GIFT OF 
 
MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 SUBJECTS: 
 
 THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 FREDERIC HARRISON, R. H. BUTTON, PROF. HUXLEY 
 
 LORD BLACHFORD, HON. RODEN NOEL, LORD 
 
 SELBORNE, CANON BARRY, MR. W. R. 
 
 GREG, REV. BALDWIN BROWN, 
 
 DR. W. G. WARD ; 
 
 THE INFLUENCE UPON MORALITY OF A 
 DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 
 
 SIR JAMES FITZ JAMES STEPHEN, LORD SELBORNE, DR 
 
 MARTINEAU, MR. FREDERIC HARRISON, THE DEAN 
 
 OF ST. PAUL'S, THE DUKE OF ARGYLL, PROF. 
 
 CLIFFORD, DR. WARD, PROF. HUXLEY, 
 
 MR. R. H. BUTTON. 
 
 fetwt: 
 ROSE-BELFORD PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 1878, 
 

CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE ,. 5 
 
 THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE : 
 
 Mr. Frederic Harrison 17 
 
 Mr. R. H. Button 62 
 
 Professor Huxley 71 
 
 Lord Blachford 84 
 
 Hon. Roden Noel 98 
 
 Lord Selborne 109 
 
 Canon Barry 113 
 
 Mr. W. R. Greg 126 
 
 Rev. Baldwin Brown 136 
 
 Dr. W. G. Ward 147 
 
 Mr. Frederic Harrison 155. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE UPON MORALITY OF A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS 
 BELIEF : 
 
 Sir James Stephen .' . 187 
 
 Lord Selborne 191 
 
 Rev. Dr. Martineau 205 
 
 Mr. Frederic Harrison 214 
 
 The Dean of St. Paul's 221 
 
 The Duke of Argyll 224 
 
 Professor Clifford 229 
 
 ' Dr. Ward 237 
 
 Professor Huxley 247 
 
 Mr. R. H. Button 253 
 
 Sir James Stephen 263 
 
 256253 
 
PREFACE TO THIS EDITION. 
 
 A PROFOUND change, the signs of which are so legible 
 that he who runs may read, but the end whereof it is 
 hard to foresee, is coming over the religious belief of 
 Christendom. One of the elements of this metamor- 
 phosis is a growing tendency towards logical consistency. 
 It is becoming more and more generally seen that in re- 
 ligion man has but two guides, Reason and Authority ; 
 that the two are fundamentally antagonistic, but that 
 either may be adopted without landing us in irrecon- 
 cilable contradictions: in other words, that a searcher 
 after religious truth must do one of two things either 
 submit himself unreservedly to the control of an Au- 
 thority claiming to be divine and infallible, or follow 
 Reason whithersoever it leads, regardless of consequences, 
 which may be safely left to take care of themselves. The 
 intellectual leaders of the age the John Stuart Mills and 
 the Herbert Spencers are naturally found on the one 
 side ; while the submissive flocks who in all times and 
 countries have rejoiced the hearts of all priesthoods, 
 whether Brahmin, Buddhist, Christian, or Mohammedan, 
 as inevitably gravitate to the other. These two opposite 
 tendencies are evidenced, on the one hand, by a very no- 
 
V . V : / - : J 
 
 .;.;.,. . , ' 
 - - / ' ' i < .',' ' * ' 
 6 ' * ' >'' PREFACE. 
 
 ticeable growth of Roman Catholicism and Ritualism in 
 England and the United States ; and, on the other, by an 
 even more remarkable spread of infidelity, and by the in- 
 creasing influence of rationalistic parties within the 
 orthodox Churches themselves. People are year by year 
 becoming more alive to the fact that Reason and Au- 
 thority are radically opposed, that the conflict between 
 them is a life and death struggle, that an absolute choice 
 must be made of one or the other, and that all attempts 
 at compromise, such as that sought by Evangelical Prot- 
 estantism, which in one breath proclaims the thoroughly 
 rationalistic doctrine of the right of private judgment, 
 and in the next seeks to fetter the free action of the 
 human mind by confining it within the shackles of iron- 
 clad creeds and confessions of faith, made three or four 
 hundred years ago by fallible mortals like ourselves, are 
 essentially irrational and doomed to inevitable failure. 
 In the English Church the three parties are represented 
 by the High Church, with the Ritualists at the extreme 
 wing ; the Broad Church, or Rationalisers ; and the Low 
 Church, or Evangelicals : or, as some irreverent wit has 
 christened them, the Attitudinarians, the Latitudinarians, 
 and the Platitudinarians. 
 
 The Churches of Authority, whether Roman, Ritualist, 
 or High Anglican, and the Churches of Compromise, 
 whether Lutheran, Low Anglican, Presbyterian, Metho- 
 dist, or Baptist, need no more than a passing allusion here. 
 They are merely seeking to walk in the old paths. Semper 
 eadem might be chosen as their motto by all, as it has been 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 by one of them. It is when we come to the other section 
 of the religious world, to those who, with a single eye 
 to TRUTH, choose Reason as their guide, and follow it to 
 its logical outcome, that we see how vast is the change 
 that is coming over the belief of Christendom. It is not 
 merely that such subjects as the inspiration of the Bible, 
 the divinity of Christ, the existence of Hell, and the doc- 
 trines of the Atonement and Eternal Damnation are being 
 questioned with a vigour and pertinacity to which the 
 past affords no parallel. These dogmas were questioned 
 by Voltaire and Paine and the other Deists of the eigh- 
 teenth century. The change is even more fundamental : 
 it is, in the extremest sense, radical ; so that a book which 
 caused so great a ferment when it originally appeared as 
 " The Age of Reason," would, were it now published for 
 the first time, create so little remark as almost to fall 
 still-born from the press. Intellectual Christendom has 
 travelled a long way since that work was written. 
 Among the subjects now being discussed with a keenness 
 and searching rigour unknown in former times are ques- 
 tions so fundamental as the existence and personality of 
 God, and the existence and immortality of the human 
 soul. Reason is doing its work thoroughly ; it is digging 
 down to the very foundations of religion, with the full 
 and passionate determination that the faith of the future 
 be it Neo-Christianity or any other shall be founded 
 on a rock, not on a quicksand. The Reformation of the 
 nineteenth century is an infinitely more portentous phe- 
 nomenon than its forerunner of the sixteenth. It is no 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 mere reform. The question now is, whether Christianity 
 shall continue to exist, even with such radical changes 
 as will make it virtually a new thing ; or whether it 
 shall be replaced by an altogether new edifice built upon 
 a scientific foundation of positive, verifiable truth. 
 
