
 than either can produce by itself. The whole is the
 
 CH.III PERSONALITY 113 
 
 sum of its parts ; and the parts in combination remain 
 exactly what they were before. 
 
 This description seems at first sight reasonable ; and 
 it is familiar as underlying, for instance, the Wagnerian 
 view of opera. If you take two arts and add them 
 together so that view runs you produce a new art 
 twice as great as either. 
 
 But is the aesthetic value of a duet really equal to 
 the sum of the values of its parts played separately ? 
 No such thing. The query of one instrument may 
 indeed be in itself a beautiful phrase, independently of 
 the answer given by the other ; but as seen in relation 
 to that answer it acquires a totally different emphasis, 
 a meaning which we never suspected. The accompani- 
 ment part, or even the solo part, played by itself, is 
 simply not the same thing that it is when played in its 
 proper relation to the other. It is this relation between 
 the two that constitutes the duet. The performers are 
 not doing two different things, which combine as if 
 by magic to make a harmonious whole ; they are co- 
 operating to produce one and the same thing, a thing 
 not in any sense divisible into parts ; for the " thing " 
 itself is only a relation, an interchange, a balance between 
 the elements which at first we mistook for its parts. 
 The notes played by the piano are not the same notes 
 as those played by the violin ; and if the duet was a 
 merely physical fact, we could divide it into these two 
 elements. But the duet is an aesthetic, not a physical 
 whole. It consists not of atmospheric disturbances, 
 which could be divided, but of a harmony between 
 sounds, and a harmony cannot be divided into the 
 sounds between which it subsists. 
 
 The same is true of any really organic whole. A 
 scene of Shakspere can be regarded as so much " words, 
 words, words," and, when so regarded, it can be divided 
 into what Hamlet says and what Polonius says. But 
 the real scene is not mere words ; it is the interplay 
 of two characters. It is one thing, not two. To sub- 
 
 i
 
 n 4 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS n .n 
 
 divide it would be not to halve but to destroy its value. 
 Even a baby can be cut in two, if it is regarded as a 
 mere piece of flesh ; but the resulting portions would 
 be the halves not of a baby but of a corpse. 
 
 A unity of this kind exists not only in harmonious 
 and fully co-operative wholes, but equally in everything 
 that can be called a whole at all. Whatever the par- 
 ticular relation in which x stands to y and z, it is still 
 true that each part is but an aspect of the whole and 
 identical with the other parts. X, y, and z may be 
 parties to a quarrel ; but they are in that case just as 
 much parts of the same whole, just as closely identified 
 with one another, as if they were allies in a common 
 cause. This kind of identity, therefore, is to be sharply 
 distinguished from the contingent unity, the unity of 
 co-operation, which we described at the beginning of 
 this chapter. Upon this distinction turns the whole 
 argument of this and the succeeding chapters. 
 
 () The universal and necessary identity, the abstract 
 identity of mere co-existence, is often taken as supplying 
 the key to all the difficulties with which the religious 
 or philosophical mind feels itself beset when it deals 
 with the problem of personality. All personalities are 
 components of a whole, the universe ; and therefore, by 
 the above argument, they are all necessarily identified 
 with each other and the whole, that is, with the 
 universe considered as homogeneous with them, an 
 absolute mind, God. The line of thought seems to be 
 simple and impossible to refute : and if this is really 
 so, it establishes at a blow the existence of God and his 
 perfect immanence in humanity, and leaves nothing 
 more to be achieved or desired. 
 
 To reject such an argument altogether would 
 certainly be a mistake. It is true that, whether we like 
 it or not, whether we live up to our position or deny 
 our responsibilities, we are so intimately connected with 
 each other and the divine mind that no act concerns the 
 doer alone. This assumption is fundamental. But the
 
 CH.III PERSONALITY 115 
 
 error lies in mistaking this fundamental assumption for 
 the final conclusion ; in assuming that this elementary, 
 abstract unity is the only one which concerns us. In 
 point of fact, it concerns us, if at all, certainly in the 
 very lowest possible degree. In practical matters, a 
 constant which is always present and can never be 
 altered is best ignored ; and indeed this purely abstract 
 identity is so shadowy a thing that it is hard to see 
 what else to do. To call this formless and empty 
 abstraction "the Absolute" is merely to abuse language ; 
 and to suppose that this is all philosophy has to offer 
 in place of the concrete God of religion is completely 
 to misunderstand the nature and aim of philosophy. 
 There have been and no doubt still are people who 
 claim the title of philosophers on the ground that they 
 habitually amuse themselves with abstractions of this 
 kind. But it is a pity that their claims have been and 
 still are taken seriously. 
 
 The Absolute, as that word is used by any philo- 
 sophy worthy of the name, is not a label for the bare 
 residuum, blank existence, which is left when all dis- 
 crepancies have been ignored and all irregularities planed 
 away. An arbitrary smoothing-down of the world's 
 wrinkled crust is not philosophy, but the vice against 
 which all philosophy wages an unceasing war. A real 
 philosophy builds its Absolute (for every philosophy 
 has an Absolute) out of the differences of the world as 
 it finds them, dealing individually with all contradictions 
 and preserving every detail that can lend character to 
 the whole. 
 
 Here as elsewhere the instinct of religion is the 
 deliberate procedure of philosophy at its best. When 
 religion demands a personal God, a God who has a 
 definite character of his own and can, as the phrase 
 goes, take sides in the battles of the world, it is really 
 asserting the necessity for this concrete characterised 
 Absolute, as against a sham " philosophy," the philo- 
 sophy of abstractions, which assures it that since God
 
 n6 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . n 
 
 is all, he cannot have any one attribute rather than its 
 opposite ; that since he is infinite, he cannot be a 
 person ; that since he is the strength of both sides, the 
 slayer and the slain, he cannot himself fight on either 
 side. In the Absolute, we are told, all contradictions 
 are resolved, and therefore all distinctions vanish ; good 
 and evil are no more, for that of which each is a 
 manifestation cannot itself be either. A personal God, 
 creating the world and sustaining it by the might of 
 his will, is a mythological fiction. A God who is in 
 any sense transcendent and not purely immanent is 
 inconceivable, and even imaginable only to the half- 
 savage mind which anthropomorphises everything it 
 does not immediately understand. 
 
 So " philosophy " browbeats common sense till the 
 latter for very shame yields the point ; tries to recast 
 its religion, if it still ventures to have one, on lines of 
 pure immanence, and if it cannot make the immanent 
 God seem as real and vivid as the transcendent, humbly 
 puts the failure down to its own philosophical short- 
 comings. For "philosophy" has assured it that Reality, 
 properly faced and understood, will more than console 
 it for its lost fairyland. There is little ground for 
 surprise if after such experiences religion hates and 
 despises the very name of philosophy. The formless 
 and empty Absolute of this abstract metaphysic perished 
 long ago in the fire of Hegel's sarcasm ; and it is curious 
 to find the very same pseudo- Absolute, the " night in 
 which all cows are black," still regarded as being for 
 good or evil the essence of philosophical thought. 
 
 (c) It is time to leave these abstractions and turn to 
 the other kind of identity, the concrete identity of 
 activity. A mind is self-identical in this sense if it 
 thinks and wills the same things constantly ; it is identical 
 with another, if it thinks and wills the same things as 
 that other. This might seem to imply that in the first 
 case there was no possibility of change or process within 
 the limits of the self-identity ; and in the second case
 
 CH.III PERSONALITY 117 
 
 that the personal distinction between the two minds was 
 reduced to a mere illusion. But, (i.) so far is it from 
 being true that a thing to be self-identical must not 
 change, the very fact of change proves its continued 
 identity ; for only a thing which is still itself can be said 
 to have changed. This however is abstract identity only, 
 and it might be imagined that concrete identity was not 
 compatible with change. But this is a mistake. It is 
 the property of truth to present itself under the aspect 
 of innumerable differences ; and yet within these differ- 
 ences it is still one. If we reflect upon some particular 
 fact, we can see it take under our eyes a hundred different 
 forms, emphases, shades of meaning. In following out 
 this process, it does in a quite concrete sense change ; 
 and the thinking of this change is a real mental process, 
 in the only sense in which any thought can bear that 
 name, (ii.) The identity of two minds which think the 
 same thing does, as we have already seen, in one sense 
 abolish the difference between them ; but this very 
 abolition is only possible through the free and independent 
 activity of each separate mind. Difference is not simply 
 absent ; it is overcome. 
 
 Now these two cases are typical first of the self- 
 identity of God, and secondly of his identity with the 
 human mind. God is not a mere abstract unity ; he is 
 a mind, and as such he can possess the higher unity of 
 self-consistency. This attribute must necessarily belong 
 to him if we are right in regarding him as omniscient 
 and perfectly good. An omniscient mind is one whose 
 beliefs are never false, and whose field of knowledge is 
 not limited by any ignorance. This is the only type of 
 mind which can be described as entirely consistent with 
 itself. Any false belief, introduced into a system of 
 judgments otherwise true, must breed contradiction; for 
 its implications cannot be developed to infinity without 
 coming into conflict with some other belief. Again, 
 any limitation, any gap in one's knowledge, may have 
 the same result ; for different truths often seem to
 
 n8 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . 
 
 conflict until new knowledge explains them both and 
 shows them to be harmonious. But two truths can never 
 in reality contradict one another, and therefore a mind 
 which believed all truths would have within itself no 
 contradiction at all. 
 
 In the same way, we can conceive a mind which 
 willed, not indeed all the actions, but all the good actions 
 in existence. Of the different actions in the world, 
 some are in antagonism to others, and therefore it is 
 impossible for a mind to will both except at the cost of 
 losing its concrete unity, its own positive nature, and 
 becoming a formless something indistinguishable from 
 nothing. A mind which willed all the good in existence 
 would display this concrete unity to the full ; for two 
 duties, two good things, can no more conflict than two 
 true things. 
 
 Each of these conflicts does often seem to take place. 
 Two statements which contradict each other do very 
 often seem to be, each from its own point of view and 
 within its own limitations, true. And two people who 
 are supporting opposed causes may seem to be both in 
 the right. But in the former case we know that the 
 conflict is only apparent ; that if each disputant under- 
 stood the other, it would in so far as each is right 
 disappear. And similarly in the other case, though the 
 fact is not such a universally recognised axiom in ethics 
 as the " law of contradiction " is in logic, it is true that 
 of the two opponents one, or possibly both, must be in 
 the wrong ; or, if that is not the case, the opposition 
 between them must be illusory. Good is self-consistent 
 just as truth is ; and just as a mind which believes all 
 truth is supremely self-consistent and self-identical, so 
 it is with a mind which wills all good. 
 
 Further, this divine mind will become one with all 
 other minds so far as they share its thought and volition ; 
 so far, that is, as they know any truth or will any good. 
 And this unity between the two is not the merely 
 abstract identity of co-existence, but the concrete identity
 
 CH.IH PERSONALITY 119 
 
 of co-operation. The abstract unity would remain even 
 in the case of a mind which (if that be possible) knew 
 nothing true and did nothing right. There is a sense 
 in which whether we will it or not we are indissolubly, 
 by our very existence, one with God ; that bond it is 
 not in our power to break. But the highest and most 
 real identity with him we can only possess in the know- 
 ledge of truth and the pursuit of goodness. 
 
 Thus God is at once immanent and transcendent ; 
 and man can be regarded as, on the one hand, a part of 
 the universal divine spirit, and on the other, as a person 
 separate from God and capable of opposition to him. 
 God is immanent because all human knowledge and 
 goodness are the very indwelling of his spirit in the 
 mind of man ; transcendent because, whether or not 
 man attains to these things, God has attained to them ; 
 his being does not depend upon the success of human 
 endeavour. 
 
 Such a mind as this, omniscient and perfectly good, 
 is conceivable ; but the conception may be called a mere 
 hypothesis. I think it is more than this. Every good 
 man, and every seeker after truth, is really, even if 
 unconsciously, co-operating with every other in the ideal 
 of a complete science or a perfect world ; and if co- 
 operating, then identified with the other and with an 
 all-embracing purpose of perfection. There really is 
 such a purpose, which lives in the lives of all good men 
 wherever they are found, and unifies them all into a life 
 of its own. This is God immanent ; and it is no mere 
 hypothesis. Is it equally certain that he also exists as 
 transcendent, or does that remain a hypothesis, incapable 
 of proof? Is God only existent as a spirit in our hearts, 
 or is he also a real person with a life of his own, whether 
 we know him or not ? 
 
 The difficulty of answering this question is bound up 
 with a well-known philosophical puzzle, the puzzle of 
 how to prove the existence of anything except as present 
 to the mind. If it is true that things cease to exist when
 
 120 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS n .n 
 
 we are not thinking of them, and that the people whom 
 we generally suppose to be real independently of our 
 dealings with them exist only as and when we are con- 
 scious of them, then it follows by the same argument 
 that God is immanent only, and exists nowhere but in 
 the minds of men. But we cannot really believe that 
 these things are so. And to suppose that the spirit of 
 goodness of which we are conscious in our hearts has its 
 being there and there alone is no less fantastic than to 
 suppose that the friends with whom we converse are only 
 the projection upon nothingness of our own imagination. 
 The arguments for pure immanence are at bottom 
 identical with the philosophical creed of subjective ideal- 
 ism, and with that creed they stand or fall. 
 
 This conception of God as perfectly wise and good 
 avoids at least the faults of an indefinite and empty 
 abstraction. But is it any more than the other horn of 
 an inevitable dilemma? God, as we have conceived his 
 nature, is good indeed, but not omnipotent ; wise, but 
 unable entirely to control the world which he knows. 
 He is the totality of truth and goodness, the Absolute 
 of all the good there is ; but the world's evil remains 
 outside this totality, recalcitrant to the power of God 
 and superior to his jurisdiction. 
 
 Here, it is sometimes said, lies the parting of the 
 ways between religion and philosophy. Religion must 
 at all costs have a God with a definite character of his 
 own ; philosophy must have an all-embracing totality, 
 a rounded and complete universe. And when it is found 
 that God, to be good, cannot be all, then religion and 
 philosophy accept different horns of the dilemma, and 
 from this point travel in different directions. 
 
 But such a solution really annihilates both philosophy 
 and religion. The " universe " which philosophy is 
 supposed to choose is again the empty abstraction of a 
 something which is nothing definite ; it is not an Ab- 
 solute, but only the indication of an unsolved problem. 
 And for religion too the problem is unsolved ; for it
 
 CH.III PERSONALITY 121 
 
 refuses, and rightly refuses, to believe that a limited 
 God is its last word. It cannot accept the antithesis 
 between God and the world as final. Either it declares 
 its faith in his ultimate omnipotence, in the final identi- 
 fication of the seemingly opposed terms, or it relapses 
 into the pessimism of a forlorn hope which can do no 
 more than hurl defiance at a world of evil which it 
 cannot conquer. Of these alternatives, the highest re- 
 ligious faith unhesitatingly chooses the first, at the risk 
 of being accused of a sentimental optimism. But the 
 attitude so chosen is the only consistent one ; for the 
 pessimist's defiance of the world already achieves in some 
 degree that very victory which he pronounces impossible. 
 
 Each solution, then, the undefine4 Absolute and the 
 limited God, is provisional only, a working hypothesis 
 and no more. An undefined Absolute is not an Ab- 
 solute, and a limited God is not a God. Each alike can 
 only be made satisfactory by acquiring the character 
 of the other ; and hence the problems of religion and 
 philosophy are one and the same. 
 
 This brings us face to face with the question of evil. 
 How can a world whose elements are at variance with 
 one another be, except in a merely abstract sense, one 
 world at all? How can the existence of a perfectly 
 good God be reconciled with the reality of minds whose 
 will is the very antithesis of his own ?
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 EVIL 
 
 I. THE difficulty with which we have to deal is 
 expressed by the simple religious mind in the form of the 
 question, "Why does God, being good, allow the existence 
 of evil in his world? " And, in the absence of any im- 
 mediate answer, the solution is suggested with almost 
 irresistible force that God, if omnipotent, cannot be 
 really good. We have indicated in outline the conception 
 of a God who united in himself all goodness ; but the 
 existence of evil seems to prove that if he exists he is no 
 more than one among many limited minds, good so far 
 as he goes but not able to expel all evil from the universe. 
 If it persists in the refusal to exchange a real God for a 
 colourless Absolute, religion seems forced to accept a 
 God who is hardly more than another good man. 
 
 (a) We are apt to suppose that this is the nemesis 
 of a peculiar weakness in religion. If it had adopted 
 the more rigorous and thoughtful methods of philosophy, 
 we imagine, it would have avoided these dilemmas and 
 perplexities. It has committed itself to a mythological 
 and fanciful procedure, half-way between thinking and 
 dreaming, and this is the result. I think such an ex- 
 planation is entirely superficial and untrue. The prob- 
 lem expressed above in religious language can be readily 
 translated into terms of philosophy, and constitutes for 
 philosophy as serious a difficulty as it does for religion. 
 It may be roughly sketched from this point of view as 
 follows :
 
 CH. iv EVIL 123 
 
 If the world is will, it must be a will of some definite 
 kind ; a good will, for instance, or a bad will. But 
 things are done in the universe which fall under each of 
 these classes. If one part is bad, how can we call the 
 whole good, or vice versa ? We may try to evade the 
 difficulty by replying that the world is not one will but 
 many wills ; or (which comes to the same thing) a single 
 will fluctuating between good and bad. This is no 
 doubt true ; but is it a society of wills ? and if so, why 
 is its behaviour not social ? Again, we may reply that 
 it is not really will at all in the ordinary sense, but mere 
 matter or a " blind will," which does not know what it 
 is doing, or a " super-moral will," which does not care. 
 But we cannot escape by taking refuge in materialism ; 
 for a materialistic universe could never give rise to the 
 conflicts of which we complain. A universe which was 
 purely mechanical would be perfectly smooth and self- 
 consistent in its behaviour ; for machines only " go 
 wrong " relatively to the purpose of their makers. Nor 
 do the other hypotheses improve matters ; for they do 
 not explain how the conflicting elements came into exist- 
 ence. If the universe had a " blind will," it could not 
 include in it my will which is not blind. If the Absolute 
 were superior to moral distinctions, it would exclude 
 instead of including the consciousness of a moral person. 
 
 And indeed a " blind will " is a contradiction in 
 terms, for a will which did not know what it was doing 
 would be not a will but an automaton, a mechanism. 
 And a " super-moral Absolute " is, I think, a no less 
 contradictory idea ; for it implies that the Absolute is 
 something which does not explain but merely contradicts 
 the things we know ; that reality is not richer or fuller 
 than experience but simply different, so that experience 
 is illusory and reality unknowable. 
 
 Philosophy has, no doubt, some answer for these ques- 
 tions. But so, within its own system of ideas, has 
 religion. For each, the problem is one of extreme diffi- 
 culty ; for neither is it literally insoluble. A philo-
 
 i2 4 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . n 
 
 sophical problem cannot be insoluble, though it may be 
 too hard for you or me to solve satisfactorily, and it 
 may quite well be insoluble in terms of a certain theory 
 which is so framed as to ignore or deny the facts on 
 which the solution depends. But a theory which shows 
 this kind of deficiency is, strictly speaking, incapable of 
 solving not only that particular problem but all problems 
 connected with it, that is to say, since all philosophical 
 problems are interconnected, all problems whatever. A 
 question is only unanswerable when the data for answer- 
 ing it are not in our possession ; for instance, we may 
 ask in vain for historical information about a fact of 
 which there are no records. But in philosophical ques- 
 tions the data are ready to our hand, and only require 
 analysis and description. The same is true of theological 
 problems. In the language of orthodoxy, God has re- 
 vealed his nature to man, if man will receive the revela- 
 tion ; in philosophical terms, the character of the perfect 
 or ideal mind is implicit even in the imperfections of 
 mind as we know it. We must assume then that the 
 problem is soluble and see what we can do towards 
 solving it. 
 
 (b) It is important to state as clearly as possible 
 wherein the problem consists. I think we may dis- 
 tinguish three different questions, each of which may be 
 asked about three different things ; and all these ques- 
 tions are liable to be presented simultaneously as the 
 Problem of Evil. Ultimately, no doubt, they cannot be 
 separated ; but it does not promote their solution if we 
 fail to distinguish them at all. The three things are 
 error, pain, and evil ; understanding always by evil the 
 badness of a will. The three questions are, first, How is 
 the thing to be defined or described ? second, How does 
 it come to exist ? and third, What does it prove ? what 
 can be the character of the whole of which it forms 
 a part ? 
 
 (i.) I think, though not without great hesitation, that 
 the problem of pain in general is not the same as the
 
 CH. iv EVIL 125 
 
 problem of the other two forms of evil. When people 
 speak of the " problem of pain," they seem generally to 
 mean by it some question like this : " Why, if God is 
 as you assert both omnipotent and benevolent, does he 
 permit his creatures to suffer things which any kindly- 
 disposed man would give his life to prevent ? Either 
 God allows these things, in which case he is less bene- 
 volent than man, or else he, too, would like to stop 
 them, in which case he is as impotent as ourselves." 
 
 Now it is not difficult to see that this question 
 assumes as obvious a certain theory of God which may 
 be described as purely transcendent theism. God is 
 conceived as a ruler imposing his will on a passive 
 creation by means of laws in whose effect he does not 
 share. It seems to me that the sting of the problem 
 entirely vanishes if the distinction between activity and 
 passivity is removed ; if, in other words, we conceive 
 God not as imposing his will on the world from 
 without, but as himself sharing in all the experiences of 
 other minds. Some such view as this we are now assum- 
 ing as proved ; for the result of the last two chapters 
 will not permit us to regard the creator as severed 
 from his creation, or the whole as external to its parts. 
 
 It is sometimes said that all pain is due to an 
 evil will, which inflicts it directly upon sufferers or, 
 indirectly, upon the wrongdoer himself. All pain is 
 thus either the natural consequence of sin, recoiling on 
 the head of the sinner, or else the effect of his sin on 
 others. If that were so, pain would be absent from a 
 universe in which there was no evil, in the strict sense 
 of that word ; and the problem of pain would be 
 identified with the problem of the bad will. 
 
 This is a position which, as I suggested above, I do 
 not feel able to accept. Evil wills are responsible for 
 a vast proportion of existing pain : for much more, 
 perhaps, than we generally imagine. And empirically, 
 I suppose, the nearest approach to a painless life is 
 to be found in the companionship of persons whose
 
 126 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 attitude towards one another most nearly approaches 
 to perfect love and harmony. On the other hand 
 empirically once more the attainment of any fulness 
 and depth of experience seems to be necessarily painful 
 as well as pleasant, even for the noblest minds. 
 Esthetic experiences like hearing music (or, again, 
 seeing a play finely acted) involve a kind of pain 
 which is very acute, and cannot be confused with the 
 pain of hearing bad music or music badly played. 
 There seems to be something of this nature what we 
 might call a tragic element in all the highest forms 
 of. life. It does involve pain ; but it also involves 
 pleasure, which transfuses the pain while it does not 
 for a moment disguise its painfulness. 
 
 If this view of the matter is right, the practical 
 problem of pain is not how to avoid it but how to lift 
 it to a heroic level ; and the presence of pain in the 
 world is not a contradiction or an abatement of the 
 world's value and perfection. Pain may make the 
 world difficult to live in ; but do we really want an 
 easier world ? And if we sometimes think we do, do 
 we not recognise that the wish is unworthy ? 
 
 At any rate, the wish is useless. I do not think it 
 serves any purpose to imagine hypothetical worlds in 
 which this or that element of the real would be absent. 
 And it does seem to me that 'pain is such an element. 
 Whether or no it is always due to our own imperfection 
 or sin or the sin or imperfection of others, it cannot 
 ever be eliminated, simply because a perfection of the 
 type required can surely never exist in a world of free 
 agents ; because even if no one did wrong, the effort 
 of doing right would still be difficult and painful just 
 so long as the practical problems offered by the world 
 were worth solving. Pain seems to involve imperfection 
 only in the sense in which any one who has a thing to 
 do and has not yet done it is imperfect ; and in that 
 sense imperfection is only another name for activity 
 and perfection for death.
 