 The leading subject dealt with in this volume is one of 
 those root questions above referred to, which lie at the 
 bottom of all religion the existence and immortality of 
 the human soul. The present discussion is perhaps the 
 noblest, as it is certainly the weightiest contribution 
 towards the solution of the momentous question at issue 
 that has ever appeared in print, not even excepting the 
 immortal " Phsedo " of Plato ; and the numerous inci- 
 dental direct or indirect allusions to it which have been 
 made on this continent as well as in England, are proofs 
 of the profound impression which it has created. Nor is 
 this widespread interest a matter for wonder. To every 
 human being who can at times lift himself above the 
 cares and trivialities of this life, the question, " If a man 
 die, shall he live again ? " must ever be the most solemn 
 and heart-searching. It would, of course, be absurd to 
 pretend that "the Great Enigma" is 'at last solved. Prob- 
 ably it is insoluble ; or, at least, will remain so until the 
 alleged facts of Spiritualism are proved beyond cavil, of 
 which there appears to be no immediate prospect; or 
 until some "traveller" from that" undiscovered country" 
 of which Hamlet speaks so mournfully, returns and tells 
 us of his wanderings, and of the glories and joys, and 
 mayhap also the sorrows, of that unknown land. But if 
 
PREFACE. 9 
 
 the problem be insoluble it is well to know even so much ; 
 it is well to recognise that man is not a god, that his ca- 
 pacities are not infinite, and that it is mere childish- 
 ness perversely to war against the established limits of 
 his intelligence. We shall then concern ourselves with 
 matters within the scope of our powers, and cease to 
 waste our energies in vain repinings because we cannot 
 pierce behind a veil, which, if it be impenetrable, we can 
 at least believe has been made so for some wise and holy 
 . purpose. If the discussion which is here reprinted leads 
 only to this result, it will not have been had in vain. 
 
 The other subject touched upon in this volume the 
 influence upon morality of a decline in religious belief is 
 one which would inevitably come up for discussion in 
 a time of religious transition. Such periods have 
 always been marked by a certain amount of moral 
 laxity. The age of the Reformation was so, as witness 
 the excesses of the Anabaptists and other fanatics and 
 enthusiasts of that day ; and something of the same sort 
 may be in store for us now. It seems self-evident that a 
 weakening in the foundation must lead to a weakening 
 in the superstructure ; and where morality is based upon 
 religion, as to a large extent it is with Christianity, any- 
 thing which affects the latter must inevitably react upon 
 the former. But the evil will be only temporary, and 
 will be more than compensated by a greater good. Mo- 
 rality must gain in the end by being placed upon a true 
 foundation instead of a false one. If the result of the 
 present yeasty ferment be the evolution of a new religion, 
 
10 PREFACE. 
 
 that religion will, we may be sure, be truer and better 
 than the old one ; and the morality based upon it must 
 share in the benefit. But the question among scientific 
 moralists now is, whether morality shall not be altogether 
 removed from off its old religious foundation, and placed 
 upon one of its own, to wit, the human conscience, with 
 the well-being of man and all other sentient creatures for 
 its aim. To the scientific moralist it seems better that a 
 man should refrain from doing an evil act because he him- 
 self knows or feels it to be evil, rather than because some 
 one else tells him it is evil ; and, on the other hand, that 
 it will be a gain to get rid of the false idea if it be a 
 false one that the human conscience is, in some peculiar 
 and special sense, the voice of God and therefore infallible, 
 and replace it by the true idea if it be a true one that 
 the conscience is a mere human faculty, imperfect like 
 the rest of man's faculties, In infallibility there are no 
 degrees, so that, if the former theory be true, the con- 
 science of a Feejee Island savage or^a Bushman is on a 
 level with that of a Buddha or a Plato. Both are equally 
 divine, both equally infallible. . If, however, the rival 
 theory be true, that the conscience is a human faculty in 
 precisely the same sense that the intellect and the aesthetic 
 instinct are human faculties, it follows that the moral 
 sense or that power, by whatever name it is called, by 
 which we judge an act to be right or wrong is more 
 developed in the civilized man than in the savage, just as 
 it is more developed in the man than in the child ; and 
 that even in the civilized man it is finite, imperfect, fal- 
 
PREFACE. 11 
 
 lible, and consequently susceptible of education, improve- 
 ment, progress, evolution. It is obvious that a searching 
 enquiry into the relation of morality to religion must be 
 of the gravest practical importance in a time of such vital 
 change as that in which we live. 
 
 Both questions treated of in these pages are discussed 
 from widely different standpoints, ranging from Roman 
 Catholicism at the one extreme to Positivism at the other. 
 One feature of the controversy might well be imitated 
 on this side of the Atlantic that is, the noble tolerance, 
 gentleness, and courtesy shown towards the most oppo- 
 site views, however manifestly distasteful. The nearest 
 approach to warmth of temper occurs, curiously enough, 
 in the vigorous passage-at-arms between Mr. Harrison and 
 Professor Huxley, who, on the general question, are almost 
 at one. The discussions, or " Symposia," originally appeared 
 in the Nineteenth Century, & monthly review recently start- 
 ed in London, under the editorship of Mr. James Knowles, 
 formerly editor of the Contemporary. A brief sketch of 
 the different contributors or disputants may not be with- 
 out interest to readers in this country. 
 
 Mr. Frederic Harrison is one of the leaders of the Eng- 
 lish Positivists or Comtists, and one of the ablest review- 
 writers now living. He has been for years a prominent 
 contributor to the Fortnightly and other reviews, on poli- 
 tical, economical, and theological questions. A number 
 of his essays were recently collected and published in 
 book form. He has also published a translation of 
 
12 PREFACE. 
 
 " Social Statics," being the second volume of Comte's 
 " Positive Polity." 
 
 Mr. Richard Holt Hutton is the editor of the London 
 Spectator, and the author of a number of literary and 
 theological essays which were published in 1871 in two 
 volumes. He is one of the subtlest literary critics of the 
 day, his masterly essay on Goethe, in particular, having 
 been pronounced by high authority to be the finest piece 
 of biographical criticism that exists in any language. In 
 theology he is Broad-Church, of the school of the late 
 F. D. Maurice. 
 
 Professor Huxley is well-known as one of the greatest 
 of living biologists and one of the ablest expounders of 
 popular science. Of his numerous works the best known 
 are his " Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews," published 
 in 1870, and his " Critiques and Addresses," published in 
 1873. In science he is an uncompromising advocate of 
 the Darwinian theory, and of Evolution in general ; in 
 philosophy he is a sensationalist of the school of Locke, 
 Descartes, Mill, and Spencer ; and in religion apparently 
 holds the new and growing creed of Agnosticism. 
 
 Lord Blachford, better known as Sir Frederick Rogers, 
 is a lawyer by profession, having been called to the Eng- 
 lish bar in 1836. He was Permanent Under-Secretary of 
 State for the Colonies, from 1860 till 1871, when he was 
 appointed Privy Councillor, and raised to the peerage 
 under the title of Baron Blachford. 
 
 The Hon. Jloden Noel is a son of the first Earl of 
 
PREFACE. 13 
 
 Gainsborough, was born in 1834, and educated at Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, where he took his degree in 1858. 
 He was groom to the Privy Chamber of Her Majesty 
 from 1867 to 1871. He is a voluminous writer, and his 
 poetry is highly spoken of. 
 
 Lord Selborne, formerly Sir Roundell Palmer, acquired 
 his present title when made Lord-Chancellor in 1872. 
 He was one of the counsel on behalf of the English Gov- 
 ernment in the arbitration at Geneva, on the Alabama 
 claims. He edited the well-known " Book of Praise, from 
 the best English Hymn writers," published in 1862. 
 
 Canon Barry is the author of numerous works, includ- 
 ing an " Introduction to the Old Testament;" "Notes on 
 the Gospels;" " Life of Sir C. Barry;" " Cheltenham Col- 
 lege Sermons;" "Notes on the Catechism;" and "Religion 
 for Every Day : Lectures to Men." He was Head Mas- 
 ter of Leeds Grammar School for eight years ; in 1862 
 was appointed Principal of Cheltenham College, in 
 1868 Principal of Bang's College, London, and in 1871 a 
 Canon of Worcester. He is a son of Sir Charles Barry, the 
 eminent architect. 
 