 CH. iv EVIL 127 
 
 (ii.) Error and evil are more difficult even than pain 
 to assign, as they stand, to a place in the universe. It 
 is sometimes taken as self-evident that a good world 
 cannot contain pain. I have said that I think this 
 assumption is mistaken. But I do think it is self- 
 evident that a good universe cannot contain either 
 evil or error just as they stand. This is the problem 
 with which we shall deal in detail. The other two 
 questions must be also raised : first, What are these 
 things, and secondly, How do they arise ? 
 
 The latter question can be answered easily or not 
 at all, according to its meaning. In one sense, the 
 answer simply is, " Because people do them " ; that is 
 to say, there is nothing to prevent any one from doing 
 wrong or from making a mistake, and it depends on 
 himself whether he does so or not. A man does right 
 not only because it is God's will but because it is also 
 his own will ; God could not make him do right if he 
 did not want to. And therefore God cannot prevent 
 his doing wrong. In another sense, the question 
 implies a desire to go behind this freedom of the 
 individual, and to discover why he chooses to do this 
 and not that. But in this sense the question is meaning- 
 less ; for there is nothing behind the will which makes 
 it do one thing rather than the other. 
 
 (iii.) The other question would seem at first sight 
 easy. An error is defined as thinking something that 
 is not true ; and a bad action as doing something wrong. 
 But we have defined thinking as the consciousness of 
 a reality ; and therefore error is not thought, for if it 
 were consciousness of reality it would not be error. 
 But what can error be if it is not thought ? How can 
 you make a mistake without thinking? It might be 
 ingeniously replied, when you make a mistake you are 
 nor really thinking at all : you only think you are think- 
 ing. But alas ! we are no further ; for if all thinking 
 is true, then in thinking that I thought I must really 
 have thought. Nor is it any better to say that I
 
 128 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 imagined that I thought ; for if so the point is that I 
 mistook, on this occasion, imagining for thinking. Nor 
 can we say that I felt as if I had done a piece of thinking 
 when really I had not ; granted that there is a peculiar 
 flavour in real thinking, how does it come to be associ- 
 ated with something that is not thinking ? and if it is 
 liable to be so associated, why, knowing this, should I 
 let it mislead me ? 
 
 We cannot avoid the difficulty by defining error as 
 an act not of the intellect but of the will : for instance, 
 the arbitrary assertion of a thing which the evidence 
 does not warrant. If this were so, there would be no 
 difference at all between making a mistake and telling a 
 lie. A man may be blamed for his mistakes, and a 
 mistake may be described as a moral offence, perhaps 
 with justice; but that does nothing to clear up its nature. 
 
 It may be replied, all this comes of committing 
 yourself to a faulty theory of knowledge. First you 
 propound a theory on which error cannot possibly exist, 
 and then you are illogical enough to complain that you 
 cannot understand error. It is a well-known fact that 
 there are theories of knowledge of this sort ; yours is 
 one of them ; and you had much better give it up. I 
 should ;be most willing to do so, if any other theory 
 were more successful. But the critics who use the 
 language I have just quoted have as a rule nothing 
 better to offer in exchange than an empiricism which, 
 while carefully designed to admit the possibility of 
 error, omits to allow for the possibility of truth. 
 Indeed a cynic might be tempted to divide theories of 
 knowledge into those which admitted the possibility of 
 truth but denied the existence of error, and those which 
 admitted error but denied the existence of truth. 
 Neither type of theory can be satisfactory ; but it may 
 be argued that a theory which at least admits the 
 existence of truth is likely to contain more of it than 
 the one which does not. The only third alternative is 
 the refusal to admit a theory of knowledge at all. And
 
 CH. iv EVIL 129 
 
 this too I cannot accept ; for we do talk about know- 
 ing, and our statements about it must mean something, 
 and be either true or false. 
 
 The same difficulty arises in connexion with the 
 definition of wrongdoing. To put the dilemma briefly, 
 a person doing wrong must know that it is wrong ; for 
 otherwise, though we may blame him for culpable negli- 
 gence or obtuseness, we do not blame him in the full 
 moral sense as deliberately guilty. And yet it would 
 seem that the essence of doing wrong is to persuade 
 oneself somehow that it is really right, or excusable, or 
 not so very wrong. The fact seems to combine two 
 contradictory attitudes the doing a thing although you 
 know it is wrong, and the thinking that it is right when 
 it is not. 
 
 One is sometimes tempted to say that these things, 
 evil and error, are really self-contradictory attitudes of 
 mind, mental confusions ; and that therefore it is no use 
 trying to have a clear theory of them, since the facts 
 themselves are not clear. But is it so ? If a state of 
 mind were self-contradictory, how could it exist ? If it 
 is coherent enough to exist, why should it not be 
 coherent enough to be described ? Superficial thought, 
 we must repeat, finds no difficulty in describing them 
 because it does so, na'ively, in self-contradictory terms ; 
 it is only analysis of the terms used that reveals the 
 difficulty. 
 
 Even if it is impossible to define them, need that 
 hinder our inquiry? No one has ever defined good- 
 ness, for instance, and yet moral philosophy exists. 
 The parallel is comforting, but I fear misleading. The 
 famous difficulty in defining goodness does not exclude 
 the possibility of conceiving goodness. We know 
 perfectly well what it is, and the only sense in which 
 it is indefinable is that, being unique, it cannot be 
 described in terms of anything else. But I do not think 
 the same is true of error and evil. The difficulty here 
 seems to be not that we know what they are but cannot 
 
 K
 
 1 3 o RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS n . n 
 
 give a formal definition of them, but rather that, though 
 we recognise them when we see them sometimes we 
 do not know what they are at all. 
 
 Having no answer to offer to such a fundamental 
 question, would it not be best to put up the shutters 
 and go home ? Is it not mere trifling to offer theology 
 the assistance of so impotent a metaphysic? The 
 criticism is perfectly just. We cannot hope to solve, 
 or even usefully to discuss, the problem of evil unless 
 we know what evil is. But our real position is worse 
 than the criticism suggests. It implies that there is a 
 retreat open to us ; that we can, and in fairness ought 
 to, renounce our attempt to solve these problems ration- 
 ally and take refuge in a decent agnosticism. This we 
 cannot do ; for it is not unequivocally true even that 
 we are ignorant of the nature of evil. We do recognise 
 it when we see it ; and we can make some statements 
 about it, or at least show that some accounts of its 
 nature are false. The only escape from our situation 
 is to build on these facts, however slight they may 
 appear. An agnostic withdrawal from the argument 
 would, by denying their existence, commit itself to a 
 falsehood no less than the dogmatic denial of the 
 difficulties. 
 
 This, then, must be our course. In the first place, 
 we shall examine and criticise certain current concep- 
 tions of evil ; secondly, we shall try to determine the 
 relation of evil to good within the universe. Such a 
 procedure, after the admission that we cannot define 
 evil, is illogical, absurd, perhaps even dishonest ; its 
 only excuse is that the alternative is worse. 
 
 2. The theories of evil which I intend to criticise 
 agree in treating evil as somehow illusory or non- 
 existent. The universe, according to this type of view, 
 is perfectly good, and everything is good just so far 
 as it exists ; evil is non-existence, deficiency, negativity, 
 the past stage of a process, and so on. I shall treat 
 these views in some detail because I believe that there
 
 CH. iv EVIL 131 
 
 is a certain amount of truth in them, and that they fail 
 in general through not successfully defining what they 
 mean by real and unreal ; whereas their opposites, the 
 pessimistic views, contain I think Jess truth and are 
 sufficiently dealt with by the main argument in 3. 
 
 It is perhaps worth remarking that optimism and 
 pessimism alike create a spurious unity by denying one 
 side of the contradiction ; each is a symptom of exactly 
 the same fault. It is often said that optimism results 
 from a sentimental temper which refuses to face facts ; 
 and this is perfectly true. But it is equally true of 
 pessimism. To deny the existence of facts simply 
 because they are pleasant is no less sentimental than to 
 deny their existence because they are unpleasant. It is 
 one kind of sentimentality, and not an attractive kind, 
 that refuses to see anything outside itself but one all- 
 embracing Welts chmerz, and anything within but its own 
 u spasms of helpless agony." l 
 
 It ought also to be said that in criticising views of 
 this type I am not criticising those philosophers such as 
 Plato, Spinoza, or Hegel, to whom they often owe the 
 language in which they are expressed, if no more. 
 I am rather criticising tendencies of popular thought 
 which have a certain superficial resemblance to their 
 philosophies. 
 
 (a) The simplest type of optimism is perhaps to be 
 found in the not uncommon statement that evil does 
 not exist at all ; that there is no such thing. As stated, 
 this is merely a paradox which has no meaning until it 
 has been explained : and to explain it generally involves 
 explaining it away. The only sense in which it is a 
 serious theory is that it sometimes takes the form of 
 asserting that no one ever really does wrong, and our 
 beliefs to the contrary come from misinterpreting the 
 actions of others, and indeed our own. That is to say, 
 there is no evil ; there is only error, the erroneous 
 belief that evil exists. 
 
 1 W. James, Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 163.
 
 1 3 2 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS FT. n 
 
 While granting fully that a completer knowledge 
 would explain as good many actions which we imagine 
 to be bad, I cannot think this view plausible. Led by 
 the difficulty of conceiving how a bad action can exist, 
 it suggests that none do exist, and that the apparent 
 cases to the contrary are really cases of false judgment. 
 It can only advance this conclusion because it has never 
 realised that exactly the same difficulty attaches to the 
 conception of the false judgment. If the moralist had 
 by chance been a logician instead, he would have raised 
 the question how people make mistakes : and he might 
 have answered that they do not ; they only tell lies. 
 What appears to be an error, he might triumphantly 
 say, is only a moral obliquity. 
 
 If this seems a far-fetched objection, it may be simply 
 expressed thus. Evil does exist. People do wrong. 
 There is no reasonable doubt on that point. But as 
 soon as we begin thinking about it, we find it so difficult 
 to understand that we are tempted to explain it by 
 appeal to a parallel difficulty, that of error. The two 
 are, I think, parallel ; but neither throws much light 
 on the other because each is equally obscure. And if 
 we deny the existence of the one, the same difficulties 
 when we faced them would compel us to deny the 
 existence of the other. 
 
 (b) An argument closely resembling this admits 
 that bad actions are done, and does not flatly say that 
 we are mistaken in calling them bad ; but merely that in 
 so doing we are expressing a limited point of view. 
 From this finite point of view we are right, it is said, 
 in calling them evil ; but from a wider point of view 
 either they would be seen as good or perhaps the 
 difference between good and bad would disappear. 
 
 We cannot, however, dispose of the distinction 
 between right and wrong by saying that it is relative 
 to particular points of view. The argument seems 
 to confuse several different things ; and it is perhaps 
 worth while to distinguish at least some of these.
 
 CH. iv EVIL 133 
 
 (i.) " What is right for one society," we are told, 
 "is wrong for another. It would be sadly narrow- 
 minded to wish that every portion of the human race 
 could live under the same kind of social organisation. 
 On the contrary, to confer the blessings of civilisation 
 upon the savage often means nothing but to force 
 him into a mould for which he is quite unfitted and 
 in which he can never be either happy or prosperous. 
 His institutions are the best for him, and ours are 
 the best for us ; and when we ask what is the right 
 manner of life, the question always is, for whom? 
 Nothing is right in itself, in isolation from the 
 circumstances which make it right." 
 
 Much of this is perfectly true. Not only is one 
 people's life not good for another people, but even 
 one man's meat is another man's poison. Every race, 
 every person, every situation is unique, presents unique 
 problems and demands unique treatment. And if 
 the argument means no more than that we must not 
 impose the treatment proper to one case on another 
 (as we frequently do), it is legitimate. But those who 
 use it seem often to imply that, since every evil is 
 relative to some situation, a perfectly free man who 
 had no particular prejudices and no merely parochial 
 interests would be superior to the distinction between 
 good and bad. This of course is absurd ; for every 
 man must be an individual and stand in some definite 
 relation to other individuals ; and these relations will 
 determine what is and really is right and wrong 
 for him. 
 
 (ii.) The argument may also be taken to imply 
 that there is a specifically moral way of looking at 
 things, which is one out of a large number of possible 
 ways, and not the truest. We may approach actions 
 with the question on our lips, "are they right or 
 wrong ? " and in that attitude we shall understand 
 less of their real nature and value than if we asked, 
 " are they adequate, or fitting, or noble, or splendid ;
 
 i 3 4 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 do they show a grasp of the situation, a penetrating 
 intellect, a determined will, a subtle sense of beauty ? " 
 
 We do certainly feel a sense of irritation with people 
 who insist upon raising the moral issue to the exclusion 
 of all others. They seem to think that it only matters 
 if a person had good intentions, and makes no differ- 
 ence whether he is a competent man or a muddler.,. It 
 does make a difference ; and either goodness is only real 
 goodness when united with competence, or else there are 
 other things to value a man by besides his goodness. 
 
 But these other things do not outweigh goodness, 
 still less make it disappear. Whatever other things 
 there may be, there is morality ; but the argument 
 seems to suggest that because there are other standards 
 of value, therefore the moral standard cannot be 
 maintained. If this is its meaning, it is no more 
 than an attempt to distract attention from one question 
 by raising others. 
 
 (iii.) Thirdly, it may mean that morality is a 
 " category " of the human mind as such, which would 
 be absent from a better or more highly-developed type 
 of mind. It is a limitation, but a necessary limitation 
 of humanity. We cannot deal fully with a contention 
 of this kind without examining its presuppositions in 
 a theory of knowledge derived more or less from 
 Kant. But I think such an examination would bear 
 out the plain man's feeling that an argument like this 
 is not playing the game ; that it is not fair to tell him 
 that the construction of his mind is such that he cannot 
 help having convictions which nevertheless are not 
 really true. The philosopher who tells him so seems 
 to imagine himself as behind the scenes, privileged to 
 criticise and correct the workings of the mind which 
 after all is? just as much his mind as the plain man's. 
 If the conviction is inevitable, how is scepticism as to 
 its truth possible ? The critic of the mind is doing 
 something which looks very like playing fast and 
 loose with his convictions.
 
 CH. iv EVIL 135 
 
 (c) Another appeal to ignorance is contained in 
 the view that evil is justified by becoming a means 
 to good. This argument is reinforced by the parallel 
 of pain. The dentist inflicts pain ; but he only does 
 so to save us from a much greater amount of pain in 
 the future. Our condemnation of the evil in the world 
 is thus explained as the rebellion of ignorance against 
 the surgery of an all-wise Creator. 
 
 As applied to pain, the argument is not without 
 great value. But even so, it should be observed that 
 the pain of dentistry remains pain, and is not made 
 pleasant by the fact that it absolves us from future 
 pain. And the really skilful dentist can almost, if 
 not entirely, banish pain by means of anaesthetics. 
 Is God less skilful ? 
 
 In point of fact the parallel does not apply to evil 
 at all. The evil consequences of an evil act might well 
 be so thwarted by circumstance or overridden by 
 omnipotence that they never affected the person whom 
 they were, perhaps, intended to harm. But the 
 moral evil of the act lies not in its success but in the 
 intention, and no overruling can affect the intention or 
 make it less evil. A bad action may be providentially 
 a means to good ; but that does not destroy the agent's 
 badness of will. The problem of moral evil remains 
 untouched. 
 
 (d} Another common account of evil appeals to the 
 logical conception of negation, asserting that evil 
 though real is merely negative. I do not think that 
 this does much to clear it up. If two things are 
 conceived as opposites, either indifferently may be 
 described as the negation of the other ; but neither is, 
 so to speak, inherently negative. The distinction 
 between affirmative and negative is a distinction of 
 words, not of things. A " negative " reality would 
 be quite as positive as an " affirmative " reality. I 
 imagine that this theory really means that good is 
 normal or natural or something of the sort, while evil
 
 136 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . n 
 
 is abnormal and only exists as an exception, and could 
 never by itself make a world. This idea seems to me 
 to be sound, and we shall meet it again ; but I do not 
 think that it is well expressed by saying that evil is 
 merely negative. 
 
 (e} The last theory we shall examine defines evil by 
 reference to the conception of evolution. Our sins, 
 according to this theory, are the habits proper to a past 
 stage in the evolutionary process, lingering on like 
 rudimentary organs into our present life. Here again 
 there is a fact at the bottom of the theory. It is true 
 that the particular way in which we go wrong is often 
 explicable by reference to past habits of which we 
 have never entirely got rid. But the question still 
 remains unanswered why we should go wrong at all. 
 Nor is the theory fully true even so far as it goes ; for 
 atavism is not a crime, and just so far as our " crimes " 
 are really cases of atavism they are not culpable ; unless 
 indeed it is supposed that our evolution is entirely in 
 our own hands. But if that is so, morality must be 
 called in to account for evolution, not vice versa. 
 
 It is a striking fact that the biological conception of 
 evolution has never yet produced anything but confusion 
 when applied to philosophical questions. The reason 
 seems to be that it gives, in the form in which it is 
 commonly held, no answer to the one question with 
 which philosophy is concerned. As we said in a former 
 chapter, science (including the theory of evolution) is 
 simply a description of behaviour, and advances no 
 hypothesis as to why things behave as they do. The 
 theory of evolution is a purely historical statement about 
 the way in which life has developed ; ethics is concerned 
 with the force of will which lies behind all merely 
 descriptive history. It makes little difference to the 
 scientist whether he regards evolution as a purely 
 mechanical process or as directed by the volition of 
 conscious agents ; but until this question is answered, 
 evolution is simply irrelevant to ethics.
 
 CH. iv EVIL 137 
 
 In this case, for instance, there are three conceivable 
 hypotheses, either of which might be adopted by science 
 without greatly altering its particular problems ; but for 
 ethics they are poles asunder. (i.) If the process is 
 really mechanical, the habits may be explained, but they 
 are not sins, (ii.) If a central mind such as that of God 
 directs the process, then the habits in question are not 
 our sins but God's, (iii.) If, as above suggested, the 
 process is in the hands of the evolving species, the bad 
 or superseded habits are sinful, but they are not explained. 
 Thus the evolutionary view of the question only restates 
 the problem in terms which conceal the fact that no 
 solution is offered. 
 
 3. We can now proceed to the last and for our 
 purpose the most important question, namely, how evil 
 and error can coexist in the same universe side by side 
 with truth and goodness, and how a universe so composed 
 can be described ; whether, that is, we can call it either 
 good or evil. The answer to this question can only be 
 reached by drawing out the implications of two state- 
 ments : (i.) that the universe contains good and evil 
 side by side ; (ii.) that everything in the universe stands 
 in some relation to everything else. 
 
 (#) Suppose I intend to write a complete account of 
 any subject concerning which there is in existence a 
 considerable body of scientific information and opinion. 
 There are, broadly speaking, two ways in which I can go 
 to work. Either I can simply collect all the opinions, 
 false and true, which have been held on the subject, and 
 write them down side by side ; or else I can sift them 
 out, correcting the false by the true, and presenting a 
 body of statements which is, so far as I can make it so, 
 absolutely true. These two methods typify two senses 
 in which we can speak of a totality : first, a mere juxta- 
 position of conflicting details, and secondly, an organised 
 and coherent whole. Which of these is in the truest 
 sense a totality, and in which sense do we speak of the 
 totality of the universe ?
 
 138 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT.H 
 
 The mere collection would be repugnant to the 
 scientific mind. It is the work, a critic would say, not 
 of a thinker but of a sciolist ; the book that quotes 
 infinite contradictory authorities and " leaves the reader 
 to choose between them" is not history, but the 
 gratification of a jackdaw's collecting-mania. 
 
 It appears on examination that the scientist's prejudice 
 is well founded. The mere collection misrepresents the 
 facts which it pretends to describe. A's opinion took 
 its form through the detection of an error in B's, and 
 B's by refuting C's. Simply to quote A, B and C side 
 by side is precisely to miss the historical development 
 and continuity on which all three depend. The mere 
 collection is not a totality ; it is a number of different 
 things whose relation to one another is denied, an 
 abstract plurality which is not a unity. Unity can only 
 be introduced into it in one way : by thinking out the 
 relations of each opinion to the rest. When this is 
 done, as it is done by the true historian of thought, it 
 is found that even where one opinion contradicts another 
 there is the closest of relations between them ; that they 
 are successive attempts to reach the truth on this subject, 
 and that each statement sums up in itself the truth 
 expressed by previous statements and is itself the 
 starting-point for further research. This way of putting 
 it is not affected by the breaks and discontinuities which 
 there must be in any tradition. We are not arguing 
 that there is a steady and continual progress towards 
 truth, independent, as it were, of intellectual effort ; but 
 that every truth takes its form by correcting some error, 
 and that therefore in the totality of the science the error 
 does not stand alongside the truth, but is corrected by 
 it and disappears. Consequently to the historian of 
 thought these errors do not form part of the science 
 at all. He knows and records the fact that they 
 have been made ; but as the science comes to him 
 they have been eliminated by the thought which has 
 supplied their correction. (It is not implied that at
 
 CH. iv EVIL 139 
 
 any given point of history all the errors have been 
 eliminated.) 
 
 In brief, truth and error cannot coexist in relation 
 with one another. If they are brought into contact, the 
 error is abolished by the truth. A truth and an error 
 about one and the same subject can only exist so long 
 as they are kept separate in water-tight compartments ; 
 that is, so long as the person who believes them both is 
 unconscious, while believing one, that he also believes 
 the other, or so long as the person who believes one 
 does not come into contact with the person who believes 
 the other. 
 
 Our 'problem was something of the following kind. 
 God is conceived as omniscient ; all his beliefs are true. 
 But there are also many false beliefs in existence. These 
 are ex hypo the si not shared by God. Therefore the 
 totality of the universe, including as it does the false 
 beliefs as well as the true, is more inclusive, larger, so 
 to speak, than God who only includes the true ones. 
 God therefore is not all-inclusive, not universal ; he is 
 only one among many minds. To a person who argued 
 thus we might now answer, are you in earnest with the 
 idea that the world is a totality ? Do you believe that 
 it is a society of spirits in communication with one 
 another ? If so, you are convicted out of your own 
 mouth. For if the world is a totality it already shows 
 the same perfection which is ascribed to God. The true 
 opinions in it eliminate the false, leaving nothing but 
 truth. And therefore the all-inclusive universe is not 
 larger than, but identical with, the perfect God. 
 
 According to this conception the universe includes 
 all error and yet it includes no error. Every error is a 
 fact that happens in history, and so is part of the 
 universe ; but the false opinion in which the error 
 consists disappears from the universe when faced with 
 the truth which contradicts it. 
 
 Two objections at once suggest themselves. First, 
 why should it be assumed that truth must drive out error ?
 
 1 4 o RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS n-. n 
 
 Why should not error drive out truth ? Certainly this 
 may happen. But 1 do not think any one would believe 
 that this is the way in which any science has actually 
 progressed for long together. A mind which really 
 grasps a truth is not shaken in its belief by denials, 
 because it sees the point of view from which the denial 
 proceeds and can formulate the truth so as to include 
 that point of view. In doing this it would not become 
 less true. But if error embarked on the process of 
 including other points of view, even if these others 
 were themselves erroneous, the error would gradually 
 approach nearer to the truth, for to believe all the 
 different errors about any subject may come very near 
 to knowing the truth. 
 