 Mr. William Rathbone Greg is one of the best known 
 and most eloquent theological writers of the day. His 
 "Creed of Christendom," though written over thirty 
 years ago, still ranks as the ablest work of its kind in the 
 language ; so able indeed that no satisfactory reply to it 
 has ever been forthcoming ; a fact which, as Mr. F. W. 
 Newman has remarked, goes far to show that it is un- 
 
14- PREFACE. 
 
 answerable. His other works are " Enigmas of Life ; " 
 " Literary and Social Judgments ; " " Political Problems ; " 
 " Essays on Political and Social Science;" and "Rocks 
 Ahead." Mr. Greg was a member of the English Civil 
 Service, having been appointed a Commissioner of Cus- 
 toms in 1856 ; and Controller of Her Majesty's Sta- 
 tionery Office, in 1864, an office from which he retired 
 last year. 
 
 The Rev. James Baldwin Brown is a leading Indepen- 
 dent clergyman, of Brixton, London ; and a voluminous 
 author. His principal works are "The Home Life in the 
 .Light of its Divine Idea," which has passed through five 
 editions ; " The Divine Life in Man ; " " The Soul's Exo- 
 dus and Pilgrimage;" "The Christian Policy of Life;" 
 " The Higher Life : its Reality, Experience, and Destiny;" 
 and " The Doctrine of Annihilation, in the Light of the 
 Gospel of Love." In theology he belongs to the liberal 
 or " broad " school. 
 
 Dr. W. G. Ward is a leading Roman Catholic writer, 
 and the editor of the Dublin Review, a quarterly, and the 
 ablest Roman Catholic periodical published in the English 
 language. 
 
 Sir James Fitzjames Stephen is one of the ablest jurists 
 in England, and the author of " The Law of Evidence ; " 
 " The Indian Evidence Act ; " and other legal works ; also 
 of a notable work on " Liberty, Equality, and Frater- 
 nity," intended as an answer to Mill's famous essay on 
 Liberty. 
 
PKEFACE. 15 
 
 The Rev. James Martineau is a leading clergyman of the 
 Unitarian denomination, and was appointed Principal of 
 Manchester New College, London, in 1868. He is the 
 author of numerous works, including, among many others, 
 " The Rationale of Religiouf Enquiry ; " " Studies of 
 Christianity;" " Essays, Philosophical and Theological;" 
 and " Religion as affected by Modern Materialism." He 
 was one of the founders of the National Review. In 
 1875 the University of Ley den conferred upon him the 
 honorary degree of D.D, He is a brother of the late 
 Harriet Martineau. 
 
 The Dean of St. Paul's (the Very Rev. Richard William 
 Church) was born in 1815, educated at Oxford, and took 
 his degree in 1836. In 1854 he published a volume of 
 essays which at once established his reputation as a 
 scholarly and graceful writer. Two of these essays were 
 afterwards expanded into a separate volume, and pub- 
 lished under the title of " The Life of St. Anselm." In 
 1869 he published a volume of Sermons on the relation 
 of Christianity to Civilization; and he is also the author 
 of the "Sacred Poetry of Early Religions." He was 
 appointed Dean of St. Paul's in 1871. 
 
 The Duke of Argyll is a prominent Scottish Liberal 
 statesman, having been a member of several administra ^ 
 tions, the last office held by him being Secretary of State 
 for India, in Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet. He is also well 
 known as the author of an able work on " The Reign of 
 Law," which ; has passed through many editions ; and a 
 
16 PREFACE. 
 
 small work on " Primeval Man." In 1861 he was elected 
 President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1871 his 
 eldest son, the Marquis of Lome, married the Princess 
 Louise. 
 
 Prof. Clifford is a mathematician by profession, and 
 a frequent contributor to the Fortnightly and other 
 reviews. In theology he may perhaps fairly be classed 
 with the Positivist school. 
 
 F. T. J. 
 
 TORONTO, 2nd April, /.CN. 
 
A MODEEN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 FREDERIC HARRISON. 
 
 HOW many men and women continue to give a 
 mechanical acquiescence to the creeds, long after 
 they have parted with all definite theology, out of 
 mere clinging to some hope of a future life, in however dim 
 and inarticulate a way ! And how many, whose own 
 faith is too evanescent to be put into words, profess a 
 sovereign pity for the practical philosophy wherein there 
 is no place for their particular yearning for a heaven to 
 come ! They imagine themselves to be, by virtue of this 
 very yearning, beings of a superior order, and, as if they 
 inhabited some higher zone amid the clouds, they flout 
 sober thought as it toils in the plain below ; they counsel 
 it to drown itself in sheer despair or take to evil living, 
 they rebuke it with some sonorous household word from 
 the Bible or the poets " Eat, drink, for to-morrow ye 
 die" "Were it not better not to be?" And they as- 
 sume the question closed when they have murmured tri- 
 umphantly, " Behind the veil begird the veil." 
 
18 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 They are right, and they are wrong : right to cling to a 
 hope of something that shall endure beyond the grave ; 
 wrong in their rebukes to men who in a different spirit 
 cling to this hope as earnestly as they. We too turn our 
 thoughts to that which is behind the veil. We strive to 
 pierce its secret with eyes, we trust, as eager and as fearless ; 
 and even it may be more patient in searching for the 
 realities beyond the gloom. That which shall come after 
 is no less solemn to us than to you. We ask you, there- 
 fore : What do you "know of it ? Tell us ; we will tell 
 you what we hope. Let us reason together in sober and 
 precise prose. Why should this great end, staring at all 
 of us along the vista of each human life, be forever a 
 matter for dithyrambic hypotheses and evasive tropes ? 
 What in the language of clear sense does any one of us 
 hope for after death : what precise kind of life, and on 
 what grounds ? It is too great a thing to be trusted to 
 poetic ejaculations, to be made a field for Pharisaic scorn. 
 At least be it acknowledged that a man may think of the 
 soul and of death and of future life in ways strictly posi- 
 tive (that is, without ever quitting the region of evi- 
 nce), and yet may make the world beyond the grave 
 the centre to himself of moral life. He will give the 
 ial life a place as high, and will dwell upon the 
 proffiises of that which is after death as confidently as 
 the believers in a celestial resurrection. And he can do 
 >ut trusting his all to a perhaps so vague that 
 -m of doubt Qan wreck it, but trusting, rather, to a 
 of solid knowledge, which no man of any school 
 denies to be true so fav as it goes. 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 19 
 
 THERE ought 4 to be no misunderstanding at the" outset 
 as to what we who trust in positive methods mean by the 
 word "soul," or by the words " spiritual," "materialist," and 
 " future life." We certainly would use that ancient and 
 beautiful word soul, provided there be no misconception 
 involved in its use. We assert as fully as any theologian 
 the supreme importance of spiritual life. We agree with 
 the theologians that there is current a great deal of real 
 materialism, deadening to our higher feeling. And we 
 deplore the too common interference to the world beyond 
 the grave. And yet we find the centre of our religion 
 and our philosophy in man and man's earth. 
 
 To follow out this use of old words, and to see that 
 there is no paradox in thus using them, we must go back 
 a little to general principles. The matter turns altogether 
 upon habits of thought. What seems to you so shocking 
 will often seem to us so ennobling, and what seems to us 
 flimsy will often seem to you sublime, simply because our 
 minds have been trained in different logical methods ; 
 and hence you will call that a beautiful truth which 
 strikes us as nothing, but a random guess. It is idle, of 
 course, to dispute about our respective logical methods, 
 or to pit this habit of mind in a combat with that. But 
 we may understand each other better if we can agree to 
 follow out the moral and religious temper, and learn that 
 it is quite compatible with this or that mental procedure. 
 