 The second objection is this : Why assume that the 
 universe is a unity at all? how do you know that its 
 parts are all in some relation to each other? Indeed, 
 are you not arguing in a circle by first, assuming it to 
 be a whole or system, and then arguing that it must on 
 that account be systematic ? It may be that we are 
 wrong in assuming that there is one universe. But I 
 do not think that it is a mere assumption. The alterna- 
 tive hypothesis would be that there are within it elements 
 entirely out of relation to one another ; that is, in terms 
 of our view, that there are minds which are concerned 
 with objects so entirely disparate that they cannot either 
 agree with or contradict one another. But in the nature 
 of the case, if there are minds which have no character- 
 istic and no object of thought in common with ours, 
 we cannot possibly conceive them, far less prove or 
 disprove their existence. And if we are right in thinking 
 that our philosophy concerns the nature of mind as 
 such, it must be a description, whether true or false, 
 of any mind that exists. 
 
 In one sense, it is perhaps true to say that the 
 universe is not a totality. Taken at any given moment, 
 it is incomplete. There are still undissolved errors, 
 unfinished thought-processes. The world we see around
 
 CH. iv EVIL 141 
 
 us is not a stationary, already-existing, " given " totality, 
 but a totality in the making : its unity consists only in 
 the striving towards unity on the part of the minds 
 which constitute it. This does not mean that its com- 
 pletion lies at some point in the future ; it is a completion 
 that never is and never will be attained for good and 
 all, but one which is always being attained. The life 
 of the world, like the life of a man, consists in perpetual 
 activity. 
 
 () As the new knowledge supplied by true judg- 
 ments eliminates from the mind and annihilates erroneous 
 judgments, so, it would appear, a good motive arising 
 in the will annihilates a bad. This conception is at 
 first sight not so clear as the other. If I have acted 
 upon a bad motive, how can I then entertain a good 
 motive bearing on the same situation? For I have 
 already done the bad thing, and I cannot now do its 
 good alternative. The bad act is a historical fact, and 
 nothing can now change it. That is true, but the same 
 is true of a false judgment. If I have made a mistake 
 and published it, I cannot by discovering my error undo 
 all the harm which my statement may have done. Nor 
 can I even change the fact that I did believe it. The 
 most I can do is to cease to believe it, and substitute a 
 true belief. In the case of a wrong act this change of 
 attitude is also possible. I may be what is known as a 
 hardened sinner, that is to say I may refuse to admit 
 that I was wrong to act as I did ; but I may also change 
 my attitude towards my own conduct from one of self- 
 approval or excuse to one of condemnation. The evil 
 with which we are concerned is, as we said above ( 2, r), 
 not the consequence but the badness of the will itself ; 
 and this can only be overcome in one way, by the turn 
 of the will from evil to good. This attitude of a will 
 which in virtue of its own goodness condemns an evil 
 act is called, when the evil act is a past act of its own, 
 repentance ; but it is essentially not different from the 
 choosing of the good and rejection of the bad among
 
 i 4 2 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 two alternatives offered to the will as present possibilities. 
 It is thus parallel to that judgment of the truth which 
 either overthrows one's own past mistake, or avoids a 
 mistake in the present. 
 
 The two cases seem to be parallel throughout. Just 
 as one cannot believe at once the truth and the error, 
 so one cannot at once embrace the bad and the good 
 motive ; and just as the truth drives out the error, so 
 the good motive expels the bad. If then we put once 
 more the original problem, it will reappear in the 
 following shape. God is the absolute good will : his 
 will includes all good actions and nothing else. How 
 then can we identify him with a universe which includes 
 both good and bad ? The answer will be that within 
 the same totality of will there cannot be both good and 
 bad motives bearing on the same action or situation. 
 Just so far as totality is attained, the good will must 
 eliminate the bad, and therefore the universe conceived 
 as a totality of will must be entirely good. Nor is this 
 argument dependent on the hypothesis, if it is a hypo- 
 thesis, of a perfectly good God ; for it follows from the 
 conception of the universe as containing both good and 
 evil, without any assumption except that the parts of 
 the universe are in relation to one another. 
 
 Here again, however, there are two points which 
 must be emphasised. The first is that we have not, by 
 a dialectical juggle, swept evil out of existence or proved 
 that the universe is perfect just as it stands, and: con- 
 sidered at any given moment. The perfection of the 
 universe depends on its being a totality ; and, as we 
 have already said, it is only a totality in posse, not a 
 totality in esse. The non-existence of evil, its destruc- 
 tion by goodness, is neither an accomplished fact nor an 
 automatic and inevitable conclusion. It is a process, 
 and yet not a process if that means something never 
 actually fulfilled ; rather an activity, a process like that 
 of seeing or thinking, which is complete at every 
 moment and is not a sum of successive states. The
 
 CH. iv EVIL 143 
 
 triumph of good over evil is not a foregone conclusion 
 but, as it were, a permanent miracle, held in position by 
 the force of the good will. 
 
 The other point relates to the possibility of an 
 advance in the other direction ; of the elimination not 
 of evil by good but of good by evil. Is it not possible 
 for all good to disappear and for the universe to become 
 entirely bad ? It is certainly possible within limits for 
 error to drive out truth and for vice to drive out virtue. 
 A man may become worse and worse, and lapse into a 
 quagmire of wickedness from which it is progressively 
 harder to escape, just as he may become more and more 
 deluded till he lapses into idiocy. But it would seem 
 that his very delusions must be based on some lingering 
 remnant of truth ; that gone, there would be no more 
 hallucination, for the mind would simply have vanished. 
 A man who knew nothing at all could hardly be said 
 to make mistakes. And so I think vice always exists 
 in a will which is not only potentially but actually to 
 some extent virtuous ; that the impulses of which evil 
 is made, the faculties which carry it into effect, are 
 themselves virtues of a sort. It is often said, but I find 
 it hard fully to believe it, that impulses and faculties 
 are in themselves neither good nor bad, but indifferent : 
 the mere material out of which goodness or badness is 
 made. I may be wrong, but I cannot help feeling that 
 the admiration with which we regard the skill, resource, 
 and devotion of a great criminal is a partly moral 
 admiration, and that the evil which fights against good 
 is itself fighting in defence of a good. Can we call it 
 a perverted good, or a right ideal wrongly followed ? 
 These may be meaningless phrases, but they seem to 
 me to express something that is missed by the sharp 
 dualistic distinction between good and evil. 
 
 It seems clearer that evil can only exist in an 
 environment of good. No society is ever utterly 
 depraved, and crime owes its existence to the fact that 
 it is exceptional. The success of a fraud lies in the
 
 i 4 4 RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS PT . n 
 
 victim's being off his guard ; if he was expecting it and 
 trying to do it himself it would not be a fraud, any 
 more than to deceive an opponent at chess is a fraud. 
 The same applies to crimes not obviously social ; they 
 necessarily stand out against a background of normal 
 life which is not criminal. Good acts, on the other 
 hand, do most emphatically not require a background 
 of evil. 
 
 It seems then, if these arguments are justified, that 
 there cannot be even a totally bad person, and a fortiori 
 not a totally bad society or universe. If coherence and 
 totality are to be attained at all, they must be attained 
 by complete goodness. And, if we are right, they can 
 be thus attained. A will may be absolutely good ; not 
 in the sense that it is ignorant of evil, but in the sense 
 that it knows the evil and rejects it, just as a sound 
 intellect is not ignorant of possible errors, but sees 
 through them to the truth. This state is equally 
 perfection, whether it has been won through error and 
 sin, or without them ; for the mind is not in bondage 
 to its own past, but may use it as the means either of 
 good or evil. 
 
 There is much concerning the manner in which evil 
 is overcome by good that belongs to a later chapter ; 
 but we can already give some kind of answer to the 
 question with which we began. We asked, why does 
 God permit evil ? He does not permit it. His 
 omnipotence is not restricted by it. He conquers it. 
 But there is only one way in which it can be conquered : 
 not by the sinner's destruction, which would mean the 
 triumph of evil over good, but by his repentance.
 
 PART III 
 FROM METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SELF-EXPRESSION OF GOD IN MAN 
 
 IN this third part we shall attempt to use the results of 
 the foregoing chapters as an approach to some of the 
 more technical problems of theology. We shall take 
 what I suppose to be the central doctrine of the 
 Christian faith, and ask what light is thrown upon it 
 by the conclusions we have reached as to the relation 
 between God, man, and the world on the one hand, and 
 between good and evil on the other. By the central 
 doctrine of Christianity I mean that taking-up of 
 humanity into God which is called the Incarnation 
 or the Atonement, according as the emphasis is laid 
 on God's self-expression through humanity or man's 
 redemption through the spirit of God. 
 
 It must be understood that I approach this subject 
 from a single definite point of view. I shall make no 
 attempt to state in detail the beliefs of the Church, or 
 of any other body. Some initial statement is necessary, 
 but this may be very brief and can perhaps be presented 
 in a form to which no school of Christian thought 
 would very strongly object. The details will then be 
 developed by applying to these statements the general 
 principles set forth in the second part. It follows that 
 these chapters aim not at orthodoxy but at the faithful 
 translation into theological terms of the philosophy 
 already expressed in the preceding pages. I might, no 
 doubt, have gone on to consider whether the ultimate 
 theological results were in agreement with the beliefs of 
 147
 
 148 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY FT. m 
 
 orthodox Christianity. But I have not done this ; not 
 through any indifference to the question, for it would 
 be hypocritical to conceal my hope that the conclusions 
 here advanced may really agree with the deepest inter- 
 pretation of the Christian creed, but because the task 
 involved in such a comparison would take me far 
 beyond the limits of this volume. 
 
 i. The doctrine of the Incarnation, in its most 
 central characteristics, may perhaps be outlined in some 
 such way as this. There was a certain historical person 
 who was both divine and human. He was truly and 
 actually divine with the full characteristics of Godhead, 
 and fully and completely human in all the individuality 
 of manhood. He was not, however, a compound of 
 two different personalities, but one single personality. 
 
 This statement of two natures in one person may 
 be taken as our starting-point. It represents approxi- 
 mately the " formula of Chalcedon " ; and it must be 
 noticed in passing that this formula is no more than a 
 starting-point. As stated, it puts the problem without 
 offering any solution at all. It is our task to discover 
 how such a problem can be solved. The problem, 
 more precisely, is not for us, " Was such and such a 
 person both divine and human ? " but, " How is it 
 possible for a person to be both ? " That is to say, 
 we are setting aside all questions as to the " historical 
 Jesus " and attending merely to the necessary implica- 
 tions of the doctrine. Our answer will be in the form, 
 " if any man fulfilled such and such conditions, he was 
 perfectly divine as well as perfectly human ; but it is 
 not our purpose to inquire whether the conditions have 
 been fulfilled." 
 
 (a) How can there be an identity between a human 
 being and God ? There are two types of answer to 
 this question. The first type runs thus : Man, simply 
 as man, is already divine. Man is spirit, and God is 
 spirit, and between the two there is no sharp line of 
 demarcation. This truth, the divinity of man, the
 
 CH. i SELF-EXPRESSION OF GOD IN MAN 149 
 
 fatherhood of God, is the message of Jesus and the 
 creed of Christendom. 
 
 The second type of answer lays stress not on the 
 nature of mankind as a whole, but on the nature of 
 the one man who alone is believed to have been truly 
 and fully divine. He, and no other, has lived a perfect 
 life ; he and no other has set before the world in his 
 own person an example of love and power which it 
 cannot choose but worship. 
 
 These two answers seem not only different, but utterly 
 and radically hostile ; representative of points of view 
 between which there can be no truce. The first is the 
 purest immanent Pantheism, the second an absolutely 
 transcendent Theism. If all men are equally divine by 
 their very manhood, then the claim of one to be 
 especially so is indefensible. The claim, then, must 
 be explained away or boldly pronounced a mistake. 
 Perhaps, it is sometimes suggested, " the divine man " 
 means no more than " the man who first discovered the 
 divinity of man." On the other hand, if one man alone 
 is divine, it cannot for a moment be admitted that the 
 same is true of all other men ; for that would be to 
 sacrifice the whole value of the one unique life. 
 
 It is clear that if the first type of answer is adopted, 
 the original question falls to the ground. We need no 
 longer ask, how is it possible for a man to be divine ? 
 because no man is anything else. But we are left with 
 two difficulties. In the first place, can such a view be 
 made to square with the words or the spirit of the New 
 Testament narratives ? and secondly, is the view itself 
 a sound and reasonable one ? 
 
 With the first difficulty we have nothing to do. 
 We have to ask whether it is reasonable to hold that all 
 men are divine in such a way that no one is more divine 
 than any other. And here we may recall the two senses 
 in which the word identity was found to be used. 
 There is, it will be remembered, a purely abstract 
 identity, an identity which cannot be diminished or
 
 1 50 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY PT . m 
 
 increased, which subsists merely in virtue of the con- 
 tinued existence, in whatever relation, of the things 
 identified. There is also another identity, not abstract 
 but concrete, subsisting in virtue of an identity of 
 thought or purpose between the persons concerned, and 
 existing only so long as that identity is maintained. 
 
 Now in the first sense everynnan must be, so far as 
 he exists, identical with every other and with God. 
 There must be some relation between God and any man, 
 even a man ignorant of God or hostile to him. And 
 where there is some relation there is some identity. 
 Not indeed a low degree or small amount of identity, 
 for identity only exists absolutely : it is either complete 
 or non-existent. According to this kind of identity, 
 then, every man is already and fully divine, and it is 
 not possible that any one man should be more so than 
 any other. 
 
 But the other kind of identity depends not on bare 
 existence but on the kind of existence which a free being 
 chooses to have. According to this kind of identity, 
 it is clear that any man who fully knew the mind of 
 God, and whose will was bent on the same ends as the 
 divine will, would be himself both man and God in one, 
 completely human and completely divine. In this sense 
 not every man is divine ; indeed it is rather to be 
 doubted whether any man ever has been or ever could 
 be. This question we shall raise later. 
 
 The position which we described as Pantheism, then, 
 namely that every man is necessarily and unchangeably 
 divine, is very far from being false ; but is equally far 
 from being the whole truth, and to represent it as the 
 whole truth is to make a serious mistake. The divinity 
 of every man, simply as man, is no more than an abstract 
 divinity, the guarantee of a fuller and more concrete 
 union. And this concrete union is only to be attained 
 in and by the identification of the self in all its aspects 
 with the perfect mind of God. 
 
 The kind of identity which we are to consider is the
 
 CH. i SELF-EXPRESSION OF GOD IN MAN 151 
 
 latter kind only. Of the former, there is indeed nothing 
 more to say; it is a pure abstraction, and of an abstraction 
 we can say no more than that in its own abstract way 
 it exists. The divinity for the possession of which 
 we reverence the Founder of Christianity, the union 
 with God which we ourselves desire to attain, is no 
 abstraction ; it is a concrete and living activity, and 
 therefore it depends on, or rather consists in, not the 
 bare unchangeable nature of man as man, but the positive 
 character of his life, his individual thoughts and actions. 
 
 God and man are identified in one person, concretely 
 identified, that is identified not only fully but also in the 
 highest possible sense, when a human being has an 
 individuality of his own, identified with that of God in 
 the unity of all his thought and action with the divine 
 knowledge and the divine purpose. This ideal person, 
 in whom Godhead and manhood not only coexist but 
 coincide, I shall call the Christ ; but without, for the 
 purposes of this chapter, assuming his identity with the 
 Jesus of history, or indeed assuming that such a person 
 has ever lived at all. 
 
 () It may be objected to such a conception, that the 
 supposed union is impossible because no one man no 
 single individual can comprehend completely the 
 nature, and identify himself with the purpose, of God 
 the absolute mind. The knowledge and manifestation 
 of God are, it may be said, attained little by little, 
 through an infinite process of historical growth and 
 development. Not one man, but the whole of humanity 
 is necessary to reveal God ; and not humanity only, 
 since in any one class of facts God can only reveal as 
 much of his nature as that kind of fact will express. A 
 single man can only express one very limited side of the 
 divine character, which is too large to be confined within 
 the circle of a finite personality. 
 
 This objection carries great weight and seems very 
 convincing ; and it has often led to the adoption of a 
 view according to which the revelation in Jesus is only
 
 1 52 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY PT . m 
 
 one of an infinite number of revelations, each and all 
 contributing something to the total knowledge of the 
 infinite God. And yet if God is infinite and each 
 manifestation of him is finite, how can any number of 
 manifestations come any nearer to expressing his full 
 nature ? A large number of units is no nearer infinity 
 than a single one. Again, is it really justifiable to 
 describe a human personality as finite at all ? We saw 
 reason to maintain in a former chapter that a mind was 
 only definable in terms of the object of which it was 
 conscious ; and if God is infinite and man is really 
 conscious of God, it seems to follow that man thereby 
 becomes infinite. It is sometimes said that for this very 
 reason man can never know God ; but to lay down 
 a priori what a given mind can and what it cannot know 
 in virtue of its own constitution is to begin at the wrong 
 end. The mind is what it makes itself ; and its finitude 
 or infinity (if the words mean anything) consists merely 
 in its failure or success in the attainment of its desire. 
 
 The objection in fact is precisely an instance of the 
 materialistic type of thought which we criticised in a 
 former chapter. It represents God as a whole composed 
 of separate and mutually-exclusive parts, one of which 
 is handled at a time ; when humanity has examined one 
 part, it goes on to another ; and so on. Whereas God 
 is not subdivisible ; he is a true whole, with no separ- 
 able parts ; each part is an aspect of the whole, and to 
 know one " part " is to know implicitly all. The idea 
 of progressive revelation is only a new materialism. 
 
 (c ) Another objection of the same kind asserts that 
 a man whose knowledge and will were divine in content 
 would be himself only God-like, not actually one with 
 God. He would be not identical but similar. This 
 again depends on principles which we have already criti- 
 cised. It is based on abstracting the personality of a 
 mind from its content ; I am I, whatever I do and say 
 and think, and on the same terms you are you. The 
 individual self-identity of the particular mind is un-
 
 CH. i SELF-EXPRESSION OF GOD IN MAN 153 
 
 changeable and underlies all changes of activity ; and 
 therefore since A's ideas happen in A's mind and B's 
 ideas in B's mind, A and B cannot have the same con- 
 sciousness but only a similar one. 
 
 We have, as I said, already considered this view in 
 detail. Our objection to it may be put shortly by saying 
 that it admits at once too much and too little. If 
 A's consciousness is only very like B's instead of being 
 identical, there is no real communion between them ; 
 for that requires an identity. But even this inadequate 
 similarity cannot be maintained ; the same argument 
 which destroyed the identity is fatal to it also. In fact 
 this view is a compromise with materialism (in the form 
 of psychological individualism or abstract pluralism), 
 and any such compromise must be fatal to the whole 
 truth. 
 
 (d) We must maintain, then, that it is possible for a 
 human being to be identified with God in the concrete 
 sense, as having a full and real intuition of the divine 
 nature in its completeness, not of one side of it only, 
 and a full harmony and agreement with the divine will ; 
 not abandoning his own will and adopting the false 
 negativity of quietism, but acting in complete union 
 with God, so that where there might be two wills there 
 is one, not by the annihilation of one but by the activity 
 of both at once in a single purpose. Such a man would 
 be rightly described as perfect God and perfect man, 
 for the distinction would in his personality have no 
 further meaning. He would therefore show in comple- 
 tion the powers of God in thought and in action. 
 
 This last statement may cause difficulty. It seems 
 that the very fact of human life limits and circumscribes 
 the man, and makes it impossible for him to exercise 
 the full powers of the infinite mind of God. A par- 
 ticular man, it appears, cannot be omnipotent or omni- 
 scient, though he might be entirely sinless ; and there- 
 fore theories have arisen to the effect that in becoming 
 man God would find it necessary to abandon certain of
 
 i 5 4 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY 
 
 his attributes. Such a self-sacrifice seems to be an 
 additional and very strong proof of the love of God 
 towards humanity. 
 
 But it is not easy to see what can be meant by the 
 renunciation of some of the divine attributes. The life 
 of the mind is whole, without seam, woven from the top 
 throughout ; the only sense in which we can separate 
 one attribute from the others is that we may abstract it, 
 that is, have a false theory that is separate ; we can 
 never actually employ one faculty alone. The concep- 
 tion of the self-limitation of a will may in fact mean 
 two things ; either volition itself, which by accepting 
 one end involves renunciation of another, or a volition 
 in which it is determined not to will at all. Now in 
 the former sense, self-limitation or self-sacrifice is the 
 negative side of all acting ; nothing can be done at all 
 without the sacrifice of something else. Thus the 
 temptation of Jesus, for instance, represents a true self- 
 limitation ; he decides not to adopt certain courses of 
 action, not as a mere act of abstract self-sacrifice but 
 because he is determined on a course with which these 
 others are incompatible. In the second sense, self- 
 limitation cannot exist at all ; for every act of will is 
 the will to do something, and a will, whose sole end was 
 the abstract decision not to will, cannot be imagined. 
 We never, strictly speaking, decide "not to do any- 
 thing " ; when we use that phrase we always mean that 
 we decide not to do some definite thing A or B, but to 
 go on doing C. 
 
 The self-limitation of God, then, cannot be inter- 
 preted in this abstract way as the mere renunciation of 
 certain faculties. And it is not true that such things as 
 omniscience and omnipotence are "faculties" at all, 
 distinguishable from the faculties of knowing and acting 
 in general. The question is whether human life as such 
 is incompatible with the exercise of the divine attributes, 
 wisdom and goodness, at all. No impassable gulf 
 separates divine knowledge from human ; God has not,
 
 CH. i SELF-EXPRESSION OF GOD IN MAN 155 
 
 in addition to his power of knowing, another power 
 denied to man and called omniscience. Omniscience 
 is merely the name for the complete and unremitting 
 employment of the faculty of knowing. This faculty 
 man certainly possesses. If it were not so, the possi- 
 bility of a divine-human life would doubtless be at an 
 end. Man could neither know God nor obey his will ; 
 and the divine spirit could only operate in man by losing 
 all its essential character. All human thought would 
 be illusion, and all human activity sin, and to make it 
 otherwise would be beyond the power of God himself. 
 Rather than accept such conclusions, we shall do right 
 in maintaining that all God's nature, without any reser- 
 vation or abatement, is expressible in human form. 
 
 The human being in whom God is fully manifested, 
 then, must have God's powers and faculties fully 
 developed, and if fully developed then fully employed, 
 since an unemployed faculty has no real existence at all. 
 He must be omnipotent and omniscient. Whatever 
 God can know and do, he also can know and do. This 
 is a grave difficulty if we think of omnipotence and 
 omniscience in an utterly abstract way, involving such 
 things as the power to make twice two into five or the 
 knowledge of an action which has not yet been decided 
 upon. But omnipotence does not mean power to do 
 absurdities. The compulsion of another's will is such 
 an absurdity ; and therefore no real omnipotence could 
 force such a compulsion. Omnipotence is spiritual, and 
 spirit acts not by brute compulsion but by knowledge 
 and inspiration. The omnipotence of God, his kingdom 
 over men's minds, consists in their allegiance to his 
 purposes, their answer to his love, their repentance and 
 return from sin to his side. And this omnipotence 
 the universal kingdom which is planted in the hearts of 
 men can indeed be wielded by God in human form. 
 To say that God cannot compel is not to deny him 
 omnipotence ; it is to assert his positive nature as spirit. 
 But since spirit is self-creative and makes its own nature,
 
 156 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY PT.IH 
 
 this absence of compulsion is in one sense a self-limita- 
 tion of the will of God. But (i.) it is a self-limitation 
 of God as God, not of God as incarnate in man ; (ii.) it 
 is only self-limitation in the sense in which any deter- 
 mination, e.g. of a good man to abstain from taking 
 mean advantages, is a self-limitation. 
 