20 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM.^ 
 
 It may teach us again that ancient truth, how much 
 human nature there is in men ; what fellowship there is 
 in our common aspirations and moral forces ; how we all 
 live the same spiritual life ; while the philosophies are 
 but the ceaseless toil of the intellect seeking again and 
 again to explain more clearly that spiritual life, and to 
 furnish it with reasons for the faith that is in it. 
 
 This would be no place to expound or to defend the 
 positive method of thought. The question before us is 
 simply, if this positive method has a place in the spiritual 
 world or has anything to say about a future beyond the 
 grave. Suffice it that we mean by the positive method 
 of thought (and we will now use the term in a sense not 
 limited to the social construction of Comte) that method 
 which would base life and conduct, as well as knowledge, 
 upon such evidence as can be referred to logical canons 
 of proof , which would place all that occupies man in a 
 homogenous system of law. On the other hand, this 
 method turns aside from hypotheses not to be tested by 
 any known logical canon familiar to science, whether the 
 hypothesis claims support from intuition, aspiration or 
 general plausibility. And, again, this method turns aside 
 from ideal standards which avow themselves to be lawless, 
 which profess to transcend the field of law. We say, life 
 and conduct shall stand for us wholly on a basis of law, 
 and must rest entirely in that region of science (not 
 physical but moral and social science) where we are free 
 to use our intelligence in the methods known to us as 
 intelligible logic, methods which the intellect can analyze. 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 21 
 
 When you confront us with hypotheses, however sublime 
 and however affecting, if they cannot be stated in terras 
 of the rest of our knowledge, if they are disparate to that 
 world of sequence and sensation which to us is the ulti- 
 mate base of all our real knowledge, then we shake our 
 heads and turn aside. I say, turn aside ; and I do not 
 say, dispute. We cannot disprove the suggestion that 
 there are higher channels to knowledge in our aspirations 
 or our presentiments, as there might be in our dreams 
 by night as well as by day ; we courteously salute the 
 hypotheses, as we might love our pleasant dreams ; we 
 seek to prove no negatives. We do not pretend there are 
 no mysteries ; we do not frown on the poetic splendours of 
 the fancy. There is a world of beauty and of pathos in 
 the vast ether of the Unknown in which this solid ball 
 hangs like a speck. Let all who list, who have true 
 imagination and not mere paltering with a loose fancy 
 let them indulge their gift, and tell us what their 
 soaring has unfolded. Only let us not waste life in crude 
 dreaming, or loosen the knees of action. For life and 
 conduct, and the great emotions which react on life and 
 conduct, we can place nowhere but in the same sphere of 
 knowledge, under the same canons of proof, to which we 
 intrust all parts of our life. We will ask the same 
 philosophy which teaches us the lessons of civilization to 
 guide our lives as responsible men ; and we go again to 
 the same philosophy which orders our lives to explain to 
 us the lessons of death. We crave to have the supreme 
 hours of our existence lighted up by thoughts and motives, 
 
A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 such as we can measure beside the common acts of our 
 daily existence, so that each hour of our life up to the 
 grave may be linked to the life beyond the grave as one 
 continuous whole, " bound each to each by natural piety." 
 And so, wasting no sighs over the incommensurable 
 possibilities of the fancy, we will march on with a firm 
 step till we knock at the gates of death ; bearing always 
 the same human temper, in the same reasonable beliefs, 
 and with the same earthly hopes of prolonged activity 
 among our fellows, with which we set out gayly in the 
 morning of life. 
 
 When we come to the problem of the human soul, we 
 simply treat man as man, and we study him in accordance 
 with our human experience. Man is a marvellous and 
 complex being, we may fairly say of complexity past any 
 hope of final analysis of ours, fearfully and wonderfully 
 made to the point of being mysterious. But incredible 
 progress has been won in reading this complexity, in re- 
 ducing thi? mystery to order. Who can say that man 
 shall ever be anything but an object of awe and of un- 
 fathomable pondering to. himself 1 Yet he would be false 
 to all that is great in him, if he decried what he already has 
 achieved toward self-knowledge. Man has probed his own 
 corporeal and animal life, and is each day arranging it in 
 more acciirate adjustment with the immense procession 
 of animal life around him. He has grouped the intel- 
 lectual powers, he has traced to their relations the func- 
 tions of mind, and ordered the laws of thought into a 
 logic of a regular kind. He has analyzed and grouped 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 23 
 
 the capacities of action, the moral faculties, the instincts 
 and emotions. And not only is the analysis of these 
 tolerably clear, but the associations and correlations of 
 each with the other are fairly made manifest. At the 
 lowest, we are all assured that every single faculty of man 
 is capable of scientific study. Philosophy simply means, 
 that every part of human nature acts upon a method, and 
 does not act chaotically, inscrutably, or in mere caprice. 
 
 But then we find throughout man's knowledge of him- 
 self signs of a common type. There is organic unity in 
 the whole. These laws of the separate functions, of body, 
 mind, or feeling, have visible relations to each other, are 
 inextricably woven in with each other, act and react, 
 depend and interdepend, one on the other. There is no 
 such thing as an isolated phenomenon, nothing sui 
 generis, in our entire scrutiny of human nature. What- 
 ever the complexities of it, there is through the whole a 
 solidarity of a single unit. Touch the smallest fibre of 
 the corporeal man, and in some infinitesimal way we may 
 watch the effect in the moral man, and we may trace this 
 effect up into the highest pinnacles of the spiritual life. 
 On the other hand, when we rouse chords of the most 
 glorious ecstasy of the soul, we may see the vibration of 
 them, visibly thrilling upon the skin. The very animals 
 about us can perceive the emotion. Suppose a martyr 
 nerved to the last sacrifice, or a saint in the act of reliev- 
 ing a sufferer, the sacred passion within him is stamped 
 in the eye, or plays about the mouth, with a connection 
 as visible as when we see a muscle acting on a bone, or 
 
24 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 the brain affected by the supply of blood. Thus from 
 the summit of spiritual life to the base of corporeal life, 
 whether we pass up or down the gamut of human forces, 
 there runs one organic correlation and sympathy of parts. 
 Man is one, however compound. Fire his conscience and he 
 blushes. Check his circulation, and he thinks wildly, or 
 he thinks not at all. Impair his secretions, and moral 
 sense is dulled, discoloured, or depraved ; his aspirations 
 flag, his hope, love, faith reel. Impair them still more, 
 and he becomes a brute. A cup of drink degrades his 
 moral nature below that of a swine. Again, a violent 
 emotion of pity or horror makes him vomit. A lancet 
 will restore him from delirium to clear thought. Excess 
 of thought will waste his sinews. Excess of muscular 
 exercise will deaden thought. An emotion will double 
 the strength of his muscles. And at last the prick of a 
 needle or a grain of mineral will in an instant lay to rest 
 forever his body and its unity, and all the spontaneous 
 activities of intelligence, feeling, and action, with which 
 that compound organism was charged. 
 