 In the category of knowledge we must also hold that 
 the omniscience of God is shared by the Christ in whom 
 his nature is manifested. It might be thought that 
 this was unnecessary ; that the divine man would know 
 God as he is, but would not know the things God 
 knows. But such a plea is based on the false distinction 
 between the mind and its content, the individual 
 consciousness and the knowledge of which it is conscious. 
 To know some one's mind is nothing more nor less than 
 to see eye to eye with him, to look at reality as he looks 
 at it, to know what he knows. His mind is not an 
 object in itself; it is an attitude towards the real world, 
 and to know his mind is to know and share that 
 attitude. The Christ, then, must be omniscient as 
 God is. 
 
 This again is a serious difficulty. How can an 
 individual man, whose consciousness is bounded by his 
 age and time, be omniscient or even approximate to 
 such a state? Is not that a fallacy now happily ex- 
 ploded and consigned to the theological rubbish-heap ? 
 Omniscient in a quite abstract sense the Christ cannot 
 be, just as he cannot be in the same sense omnipotent. 
 That is to say, looking at history as a succession of 
 detached events temporally distinct, he cannot know 
 the future ; future history, actions, and events gener- 
 ally he cannot foretell. But this is simply because, 
 taking history in this abstract way, the future is 
 positively undetermined, non-existent as yet, unknow- 
 able ; God himself cannot know it. On the other hand, 
 if history means the discovery of absolute truth and the 
 development of God's purposes, the divine man will 
 stand at the centre of it and know it, past and future,
 
 CH. i SELF-EXPRESSION OF GOD IN MAN 157 
 
 from within, not as a process but as a whole. This means 
 not that he will be acquainted with details of scholarship 
 and history, but that he will know as from its source 
 the essential truth at which wise men have aimed, so 
 that whatever is of permanent value in knowledge, 
 ancient or modern, is already summed up in his view 
 of the world. 
 
 If God's purposes can be as we have said really 
 hindered and blocked by evil wills, then God himself 
 cannot know in advance their detailed history. He 
 knows their ultimate fate ; he sees them as a composer 
 sees his symphony complete and perfect ; but he 
 cannot know beforehand every mistake of the per- 
 formers. Those irruptions of the evil will into God's 
 plans are no part of the unity of the world, no part of 
 the plan ; it is only by destroying them, wiping them 
 out of existence, that God's purposes can be fulfilled. 
 God himself strives against evil, does not merely look 
 down from heaven upon our conflict ; and if he does 
 not blast the wicked with the breath of his mouth, 
 neither does he set them up as mere puppets, targets 
 for virtue's archery. The existence of evil, if it can be 
 called a real abatement of God's omnipotence, is equally 
 so of his omniscience ; not merely of that of his human 
 manifestation. But as we said in a former chapter that 
 evil does not truly limit God's omnipotence, because he 
 conquers it in his own way, so the freedom of the 
 future is not truly a detriment to his omniscience. 
 
 So far, then, it seems that the expression of deity in 
 a human being is definitely possible, because in whatever 
 sense we can conceive God to be omnipotent and omni- 
 scient, in the same sense it is conceivable that his human 
 incarnation should be so. There will be no failure to 
 express in bodily form the whole fulness of God's 
 nature ; every aspect, every potentiality of his being 
 will be included in the life of the perfect man who is 
 also perfect God. 
 
 2. But if these are the relations of the Christ to
 
 158 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY 
 
 God, how shall we describe his relations with humanity ? 
 In what sense can he be called perfect man, and what is 
 the relation of his life and consciousness to those of the 
 human race in general ? 
 
 (a] The first point is the reality of his manhood. 
 There is a real difficulty in this point owing to the 
 vagueness of the term " manhood." Many Christo- 
 logical discussions suffer from lack of reflexion on this 
 point. The conception of deity is thought to be a 
 difficult and abstruse one, to elucidate which no pains 
 are sufficient ; that of humanity, on the other hand, is 
 often passed over as too simple to need investigation. 
 Yet if we ask, Does a man who is identical with God 
 thereby cease to be a man ? it is clear that he does or 
 does not according to different senses of the word. 
 Many people are ready to say that the notion of finitude, 
 fallibility, sinfulness, is " contained in the very idea of 
 manhood." If that is really so, then the perfect man 
 cannot be called a man ; and any man becomes less and 
 less human as he becomes better and better. If, on the 
 other hand, we mean by man nothing more than a person 
 living in human relations, then the perfect man is clearly 
 a man among his fellow-men ; a better man, but a man. 
 The question is what name we give to manhood purged 
 of its imperfections ; and so far, it is a merely verbal 
 question. 
 
 But the point at issue is not entirely verbal. Granted 
 his divinity, his perfection and absoluteness, it may be 
 said, he cannot be the member of a society in which 
 every part is limited by and dovetailed into every other. 
 He will burst the bonds of any society into which he is 
 put ; and inasmuch as he is anti-social in this way he 
 cannot be called a man among men. After what we 
 have already said, this argument need not detain us 
 long. It is true that he will certainly burst the bonds 
 of any society, that his appearance heralds the overthrow 
 of the world's powers, that he comes to bring a sword. 
 But it is society that is anti-social, and not he ; he
 
 CH. i SELF-EXPRESSION OF GOD IN MAN 159 
 
 destroys it because of his humanity and its inhuman 
 mechanisms and deadnesses. Destruction must always 
 be the effect of any new truth or new impulse ; but 
 what it destroys is man's idolatries, not man himself. 
 
 The most important difficulty in the way of con- 
 ceiving the Christ as truly human is in the last resort 
 identical with that which formed the subject of our last 
 section (i, d}. As long as human and divine nature are 
 regarded simply as different sets or groups of qualities, 
 to assert their inherence in one individual is really 
 meaningless, as if we should assert the existence of a 
 geometrical figure which was both a square and a circle. 
 This does not mean that those who asserted "two 
 natures in one person " were wrong ; but it does mean 
 that they were trying to express a truth in terms that 
 simply would not express it. If any one said that he did 
 not see how such a union of natures could take place, 
 he was necessarily told that it was a mystery past under- 
 standing. But the mystery, the element which baffles 
 the intellect, lies not at all in the truth to be expressed, 
 but solely in its expression by improper language ; that 
 is to say, the combination with it of presuppositions 
 which contradict it. We start by assuming human 
 nature to be one definite thing and divine nature 
 another ; and the language which is framed on such 
 a basis can never serve to express intelligibly the fact 
 which it implicitly denies, namely the union of the two. 
 This assumption we have by now criticised and found 
 to be inadequate ; we have rejected the idea of a mind 
 as having a " nature " of its own in distinction from 
 what it does ; and by doing so we have removed in 
 advance the abstract argument that a divine person, by 
 his very nature, cannot be truly and completely human. 
 
 () But the impulse of the divine spirit is not 
 exhausted by any one man. His followers, so far as 
 they attain discipleship, share his spirit and his life ; his 
 knowledge of God becomes theirs, and his identification 
 of God's will with his own is also theirs. To this extent
 
 160 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY 
 
 they have precisely the relation to him which he has to 
 God ; and through him they attain the same relation to 
 God in which he lives. That is to say, their mind actually 
 becomes one with his mind, his mind lives in them and 
 they in him. This must be true of every one who 
 learns from him and follows him. The union with 
 God which he enjoys is imparted to them ; they become 
 he, and in so doing they equally with him become God. 
 
 Here again, we do not ask whether anybody has 
 ever attained discipleship in this absolute degree ; we 
 merely say that if any one did truly follow the light 
 given by the divine incarnation he would live literally 
 in God and God in him ; there would be no more 
 "division of substance" than there is between the 
 Father and the Son. Thus the Christ appears as 
 Mediator of the divine life ; he enjoys that life to the 
 full himself, and imparts it fully to his disciples. 
 Through learning of him and following him it is possible 
 to attain, by his mediation, the same divine life which 
 we see in him. 
 
 (t) But such a union of life with life can hardly be 
 confined to the definite disciples of any historical person. 
 Among the countless numbers who know nothing of 
 his life as a historic fact, to whom his words and example 
 have never penetrated, are certainly many who have 
 true knowledge of reality and the real attainment of a 
 good life. What is the relation of these to the divine 
 incarnation ? 
 
 The spirit of truth is not circumscribed by the limits 
 of space and time. If a real community of life is 
 possible between two men who share each other's out- 
 ward presence and inward thoughts, it is possible no 
 less between two who have never met ; between the 
 ancient poet and his modern reader, or the dead 
 scientist and the living man who continues his work. 
 The earlier in point of time lives on in the life of the 
 later ; each deriving the benefit from such intercourse. 
 Even if we did not suppose the individual conscious-
 
 CH. i SELF-EXPRESSION OF GOD IN MAN 161 
 
 ness of the dead to remain with us, we should at least 
 admit that all that was left of them their work profits 
 by our carrying it on ; and we profit by using it as our 
 starting-point. In this sense there is a real community 
 between the Christ and the predecessors whose lives 
 have, historically speaking, led up to and made possible 
 his own. 
 
 Again, there is a union of mind between persons 
 who are in the order of history unaware of each other's 
 existence ; between Hebrew prophet and Greek philo- 
 sopher; between two scientists who cannot read each 
 other's language. This union consists in the fact that 
 both are dealing with the same problems ; for in so far 
 as any two minds are conscious of the same reality, they 
 are the same mind. Thus there is a certain spiritual 
 intercourse between men who have no outward point of 
 contact whatever ; and even if it is true, as Aristotle 
 says, that bodily presence is the fulfilment of friendship, 
 men may still be friends when neither knows the 
 other's name. 
 
 The life of the Christ then is shared not only by his 
 professed disciples but by all who know truth and lead 
 a good life ; all such participate in the life of God and 
 in that of his human incarnation. But whereas we say 
 that his disciples enjoy the divine life through his 
 mediation, it seems at first sight that we cannot speak 
 of mediation in this other case. If mediation means 
 simply example and instruction of one historical person 
 by another, that is true. But there is no ultimate 
 difference between the two cases. In each case the 
 spirit of God, whose presence in the heart is truth, is 
 shared by men as it was shared by the Christ ; and to 
 speak of reaching him through God or God through 
 him is to introduce a conception of process or transition 
 which is really indefensible. As the disciple finds God 
 in the Christ, so the non-disciple finds the Christ in God ; 
 in the fact that he knows God he is already one with the 
 Christ whom, "according to the flesh," he does not know. 
 
 M
 
 1 62 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY PT.IH 
 
 The conception of mediation, then, does not stand 
 in the last resort. The experience which it designates 
 is perfectly real ; but the word itself implies a division 
 of the indivisible. We speak of reaching God through 
 Christ when we rather mean that we find him In Christ. 
 And therefore the relation of the Christ to those who 
 do not know him as a historical man is as intimate, 
 granted that in their ignorance they do lead a life of 
 truth and endeavour, as his union with those who call 
 themselves his followers. In the language of religion, 
 he saves not only his disciples but those who lived 
 before his birth and those who never knew his name. 
 
 3. Whether such an incarnation has ever happened 
 at all is, we repeat, a question for history. And if 
 so, it is equally for history to decide whether it has 
 happened once or many times. But on this question 
 certain a priori points must be considered. There are 
 certain arguments which seem to prove the plurality of 
 incarnations. 
 
 (a) The first is the pantheistic argument. God is 
 exemplified not simply in one man but in everything. 
 There is no fact which does not reveal God to any one 
 who is able to see him there. And consequently it is 
 idle to talk of one final revelation. There are countless 
 revelations. 
 
 This is almost a restatement of the view in I, b, 
 which required an infinite number of revelations to 
 express the infinite aspects of God's character. It 
 springs from the thought that since God is all, every 
 individual reality has an equal right to stand as a revela- 
 tion of him. This is the view which we define as 
 Pantheism. Our answer to that general position is that 
 God is not every isolated thing, but only that which is 
 good and true ; or, which comes, as we have seen, to 
 the same thing, reality as a whole, in an ordered and 
 coherent system. That which is good reveals God 
 directly ; that which is evil reveals him indeed no less, 
 but only indirectly, through its relations with the good.
 
 CH.I SELF-EXPRESSION OF GOD IN MAN 163 
 
 A wicked man does not, by his wickedness, reveal the 
 nature of God ; but if we understood the whole history, 
 the beginning and end, of his sins, we should realise 
 that he, no less than the good, stands as an example 
 of God's dealings with the world. 
 
 (^) Secondly, there is a logical argument. God is 
 regarded from this point of view as the universal, and 
 man as the particular. Now every particular expresses 
 the universal, and each expresses it completely. The 
 whole universal is expressed in each particular, and the 
 whole of the particular expresses the universal and 
 nothing else. Every particular number is equally an 
 example of number, and nothing but number. Therefore 
 every man really expresses the universal, God, equally 
 well. It may be that one particular expresses it to us 
 more clearly than another by reason of certain con- 
 ventionalities and habits of our mind ; as for instance a 
 schoolboy might be unable to prove of a cardboard 
 triangle what he can perfectly well prove of one in chalk 
 on the blackboard. But this is a fault of the schoolboy, 
 and no merit in the chalk triangle. One particular may 
 seem to represent the universal in so uniquely perfect 
 a way that it and it alone may be taken as the full 
 representation of it ; but this is never really a justifiable 
 proceeding. It is a prejudice and an error. 
 
 On the other hand, the universal itself, which as a 
 matter of fact exists only in various particulars, is 
 sometimes falsely conceived as if it were itself another 
 particular ; and thus arises the notion of an archetype 
 or ideal specimen of a class, to which every less perfect 
 member is an approximation. These two tendencies of 
 false logic, the tendency to elevate one particular into the 
 standard and only real instance of a universal, and the 
 tendency to hypostasise the universal into a perfect and 
 ideal particular, together give (it is supposed) the rationale 
 of the process by which one man has been elevated into 
 the sole and perfect revelation of the divine. The 
 truth rather is (according to this view) that every man,
 
 164 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY FT. m 
 
 as a particular instance of the nature of spirit, whose 
 universal is God, is equally an instance of that nature 
 and a manifestation of the essence of God. 
 
 This view is based on assuming that God is the 
 universal of which man is the particular. But this can 
 hardly be the case ; for God and man would then be as 
 inseparable as triangularity from a given triangle. The 
 fact of evil, that is to say, the alienation of man from 
 God, becomes on such a view mere nonsense, as if one 
 should talk of the de-triangularising of triangles. The 
 assumption involved, that every man as such is completely 
 and in the fullest sense divine, begs the question at issue. 
 Indeed it is an unwarranted assumption that because we 
 call a given set of individuals men therefore they equally 
 well manifest even the nature of men. If human 
 nature means virtues what man ought to be it is 
 not common to every man equally. Some men in that 
 sense are human and others inhuman. And if it merely 
 means the bare qualities which every man has in 
 common, such qualities considered in abstraction are 
 nothing definite at all ; for the quality which one man 
 makes a means to crime another may use as a means to 
 virtue ; and the crime or the virtue are the really 
 important things, the character of the individual men. 
 But these are not common to all men, and therefore not 
 " human nature " in this sense. In fact there is no 
 such thing as human nature in the sense of a definite 
 body of characteristics common to every one, and if 
 there were it would not be by any means the same thing 
 as God. 
 
 If the universal is a quality or attribute exemplified 
 by individuals which are called its particulars, according 
 to the doctrine of logic, then the relation between God 
 and men is not one of universal and particular. If God 
 were considered as simply the quality goodness instead 
 of being a person, then he would be the universal of all 
 good actions ; but on .that account he would not be the 
 universal of bad ones, and since bad actions are real acts
 
 CH. i SELF-EXPRESSION OF GOD IN MAN 165 
 
 of will, God would not be the universal of minds as 
 such. The ordinary logical conception of the universal, 
 the one quality of many things, is in fact inapplicable 
 to the relation between God and other minds. And 
 therefore we cannot argue that any particular mind 
 shows the nature of God as well as any other. The 
 question to be asked about mind is not what it is, but 
 what it does ; a question with which the logic of things 
 and qualities does not deal. 
 
 (f) Beyond these objections the question of Christ's 
 uniqueness passes into the region of history. It is only 
 necessary to add one warning : that if he is the means 
 of communicating the divine life to man and raising 
 man into union with God, the very success of his mission 
 will in one sense destroy his uniqueness. Any one who 
 fully learns his teacher's lesson has become spiritually 
 one with his teacher ; and therefore the teacher's 
 experience of the truth is no longer unique. The 
 teacher remains unique only as the first discoverer of 
 the truth in the order of time, or as the mediator of it 
 in the order of education ; in the completion of his life 
 this uniqueness disappears into absolute unity with his 
 disciples. If therefore we try to define the uniqueness 
 of the Christ in such a way as to make his experience 
 incapable of real communication to man, we shall be 
 preserving his divinity at the expense of his humanity, 
 and making the supposed manifestation of God to man 
 an illusion. The revelation any revelation sets 
 before us an ideal ; if the ideal is not literally and com- 
 pletely capable of attainment, it is not an ideal at all. 
 It is an ignis fatuus. 
 
 But if this is so, it will be asked, why does 
 history tell us of one and only one life in which it has 
 been fully attained ? Does not the isolated position of 
 Jesus Christ in history, his infinite moral superiority to 
 all the saints, prove that there was in his nature some 
 element that is denied to us ; and are we not driven by 
 the facts to suppose that his uniqueness lay not so much
 
 1 66 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY FT. m 
 
 in the use he made of human faculties as in the possession 
 of superhuman ? 
 
 To this we must reply that the possession by any 
 person of faculties inherently different, whether in nature 
 or integrity, from our own, makes our attempts to live 
 his life not merely vain but unreasonable ; as if a man 
 should emulate the strength of an elephant or a hereditary 
 consumptive the physique of his untainted ancestors. 
 If it is answered that these higher faculties can indeed 
 be possessed by man, but only as bestowed by divine 
 grace, we shall reply that this is exactly the position we 
 have been maintaining : for we believe that a man's 
 human nature consists in no definite and circumscribed 
 group of qualities, but precisely in those achievements 
 to which the divine grace may lead him, or those sins 
 into which he may fall by the rejection of such guidance. 
 But to explain why one man attains and another fails is 
 no part of our task. 
 
 (*/) The Christ has absolute experience of the 
 nature of God and lives in absolute free obedience to 
 his will. So far as anybody attains these ideals in the 
 pursuit of truth and duty, he shares the experience 
 with Christ in absolute union with him, that is, with 
 God. Such moments of attainment, in even the 
 greatest men, are no doubt rare ; but they are the 
 metal of life which, when the reckoning is made, is 
 separated from the dross and is alone worth calling life 
 at all. Separate out from the total of experience all 
 errors, all failures, all sins ; and the gold that is left 
 will be entirely one with the Christ-life. We thus see 
 from a new point of view the absolute unity of Christ 
 and God ; for, as we said earlier, God is the reality of 
 the world conceived as a whole which in its self-realisa- 
 tion and impulse towards unity purges out of itself all 
 evil and error. History regarded in that way not as 
 a mere bundle of events but as a process of the solution 
 of problems and the overcoming of difficulties is 
 altogether summed up in the infinite personality of
 
 CH. i SELF-EXPRESSION OF GOD IN MAN 167 
 
 God ; and we can now see that it is equally summed 
 up in the infinite personality of the God-Man. 
 
 If Christ is thus the epitome, the summary and 
 ordered whole, of history, the same is true of every 
 man in his degree. The attainment of any real truth 
 is an event, doubtless, in time, and capable of being 
 catalogued in the chronologies of abstract history ; but 
 the truth itself is not historically circumscribed. A 
 man may come to know God through a sudden 
 "revelation" or "conversion"; but God is the same 
 now and for ever. In the knowledge of God, then, 
 which means in all true knowledge, man comes into 
 touch with something out of time, something to which 
 time makes no difference. And since knowledge of 
 God is union with God, he does not merely see an 
 extra-temporal reality ; he does not merely glance 
 through breaking mists at the battlements of eternity, 
 as Moses saw the promised land from the hill of re- 
 nunciation. By his knowledge of eternity he is one 
 with eternity ; he has set himself in the centre of all 
 time and all existence, free from the changes and 
 the flux of things. He has entered into the life of 
 God, and in becoming one with God he is already 
 beyond the shadow of changing and the bitterness 
 of death. 
 
 There is a faint analogue to this immortality in the 
 work by which a man leaves something of himself 
 visibly present on earth. The workman in a cathedral 
 sets his own mark upon the whole and leaves his 
 monument in the work of his hands. He passes away, 
 but his work his expressed thought, his testimony to 
 the glory of God remains enshrined in stone. Even 
 that is liable to decay, and in time such earthly immor- 
 tality is as if it had never been. But if a man has 
 won his union with the mind of God, has known God's 
 thought and served God's purpose in any of the count- 
 less ways in which it can be served, his monument is 
 not something that stands for an age when he is dead.
 
 1 68 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY PT . m 
 
 It is his own new and perfected life ; something that in 
 its very nature cannot pass away, except by desertion of 
 the achieved ideal. This is the statue of the perfect 
 man, more perennial than bronze ; the life in a house 
 not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN 
 
 i. WHATEVER else is involved in the doctrine of 
 the Atonement, it includes at least this : that the sins 
 of man are forgiven by God. And here at the very 
 outset a difficulty arises which must be faced before the 
 doctrine can be further developed. Forgiveness and 
 punishment are generally conceived as two alternative 
 ways of treating a wrongdoer. We may punish any 
 particular criminal, or we may forgive him ; and the 
 question always is, which is the right course of action. 
 On the one hand, however, punishment seems to be not 
 a conditional but an absolute duty ; and to neglect it is 
 definitely wrong. Justice in man consists at least in 
 punishing the guilty, and the conception of a just God 
 similarly emphasises his righteous infliction of penalties 
 upon those who break his laws. The very idea of 
 punishment is not that it is sometimes right and some- 
 times wrong or indifferent, but that its infliction is an 
 inexorable demand of duty. 
 
 On the other hand, forgiveness is presented as an 
 equally vital duty for man and an equally definite 
 characteristic of God. This, again, is not conditional. 
 The ideal of forgiveness is subject to no restrictions. 
 The divine precept does not require us to forgive, say, 
 seven times and then turn on the offender for reprisals. 
 Forgiveness must be applied unequivocally to every 
 offence alike. 
 
 Here, then, we have an absolute contradiction 
 169
 
 1 70 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY 
 
 between two opposing ideals of conduct. And the 
 result of applying the antithesis to the doctrine of 
 atonement is equally fatal whichever horn of the 
 dilemma is accepted. Either punishment is right and 
 forgiveness wrong, or forgiveness is right and punish- 
 ment wrong. If punishment is right, then the doctrine 
 that God forgives our sins is illusory and immoral ; 
 it ascribes to God the weakness of a doting father who 
 spares the rod and spoils the child. If punishment is 
 wrong, then the conception of a punishing God is a 
 mere barbarism of primitive theology, and atonement is 
 no mystery, no divine grace, but simply the belated 
 recognition by theology that its God is a moral being. 
 Thus regarded, the Atonement becomes either a fallacy 
 or a truism. 
 
 And it is common enough, in the abstract and hasty 
 thought which in every age passes for modern, to find 
 the conception of atonement dismissed in this way. 
 But such thought generally breaks down in two different 
 directions. In its cavalier treatment of a doctrine, it 
 ignores the real weight of thought and experience that 
 has gone to the development of the theory, or broadly 
 condemns it as illusion and dreams ; and secondly, it 
 proceeds without sufficient speculative analysis of its 
 own conceptions, with a confidence based in the last 
 resort upon ignorance. The historian of thought will 
 develop the first of these objections; our aim is to 
 consider the second. 
 
 The dilemma which has been applied to theology 
 must, of course, equally apply to moral or political philo- 
 sophy. In order to observe it at work, we must see 
 what results it produces there. Punishment and for- 
 giveness are things we find in our own human society ; 
 and unless we are to make an end of theology, religion, 
 and philosophy by asserting that there is no relation 
 between the human and the divine, we must try to 
 explain each by what we know of the other. 
 
 (a) The first solution of the dilemma, then, might be
 
 GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN 171 
 
 to maintain that punishment is an absolute duty and 
 forgiveness positively wrong. We cannot escape the 
 rigour of this conclusion by supposing forgiveness to be 
 " non-moral," for we cannot evade moral issues ; the 
 possibility of forgiveness only arises in cases where 
 punishment is also an alternative, and if punishment is 
 always right, then forgiveness must always be a crime. 
 
 Forgiveness, on this view, is a sentimental weakness, 
 a mere neglect of the duty to punish. It is due to 
 misguided partiality towards an offender ; and instead 
 of cancelling or wiping out his crime, endorses it by 
 committing another. Now this is a view which might 
 conceivably be held ; and if consistently held would be 
 difficult to refute, without such a further examination 
 of the conceptions involved as we shall undertake later. 
 At this stage we can only point out that it does not 
 deserve the name of an ethical theory ; because it em- 
 phasises one fact in the moral consciousness and arbit- 
 rarily ignores others. The fact is that people do forgive, 
 and feel that they are acting morally in so doing. They 
 distinguish quite clearly in their own minds between 
 forgiving a crime and sentimentally overlooking or con- 
 doning it. Now the theory does not merely ignore this 
 fact, but it implicitly or even, if pressed, explicitly 
 denies it. To a person who protested " But I am con- 
 vinced that it is a duty to forgive," it would reply, 
 " Then you are wrong ; it is a crime." And if asked why 
 it is a crime, the theory would explain, " Because it is 
 inconsistent with the duty to punish." But the duty to 
 punish rests on the same basis as the duty to forgive ; 
 it is a pronouncement of the moral consciousness. All 
 the theory does is to assume quite uncritically that the 
 moral consciousness is right in the one case and wrong 
 in the other ; whereas the reverse is equally possible. 
 The two duties may be contradictory, but they rest on 
 the same basis ; and the argument which discredits one 
 discredits the other too. 
 
 () The same difficulty applies to the other horn of
 
 1 72 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY . , 
 
 the dilemma, according to which forgiveness is always 
 right and punishment always wrong. Just as we cannot 
 say that forgiveness is a crime because punishment is 
 a duty, so we cannot say that punishment is a crime 
 because forgiveness is a duty. But the theory of the 
 immorality of punishment has been worked out rather 
 more fully than is (I believe) the case with the theory 
 of the immorality of forgiveness. 
 
 (i.) Just as forgiveness was identified with sentimental 
 condoning of an offence, so punishment has been equated 
 with personal revenge. This view has been plausibly 
 expressed in terms of evolution by the hypothesis that 
 revenge for injuries has been gradually, in the progress 
 of civilisation, organised and centralised by state con- 
 trol ; so that instead of a vendetta we nowadays have 
 recourse to a lawsuit as our means of reprisal on those 
 who have done us wrong. But such a statement over- 
 looks the fact that punishment is not revenge in the 
 simple and natural sense of that word. The difference 
 is as plain as that between forgiveness and the neglect of 
 the duty to punish. Revenge is a second crime which 
 does nothing to mitigate the first ; punishment is not a 
 crime but something which we feel to be a duty. The 
 " state organisation of revenge " really means the annihi- 
 lation or supersession of revenge and the substitution for 
 it of equitable punishment. And if we ask how this 
 miracle has happened, the only answer is that people 
 have come to see that revenge is wrong and so have 
 given it up. 
 
 (ii.) A less crude theory of punishment as merely 
 selfish is the view which describes it as deterrent, as a 
 means of self-preservation on the part of society. We 
 are told that crime in general is detrimental to social 
 well-being (or, according to more thorough-going forms 
 of the conception, what is found to be detrimental is 
 arbitrarily called crime), and therefore society inflicts 
 certain penalties on criminals in order to deter them and 
 others from further anti-social acts. It is the function
 
 CH. ii GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN 173 
 
 of "justice" to determine what amount of terror is 
 necessary in order to prevent the crime. 
 
 Punishment so explained is not moral. We punish 
 not because it is a duty but because it preserves us 
 against certain dangers. A person has done us an injury, 
 and we maltreat him, not out of a spirit of revenge, far 
 from it, but in order to frighten others who may wish 
 to imitate him. The condemned criminal is regarded 
 as a marauder nailed in terrorem to the barn-door. One 
 feels inclined to ask how such a combination of cruelty 
 and selfishness can possibly be justified in civilised 
 societies ; and if the theory is still possessed by a linger- 
 ing desire to justify punishment, it will perhaps reply 
 that the criminal has " forfeited his right " to considerate 
 treatment. Which means either that he has cut himself 
 off from our society altogether (which he plainly has not) 
 or that there is nothing wrong in being cruel to a 
 criminal ; which is monstrous. If society is trying to 
 be moral at all, it has duties towards a criminal as much 
 as towards any one else. It may deny the duties, and 
 have its criminals eaten by wild beasts for its amuse- 
 ment, or tortured for its increased security ; perhaps the 
 former is the less revolting practice ; but in either case 
 society is demonstrating its own corruption. 
 
 The deterrent theory, then, must not be used as a 
 justification, but only as an impeachment, of punishment. 
 But even if punishment is, as the theory maintains, a 
 purely selfish activity, it must still be justified in a sense; 
 not by its Tightness but by its success. The question 
 therefore is whether as a matter of fact punishment does 
 deter. Now a "just" penalty, on this theory, is defined 
 as one which is precisely sufficient to deter. If it does 
 not deter, it is condemned as giving insufficient protection 
 to society, and therefore unjust. Society will accordingly 
 increase it, and this increase will continue till a balance 
 is established and the crime is stamped out. Those 
 crimes therefore happen oftenest whose statutable penalties 
 are most in defect of this ideal balance. The fact that
 
 i 74 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY n .m 
 
 they happen proves that the penalty is inadequate. 
 Therefore, if the deterrent view is correct, society must 
 be anxious to increase these penalties. But we do not 
 find that this is the case. If criminal statistics show an 
 increase, we do not immediately increase the penalties. 
 Still less do we go on increasing them further and further 
 until the crime is no longer attractive. If we may argue 
 from empirical evidence, such as the infliction of the 
 death-penalty for petty thefts, it is simply not the case 
 that increased severity necessarily diminishes crime ; and 
 yet on the theory it ought to do so. On the contrary, it 
 sometimes appears that higher penalties go with greater 
 frequency. To reply to this that the frequency of 
 crime is the cause, not the effect, of the greater severity, 
 would be to confess the failure of punishment as deter- 
 rent ; for, on that view, severity ought to be the cause of 
 infrequency y not the effect of frequency. The plea would 
 amount to a confession that we cannot, as is supposed, con- 
 trol the amount of crime by the degree of punishment. 
 
 Thus the view that punishment is a selfish act of 
 society to secure its own safety against crime breaks 
 down. Its plausibility depends on the truth that the 
 severity of punishments is somehow commensurate with 
 the badness of the crime ; that there is a connexion of 
 degree between the two. If we ask how this equation 
 is brought about, the theory disappears at once. In 
 punishment we do not try to hurt a man as much as he 
 has hurt us ; or even as much as may induce him not 
 to hurt us. The " amount " of punishment is fixed by 
 one standard only ; what we suppose him to deserve. 
 This is difficult to define exactly, and common practice 
 represents only a very rough approximation to it ; but 
 it is that, not anything else, at which the approximation 
 aims. And the conception of desert reintroduces into 
 punishment the moral criterion which the theory tried 
 to banish from it. To aim at giving a man the punish- 
 ment he deserves implies that he does deserve it, and 
 therefore that it is our duty to give it him.
 
 CH.II GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN 175 
 
 (c) Both these escapes, therefore, have failed. We 
 cannot say that either punishment or forgiveness is 
 wrong, and thus vindicate the necessity of the other. 
 Though contradictory they are both imperative. Nor 
 can we make them apply to different cases ; maintaining 
 for instance that we should forgive the repentant and 
 punish the obdurate. If we only forgive a man after 
 he has repented, that is to say, put away his guilt 
 and become good once more, the idea of forgiveness 
 is a mockery. The very conception of forgiveness 
 is that it should be our treatment of the guilty as 
 
 lor can we escape by an abstraction distinguishing 
 the sinner from the sin. We punish not the sin, but 
 the sinner for his sin ; and we forgive not the sinner 
 distinguished from his sin, but identified with it and 
 manifested in it. If we punish the sin, we must forgive 
 the sin too : if we forgive the sinner, we must equally 
 punish him. 
 
 2. This absolute contradiction between the two 
 duties can only be soluble in one way. A contradiction 
 of any kind is soluble either by discovering one member 
 of it to be false, an expedient which has already been 
 tried, or by showing that the two are not really, as 
 we had supposed, incompatible. This is true, whether 
 the contradiction is between two judgments of fact or 
 between two duties or so-called "judgments of value" ; 
 for if it is axiomatic that two contradictory judgments 
 cannot both be true, it is equally axiomatic that two 
 incompatible courses of action cannot both be obligatory. 
 This fact may be obscured by saying that on certain 
 occasions we are faced with two alternatives of which 
 each is a duty, but the question is which is the greater 
 duty. But the " greater duty " is a phrase without 
 meaning. In the supposed case the distinction is 
 between this which we ought to do, and that which we 
 ought not ; the distinction between ought and ought not 
 is not a matter of degree.
 
 i 7 6 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY FT. m 
 
 Granted, then, that in any given situation there can 
 be only one duty, it follows necessarily that if of two 
 actions each is really obligatory the two actions must be 
 the same. We are therefore compelled to hold that 
 punishment and forgiveness, so far from being incom- 
 patible duties, are really when properly understood 
 identical. This may seem impossible ; but as yet we 
 have defined neither conception, and this we must now 
 proceed to do. 
 
 (a) Punishment consists in the infliction of deserved 
 suffering on an offender. But it is not yet clear what 
 suffering is inflicted, and how it is fixed, beyond the 
 bare fact that it must be deserved. If we ask, Why is 
 that particular sort and amount of pain inflicted on this 
 particular man? the answer, "That is what he deserves," 
 no doubt conveys the truth, but it does not fully explain 
 it. It is not immediately clear without further thought 
 that this must be the right punishment. Punishment is 
 fixed not by a self-evident and inexplicable intuition, 
 but by some motive or process of thought which we 
 must try to analyse. The conception of desert proves 
 that this motive is moral ; and it remains to ask what 
 is the moral attitude towards a crime or criminal. 
 
 If we take the case of a misdeed of our own and 
 consider the attitude of our better moments towards it, 
 we see that this attitude is one of condemnation. It is 
 the act of a good will declaring its hostility to a bad one. 
 This feeling of rejection, condemnation, or hostility is 
 in fact the necessary attitude of all good wills towards 
 all evil acts. The moral action of the person who 
 punishes, therefore, consists primarily in this condemna- 
 tion. Further, the condemnation, in our own case, is 
 the act in and through which we effect our liberation or 
 alienation from the evil, and our adherence to the good. 
 If a person is in a state of sin, that he should feel hostility 
 towards his own sin is necessary to his moral salvation ; 
 he cannot become good except by condemning his own 
 crime. The condemnation of the crime is not the
 
 CH.II GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN 177 
 
 means to goodness ; it is the manifestation of the new 
 good will. 
 
 The condemnation of evil is the necessary manifesta- 
 tion of all good wills. If A has committed, a crime, B, 
 if he is a moral person, condemns it. And this con- 
 demnation he will express to A if he is in social relations 
 with him ; for social relations consist of sharing thoughts 
 and activities so far as possible. If B is successful in 
 communicating his condemnation to A, A will thereupon 
 share it ; for A's knowledge that B condemns him, 
 apart from his agreement in the condemnation, is not 
 really a case of communication. But if A shares the 
 condemnation he substitutes in that act a good will for 
 an evil. The process is now complete ; A's sin, B's 
 condemnation, B's expression to A of his feelings, A's 
 conversion and repentance. This is the inevitable result 
 of social relations between the two persons, granting that 
 A's will is good and that the relations are maintained. 
 
 Now this self-expression of a good will towards a 
 bad is, I think, what we mean by the duty of punish- 
 ment. It is no doubt the case that we describe many 
 things as punishment in which we can hardly recognise 
 these features at all. But examination of such cases 
 shows that precisely so far as these facts are not present, 
 so far as the punishment does not express moral feelings, 
 and does not aim in some degree at the self-conviction 
 of the criminal so far, we are inclined to doubt whether 
 it is a duty at all, and not a convention, a farce, or a 
 crime. We conclude, therefore, that punishment the 
 only punishment we can attribute to God or to a good 
 man is the expression to a criminal of the punisher's 
 moral attitude towards him. Hence punishment is an 
 absolute duty ; since not to feel that attitude would be 
 to share his crime, and not to express it would be a 
 denial of social relations, an act of hypocrisy. 
 
 (b) The pain inflicted on the criminal, then, is not 
 the pain of evil consequences, recoiling from his action 
 in the course of nature or by the design of God or man 
 
 N
 
 178 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY PT . m 
 
 upon his own head ; still less is it the mere regret for 
 having done something which involves himself or others 
 in such consequences. These things are not punishment 
 at all, and ought never to be confused with it, though 
 they may well be incidental to it. The pain of punish- 
 ment is simply the pain of self-condemnation or moral 
 repentance ; the renunciation of one aim and the turning 
 of the will to another. That is what we try to inflict 
 upon him ; and any other, incidental pains are merely 
 the means by which we express to him our attitude and 
 will. But why, it may be asked, should these inci- 
 dental pains be necessary ? Why should they be the 
 only means of communicating such feelings ? The 
 answer is that they are not. The most perfect punish- 
 ments involve no " incidental " pains at all. The 
 condemnation is expressed simply and quietly in words, 
 and goes straight home. The punishment consists in 
 expression of condemnation and that alone ; and to 
 punish with a word instead of a blow is still punishment. 
 It is, perhaps, a better and more civilised form of 
 punishment ; it indicates a higher degree of intelligence 
 and a more delicate social organisation. If a criminal 
 is extremely coarsened and brutalised, we have to 
 express our feelings in a crude way by cutting him off 
 from the privileges of a society to whose moral aims he 
 has shown himself hostile ; but if we are punishing a 
 child, the tongue is a much more efficient weapon than 
 the stick. 
 
 Nor does the refinement of the penalty end there. 
 It is possible to punish without the word of rebuke ; to 
 punish by saying nothing at all, or by an act of kind- 
 ness. Here again, we cannot refuse the name of 
 punishment because no " physical suffering " is inflicted. 
 The expression of moral feelings, or the attitude of the 
 good will to the bad, may take any form which the 
 wrongdoer can understand. In fact, it is possible t9 
 hold that we often use " strong measures " when a word 
 or a kind action would do just as well, or better. " If
 
 GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN 179 
 
 thine enemy hunger, feed him ; for in so doing thou 
 shalt heap coals of fire on his head." Sentimentalists 
 have recoiled in horror from such a refinement of 
 brutality, not realising that to heap coals of fire, the 
 fires of repentance, upon the head of the wrongdoer is 
 the desire of all who wish to save his soul, not to 
 perpetuate and endorse his crime. 
 
 But at this stage of the conception we should find it 
 hard to discriminate between punishment and forgive- 
 ness. If punishment is to express condemnation, it 
 must be the condemnation of a bad will by a good one. 
 That is to say, it is the self-expression of a good will, 
 and that good will is expressed as truly in the act of 
 kindness as in the block and gallows. But if the 
 punisher's will really is good, he continues, however 
 severe his measures, to wish for the welfare and regenera- 
 tion of the criminal. He punishes him not wholly with 
 a view to " his good," because the punishment is not 
 consciously undertaken as a means to an end, but as the 
 spontaneous expression of a moral will ; yet the aim of 
 that will is not the criminal's mutilation or suffering as 
 such but the awakening of his moral consciousness. And 
 to treat the criminal as a fellow-man capable of reforma- 
 tion, to feel still one's social relation and duty towards 
 him, is surely the attitude which we call forgiveness. 
 
 If forgiveness means remission of the penalty, it is 
 impossible to a moral will. For the penalty is simply 
 the judgment ; it is the expression of the moral will's 
 own nature. If forgiveness means the remission of the 
 more violent forms of self-expression on the part of 
 the good will, then such restraint is not only still 
 punishment but may be the most acute and effective 
 form of it. But if forgiveness means as it properly 
 does the wise and patient care for the criminal's 
 welfare, for his regeneration and recovery into the life 
 of a good society, then there is no distinction whatever 
 between forgiveness and punishment. 
 
 (c) Punishment and forgiveness are thus not only
 
 180 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY CT . m 
 
 compatible but identical ; each is a name for the one 
 and only right attitude of a good will towards a man 
 of evil will. The details of the self-expression vary 
 according to circumstances ; and when we ask, " Shall 
 we punish this man or forgive him ? " we are really 
 considering whether we shall use this or that method of 
 expressing what is in either case equally punishment 
 and forgiveness. The only important distinction we 
 make between the two words is this : they refer to the 
 same attitude of mind, but they serve to distinguish it 
 from different ways of erring. When we describe an 
 attitude as one of forgiveness, we mean to distinguish 
 it, as right, from that brutality or unintelligent severity 
 (punishment falsely so called) which inflicts pain either 
 in mere wantonness or without considering the possi- 
 bility of a milder expression. When we call it punish- 
 ment, we distinguish it as right from that weakness or 
 sentimentality (forgiveness falsely so called) which 
 by shrinking from the infliction of pain amounts to 
 condonation of the original offence. 
 
 3. The identity of punishment and forgiveness 
 removes the preliminary difficulty in the way of any 
 doctrine of atonement. So far as we can now under- 
 stand God's attitude towards sin, it may be expressed 
 thus. 
 
 God's attitude towards the sins of men must be one 
 which combines condemnation of the sinful will with 
 love and hope for it ; these two being combined not as 
 externally connected and internally inconsistent elements 
 of a state of mind, but as being the single necessary 
 expression of his perfect nature towards natures less 
 perfect, but regarded as capable of perfection. This 
 attitude on the part of God is, further, the means of 
 man's redemption ; for by understanding God's attitude 
 towards sin man comes himself to share in that attitude, 
 and ^is thus converted to a new life in harmony with 
 God's good will. 
 
 Here we seem to have a relation involving two
 
 GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN 181 
 
 separate activities, the divine and the human. On the 
 one hand there is the initiation of the repentance, the 
 act of punishment or forgiveness on the part of God ; 
 and on the other, the response to God's act, the repent- 
 ance of man in virtue of the original self-expression of 
 God. 
 
 These are two inseparable aspects of one and the 
 same process ; the tendency to lay exclusive emphasis 
 on one or the other leads to two main types of theory, 
 each equally unsatisfactory because each, while really 
 one-sided, claims to be an account of the whole truth. 
 These views I call the objective and subjective theories 
 respectively. 
 
 (a) The objective theory of atonement points out 
 that whatever change takes place in the human will is 
 due to the free gift of the Spirit of God. Man can do 
 nothing good except by virtue of God's grace, and 
 therefore if the evil will of a man is converted into a 
 good will, the whole process is an act of God. The 
 Atonement, the redemption of man, is a fact entirely 
 on the side of God, not at all on the side of man ; for 
 without God's help and inspiration there would be 
 nothing good in man at all. 
 
 This view lays the emphasis on God's attitude to 
 the world ; and concerns itself chiefly with the question, 
 What change did the Incarnation mark in the develop- 
 ment of God's plans ? We cannot suppose that there 
 was no change at all, that it merely put a new ideal 
 before man, because man always had high ideals ; he 
 had Moses and the prophets, and had not listened to 
 them. The divine grace of the Atonement consists in 
 the imparting not of a new ideal but of a new power 
 and energy to live up to the ideal. Man, in a word, 
 cannot redeem himself; his redemption comes from 
 God and is God's alone. 
 
 Now this " objective " view is exposed to the danger 
 of forgetting that redemption must be the redemption 
 of a will, the change of a will ; and that in the last
 
 r 82 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY 
 
 resort a will can only be changed by itself. If this is 
 forgotten, the objective theory lapses into an abstract 
 legalism according to which grace becomes a fictitious 
 and conventional restoration to favour without any 
 corresponding renovation of character. These two 
 things must never be allowed to fall apart in such a way 
 that the Atonement consists in one to the exclusion of 
 the other ; for unless the grace of God awakes a 
 response in the will of man there is no true atonement. 
 But this response is just the fact which this type of 
 theory tends either to overlook or at least to describe 
 with insufficient accuracy. 
 
 In examining actual theories of the Atonement, 
 however, we must bear in mind that a verbal statement 
 which appears to be one-sided does not necessarily either 
 neglect or exclude the other side. The objective view 
 is perfectly true so far as it goes ; and the criticism 
 often directed against it, on the ground that redemption 
 is a matter of the individual will alone and must arise 
 entirely from within, is due to a fallacious theory of 
 personality. 
 
 () The " subjective " theory insists on the attitude 
 of man to God, and lays down that since redemption 
 involves an attitude or state of the subject's will it 
 cannot without violence to his freedom be brought 
 about by the act of another person, even if that other 
 person be God. Grace as something merely proceed- 
 ing from God is not only a hypothesis, but a useless 
 hypothesis ; the fact to be explained is the change, 
 repentance, reformation of the individual, and this fact 
 cannot be explained by reference to another's actions. 
 Nobody can change my mind for me except myself. 
 The question in short is not, What change has occurred 
 in God ? since God is and always was long-suffering 
 and merciful. It is rather, What difference has the life 
 of Christ made in me ? How has his example fired me 
 to imitate him, his life challenged me to new effort, his 
 love called forth love in me ?
 
 CH. ii GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN 183 
 
 This view is attended by a parallel danger. It 
 insists on the reality and inviolability of the individual ; 
 and the least over-emphasis on this truth leads to the 
 theory that no real help, no real stimulus, can pass over 
 from one individual to another. In short, it brings us 
 to the exclusive or individualistic theory of personality 
 for which every person is a law to himself, supplies 
 himself with his own standards of right and wrong, and 
 draws upon his own resources in order to live up to 
 them ; for which the influence of one person on another 
 is either impossible or inconsistently with the theory 
 possible, but an " infringement of the rights " of the 
 individual. From such a point of view it might be 
 replied to one who spoke of Christ's life on earth, 
 " What good can it do ? He lived nobly, you say, and 
 died a martyr ; but why should you tell me these 
 things ? I can only do what lies in my power ; I 
 cannot behave like a hero, being the man I am. It is 
 useless for you to set up an ideal before me unless you 
 can give me strength to live up to it. And the strength 
 that I do not possess nobody can give me." And if 
 the instructor goes on to expound the doctrine of grace 
 and the indwelling of the Spirit of the Lord in his 
 Church, the reply will be that these things are dreams ; 
 impossible from the very nature of personality, which 
 is such that " one consciousness " that of the Holy 
 Spirit "cannot include another " that of an individual 
 human being ; or else that if these things are possible 
 they involve an intolerable swamping of one's own 
 personality, a surrender of one's freedom and individu- 
 ality which can only be a morbid and unhealthy state 
 of mind. 
 