 These are the obvious and ancient observations about 
 the human organism. But modern philosophy and 
 science have carried these hints into complete explana- 
 tions. By a vast accumulation of proof positive, thought 
 at last has established a distinct correspondence between 
 every process of thought or of feeling and some corporeal 
 phenomenon. Even when we cannot explain the precise 
 relation, we can show that definite correlations exist. 
 To positive methods, every fact of thinking reveals itself 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 25 
 
 as having functional relations with molecular change. 
 Every fact of will or of feeling is in similar relation with 
 kindred molecular facts. And all these facts, again, have 
 some relation to each other. Hence we have established 
 an organic correspondence in alFmanifestations of human 
 life. To think implies a corresponding adjustment of mo- 
 lecular activity. To feel emotion implies nervous organs 
 of feeling. To will implies vital cerebral hemispheres. 
 Observation, reflection, memory, imagination, judgment 
 have all been analyzed out, till they .stand forth as func- 
 tions of living organs in given conditions of the organ- 
 ism, that is in a particular, environment. The whole 
 range of man's powers, from the finest spiritual sensibility 
 down to a mere automatic contraction, falls into one co- 
 herent scheme ; being all the multiform functions of a 
 living organism in presence of its encircling conditions. 
 
 But, complex as it is, there is no confusion in this 
 whole when conceived by positive methods. No rational 
 thinker now pretends that imagination is simply the 
 vibration of a particular fibre. No man can explain 
 volition by purely anatomical study. While keeping in 
 view the due relations between moral and corporeal facts, 
 we distinguish moral from biologic facts, moral science 
 from biology. Moral science is based upon biological 
 science ; but it is not comprised in it ; it has its own 
 special facts and its own special methods, though always 
 in the sphere of law. Just so the mechanism of the body 
 is based upon mechanics, would be unintelligible but for 
 mechanics, but could not be explained by mechanics alone , 
 
26 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 or by anything but a complete anatomy and biology. To 
 explain the activity of the intellect as included in the activ- 
 ity of the body, is as idle as to explain the activity of the 
 body as included in the motion of solid bodies. And it is 
 equally idle to explain the activity of the will, or the 
 emotions, as included in the theory of the intellect. All 
 the spheres of human life are logically separable, though 
 they are organically interdependent. Now the combined 
 'activity of the human powers organized around the high- 
 est of them we call the soul. The combination of intel- 
 lectual and moral energy which is the source of religion, 
 we call the spiritual life. The explaining the spiritual 
 side of life by physical instead of moral and spiritual 
 reasoning, we call materialism. 
 
 The consensus of the human faculties, which we call 
 the soul, comprises all sides of human nature according to 
 one homogeneous theory. But the intuitional methods 
 ask us to insert into the midst of this harmonious system 
 of parts, as an underlying explanation of it, an indes- 
 cribable entity ; and to this hypothesis, since the days of 
 Descartes (or possibly of Aquinas), the good old word 
 soul has been usually restricted. How and when this 
 entity ever got into the organism, how it abides in it, 
 what are its relations to it, how it acts on it, why and 
 when it goes out of it all is mystery. We ask for some 
 evidence of the existence of any such entity ; the answer 
 is, we must imagine it in order to explain the organism. 
 We ask what are its methods, its laws, its affinities ; we 
 are told that it simply has none, or none knowable. We 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 27 
 
 ask for some description of it, of its course of develop- 
 ment, for some single fact about it, statable in terms of 
 the rest of our knowledge; the reply is mystery, 
 absence of everything so statable or cognizable, a line of 
 poetry, or an ejaculation. It has no place, no matter, no 
 modes, neither evolution nor decay : it is without body, 
 parts or passions ; a spiritual essence, incommensurable, 
 incomparable, indescribable. Yet, with all this, it is, we 
 are told, an entity, the most real and perfect of all en- 
 tities short of the divine. 
 
 If we ask why we are to assume the existence of some- 
 thing of which we have certainly no direct evidence, and 
 which is so wrapped in mystery that for practical pur- 
 poses it becomes a nonentity, we are told that we need to 
 conceive it, because a mere organism cannot act as we see 
 the human organism act. Why not ? They say there 
 must be a principle within as the cause of this life. But 
 what do we gain by supposing a " principle ? " The " prin- 
 ciple " only adds a fresh difficulty. Why should a " prin- 
 ciple," or an entity, be more capable of possessing these 
 marvelous human powers than the human organism? 
 Besides we shall have to imagine a " principle " to ex- 
 plain not only why a man can feel affection, but also why 
 a dog can feel affection. If a mother cannot love her 
 child merely qua human organism unless her love be a 
 manifestation of an eternal soul, how can a* cat love her 
 kittens merely qua feline organism without an imma- 
 terial principle or soul ? Nay, we shall have to go on to 
 invent a principle to account for a v tree growing, or a 
 
28 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 thunder-storm roaring, and for every force of Nature. 
 Now this very supposition was made in a way by the 
 Greeks, and to some extent by Aquinas, the author of 
 the vast substructure of anima underlying all Nature, 
 of which our human soul is the fragment that alone sur- 
 vives. One by one the steps in this series of hypothesis 
 have faded away. Greek and mediaeval philosophy im- 
 agined that every activity resulted not from the body 
 which exhibited the activity, but from some mysterious 
 entity inside it. If marble was hard, it had a " form " 
 in forming its hardness ; if a blade of grass sprang up, it 
 had a vegetative spirit mysteriously impelling it ; if a dog 
 obeyed his master, it had an animal spirit mysteriously 
 controlling its organs. The mediaeval physicists, as 
 Moliere reminds us, thought that opium induced sleep 
 quia est in eo virtus dormitiva. Nothing was allowed 
 to act as it did by its own force or vitality. In every 
 explanation of science we were told to postulate an inter- 
 calary hypothesis. Of this huge mountain of figment, 
 the notion of man's immaterial soul is the one feeble 
 residuum. 
 
 Orthodoxy has so long been accustomed to take itself 
 for granted, that we are apt to forget how very short a 
 period of human history this sublimated essence has been 
 current. From Plato to Hegel the idea has been continu- 
 ally taking fresh shapes. There is not a trace of it in the 
 Bible in its present sense, and nothing in the least akin 
 to it in the Old Testament. Till the time of Aquinas 
 theories of a material soul, as a sort of gas, were 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 29 
 
 never eliminated ; and until the time of Descartes, our 
 present ideas of the antithesis of soul and body were 
 never clearly defined. Thus the Bible, the Fathers, and 
 the mediaeval Church, as was natural when philosophy 
 was in a state of flux, all represented the soul in very 
 different ways ; and none of these ways were those of a 
 modern divine. It is a curious instance of the power of 
 words that the practical weight of the popular religion is 
 now hung on a metaphysical hypothesis, which itself 
 has been in vogue for only a few centuries in the history 
 of speculation, and which is now become to those trained 
 in positive habits of thought a mere juggle of ideas. 
 
 We have in all this sought only to state what we mean 
 by man's soul, and what we do not mean. But we make 
 no attempt to prove a negative, or to demonstrate the non- 
 existence of the supposed entity. Our purpose now is a very 
 different one. We start out from this that this positive 
 mode of treating man is in this, as in other things, morally 
 sufficient ; that it leaves no voids and chasms in human 
 life ; that the moral and religious sequelae which are 
 sometimes assigned to its teaching have no foundation in 
 fact. We say that, on this basis, not only have we an en 
 trance into the spiritual realm, but that we have a firmer 
 hold on the spiritual life than on the basis of hypotheses. 
 On this theory, the world beyond the grave is in closer 
 and truer relation to conduct than on the spiritualist the- 
 ory. We look on man as man, not as man plus a hetero- 
 geneous entity. And we think that we lose nothing, but 
 gain much thereby, in the religious as well as in the moral 
 
30 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 world. We do not deny the conceivable existence of the 
 heterogeneous entity. But we believe that human nature 
 is adequately equipped on human and natural grounds 
 without this disparate nondescript. 
 
 Let us be careful to describe the method we employ as 
 that which looks on man as man, and repudiate the vari- 
 ous labels, such as materialists, physical, imspiritual 
 methods, and the like, which are used as equivalent for 
 the rational or positive method of treating man. The meth- 
 od of treating man as man insists, at least as much as any 
 other method, that man has a moral, emotional, religious 
 life, different in kind from his material and practical life, 
 but perfectly coordinate with that physical life, and to be 
 studied on similar scientific methods. The spiritual sym- 
 pathies of man are undoubtedly the highest part of human 
 nature ; and our method condemns as loudly as any system 
 physical explanations of spiritual life. We claim the right 
 to use the term " soul," " spiritual," and the like, in their 
 natural meaning. In the same way, we think that there 
 are theories which are justly called " materialist," that 
 there are physical conceptions of human nature which are 
 truly dangerous to morality, to goodness, and religion. It 
 is sometimes thought to be a sufficient proof of the reality 
 of this heterogeneous entity of the soul, that otherwise we 
 must assume the most spiritual emotions of man to be a 
 secretion of cerebral matter, and that, whatever the diffi- 
 culties of conceiving the union of soul and body, it is 
 something less difficult than the conceiving that the 
 nerves think, or the tissues love. We repudiate such 
 
THE SOCJL AND FUTURE LIFE. 31 
 
 language as much as any one can, but there is 
 another alternative. It is possible to invest with 
 the highest dignity the spiritual life of mankind by 
 treating it as an ultimate fact, without trying to find 
 an explanation for it either in a perfectly unthinkable 
 hypothesis or in an irrational and debasing physicism. 
 
 We certainly do reject, as earnestly as any school can, 
 that which is most fairly called materialism, and we will 
 second every word of those who cry out that civilization is. 
 in danger if the workings of the human spirit are to become" 
 questions of physiology, and if death is the end of a man, 
 as it is the, end of a sparrow. We not only assent to such 
 protests, but we see very pressing need for making them. 
 It is a corrupting doctrine to open a brain, and to tell us that 
 devotion is a definite molecular change in this and that 
 convolution of gray pulp, and that if man is the first of 
 living animals, he passes away after a short space like the 
 beasts that perish. And all doctrines, more or less, do tend 
 to this, which offer physical theories as explaining moral 
 phenomena, which deny man a spiritual in addition to a 
 moral nature, which limit his moral life to the span of his 
 bodily organism, and which have no place for " religion " 
 in the proper sense of the word. 
 
 It is true that in this age, or rather in this country, we 
 seldom hear the stupid and brutal materialism which pre- 
 tends that subtilties of thought and emotion are simply 
 this or that agitation in some gray matter, to be ulti- 
 mately expounded by the professors of gray matter. But 
 this is hardly the danger which besets our time. The true 
 
32 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 materialism to fear is the prevailing tendency of anatomical 
 habits of mind or specialist habits of mind to intrude into 
 the regions of religion and philosophy. A man whose 
 whole thoughts are absorbed in cutting up dead monkeys 
 and live frogs has no more business to dogmatize about 
 religion than a mere chemist to improvise a zoology. Bio- 
 logical reasoning about spiritual things is as presumptuous 
 as the theories of an electrician about the organic facts of 
 nervous life. We live amid a constant and growing usur- 
 pation of science in the province of philosophy ; of biology 
 in the province of sociology ; of physics in that of religion. 
 Nothing is more common than the use of the term science, 
 when what is meant is merely physical and physiological 
 science, not social and moral science. The arrogant attempt 
 to dispose of the deepest moral truths of human nature on 
 a bare physical or physiological basis is almost enough to 
 justify the insurrection of some impatient theologians 
 against science itself. It is impossible not to sympathize 
 with men who at least are defending the paramount claim 
 of the moral laws and the religious sentiment. The solu- 
 tion of the dispute is, of course, that physicists and theo- 
 logians have each hold of a partial truth. As the latter 
 insist, the grand problem of man's life must be ever re- 
 ferred to moral and social argument ; but then, as the 
 physicist insists, this moral and social argument can only 
 be built up on a physical and physiological foundation. 
 The physical part of science is, indeed, merely the vestibule 
 to social, and thence to moral science ; and of science in 
 all its forms the philosophy of religion alone holds the key. 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 33 
 
 The true materialism lies in the habit of scientific specialists 
 to neglect all philosophical and religious synthesis. It is 
 marked by the ignoring of religion, the passing by on the 
 other side, and shutting the eyes to the spiritual history 
 of mankind. The spiritual traditions of mankind, a su- 
 preme philosophy of life and thought, religion in the proper 
 sense of the word, all these have to play a larger and ever 
 larger part in human knowledge ; not as we are so often 
 told, and so commonly is assumed, a waning and vanishing 
 part. And it is in this field, the field which has so long 
 been abandoned to theology, that Positivism is prepared 
 to meet the theologians. We at any rate do not ask them 
 to submit religion to the test of the scalpel or the electric 
 battery. It is true that we base our theory of society and 
 our theory of morals, and hence our religion itself, on a 
 curriculum of physical and especially of biological science. 
 It is true that our moral and social science is but a pro- 
 longation of these other sciences. But, then, we insist 
 that it is not science in the narrow sense which can order 
 our beliefs, but philosophy ; not science which can solve 
 our problems of life, but religion. And religion demands 
 for its understanding the religious mind and the spiritual 
 experience. * 
 
 Does it seem to any one a paradox to hold such language, 
 and yet to have nothing to say about the immaterial en- 
 tity which may assume to be the cause behind this spirit- 
 ual life ? The answer is, that we occupy ourselves with 
 this spiritual life as an ultimate fact ; and, consistently 
 with the whole of our philosophy, we decline to assign a 
 3 
 
34 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 cause at all. We argue, with the theologians, that it is 
 ridiculous to go to the scalpel for an adequate account of 
 a mother's love ; but we do not think it is explained (any 
 more than it is by the scalpel) by an hypothesis for which 
 not only is there no shadow of evidence, but which cannot 
 even be stated in philosophic language. We find the same 
 absurdity in the notion that maternal love is a branch of 
 the anatomy of the raaramce, and in the notion that the 
 phenomena of lactation are produced by an immaterial 
 entity. Both are forms of the same fallacy, that of trying 
 to reach ultimate causes instead of studying laws. We 
 certainly do find that maternal love and lactation have 
 close correspondences, and that both are phenomena of 
 certain female organisms. And we say that to talk of 
 maternal love being exhibited by an entity which not only 
 is not a female organism, but is not an organism at all, is 
 to use language which to us, at least, is unintelligible. 
 
 The philosophy which treats man as man simply affirms 
 that man loves, thinks, acts, not that the ganglia, or the 
 sinuses, or any organ of man, loves and thinks and acts. 
 The thoughts, aspirations, and impulses, are not secretions, 
 and the science which teaches us about secretions will not 
 teach us much about them ; our thoughts, aspirations, and 
 impulses, are faculties of a man. Now, as a man implies 
 a body, so we say these also imply a body. And to talk 
 to us about a bodiless being thinking and loving is simply 
 to talk about the thoughts and feelings of nothing. 
 