 We have dealt with this individualistic theory else- 
 where, and shall now only repeat that it implies the 
 negation not merely of atonement in the sense of 
 redemption of man whether by man, Christ, or God, 
 but also of social life as a whole ; and therefore destroys 
 by implication the very individual whose reality it hoped
 
 1 84 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY FT. m 
 
 to vindicate. It presents us with the portrait of an ideal 
 man who stands in no need of any external stimulus or 
 assistance in working out his own salvation. If such a 
 person existed, he would be independent of God and 
 man alike, and would justly feel insulted by the offer of 
 an atonement. But the portrait is untrue, not simply 
 because no actual man ever attains this complete self- 
 dependence, but rather because it is a false ideal ; the 
 perfect life for man is a life not of absolute isolation but 
 of absolute communion. A man shows his greatness 
 not in ignoring his surroundings but in understanding 
 and assimilating them ; and his debt to his environment 
 is no loss to his individuality but a gain. 
 
 (/) It must be obvious by now that of the two 
 theories sketched above, each is an abstraction ; each 
 emphasises one side of a reality in which both sides are 
 present and in which, as a matter of fact, both sides are 
 one. The two sides must be united ; but this cannot 
 be effected by a compromise. A compromise is a 
 middle path between two extremes, and includes neither. 
 The combination at which we must aim will assert both 
 theories to the full while avoiding the errors which alone 
 keep them apart. As often happens in such cases, the 
 two opposing theories are based on the same error, and 
 a little further analysis will show wherein this error 
 consists. 
 
 The danger of objectivism was to assume that grace 
 could pass from God to man leaving man's inmost will 
 untouched. The legalistic conception of grace depended 
 on the separation of the human personality from the 
 divine as two vessels, one of which might receive "con- 
 tent " from the other while its nature remained unaltered. 
 The theory clings to the omnipotence of God and the 
 fact that from him comes man's salvation, but conceives 
 this omnipotence as God's power of imposing his own 
 good will upon man. But this is no true redemption ; 
 the man's own will is merely superseded by, not unified 
 with, the will of God. That is to say the good will
 
 GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN 185 
 
 which is manifested is solely God's and not in any sense 
 man's. The human will is not redeemed but annihilated. 
 
 In order to avoid this conclusion subjectivism lays 
 stress on the point which the above theory was led to 
 deny, namely the fact that redemption is a free state of 
 man's own will. It rightly asserts that whatever reform 
 takes place in the character must be the work of the 
 character itself, and cannot be thrust upon it by the 
 operation of another. But it goes on to deny that 
 redemption is in any sense the work of God, and^to 
 maintain that no act of God can have any influence on 
 the moral destiny of man. Thus the conception of a 
 divine will disappears altogether from the world of 
 human morality. 
 
 The implication in each case seems to be the same ; 
 for to assert the will of God and deny man's inner 
 redemption, or to assert man's redemption and deny the 
 will of God, equally implies conceiving God's power and 
 man's freedom to be inconsistent. This is the fallacy 
 common to the two views. Each alike holds that a 
 given action may be done either by God or by man, in 
 either case the other being inactive. This separation of 
 the will of God from that of man is fatal to any theory 
 of the Atonement, where the fact to be explained is that 
 man is redeemed not merely by his own act but also and 
 essentially by God's. 
 
 A satisfactory theory of the Atonement seems to 
 demand that the infusion of grace from God does not 
 forcibly and artificially bring about but actually is a 
 change of mind in man. It is an event which only co- 
 operation of the various wills involved can effect at all. 
 The error of the objective theory (or rather the error 
 into which that way of stating the truth is most liable 
 to fall) is to regard God as wholly active, man as wholly 
 passive ; and to forget that God's purpose of redemp- 
 tion is powerless apart from man's will to be redeemed. 
 
 The tendency of subjectivism on the other hand is to 
 assume that the righteousness of man is independent of
 
 1 86 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY . m 
 
 his relation to God ; that man's will is sanctified by his 
 own effort whether he is justified in the eyes of God or 
 not. Here again the fault lies in the absolute separation 
 of man from God. God is not realised as the one and 
 only source of goodness ; it is not understood that to 
 will the right is to unify one's will with God's. The 
 two things righteousness and reconciliation with God 
 are really one and the same, and to represent one as 
 means to the other or vice versa^ or to insist on one and 
 neglect the other, implies forgetting their identity and 
 making an arbitrary and false separation of the two. 
 
 Neither is it enough merely to combine the two sides 
 which the foregoing theories have separated. That 
 would be to make the Atonement a combination of two 
 different acts God's forgiveness and man's repentance 
 of which each is peculiar to its own agent ; it would 
 fail to account for the essential unity of the whole pro- 
 cess, and, taking the two sides as co-ordinate and equally 
 vital, would substitute an unintelligible dualism for what 
 is really one fact. In other words, any theory must 
 show exactly how the forgiveness of God is related to 
 the repentance of man ; how it is possible for the one to 
 bring about the other ; and the dualistic view would be 
 nothing more than a restatement of this central difficulty. 
 
 The failure of the theories hitherto examined has 
 been in every case due to this distinction within the 
 Atonement of two sides, God's and man's. Each agent, 
 it is supposed, makes his own individual contribution to 
 the whole process ; God's contribution being the act of 
 forgiveness, man's that of repentance. Now our pre- 
 vious analysis of the idea of co-operation suggests that 
 this distinction needs revising. We found in a former 
 chapter that in the co-operation of two wills we could 
 only disentangle the respective contribution to the whole 
 of each separate personality by an act of forcible and 
 arbitrary abstraction ; that in point of fact the two 
 minds became identified in a common experience of 
 which each willed the whole and neither a mere part.
 
 GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN 187 
 
 If we mean to apply this principle to the present diffi- 
 culty, we must find a statement of the case which will 
 no longer distinguish God's contribution from man's ; 
 which will enable us to say that God's punishment of 
 man is man's own self- punishment, and that man's 
 repentance is God's repentance too. If we can hold 
 such a view we shall have identified the part played by 
 God in redemption with that played by man ; and we 
 shall be able to define the Atonement, in terms con- 
 sistent with our general theory, as the re-indwelling of 
 the divine spirit in a man who has previously been 
 alienated from it. 
 
 4. We have to make two identifications ; first to 
 show that God's punishment of man is man's punishment 
 of himself, and second that man's repentance is God's 
 repentance also. 
 
 The first point causes little difficulty after our 
 examination of the meaning of punishment. We have 
 already seen that the essence of punishment is the com- 
 munication to the offender of our condemnation of his 
 act ; and that therefore all punishment consists in trying 
 to make a criminal punish himself, that is inflict on 
 himself the pain of remorse and conversion from his 
 evil past to a better present. It is clear therefore without 
 further explanation that in God's punishment of sin the 
 sinner, through repentance, punishes his own sin. God's 
 activity is shared by man too ; man co-operates with 
 God in punishing himself. And just as he punishes 
 himself, he forgives himself, for he displays in repentance 
 just that combination of severity towards the past and 
 hope towards the future in which true forgiveness 
 consists. 
 
 (#) The conception of divine repentance is at first 
 sight less easy to grasp ; but this is because we have 
 not yet asked what is the precise nature of the experience 
 to which we attach the name. We are in the habit of 
 defining repentance as the conversion of an evil will to 
 good ; a condition only possible to one who has been
 
 1 88 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY 
 
 sinful and is in process of renouncing his own sin. And 
 if we accept this definition as final, we can only say that 
 the conception of divine penitence is sel-contradictory. 
 Repentance is peculiar to a sinner ; God is not a sinner, 
 therefore he cannot feel repentance. 
 
 But we must ask whether the account offered of 
 repentance is really satisfactory. Repentance is a 
 particular state of mind, a feeling of a quite individual 
 kind ; and it is notoriously difficult to define a feeling 
 in so many words. In point of fact, we generally give 
 up the attempt, and substitute for a definition of the 
 thing itself a description of the circumstances in which 
 we feel it. If we are asked what we mean by the 
 feelings of triumph, sorrow, indignation and so on, we 
 reply as a rule by explaining the kind of occasion which 
 excites them : " triumph is what you feel when you 
 have succeeded in spite of opposition." But this is 
 quite a different thing from stating what triumph feels 
 like. This method of description is very common. 
 We apply it for instance to such things as smells, for 
 which we have practically no descriptive vocabulary. 
 We generally define a scent not by its individual nature 
 but by its associations ; we state not what sort of smell 
 it is but what it is the smell of. 
 
 Definition by circumstances (as we may call it) is apt 
 to mislead us seriously in any attempt to describe our 
 feelings. We think we have described the feeling when 
 we have only described the occasions on which it arises ; 
 and since in consequence of this habit we apply names to 
 feelings rather in virtue of their occasions than because 
 of their own characters, we are often ready to assert 
 a priori who can and who cannot experience a given 
 emotion, merely on the ground that if such and such a 
 person felt it we should call it something else. 
 
 In the case of repentance we are being misled by 
 words if we argue that repentance is the conversion of a 
 sinful will and therefore impossible to God. Repentance 
 is a perfectly definite feeling with a perfectly definite
 
 GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN 189 
 
 character of its own : when we experience it, we recognise 
 it as we recognise a smell, not because of any external 
 circumstances but simply because of something which 
 we may call its own peculiar flavour. In asking whether 
 a sinless person feels repentance we must try to fix our 
 minds on this flavour, not on its external associations. 
 
 We must notice that even the occasion of repentance 
 has not been very well described. Its occasion is not 
 the mere abstract point of junction, so to speak, between 
 two states, a bad state and a good state. We do not 
 cease to repent when our will becomes good. Indeed 
 if that were the case we should never repent at all ; for 
 the moment of transition from a bad will to a good is 
 not a positive experience ; it is the mere chink or joint 
 between two experiences. Conversion is not a neutral 
 moment between being bad and being good ; it is a 
 feeling set up by the inrush of positive goodness. 
 Repentance, then, must be re-defined by its circumstances 
 as the peculiar feeling of a converted person towards 
 his own evil past. A person only repents in so far as 
 he is now good ; repentance is necessarily the attitude 
 of a good will. It does not precede conversion ; it is 
 the spirit of conversion. 
 
 If repentance is the feeling with which a person 
 contemplates the evil past he has left behind him, the 
 problem is to distinguish it from the feeling with which 
 he, or any good person, contemplates the misdeeds of 
 another. If we can maintain such a distinction, we 
 cannot admit the reality of divine penitence. 
 
 Now if we look at the matter solely from the psycho- 
 logical point of view; if we simply reflect on the feeling 
 with which we look at the sins we have ourselves com- 
 mitted, and compare it with our feeling towards the 
 sins of others, we shall, I think, only find a difference in 
 so far as one or other of these feelings is vitiated by our 
 own limitations of knowledge or errors of attitude. In 
 an ideal case, when we have struck the true balance 
 between harshness and laxity of judgment, we feel to
 
 1 9 o METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY PT. m 
 
 our own sins exactly as we feel to those of any other 
 person. We do not feel sorry for our own sins and 
 indignant at other people's ; the sorrow and the indigna- 
 tion are both present in each case. A good man's 
 feeling towards the sins of others is exactly the same 
 kind of emotion as that which he feels towards his own. 
 The fact that we call this feeling one of penitence when 
 it regards himself and one of forgiveness (or punishment) 
 when it regards others must not mislead us ; for this 
 is merely an example of the distinction according to 
 circumstances of two emotions which when considered 
 in themselves are seen to be one and the same. 
 
 But, it may be asked, can we really abstract emotions 
 in this way from their circumstances ? Is not any 
 emotion simply the attitude of a will towards a particular 
 event or reality ? And if this is so, we are right in 
 defining emotions by reference to their circumstances ; 
 because where circumstances differ there must be some 
 difference in the state of mind which they evoke. The 
 objection is perfectly sound ; and our merely psycho- 
 logical argument must be reinforced by asking whether 
 the circumstances in the two cases really are different. 
 In the one case we have a good man's attitude towards 
 the actions of his own evil past ; in the other, his 
 attitude towards another man who is doing evil now. 
 The difference of time is plainly unimportant ; we 
 do not think differently of an action merely as it is 
 present or past. The real question is the difference of 
 person. 
 
 We must remember that, since a will is what it does, 
 we cannot maintain that this good man is in every sense 
 the same man who was bad. The bad will has been 
 swept out of existence and its place taken by a good 
 will ; the man is, as we say, a new man ; a new motive 
 force lives in him and directs his actions. This does 
 not mean that he is not " responsible " in his present 
 state for the actions of his past. It means, if we must 
 press the conclusion, not that he can shirk the responsi-
 
 GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN 191 
 
 bility for his own actions, but that he is bound to accept 
 the responsibility for those of others ; and this is no 
 paradox if we rid the word of its legal associations and 
 ask what moral meaning it can have. For to call a 
 man responsible means that he ought to be punished, 
 and the punishment, the sorrow, that a good man 
 undergoes for his own sins he does certainly undergo 
 for the sins of other men. 
 
 Thus God, who is perfectly good, must feel repent- 
 ance for the sins of men ; he bears in his own person the 
 punishment which is their due, and by the communica- 
 tion to them of the spirit of his own penitence he leads 
 them to repent, and so in self-punishment to work their 
 own redemption. The divine and human sides, the 
 objective and subjective, completely coincide. What 
 God does man also does, and what man feels, God feels 
 also. 
 
 (b) All human redemption thus comes from God, 
 and is the re-birth in man's will of the original divine 
 penitence. But in this immediate communication to 
 man of the spirit of God, mediation is not excluded. 
 In one sense, all right acting aiyi true knowing involves 
 utterly unmediated communion of the soul with God. 
 As Elisha lay upon the dead child, his mouth upon his 
 mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon 
 his hands, till the child came to life again, so the soul is 
 quickened by complete, immediate contact with God, 
 every part at once with every part. But though we 
 know God directly or not at all, we yet know him only 
 as revealed to us through various channels of illumina- 
 tion and means of grace. The mystic who dwells alone 
 with God is only a mystic through social influences and 
 the stimulus of his surroundings, and in his union with 
 the divine mind he is united no less with all the 
 community of living spirits. 
 
 So repentance comes not only from God but through 
 paths which in a sense we distinguish from the activity 
 of God. Every truth is reached through some stimulus
 
 1 92 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY n . m 
 
 or instruction which comes from a source in the world 
 around us ; and in the same way repentance reaches us 
 through human channels, and we repent of our sins 
 because we see others repent of them. This is human 
 vicarious penitence ; others suffer for our sins, the 
 suffering being not a mere " natural consequence " of 
 the sin but specifically sorrow, penitence, that is, 
 punishment for it ; and their suffering is literally the 
 means of grace for us, the influence by which we come 
 to our own repentance. 
 
 But this universal fact of human life is, like all others, 
 summed up and expressed most completely in the 
 divine manhood of the Christ. He alone is always and 
 perfectly penitent ; for a sinful man cannot, while 
 sinful, repent for his own sins or any others ; permanent 
 penitence is only possible for a permanently sinless mind. 
 And this repentance of Christ is not only subjectively 
 complete, that is, unbroken by sins of his own, but 
 objectively perfect also ; it is incapable of supplement 
 or addition, sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole 
 world, to convert all sinners by the spectacle of God's 
 suffering. No further example could add anything to 
 its force. There is only one way of destroying sin ; 
 namely, to convert the sinner. And there is only one 
 way of converting the sinner ; namely, to express to 
 him, in such a way that he cannot but realise it, the 
 attitude towards himself of a good will ; the attitude 
 which unites condemnation and forgiveness in the 
 concrete reality of vicarious repentance. 
 
 Thus the supreme example of sinless suffering is the 
 salvation of the world ; final in the sense that nothing 
 can be added to it, that every new repentance is identical 
 with it ; not final, but only initial, in the sense that by 
 itself it is nothing without the response it should awake, 
 the infinite reproduction of itself in the consciousness 
 of all mankind. It is not merely an example set up 
 for our imitation ; not merely a guarantee of the 
 possibilities of human life. It is an unfailing source
 
 CH. ii GOD'S REDEMPTION OF MAN 193 
 
 and fountain of spiritual energy ; it gives to those who 
 would imitate it the strength to work miracles, to cast 
 aside their old selves and to enter upon a new life 
 prepared from the beginning of the world ; for out of 
 it power goes forth to draw all men to itself.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MIRACLE 
 
 THERE are three questions which may be asked about 
 any supposed miraculous event. Did it happen ? Why 
 did it happen ? and, Was it a miracle ? 
 
 The first question is a matter for history to decide. 
 No event can be proved or disproved to have happened 
 except on historical grounds. The second question is 
 also historical ; for it lies with history to determine not 
 only the actions of persons in the past, but also their 
 motives. The remaining question, whether such and 
 such an event was miraculous or not, is also in a 
 sense historical, but (it might be said) less purely 
 historical than the others. The philosophical assump- 
 tion which underlies it is more evident than in the 
 other cases. Every historical question involves such 
 assumptions. The question " Did it happen? " implies 
 the assumption that past facts are ascertainable ; a 
 technical point in the theory of knowledge. The 
 question " Why was it done ? " involves in the same 
 way the ethical implication that people have motives 
 for their actions. But these philosophical implications 
 do not strike us when the historical questions are asked, 
 because they are generally admitted and are not as a 
 rule called in question. 
 
 But when we are asked, " Was it miraculous ? " we 
 at once feel the necessity for a philosophical inquiry 
 before the question can be answered. Do miracles 
 194
 
 CH. in MIRACLE 195 
 
 happen ? we ask in turn ; and what do you mean by 
 a miracle ? These questions form the starting-point of 
 the present chapter. We shall offer no opinion on the 
 historicity of any particular miracle, or on the motive 
 which may have underlain it ; we shall confine our- 
 selves strictly to the problem of defining the conception 
 of miracle as such. If this can be done, it will perhaps 
 be of some service to the historical theologian. At 
 present his work is much impeded by metaphysical 
 difficulties ; by doubt as to what kind of evidence and 
 how much of it is necessary to establish the fact of a 
 miracle ; by fear that if he pronounces against the 
 truth of a miraculous story he may be accused of 
 joining hands with the party which denies a priori the 
 existence of miracle, and that if he accepts such stories 
 at their face value, as he accepts other historical matter, 
 enlightened persons will denounce him for an obscur- 
 antist believer in the impossible. 
 
 I. These difficulties are due to the prevalence of a 
 theory, or definition, of miracle which it is our first 
 business to examine. It is certainly possible to define 
 miracle in such a way that the whole difficulty is 
 evaded. If we merely say "a miracle is something 
 striking, wonderful, awe-inspiring " then no problem 
 arises ; but such definitions will probably be suggested 
 only by persons to whom controversy has imparted the 
 wisdom of the serpent. And, covering as they do such 
 things as a Homeric simile or dawn on the Alps, they 
 are not accurate representations of the common 
 theological use of the word. They are rather criti- 
 cisms of that usage, or confessions that it cannot be 
 maintained. 
 
 The definition which gives rise to our problem is to 
 the effect that a miraculous event is one caused by 
 God's interference with the course of nature. This is 
 the definition which we shall first examine ; and we 
 shall then proceed to deal with the two bye-forms of it, 
 one, that a miracle is an event due to the intervention
 
 196 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY PT . m 
 
 of a higher natural law negating a lower one ; the 
 other, that it represents God's departure from his 
 normal modes of action. We shall treat these two 
 later, because they are in essence modifications of the 
 first definition, and only arise when the dualism 
 inherent in the first has proved fatal to its defence. 
 
 This dualism may be expressed as follows. If we 
 ask what is meant by " nature " in the above formula, 
 we are told that it consists of a series of events such 
 that any given event is the effect of that which went 
 before it and the cause of that which follows. In the 
 " order of nature " the precise character and occasion 
 of every event is rigidly determined, A producing 
 B ; B, C ; C, D-E-F. Now when a miracle happens, 
 this series is broken. Instead of C leading to D, the 
 divine will substitutes for D a new state of things, 8, 
 which becomes the cause of subsequent events ; so that 
 the sequence now runs ABC/Se. The new factor B 
 might, it is true, appear alongside of D, not instead of 
 it ; but we generally regard a miracle as the cancelling 
 of what was going to happen and the positive sub- 
 stitution of something else. Now B is an event, a 
 " physical " event just as C is ; and the dualism there- 
 fore consists in this, that a given physical event may be 
 caused either naturally or miraculously. There are 
 two different principles by which events are originated, 
 existing side by side in complete independence. 
 
 The dislike of dualism as such is sometimes repre- 
 sented as nothing more than a curious idiosyncrasy of 
 the philosophic mind ; either as a matter of taste, or as 
 a weakness due to a desire to make the world look 
 simpler than it really is. u Cheap and easy " are almost 
 permanent epithets for the type of theory called 
 monism, which explains reality as issuing from a single 
 principle. And doubtless many monistic theories 
 deserve such names ; for to construct a view of the 
 universe by leaving out all the facts except one is both 
 easy and cheap. But monism properly understood is
 
 CH. in MIRACLE 197 
 
 only another word for the fundamental axiom of all 
 thinking, namely that whatever exists stands in some 
 definite relation to the other things that exist. And 
 the essence of dualism or pluralism is that it catalogues 
 the things that exist without sufficiently determining 
 these inter-relations. 
 
 Suppose, for instance, we discover the existence of 
 two principles A and B, and then go on to ask what is 
 the relation between them. We may begin by saying 
 " I don't know " ; and that might be called provisional 
 pluralism, a necessary stage in the development of 
 any theory. But we must add " I mean to find out if 
 I can " ; and that is to profess our faith in a monistic 
 solution. For the principles A and B, connected by 
 the principle C, really form one principle ABC. The 
 true pluralist, when asked for the relation between A 
 and B, would reply boldly " There isn't any " ; and that 
 is as meaningless as if we should describe two points 
 in space between which there was no distance. This 
 could only mean that they were the same point ; and 
 similarly to say that there was no relation between A 
 and B is only sense if it means that there is no 
 difference between them, that they are the same 
 principle. 
 
 Thus our objection to the bare dualism of God and 
 nature is that it is not yet a theory at all ; it simply 
 sets the two principles before us without attempting 
 to show how they are related. We want to know 
 the difference between them, and the nature of a whole 
 in which they can exist side by side. This simply 
 amounts to saying that the dualism is a provisional one ; 
 and people who deal in such dualisms are often quite 
 ready to admit that the dualism is " not absolute." It 
 might be thought hypercritical to reply that by such 
 an admission they confessed that they were trying to 
 secure the advantage of maintaining a theory while 
 knowing it to be unsound ; and we shall rather ask 
 whether, regarded simply as provisional, the dualism
 
 198 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY FT. m 
 
 does what it claims to do, and finds room for the 
 complete reality of each side. 
 
 (#) On examination, it appears that justice is done 
 to neither side by the attempt to regard them dualisti- 
 cally as parallel realities. A God who is not the source 
 of all being is no true God ; and this defect is not 
 removed by saying that God created and can interfere 
 with nature. Even if this were so, even if every event 
 in the present were the outcome of an original creative 
 purpose, nature would still be something alien to, 
 something essentially different from, the activity of 
 God ; for the events by which God's original creation 
 became the world as we now see it would be, by 
 definition, naturally and not divinely caused. God, on 
 this theory, created the world in the beginning ; once 
 created, it continued to develop by its own impetus, 
 which impetus cannot be called a divine law because it 
 is precisely nature, the principle which the theory 
 distinguished from God's activity. And therefore the 
 world only expresses God's purpose remotely and 
 obscurely ; his first act has been so overlaid by natural 
 causation that the present world is in fact purely natural, 
 not in itself divine at all. 
 
 The same defect appears in any given miracle ; for 
 any such event is only a reproduction in miniature of 
 the original miracle of creation. God's activity ceases 
 the moment it is put forth ; at once it is seized upon 
 and petrified by natural law into a part of the causal 
 system. Nothing is God's but the bare abstract point 
 of departure, his own subjective volition. He may 
 interfere with nature as he likes, but nature remains 
 essentially uninfluenced, for every interference is no 
 sooner accomplished than the divinity vanishes from it 
 and it becomes mere nature. God therefore is absolutely 
 unexpressed in the world, however frequent his miracles 
 may be ; for by the time they reach our senses they 
 have lost all their miraculous character. He is reduced 
 to an abstractly transcendent being, aloof from reality
 
 CH. in MIRACLE 199 
 
 and eternally impotent either to influence it or to use it 
 as the expression of his own nature. He is thus shorn 
 of all true Godhead, and becomes little more than the 
 spectator of an automatic world. 
 