 This fundamental position each one determines accord- 
 ing to the whole bias of his intellectual and moral nature- 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTUKE LIFE. 35 
 
 But on the positive, as on the theological, method there is 
 ample scope for the spiritual life, for moral responsibility, 
 for the world beyond the grave, its hopes and its duties ; 
 which remain to us perfectly real without the unintelligible 
 hypothesis. However much men cling to the hypothesis 
 from old association, if they reflect, they will find that 
 they do not use it to give them any actual knowledge 
 about man's spiritual life ; that all their methodical reas- 
 oning about the moral world is exclusively based on the 
 phenomena of this world, and not on the phenomena of any 
 other world. And thus the absence of the hypothesis alto- 
 gether does not make the serious difference which theolo- 
 logians suppose. 
 
 To follow out this into particulars : Analysis of human 
 nature shows us man with a great variety of faculties ; 
 his moral powers are just as distinguishable as his intel- 
 lectual powers ; and both are mentally separable from his 
 physical powers. Moral and mental laws are reduced 
 to something like system by moral and mental science, 
 with or without the theological hypothesis. The most 
 extreme form of materialism does not dispute that 
 moral and mental science is for logical purposes some, 
 thing more than physical science. So the most extreme 
 form of spiritualism gets its mental and moral science by 
 observation and argument from phenomena ; it does not, 
 or it does not any longer, build such science by abstract de- 
 duction from any proposition as to an immaterial entity. 
 There have been, in ages past, attempts to do this. Plato, 
 for instance, attempted to found, not only his mental and 
 
36 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 moral philosophy, but his general philosophy of the uni- 
 verse, by deduction from a mere hypothesis. He imagined 
 immaterial entities, the ideas of things inorganic, as much 
 as organic. But then Plato was consistent and had the 
 courage of his opinions. If he imagined an idea, or soul, 
 of a man, he imagined one also for a dog, for a tree, for a 
 statue, for a chair. He thought that a statue and a chair 
 were what they are, by virtue of an immaterial entity 
 which gave them form. The hypothesis did not add much 
 to the art of statuary, or to that of the carpenter ; nor to 
 do him justice, did Plato look for much practical result 
 in these spheres. One form of the doctrine alone survives 
 that man is what he is by virtue of an immaterial en- 
 tity temporally indwelling in his body. But, though the 
 hypothesis survives, it is in no sense any longer the basis 
 of the science of human nature with any school. No 
 school is now content to sit in its study and evolve its 
 knowledge of the moral qualities of man out of abstract 
 deductions from the conception of an immaterial entity. 
 All, without exception, profess to get their knowledge of 
 the moral qualities by observing the qualities which men 
 actually do exhibit, or have exhibited. And those who 
 are persuaded that man has, over and above his man's na- 
 ture, an immaterial entity, find themselves discussing the 
 laws of thought and of character on a common ground with 
 those who regard man as man i. e., who regard man's 
 nature as capable of being referred to an homogeneous 
 system of law. Spiritualists and materialists, however 
 much they may ^differ in their explanations of moral phe- 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 37 
 
 nomena, describe their relations in the same language, the 
 language of law, not of illuminism. 
 
 Those, therefore, who dispense with a transcendental 
 explanation are just as free as those who maintain it, to 
 handle the spiritual and religious phenomena of human 
 nature, treating them simply as phenomena. No one has 
 ever suggested that the former philosophy is not quite as 
 well entitled to analyze the intellectual faculties of man, 
 as the stoutest believer in the immaterial entity. It 
 would raise a smile now-a-days to hear it said that such 
 a one must be incompetent to treat of the canons of in- 
 ductive reasoning, because he was unorthodox as to the 
 immortality of the soul. A.nd if,' notwithstanding this 
 unorthodoxy, he is thought competent to investigate the 
 laws of thought, why not the moral laws, the sentiments T 
 and the emotions ? As a fact, every moral faculty of man 
 is recognized by him just as much as by any transcenden- 
 talist. He does not limit himself, any more than the 
 theologian does, to mere morality. He is fully alive to 
 the spiritual emotions in all their depth, purity, and 
 beauty. He recognizes in man the yearning for a power 
 outside his individual self, which he may venerate, a love 
 for the author of <his chief good, the need for sympathy 
 with something greater than himself. All these are posi- 
 tive facts which rest on observation, quite apart from any 
 explanation of the hypothetical cause of these tendencies 
 in man. There, at any rate, the scientific observer finds 
 them ; and he is at liberty to give them quite as high a 
 place in his scheme of human nature as the most complete 
 
A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 theologian. He may possibly give them a far higher 
 place, and bind them far more truly into the entire tissue 
 of his whole view of life, because they are built up for 
 him on precisely the same ground of experience as all the 
 rest of his knowledge, and have no element at all hetero- 
 geneous from the rest of life. With the language of 
 spiritual emotion he is perfectly in unison. The spirit of 
 devotion, of spiritual communion with an ever-present 
 power, of sympathy and fellowship with the living world, 
 of awe and submission toward the material world, the 
 sense of adoration, love, resignation, mystery, are at least 
 as potent with the one system as with the other. He can 
 share the religious emotion of every age, and can enter 
 into the language of every truly religious heart. For 
 myself, I believe that this is only done on a complete as 
 well as a real basis in the religion of humanity, but we 
 need not confine the present argument to that ground. I 
 venture to believe that this spirit is truly shared by all, 
 whatever their hypothesis about the human soul, who 
 treat these highest emotions of man's nature as facts of 
 primary value, and who have any intelligible theory 
 whereby these emotions can be aroused. 
 
 All positive methods of treating man of a comprehen- 
 sive kind, adopt to the full all that has ever been said 
 about the dignity of man's moral and spiritual life, and 
 treat these phenomena as distinct from the intellectual 
 and the physical life. These methods also recognize the 
 unity of consciousness, the facts of conscience, the sense 
 of identity, and the longing for perpetuation of that iden- 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 39 
 
 tity. They decline to explain these phenomena by the 
 popular hypotheses ; but they neither deny their existence 
 nor lessen their importance. Man, they argue, has a 
 complex existence, made up of the phenomena of his phy- 
 sical organs, of his intellectual powers, of his moral 
 faculties, crowned and harmonized ultimately by his re- 
 ligious sympathies love, gratitude, veneration, submis- 
 sion, toward the dominant force by which he finds himself 
 surrounded. I use words which are not limited to a 
 particular philosophy or religion I do not now confine 
 my language to the philosophy or religion of Comte for 
 this same conception of man is common to many philoso- 
 phies and many religions. It characterizes such systems 
 as those of Spinoza or Shelley or Fichte as much as those 
 of Confucius or Buddha. In a word, the reality and the 
 supremacy of the spiritual life have never been carried 
 further than by men who have departed most widely from 
 the popular hypotheses of the immaterial entity. 
 
 Many of these men, no doubt, have indulged in hypo- 
 theses of their own, quite as arbitrary as those of theology. 
 It is characteristic of the positive thought of our age that 
 it stands upon a firmer basis. Though not confounding 
 the moral facts with the physical, it will never lose sight 
 of the correspondence and consensus between all sides of 
 human life. Led by an enormous and complete array of 
 evidence, it associates every fact of thought or of emotion 
 with a fact of physiology, with molecular change in the 
 body. Without pretending to explain the first by the 
 second, it denies that the first can be explained without 
 
40 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 the second. But with this solid basis of reality to work 
 on, it gives their place of supremacy to the highest sensi- 
 bilities of man, through the heights and depths of the 
 spiritual life. 
 