 (b) But if God's reality is sacrificed by the dualistic 
 conception, that of nature is preserved no better. 
 Granting that God can suspend for a moment the 
 operation of natural law, and substitute a different 
 conclusion to a causal process, what are we to think of 
 such laws ? A miracle is described as an exception to 
 a law of nature. But a law that admits exceptions is 
 not a law at all. It explains nothing because it does 
 not express a necessary connexion. A connexion that 
 is at the mercy of any one, even of omnipotence, is 
 simply not necessary, not a connexion, not an explana- 
 tion. We are told, rightly or wrongly, that no law is 
 certain, no rule free from exceptions ; but if we could 
 accept that doctrine the only inference would be that 
 the " natural order," the system of universal law, was 
 non-existent. But this theory of miracle is based on 
 assuming that a great proportion of events is really 
 accounted for by laws of this kind. It assumes that 
 there are events of which we can say : " It must be so 
 because there is a universal law that it is so." If the 
 supposed law is subject to exceptions, its position as 
 a law is forfeited. It is not entitled to plead "an 
 omnipotent will overrode my arbitrament " ; that would 
 be merely a confession that it was not a law at all as 
 the scientist understands laws. 
 
 There is a great deal of loose talking and vague 
 thinking on this point. People speak of laws exactly 
 as if they were individual persons ; we hear of the 
 reign of law, the compulsion of law, the decree of law, 
 or even sometimes of disobedience and defiance of the 
 laws of nature. Such wild mythology obscures the 
 true conception of law so hopelessly in the popular mind, 
 that people can entertain the idea of two laws conflicting, 
 or of a law being suspended or abrogated, as if these
 
 200 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY PT . m 
 
 laws of nature were rival legislators or the arbitrary acts 
 of a sovereign. We must try to remember that a law 
 of nature is a statement of a universal fact, not a 
 command. It cannot be " disobeyed," because it does 
 not tell any one to do anything ; it can only be " broken " 
 in the sense that we can find instances in which it does 
 not hold good. But if such instances do arise, the 
 universal statement is no longer a true one, it no longer 
 represents a fact ; and we have to say, not " In this case 
 such and such a law is broken," but " This case proves 
 that such and such a statement or theory is not 
 universally true, and that the supposed law does not 
 exist, or requires modification so as to exclude cases of 
 this sort." The kind of thought which imagines 
 natural law as subject to exceptions is precisely that of 
 the most unscientific and inadequate type; as if Newton 
 after observing the fall of the apple had written, 
 "Everything has a natural property of falling to the 
 earth ; this is why the apple falls. Exceptions to this 
 law may be seen in smoke, kites, and the heavenly 
 bodies." 
 
 The reader may remember how we showed in a 
 former chapter that matter and mind cannot exist side 
 by side, since if any matter exists everything must be 
 material and therefore if any mind exists all must be 
 spiritual (Part II. Ch. II. i). We have now discovered 
 a parallel or rather an identical truth ; natural laws 
 admitting exceptions are not natural laws at all, and 
 divine acts subject to natural conditions are not divine. 
 The fusion of God and nature which we called miracle 
 is a monstrosity, because the two principles are by their 
 very definition mutually exclusive, and neither can exist 
 if compelled to share the universe with the other. We 
 must follow up the argument, taking each in turn as 
 the absolute principle, since it is now clear that we can 
 no longer defend our original dualism. 
 
 2. We must therefore posit either nature or God as 
 the sole reality. We are seeking only for a basis for
 
 CH. in MIRACLE 201 
 
 the conception of miracle ; the general metaphysical 
 question was worked out at length in Part II. Ch. II., 
 and we need not repeat the arguments there employed. 
 
 (a) If we try to maintain that nature is the sole 
 reality, and rebuild our conception of miracle on that 
 basis, we shall have to define the miraculous as the case 
 where one law of nature is overridden by another ; the 
 " emergence of a higher law " or some such phrase is 
 used to cover theories of this kind. It is not difficult 
 to see where the fallacy lies. In inductive logic we 
 are told that a higher law explains a lower, the lower 
 being an instance of the operation of a higher. In this 
 sense of lower and higher, the higher is the more 
 universal ; the laws of the conic section explain those of 
 the circle because they are higher in the sense that the 
 circle is one kind, and only one kind, of conic section. 
 Now if in this sense of the word we were told that a 
 higher law overrode a lower, we should reply that the 
 phrase is a contradiction in terms ; the lower law is 
 simply one instance of the higher, and to talk of a law 
 overriding one of its own instances is meaningless. 
 The fact that two men and two women are four people 
 is an instance of the more general fact that twice two is 
 four ; it is inconceivable that the higher or more general 
 fact, twice two is four, should " override " the lower or 
 less general so as to make two men and two women into 
 three people. 
 
 There is only one sense in which one law can conflict 
 with or override another; that is, when the "laws" 
 involved are not Jaws of nature but acts of will. If nurse 
 makes a law that baby goes to bed at six, that law may 
 be overridden by superior authority ; there may be a 
 parental law that baby stays up later on birthdays. 
 " Higher " in this case has quite a different sense ; it 
 means "promulgated by a higher authority." And 
 " law " in this case means not a law of nature, the state- 
 ment of a universal fact, but a command given by one 
 will to another.
 
 202 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY n . m 
 
 The overridden law, in short, cannot be a natural 
 law, because such laws, being simply general truths, 
 cannot be overridden ; nor can the higher law be a law 
 of nature miraculously overriding the decision of a will, 
 because a real Jaw of nature in conflict with a will would 
 win every time, not in miraculous cases only. Therefore 
 if we define miracle as the outcome of a conflict between 
 two laws, neither law can be regarded as a law of nature ; 
 each is an act of will, and the higher law is the act of 
 the more potent will. 
 
 The result of defining miracle by reference to the 
 conception of natural law is that it compels us to 
 describe nature in terms only applicable to spirit. The 
 attempt to combine the two conceptions, miracle and 
 nature, leads to the explicit reversal of the very 
 definition of nature. 
 
 () We have now to examine the third of our original 
 definitions, namely that which escapes the dualism of 
 God and nature by resting on the single conception of 
 God. We shall then regard miracle as one kind of divine 
 operation, distinguished from another kind, the non- 
 miraculous, by some criterion to be further determined. 
 Two such criteria may be suggested: (i.) that of normal 
 and abnormal, (ii.) that of mediate and immediate. 
 
 (i.) The distinction between normal and abnormal 
 action presupposes the idea of a norm, a principle or 
 rule generally followed, but not invariably adhered to ; 
 admitting of exceptions but only in exceptional circum- 
 stances. Such rules are conceived as made by mind for 
 mind ; they are not necessities to which the will is 
 subject, but forms of its own activity. They are familiar 
 enough in our own life ; and it is assumed that they 
 exist no less in that of God. Now when man makes 
 himself rules, he breaks them in one of two ways. 
 Either his original purpose fails him through weakness, 
 caprice, or sinfulness ; or else he abandons it because 
 unforeseen circumstances have arisen which make it 
 impossible or wrong to pursue his intention. These are
 
 CH. in MIRACLE 203 
 
 the causes of human abnormality ; defect in the man or 
 defect in the rule. Neither cause can be operative in 
 the case of God. He is not vacillating and infirm of 
 purpose ; and he is not subject to the occurrence of 
 events whose possibility he had overlooked. No reason, 
 in fact, can ever arise why God should ever depart from 
 his own rules of conduct. 
 
 The conception of a rule or norm thus leads not to 
 the explanation but to the denial of miracle. Abnor- 
 mality implies that either the rule or the exception was 
 wrong ; alternatives equally impossible to the divine 
 wisdom. 
 
 And this argument is often used against those who 
 uphold the possibility of miracles. But we are not 
 concerned to prove their possibility or impossibility; we 
 are seeking only for a definition of what the word means. 
 Consequently we cannot end our inquiry here ; if it is 
 said that the abnormal never happens in God we must 
 ask whether the conception of normality is sound ; 
 whether it is true to say that God always acts in perfect 
 conformity to perfect principles. The doctrine as stated 
 appears simple and unobjectionable, but it is in fact 
 either tautologous or misleading. In the first place, 
 principles of conduct as known to ourselves are, if 
 perfectly universal, always perfectly empty. They give 
 no information as to what you are to do on any particular 
 occasion. " Always do right " ; " Always treat others 
 as ends in themselves " ; " Render to every man his 
 due " ; these are absolutely universal ; they apply to 
 every case of conduct you can imagine. But they are 
 also alike in not prescribing any definite course of action 
 whatever. No doubt in a certain case the maxim 
 "Always do right" acquires a content from the fact that 
 there is only one right thing to do ; therefore, the 
 principle " Always do right " appears in this given case 
 to mean " Confess your fault and take your punishment," 
 or the like. But this content is not supplied by the 
 general principle itself ; it is supplied by the answer to
 
 204 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY n . m 
 
 the question stimulated by that principle : " What is 
 right ? " A person who did not know how to behave 
 on a given occasion would not be helped by the principle 
 unless he intended to act capriciously ; in that case it 
 might remind him that he had duties. But one may 
 safely say that a conscientious person never thinks of the 
 principle as a principle ; and if his attention was called 
 to it, he would say that it told him nothing he wanted 
 to know. In a sense, he acts on it : but it does not 
 explain why he did this and not that. 
 
 The truly universal rule, then, is absolutely empty. 
 It is doubtless true to say God always acts on it, but to 
 say that adds nothing to our knowledge of God. It 
 does not let us into the secret of his will. It merely 
 staves off our inquiry with a truism ; as if one should 
 say that the secret of good painting was always to put 
 the right colour in the right place. True, no doubt ; 
 but not very helpful. 
 
 There is another type of rule which represents an 
 attempt to overcome this difficulty by supplying a 
 content. It definitely tells you what you are to do 
 and what you are not to do ; whether simply because 
 agreement on such points is convenient for social 
 purposes (keep to the right, or, last boy in bed put out 
 the gas) or because every case of the rule represents 
 a definite and binding moral duty (thou shalt do no 
 murder ; audi alteram partem ; always protect a lady). 
 Since the first type, the absolutely universal, has proved 
 useless, this must be the kind of rule which the theory 
 has in mind ; and the doctrine must be that there is (if 
 only we could formulate it) a complete body of such 
 rules which, taken altogether, cover the whole of life 
 and provide for every case ; that a breach of one is 
 either a crime or the sign of the law's imperfection ; 
 and that therefore the rules of conduct laid down for 
 himself by God are never broken at all. Such a body 
 of rules constitutes what is generally called a casuistry ; 
 not using the word in a bad sense, but in the strict and
 
 MIRACLE 
 
 205 
 
 accurate sense in which it signifies the normative science 
 of conduct, the complex of rules defining one's duty in 
 any given situation. For man, according to the doctrine 
 we are examining, casuistry is always imperfect because 
 of his deficient imagination of possible emergencies, and 
 on account of the differences between man and man 
 which make it impossible for all to be guided by quite 
 the same principles. For God these difficulties disappear 
 and the science would be perfect. 
 
 Now there are two points about the essential nature 
 of this science which must be observed, (a) First, 
 obeying its rules is not the same thing as doing a moral 
 action. If I am asked "Why did you do that?" I may 
 reply either "Because the rule says I must," or else 
 " Because I felt I ought." (I do not assert that there 
 are no other possible answers.) But these are quite 
 different answers and represent two different points of 
 view. The first answer does no doubt suggest the 
 question "But why obey the rules?" and to that the 
 reply may be "WeJl, I suppose one ought to obey them"; 
 but as a matter of fact this ulterior question has, in most 
 cases, not been raised at all, and obeying the rule as 
 such has no further moral implication, or at most a vague 
 and distant one. The two answers may coincide ; but 
 in that case the first is not felt to be of any importance. 
 " I ought " stands by itself and gains nothing by the 
 addition " I am told to." In conduct the only thing 
 that confers moral value is motive ; and if one is 
 conscious of no motive except obedience to a rule, one 
 cannot claim the action as a moral one. Whereas if 
 one is conscious of the action as a duty, its legality no 
 longer makes any difference. To obey a rule may be 
 socially indispensable ; it may be educative ; it may be 
 prudent ; but it is not a free, morally initiated action. 
 Morality knows no rules ; and the same is the case with 
 art, and all spiritual activity. 
 
 But, it may be asked, are we to abolish all rules of 
 conduct ? What would become of the world if we did ?
 
 206 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY FT. m 
 
 That is exactly the point. The world, taken at any 
 given moment, requires education, it requires discipline ; 
 it is not by any means perfect or moral or self-dependent. 
 We were not proposing to abolish laws and empirical 
 maxims from our makeshift society. We merely assert 
 that for a perfectly moral being, one who really appre- 
 hended duty as such, these maxims and laws would 
 recede into the background and disappear ; such a 
 being simply ignores and does not act on them at all, 
 but acts merely on his intuition of duty. 
 
 (yS) The second point is that such rules contain an 
 element of approximation and vagueness which can 
 never be eliminated and therefore makes them unfit 
 to serve as guides for a perfect intelligence. They are 
 based on the supposition that cases and actions can be 
 classified in such a way that the classification will 
 provide the basis for a distinction between right and 
 wrong : and this supposition is fallacious. 
 
 These rules are always general, by their very nature ; 
 they lay down that an action of the type A is always 
 right, an action of the type B always wrong. On 
 inspection, however, it proves impossible to find any 
 class of actions of which we can say that it is always 
 right or always wrong, unless we have defined it in such 
 a way as to beg the question. Thus, " never tell a lie " 
 is a good rule ; but telling a lie is by no means always 
 wrong. The least imaginative person could think of a 
 situation in which it was a positive duty. On the other 
 hand, "commit no murder" is absolutely valid only 
 because murder means wrongful killing ; so that the 
 rule is a tautology. 
 
 But further : actions cannot strictly be classified at 
 all. What is a lie ? Intentional deceit ? Then it covers 
 such cases as ambiguous answers, refusals to answer, 
 evasions ; or even the mere withholding of information 
 when none has been demanded ; and we cannot easily 
 say when such concealment of the truth is intentional. 
 To lay a trap for an opponent in controversy would
 
 MIRACLE 
 
 207 
 
 probably have to be called lying, as well as countless 
 other cases in which we do not use the word. A 
 classification of actions, in short, can only exist so Jong 
 as we refrain from asking the precise meaning of the 
 terms employed. 
 
 Therefore a system of casuistry is not only useless 
 but actually impossible for a really moral mind ; it is 
 essentially a makeshift, vanishing with the advance in 
 spiritual life. This is not because our rules are bad 
 rules ; it follows from their mere nature as rules. 
 The nearer we come to true living, the more we leave 
 behind not bad rules merely, but all rules. Thus 
 Beethoven said that the rules were all his very humble 
 servants ; and it is true that the rules formulated by 
 his masters met with little respect at his hands. But 
 that (it may be argued) was because they were bad, 
 imperfect, inadequate rules ; he created rules of his own, 
 and those he did obey. For instance, he altered sonata- 
 form a great deal ; but he did write sonatas. Musical 
 scholars tell us that John Sebastian Bach did not write 
 fugues ; and that is true if by fugues you mean com- 
 positions of an arbitrarily rigid and academic type. 
 But he did write Bachesque fugues, or whatever you 
 please to call them ; he did write one definite type of 
 composition, and Beethoven wrote another type. Thus 
 each made his own rules. They were not the rules his 
 masters taught him ; but the rules he made he kept. 
 
 No, we must reply, he did not. The form of the 
 Beethoven sonata varies between Op. 2 and Op. 1 1 1 so 
 vastly that we cannot lay down any one set of regula- 
 tions and say " These are Beethoven's sonata-rules." 
 No doubt if we take few enough rules and sufficiently 
 abstract ones, we can arrive at some that Beethoven 
 never broke ; but if you had pointed out the fact to 
 him, he would probably have taken care to break them 
 all in his next sonata. The fact is that the conception 
 of rule to which we are now appealing is a fluid con- 
 ception ; a Beethoven can abandon his old rules at
 
 208 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY n . , 
 
 pleasure and take a leap into a new world, guided only 
 by the spirit of music itself. What then are Beethoven's 
 rules of composition ? Here is the secret : they are 
 recast for every new work. The " rule " is nothing 
 but another name for the ground-plan of the new work 
 itself. He simply invents new rules as he goes along, 
 to meet his requirements. And that means that in the 
 sense of the word with which we started he has no rules 
 at all. 
 
 Thus in a sense every action obeys a law. But the 
 law is newly shaped for every fresh action ; in fact, it 
 simply is the action. Therefore the original theory, 
 that there were certain rules established by himself 
 eternally which God in virtue of his own consistency 
 was bound to obey, is seen to be a delusion. We cannot 
 escape the analogy by saying that Beethoven's develop- 
 ment was a continual improvement of existing laws, and 
 that such an improvement is inconceivable in God ; for 
 Haydn's rules were quite as good as Beethoven's for the 
 work they had to do, and Beethoven's early rules are no 
 worse in themselves than his later ones. Then why 
 did he change them ? Simply because one rule is only 
 applicable to one case ; and to apply it to another case 
 is pedantry. 
 
 If we cannot speak of a rule fixing the normal treat- 
 ment of every case, neither can we speak of a single 
 dominant purpose which determines how every action 
 shall be done. This would be only another form of the 
 same fallacy. I may, owing to my obsession by a 
 dominant purpose, be led to treat people in the lump, 
 abstractly, and not as real individuals ; I may ignore 
 the finer shades of difference and lose my sense of pro- 
 portion. But in such a case the purpose is a bad one, 
 in that it has a bad effect on my conduct ; or at least I 
 am the wrong person to carry it out. To suppose that 
 God acts on immutable rules because he has an immutable 
 purpose is a mere confusion of terms. His immutable 
 purpose might surely be to do justice in every separate
 
 CH. in MIRACLE 209 
 
 case and to avoid all the abstract mechanism of 
 immutable rules. 
 
 We cannot base miracle on the distinction between 
 normal and abnormal cases ; because the distinction is 
 not to be found in God. Where everything is perfectly 
 individual, the class or norm no longer has a meaning ; 
 the individual is a law to itself. Relatively, this is 
 true for man in proportion as he approximates to 
 perfection ; it is absolutely true of God. 
 
 (ii.) The second attempt to reintroduce the notion 
 of miracle on the basis of God's sole reality was the 
 distinction between mediate and immediate action on the 
 part of God. This again I hope the subdivision is not 
 becoming wearisome will take two forms according as 
 God's " medium " is man (including other spirits) or 
 nature. 
 
 (a) That God acts either directly or through natural 
 processes is precisely the dualistic conception which we 
 found wanting at the outset ; so we can pass on at once. 
 
 (/3) God's action is now considered as either direct, 
 or mediated through the agency of man. I do not wish 
 to spend time over the conception of mediacy ; we have 
 already examined it in another chapter, and the only 
 question here is whether it fits the notion of miracle. 
 Plainly it does not. If God delegates power to a 
 creature, and that creature then operates of itself, the 
 action is mediate; whereas God's delegation itself or 
 his subsequent interference is immediate. But the 
 distinction is too arbitrary to require serious refutation. 
 In the Gospels, Jesus works miracles ; in the Acts, the 
 Apostles. No doubt the power comes from God, often 
 in answer to direct prayer. But if God's power is not 
 mediate when it is seen in the person of Peter or Paul, 
 what does the word mean ? It must surely be held that 
 the power to work miracles is no less mediate than the 
 other powers which God bestows upon his creatures. 
 
 3. Of all these forms in which the definition of 
 miracle appears we have discovered that every one is 
 
 p
 
 210 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY n . m 
 
 based upon some error, some dualism which is a mere 
 metaphysical fiction and has no existence in reality. 
 No dualism is ultimate, and no dualism that is not 
 ultimate is a suitable basis for a theological system. It 
 stands self-confessed a foundation of sand. We must 
 declare frankly that the common conception of miracle 
 is untenable. It is a hybrid conception, compounded 
 of two conflicting and absolutely irreconcilable views ; 
 one atheistic, the other theistic ; one material, the 
 other spiritual ; one false, the other true. 
 
 (a) But we must maintain that we have not forfeited 
 anything of value. Instead of finding the operation of 
 God in isolated and controvertible facts, we are now 
 free to find it universalised in everything that is true 
 or good or beautiful. And so far from admitting, as 
 some persons pretend, that between elevating all these 
 things to the rank of God and depressing them all to 
 the rank of matter there is little to choose, we must 
 assert that the former view alone does justice to the 
 facts of common consciousness as well as to the truths 
 of philosophy. 
 
 For up to now we have refrained from asking for a 
 working limitation of the use of the term miracle. If 
 now we ask what is and what is not called miraculous, 
 the difficulty of making a distinction will be very evident. 
 Thus, excluding merely superstitious interpretations of 
 Transubstantiation, would a normal Christian describe 
 the Real Presence in the Eucharist as miraculous? If 
 so, then is not the equally real presence in prayer a 
 miracle ? And then what of the real presence which 
 surrounds the religious man in every moment of his 
 life ? To a religious person it is surely true to say that 
 nothing exists that is not miraculous. And if by 
 miracle he means an act of God realised as such, he is 
 surely justified in finding miracles everywhere. If the 
 Real Presence is not a miracle, then what is ? An act 
 of healing? But are we really prepared to maintain 
 that healing done by non-medical means is miraculous,
 
 CH. in MIRACLE 211 
 
 as distinguished from medical healing which is not ? If 
 miraculous means mysterious (as in common speech it 
 often does) we can draw no such distinction. We are 
 not in a position to say that while a headache cured by 
 prayer is a mystery and therefore presumably miraculous, 
 a headache cured by drugs is scientifically understood 
 and therefore not mysterious nor miraculous. For our 
 criticism of causation has shown us that we do not 
 " understand " the operation of the drug in the least, 
 and are therefore not entitled to call it either miraculous 
 or the reverse, whereas we must for ever call it 
 mysterious. Every cure is equally a miracle, and every 
 doctor (like every other active and creative mind) a 
 miracle-worker, in the only sense which can reasonably 
 be attached to the word. 
 
 For again, if the miraculous and the non-miraculous 
 must be distinguished, into which category does human 
 life and activity fall ? That again cannot be answered. 
 It is not nature in the sense required ; it must be 
 miracle, and yet we do not call it so. And if our 
 scheme of reality is such that we can find no place in it 
 for man, what is to become of it as a philosophy ? 
 
 () But, even after reconciling ourselves to the fact 
 that all events are volitions and that the mechanically 
 controlled " order of nature " is non-existent, we may 
 still ask, Does not this view overthrow all we have 
 believed about the uniformity of nature ? And if we 
 give up the uniformity of nature, where is our boasted 
 volition ? for without a reliable and steadygoing nature 
 to ride upon, Will would never be able to get to the 
 end of its journey. 
 
 (i.) Whether it overthrows our beliefs depends, 
 perhaps, on how far they are true. What do we mean 
 by uniformity? That A always produces a. But A 
 and a, definite events, only happen once each ; uniformity 
 has no place there. Very well ; we mean that events 
 of the class A always produce (or rather precede) events 
 of the class a. The class A consists of B, C, D, all 
 
 p 2
 
 212 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY n .m 
 
 alike ; the class a of y3, 7, , all similarly alike. Then 
 an event in the first class will always precede one in the 
 second. Produce, we cannot say ; that would be to 
 claim a knowledge of their inner connexion which we do 
 not possess. Then all it comes to is this, that there are 
 resemblances between events, and that if events B, C, D, 
 are like one another, their contexts , 7, S, will also 
 show resemblances. That is what we describe as the 
 uniformity of nature. The so-called classes are only 
 our way of recording these resemblances. But in 
 resemblance there is nothing alien to mind as such. 
 Beethoven's sonatas resemble one another ; so do 
 Napoleon's battles and Shakspere's sonnets. Uniformity 
 is a perfectly obvious characteristic of the products of 
 mind. To argue from resemblance to determinism is 
 not uncommon ; but it is totally fallacious. 
 
 If recurrence or resemblance proved determinism, 
 the same conclusion is equally proved by any single 
 event. There is nothing in recurrence that is not already 
 present in the single instance. Indeed some determinists 
 have argued that because a certain man once did a certain 
 action, therefore he was bound to do it. This seems a 
 reductio ad absurdum ; and yet if we can argue from 
 frequency to necessity, the question " How often must a 
 thing happen before you know it was bound to happen? " 
 can have only one answer : " Once is enough." All 
 the arguments, therefore, by which we prove that matter 
 is mechanical in its behaviour will prove the same of 
 mind ; and the uniformity of nature differs not at all 
 in character from the uniformity of spirit. 
 
 (ii.) Granted and by now we seem bound to grant 
 that a ball, let drop, falls in virtue not of an inexorable 
 law but of a volition, and that the volition might will 
 otherwise, we may still say that the possibility of a ball's 
 thus changing its habits need not seriously disturb our 
 practical calculations. We have to deal not only with 
 things, but with men ; and if the engineer feels justified 
 in calculating the strength of his materials on a basis of
 
 CH. in MIRACLE 213 
 
 absolute uniformity, the organiser of labour is no less 
 ready to calculate the average output of a workman and 
 to act on his calculations. If we try to carry the 
 principle of uniformity too . far, it will fail us whether 
 our assumption is that any man will write an equally 
 good epic or that any steel will make an equally good 
 razor. In practice, we learn to discriminate ; we dis- 
 tinguish between the things that any man can do and 
 the things for which an exceptional man is needed ; and 
 in exactly the same way we learn how far it is safe to 
 reckon on the uniformity of matter and at what point 
 we must begin to look for diversity. 
 
 Uniformity, in a word, is relative to our needs ; and 
 to suggest that a game of cricket, for instance, would 
 be impossible if we supposed that the ball might suddenly 
 decide to fly to the moon, is no less and no more 
 sensible than to suggest that it is impossible because the 
 bowler might put it in his pocket and walk off the field. 
 We know that the friend we trust is abstractly capable, 
 if he wished, of betraying us, but that does not prevent 
 our trusting him. It may be that our faith in the 
 uniformity of matter is less removed from such a trust 
 than we sometimes imagine. Whether we describe it 
 as faith in matter or faith in God makes, after all we 
 have said, little difference. 
 
 But if we mean by uniformity the mere statement 
 that things behave alike and that we can rely on them to 
 do so, it is only one side of the truth and, perhaps, not 
 the most important side. To see uniformities is the 
 mark of a superficial observer ; to demand uniformities 
 is characteristic of all the less vital and more mechanical 
 activities. What we call uniformity in people, in society 
 and history, is generally a name for our own lack of 
 insight ; everything looks alike to the person who 
 cannot see differences. What we demand of a friend is 
 not constancy alone ; it is resourcefulness, adaptability, 
 variety ; a continual readjustment to the new demands 
 of an always new intercourse. To the eye of perfect
 
 2i 4 METAPHYSICS TO THEOLOGY PT . m 
 
 insight, nothing is merely uniform ; everything is unique. 
 For such a consciousness there are no classes, there are 
 only individuals ; not in chaos, for every individual is 
 related to every other : 
 
 All things, by immortal power, 
 
 Near or far, 
 
 Hiddenly 
 
 To each other linked are, 
 
 That thou canst not stir a flower 
 
 Without troubling of a star. 1 
 
 The true relation between individuals is not the 
 resemblance which connects members of a class, but 
 the co-operation which unites parts of a whole. Such 
 parts are not bound by abstract rules. They are free, 
 but their freedom is not caprice, for they act in and 
 through the whole and each other, so that the whole 
 perpetually re-creates itself in their actions. 
 
 If materialism only means the mood in which we 
 have tired of the infinity and intimacy of the real, and 
 lapse wearily into a ghost-land of our own, peopled by 
 abstractions which we can command if we cannot enjoy 
 them, the only hope is in some sudden inrush of life, 
 something to startle us into consciousness once more and 
 to scatter the ghosts by the blaze of its own light. 
 This is the function of those events which we call, par 
 excellence, Miracles ; they force themselves upon our 
 eyes as a standing testimony to the deadness and falsity 
 of our materialistic dogmas, and compel us to face 
 reality as it is, free, infinite, self-creative in unpredicted 
 ways. But the very meaning and purpose of miracle is 
 lost if we regard it as unique and exclusive ; if we set 
 up for our superstitious worship, side by side with the 
 true God, an idol of man's making, adored under the 
 name of Nature. 
 
 1 F. Thompson, The Mistreat of Vision.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Absolute, 18, 115, 120 
 Action, Pt. I. Ch. II. pass. 
 
 presupposes knowledge, 30 
 
 and thought, popular distinction, 32 
 breakdown of the distinction, 34 
 
 its relation to materialism, 80 
 
 See also Conduct 
 "Active life" as much intellectual ai 
 
 active, 31 
 
 yEtiological myth, 5-7 
 Agnosticism, 130 
 Altruism, 46 
 Anselm, 66 
 Anthropology, 4, 24 
 Anti-historical scepticism, 44-46 
 Anti-moral theories of religion, 22-29 
 Antinomianism, 25 
 Aristotelian science, 17, 83 
 Aristotle, 66, 161 
 Art and religion, xvi 
 
 rules in, 207-8 
 Atavism, 136 
 Atheism, 18-19 
 Atheists, 8, 66 
 Atomic theory, ancient, 81 
 Atonement, 70, 147, Pt. III. Ch. II. 
 pass. 
 
 "objective" view, 181 seqq. 
 "subjective " view, 182 seqq. 
 Authority in religion and elsewhere, 67 
 Autonomy, moral and political, 26 
 
 Bach, J. S., 207 
 
 Balfour, Mr. A. J., 82 
 Beethoven, 207, 212 
 Bio-chemistry, 75 
 Biology, 75 
 Bio-physics, 75 
 "Blind will," 31, 123 
 Bradley, Mr. F. H., 40 . 
 Buddhism, xiii, 18 
 
 Caesar, Julius, 59 
 
 Carritt, Mr. E. F., vi, 101 n. 
 
 I Casuistry, 204 
 | "Categories," 134 
 i Causal sequence, 196 
 | Causation, 83 seqq. 
 Chalcedon, 28 n., 148 
 Change, 117 
 Character, 107 
 Christ, 151 seqq., 183, 192 
 two wills of, 28 n. 
 divinity of, 151-158 
 omniscient and omnipotent, 155-156 
 humanity of, 158-162 
 the disciples of, their relation to his 
 
 personality, 160 
 uniqueness of, 162-166 
 repentance of, 192 
 " Christ-myth," 53 
 Christianity, xiii, 147 
 
 falsely identified with Christian 
 
 morality, 8 
 its opposition to materialism and 
 
 atheism, 20 
 as " law of Faith," 26 
 its view of God, 70 
 Christology, 28 
 Church, authority of, 12, 65 
 Circumstances, definition by, 1 88 
 Clerk Maxwell, 64 
 Cockin, Rev. F. A., vi 
 Coherence, 144 
 Coleridge, 37 
 
 Communication, 97 seqq., 177 
 Comparative religion, 37 seqq. 
 
 its anthropological and psychological 
 
 character, 39 
 
 Compulsion or externality, falsely 
 ascribed to the moral and civil 
 law, 26 
 Comte, 1 8, 38 
 
 Condemnation the essence of punish- 
 ment, 176 
 
 Conduct, Pt. I. Ch. II. pass. 
 in relation to thought, 7-8 
 and religion, xv, 7 
 
 215
 
 2l6 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Conduct, rules of, 203 seqq. 
 
 Consequences of actions, not punish- 
 ment, 177-178 
 
 " Contemplative life " as much practical 
 as theoretical, 31 
 
 Contingent, necessary and, 50 
 
 Contradiction, 118 
 
 Conversion, 189 
 
 Co-operation, 102 seqq., 186 
 
 Cosmological proof (a contingentia mund\\ 
 66 
 
 Cosmology, 18, 21 
 
 Creed, as prior to ritual, 6-7 
 as means to morality, 9 
 theology, 12 
 
 its necessity to all religion, Pt. I. 
 Ch. I. pass. 
 
 Crimes of religion, 22 
 
 Criminals, treatment of, 171 seqq. 
 
 Crusoe, Robinson, 1 1 1 
 
 Definition, 3, 62, m 
 of evil and error, 127 
 by circumstances, 188 
 Democritus, 64 
 Descartes, 66 
 Desert, conception of, 176 
 Design, argument from, 66 
 Determinism, 25, 104, 107 n. 
 Deterrent, punishment as, 172 
 Differentiation, implies comparison, 79 
 Disciples of Christ, their relation to his 
 
 personality, 160 
 Dragons, 62 
 Drama, 126 
 
 Dualism, 50, 73 seqq., 196-197 
 Duet in music, as example of whole and 
 
 part, 112 
 Duty, no degrees in, 175 
 
 Efficient cause, 83 seqq. 
 
 Electrons, 82 
 
 Elimination of error and evil, 138 seqq. 
 
 Elisha, 191 
 
 Emotion, 10, 190 
 
 Empiricism, 48 
 
 Energy, 82 
 
 Enoch, Apocalypse of, 37 , 
 
 Error, 127 
 
 not apparently definable, 129 
 
 elimination of, 138 seqq. 
 Ethics, 15, 39, 1 1 8, 136, 171 
 
 and evolution, 136 
 Eucharist, 210 
 Evil, Pt. II. Ch. IV. past., 71, 121, 157 
 
 apparently not definable, 129 
 
 false theories of, 130 seqq. 
 
 and negativity, 135 
 
 elimination of, 138 
 
 Evil, how overcome by good, 141, 144 
 
 as perverted good, 143 
 
 as exceptional, 143 
 Evil eye, 5 
 Evolution, 24, 136 
 
 and ethics, 136 
 Externality. See Compulsion 
 
 " Facts " necessary to religion, 37 
 Feeling, view that it is the chief content 
 of religion, io-n 
 
 various meanings of, it 
 Fictions as a means to morality, 9 
 Final causes, 83 
 Finitude, alleged, of human personality, 
 
 97, 152 
 Fluxions, 6 1 
 Forgiveness, 169 
 
 a crime? 171 
 
 an absolute duty, 175 
 
 = punishment, 179 
 
 = self-expression of the good will, 179 
 
 empirically distinct from punishment, 
 1 80 
 
 relation to repentance, 186 
 
 self-, 187 
 Freedom, 105, 127, 182-183 
 
 not chaotic, 91 
 Friendship, 161 
 Fugue, 207 
 Future, as unknowable, 156 
 
 Gassendi, 64 
 
 Generalisations, not dependent for 
 validity on quantity of facts ac- 
 cumulated, 49 
 God, love of, 10 
 
 belief about, indispensable to religion, 
 12 
 
 in what sense do all religions require 
 one? 1 8 
 
 justice of, 23 
 
 omnipotence of, 25, 70, 120, 122, 155 
 
 union with, 27 
 
 his nature historically revealed, 50 
 
 proofs of the existence of, Pt. II. 
 Ch. I. fait. 
 
 as spirit, 70 
 
 as creator, 70 
 
 as personal, 70 
 
 as good yet omnipotent, 70 
 
 as purely immanent (rejected by re- 
 ligion), 114 
 
 meaning of " personal," 115 
 
 immanent and transcendent, 119 
 
 not a hypothesis, 119-120 
 
 a limited (not a God), 121 
 
 how at once omnipotent and good ? 
 122
 
 INDEX 
 
 217 
 
 God, benevolence of, 125 
 
 as perfectly good, 142 
 
 fatherhood of, 149 
 
 how omnipotent, 155 
 
 how omniscient, 157 
 
 falsely conceived as a universal, 167- 
 ,65 
 
 as forgiving sins, 169, 180 
 
 as punishing sins, 169, 180 
 
 repentance of, 187 
 
 his relation to Nature, 195 seqq. 
 Gods of paganism, 20 
 Good Samaritan, 52 
 Good, self-consistency of, 118 
 
 as normal, 136, 144 
 Grace, 182, 184 
 Gravitation, 77 . 
 
 Hamlet, 113 
 Haydn, 208 
 Healing, 211 
 Hegel, 48, 80, 1 1 6, 131 
 Herakles, 53 
 Heresies, 28 and . 
 Heteronomy, 26 
 
 Historical fact, falsely described as irrele- 
 vant to philosophical (theological) 
 truth, 45 
 
 " Historical Jesus," 43, 148 
 Historical theology, 38 
 
 its philosophical character, 52 
 Historicity of Jesus, 52, 54 
 History, Pt. I. Ch. III. pass. 
 
 and religion, xv 
 
 presupposes philosophy, 46 
 
 as objectivity, 49 
 
 = philosophy, 51 
 
 in what sense capable of distinction 
 
 from philosophy, 51 
 Homer, 18, 52 
 
 " Idea " falsely distinguished from 
 
 " object," 98 
 
 Idealism, 73, 94, 101 n., 120 
 two senses of the word, 73 
 Ideals of life, their variety, 35 
 Identity, concrete and abstract, 106 seqq., 
 
 149 seqq. 
 
 Immanence, 114-120 
 Impact, 77 and . 
 Incarnation, 70, 107, Pt. III. Ch. I. 
 
 pass. 
 
 in what sense a mystery, 159 
 Individualism, 183 
 Individuals, distinction between, 100 
 Inductive logic, 201 
 Intellect, Pt. I. Ch. I. pass. 
 
 falsely distinguished from reason, 
 intuition, etc., 12 . 
 
 Intellect = reason, izn. 
 
 = intuition, 12 n. 
 Intuition = intellect, 12 n. 
 
 James, Professor W., 131 . 
 Jesus, 37, 43, 149, ,5,, ,65, 209 
 
 historicity of, 52-54 
 
 one aspect of his death, 54 
 
 temptation of, 154 
 Joachim, Mr. H. H., 101 . 
 John, S., 32 
 Judaism, 26, 37, 43 
 Judgment, logical, 40 
 
 moral, 179 
 Julius Caesar, 59 
 
 Kant, 48, 134 
 
 " Kingdom of ends," 26 
 
 Knowability, argument from, 108 
 
 Knowledge, theory of, 1 5 
 presupposes action, 31 
 not peculiar to individuals, 98 
 alleged ambiguity of the term, 102 
 
 Law, 199 seqq. 
 of works, 26 
 
 Layman and priest, in what sense dif- 
 ferent, 35 
 Legalism, 182, 184 
 Liberal Protestants, 39 
 Logic, 13, 15, 39, 49, 118, 163, 201 
 Love, synthesis of thought and action, 
 
 3* 
 Lucretius, 20 
 
 Man, nature of, 148, 158, 164, 166 
 Materialism, 19, 79 seqq., 153 
 
 the truths for which it stands, 91 
 
 higher, 95 
 
 Mathematical proof, character of, 66 
 Matter, 59 seqq., Pt. II. Ch. 11. pass. 
 
 ambiguity of the term, 89 
 Meaning of words, 62 
 Mechanists, 75 
 Mediacy, 209 
 Mediation, 160-162 
 Mediaeval science, 17 
 Metaphysics, bad sense of the word, 61 
 Middle Ages, 65 
 
 Mind, falsely compared to a machine, 
 34, 100 
 
 and matter, popular distinction be- 
 tween, 72 seqq. 
 
 breakdown of the distinction, 78-79 
 
 and object, distinction between, 99 
 
 seqq. 
 
 Miracle, 70, Pt. III. Ch. III. pas,. 
 Mohammed, xv 
 Mohammedanism, xiii
 
 218 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Monism, 96, 196 
 
 Monothelitism, 28 and >;. 
 
 " Moralisation " of religion, true and 
 
 false, 24 
 
 Moralistic view of religion, 7-10 
 Morality, Pt. I. Ch. II. pass. 
 
 autonomy of, 26 
 
 relative to society, 133 
 Moses, 167 
 
 Motion, its causes, 77 and n. 
 Music, 11:, 126, 2<*7 
 Mystery, 159 
 
 true and false, 64 
 Mystic, 191 
 Mysticism, 27, 41 
 Myth, aetiological, 5-7 
 Mythology, 19 
 
 Napoleon, 212 
 
 Natural law, 199 ieqq. 
 
 Nature, as object of worship, 20, 214 
 
 and miracle, 195 seqq. 
 Necessary and contingent, 50 
 New Testament, 149 
 Newton, 61, 200 
 Non-contradiction of truth, 118 
 
 of good, 1 1 8 
 Normality, 202 seqq. 
 
 Omnipotence, 120 
 
 what it is, 155 
 
 misconceived, 184 
 Omniscience, 117, 139 
 
 what it is, 156 
 Ontological proof, 66 
 Opera, 113 
 Optimism, 121, 131 
 
 Pagan gods, 20 
 
 Pantheism, 149, 162 
 
 " Paradox," the religious, 42 
 
 Part. See Whole 
 
 Paul, S., 26, 209 
 
 Penalty = judgment, 179 
 
 Penitence. See Repentance 
 
 Persecution, 22 
 
 Personality, 19, Pt. II. Ch. III. pass., 
 183-184 
 
 Pessimism, 121, 131 
 
 Peter, S., 209 
 
 Philosophical problems, in what sense 
 insoluble, 124 
 
 Philosophy and religion, xiii itqq. 
 of religion, non-existence of, 15-16 
 = theology = religion, 16-19 
 its distinction from science, 16-17 
 presupposes history, in true and false 
 
 senses, 47 
 cannot admit hypothesis, 60 
 
 Philosophy and scientists, 17, 90 
 Physical suffering, its relation to punish- 
 ment, 178 
 Physics, 59 uqq. 
 Plato, 131 
 Pluralism, 96, 196 
 Polonius, 113 
 Positivism, 38 seqq., 109 
 Practical side of religion, Pt. I. Ch. II. 
 
 Prichard, Mr. H. A., 101 . 
 Proofs of God's existence, their abstract 
 nature, 65 
 
 their supposed dishonest character, 65 
 
 not typically mediaeval, 66 
 Psychology, its nature, 39 
 
 method of, 40 
 
 limitations 0^41-42 
 
 its relation to the problem of mind 
 
 and matter, 76 
 Punishment, 169 
 
 a crime ? 172 
 
 as deterrent, 172 
 
 an absolute duty, 175 
 
 its essence, 176 seqq. 
 
 in what sense a duty, 177 
 
 does not consist of physical pain, 178 
 
 = forgiveness, 179 
 
 empirically distinct from forgiveness, 
 1 80 
 
 self-, 187 
 Puritanism, 25 
 
 Qualities = relations, 1 1 2 
 Quietism, 27-29 
 
 Real Presence, 210 
 Realism, 101 . 
 
 "new," 101 . 
 Reason = intellect, 1 2 n. 
 Regress, infinite, 86 
 
 Relations, their alleged "externality," 
 in 
 
 = qualities, 112 
 Religion, and philosophy, xiii 
 
 conduct and, xv 
 
 history and, xv 
 
 art and, xvi 
 
 universality of, xvii 
 
 usage of word, xvii 
 
 of savages, 4-7, 18, 24 
 
 moralistic view of, 7-10 
 
 non-existence of philosophy of, 15-16 
 
 = theology = philosophy, 16-19 
 Religious wars, 22 
 
 life, its elements, 32 
 
 " paradox," 42 
 Renaissance, 66, 83 
 Repentance, 141, 144, 178
 
 INDEX 
 
 219 
 
 Repentance, its relation to forgiveness 
 186 
 
 divine, 187 
 
 its nature, 188 seqq. 
 
 of God, 189 
 
 of Christ, 192 
 Responsibility, 190-191 
 Revenge, 172 
 Rigorism, 25 
 
 Ritual, view that it is the true content 
 of religion, 4-7 
 
 depends on creed, 7 
 Robinson Crusoe, ill 
 Rules, of conduct, 203 seqq. 
 
 in art, 207-208 
 
 Samaritan, Good, 52 
 Savages, religion of, 4-7, 18, 24 
 Scents, difficulty of defining, 188 
 Scepticism, 8, 18, 99 
 
 true and false, 69 
 Science and religion, 19 
 Scientists and philosophy, 17, 90 
 Scott, Mr. S. G., vi 
 Secular, falsely opposed to religious, 35 
 Self-condemnation, 178-189 
 Self-consciousness, 101 
 Self-dependence, 184 
 Self-expression of the good will = punish- 
 ment, 177, = forgiveness, 179 
 Self-identity, 97 seqq., 152 
 Selfishness, 46 
 Self-limitation of God, 154 
 Self-preservation, 172 
 Self-surrender, 27-29 
 Series, infinite, 87 
 Sextus Empiricus, 66 
 Shakspere, 113, 212 
 Society, 172-173 
 
 morality relative to, 133 
 Socrates, 49, 66 
 Son of Man, 37 
 Sonata, 207 
 Spinoza, 104, 131 
 Spirit, Holy, 183 
 
 God as, 70 
 
 Subjective idealism, 120 
 " Super-moral Absolute," 123 
 
 Teleology, 83 
 Temperament, xiv 
 Temptation of Jesus, 154 
 Testament, New, 149 
 Theism, transcendent, 125, 149 
 Theology, xiii 
 
 attempts to distinguish it from creed- 
 element in religion, 12-15 
 
 = creed, 12 
 
 Theology = philosophy = religion, 16-19 
 
 historical, 38, 42 stqq. 
 
 philosophical character of historical 
 52 
 
 not an empirical science, 59 
 Theory of knowledge, 1 5 
 
 and fact, false antithesis, 17 . 
 
 anti-moral, of religion, 22-29 
 
 atomic, ancient, 8 1 
 Things and thought, 101 
 Thinking, ambiguity of the term, 93 
 Thompson, Francis, 214 
 Thought, conduct in relation to, 7-8, 30 
 
 and action, popular distinction, 33 
 
 breakdown of the distinction, 34 
 
 and things, 101 
 Timelessness as characteristic of all 
 
 truth, 50 
 Totality, two senses of, 137 
 
 must be good, 139, 144 
 Transcendence, 119, 198 
 Treatment of criminals, 171 seqq. 
 Triangle, 163-164 
 Triumph, 188 
 Truth, ultimate, 64 
 
 involving differences in unity, 106 
 
 involving non-contradiction, 118 
 
 Ultimate truths not incapable as such of 
 
 proof, 64. 
 
 Uniformity, 92, 211-214 
 Union with God, 27 
 Uniqueness, 92, 102 
 
 of Christ, 163-166 
 Unity, of minds, 101, 104-105 
 
 and truth, 106 
 
 and identity, 1 08 
 Universal and particular, 49, 163 
 Universality of religion, xvii 
 Universe, in what sense a totality, 
 
 140 
 Unknowable, the future as, 156 
 
 Vendetta, 172 
 Vitalists, 75 
 
 Wars, religious, 22 
 
 Watson, Prof. J., 101 . 
 
 Whole and part, 2O, 88, 104, 108 itqq., 
 
 152 
 
 "Will, blind," 31, 123 
 Will falsely distinguished from faculties, 
 
 103 
 
 "Will not to will," 154 
 "Will to power," 31 
 Words, meaning of, 62 
 Works, law of, 26 
 Worship, Nature as an object of, 20, 214 
 
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