 Nothing is more idle than a discussion about words. 
 But when some deny the use of the word " soul " to those 
 who mean by it this consensus, and not any immaterial 
 entity, we may remind them that our use of the word 
 agrees with its etymology and its history. It is the mode 
 in which it is used in the Bible, the well-spring of our 
 true English speech. It may, indeed, be contended that 
 there is no instance in the Bible in which soul does 
 mean an immaterial entity, the idea not having been 
 familiar to any of the writers, with the doubtful exception 
 of St. Paul. But without entering upon Biblical philology, 
 it may be said that for one passage in the Bible in which 
 the word " soul " can be forced to bear the meaning of 
 immaterial entity, there are ten texts in which it cannot 
 possibly refer to anything but breath, life, moral sense, or 
 spiritual emotion. When the Psalmist says, " Deliver my 
 soul from death," "Heal my soul,. for I have sinned," "My 
 soul is cast down within me," "Return unto my rest, O my 
 soul," he means by " soul " what we mean the conscious 
 unity of our being culminating in its religious emotions ; 
 and until we find some English word that better expresses 
 this idea, we shall continue to use the phraseology of 
 David. 
 
 It is not merely that we are denied the language of 
 religion, but we sometimes find attempts to exclude us 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 41 
 
 from the thing. There are some who say that worship, 
 spiritual life, and that exaltation of the sentiments which 
 we call devotion, have no possible meaning unless applied 
 to the special theology of the particular speaker. A little 
 attention to history, a single reflection on religion as a 
 whole, suffice to show the hollowness of this assumption. 
 If devotion mean the surrender of self to an adored 
 Power, there has been devotion in creeds with many gods> 
 with one God, with no gods ; if spiritual life mean the cul- 
 tivation of this temper toward moral purification, there 
 was spiritual life long before the notion of an immaterial 
 entity inside the human being was excogitated ; and as 
 to worship, men have worshipped, with intense and over- 
 whelming passion, all kinds of objects, organic and inor- 
 ganic, material and spiritual, abstract ideas as well as 
 visible forces. Is it implied that Confucius, and the 
 countless millions who have followed him, had no idea of 
 religion, as it is certain that they had none of theology ; 
 that Buddha and the Buddhists were incapable of spiritual 
 emotion; that the Fire-worshippers and the Sun- wor- 
 shippers never practised worship; that the pantheists 
 and the humanists, from Marcus Aurelius to Fichte, had 
 the springs of spiritual life dried up in them for want of 
 an Old or New Testament ? If this is intended, one can 
 only wonder at the power of a self-complacent conformity 
 to close men's eyes to the native dignity of man. Religion, 
 and its elements in emotion attachment, veneration, 
 love, are as old exactly as human nature. They moved 
 the first men and the first women ; they have found a 
 
42 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 hundred objects to inspire them, and have bowed to a 
 great variety of powers. They were in full force long 
 U'toro theology was. and before the rise of Christi- 
 anity ; and it would be strange indeed if it should cease 
 with the decline of either. It is not the emotional ele- 
 ments of religion which fail us; for these, with the 
 growing goodness of mankind, are gaining in purity and 
 st ivn- th. Rather it is the intellectual elements of religion 
 which an- conspicuously at fault. We need to-day, not 
 the faculty of worship (that is ever fresh in the heart), 
 but a clearer vision of the power we should worship. 
 Nay, it is not we who are borrowing the privileges of 
 theology : rather it is theology which seeks to appropri- 
 ate to itself the most universal privilege of man. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE rational view of the soul (we insisted in a previous 
 paper) would remove us as far from cynical materialism 
 as from a fantastic spiritualism. It restores to their true 
 supremacy in human life those religious emotions which 
 materialism forgets; while it frees us from the idle 
 figment which spiritualism would foist upon human nature. 
 We entirely agree with the theologians that our age 
 is beset with a grievous danger of materialism. There is 
 a school of teachers abroad, and they have found an echo 
 here, who dream that victorious vivisection will ultimately 
 win them anatomical solutions of man's moral and 
 spiritual mysteries. Such unholy nightmares, it is true, 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 43 
 
 are not likely to beguile many minds in a country like 
 this, where social and moral problems are still in their 
 natural ascendant. But there is a subtiler kind of 
 materialism, of which the dangers are real. It does not, 
 indeed, put forth the bestial sophism that the apex of 
 philosophy is to be won by improved microscopes and 
 new batteries. But, then, it has nothing to say about the 
 spiritual life of man ; it has no particular religion ; it 
 ignores the soul. It fills the air with paeans to science ; 
 it is never weary of vaunting the scientific methods, the 
 scientific triumphs. But it always means physical, not 
 moral science; intellectual, not religious conquests. It 
 shirks the question of questions to what human end is 
 this knowledge ? how shall man thereby order his life 
 as a whole ? where is he to find the object of his yearn- 
 ings of spirit ? Of the spiritual history of mankind it 
 knows as little, and thinks as little, as of any other sort 
 of Asiatic devil-worship. At the spiritual aspirations of 
 the men and women around us, ill at ease for want of 
 some answer, it stares blankly, as it does at some spirit- 
 rapping epidemic. " What is that to us ? see thou to 
 that " is all that it can answer when men ask it for a 
 religion. It is of the religion of all sensible men, the 
 religion which all sensible men never tell. With a smile 
 or a shrug of the shoulders it passes by into the whirring 
 workshops of science (that is, the physical prelude of 
 science) ; and it leaves the spiritual life of the soul to the 
 spiritualists, theological or nonsensical as the case may 
 be, wishing them both in heaven. This is the materialism 
 to fear. 
 
44 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 The theologians and the vast sober mass of serious 
 men and women, who want simply to live rightly, are 
 quite right when they shun and fear a school that is 
 so eager about cosmology and biology, while it leaves 
 morality and religion to take care of themselves. And 
 yet they know all the while that before the advancing 
 line of positive thought they are fighting a forlorn hope ; 
 and they see their own line daily more and more demor- 
 alized by the consciousness that they have no rational plan 
 of campaign. They know that their own account of the 
 soul, of the spiritual life, of Providence, of heaven, is 
 daily shifting is growing more vague, more inconsistent, 
 more various. They hurry wildly from one untenable 
 position to another, like a routed and disorganized army. 
 In a religious discussion years ago we once asked one of 
 the Broad Church, a disciple of one of its eminent 
 founders, what he understood by the Third Person of the 
 Trinity ; and he said, doubtfully, that " he fancied there 
 was a sort of a something." Since those days the process 
 of disintegration and vaporization of belief has gone on 
 rapidly ; and now very religious minds, and men who 
 think themselves to be religious, are ready to apply this 
 " sort of a something" to all the verities in turn. They 
 half hope that there is " a sort of something " fluttering 
 about, or inside, their human frames, that there may turn 
 out to be a " something" somewhere after death, and that 
 there must be a sort of a somebody or (as the theology of 
 culture will have it) a sort of a something controlling and 
 and comprehending human life. But the more thought- 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 45 
 
 ful spirits, not being professionally engaged in a doctrine, 
 mostly limit themselves to a pious hope that there may 
 be something in it, and that we shall know some day 
 
 what it is. 
 
 
 
 Now, theologians and religious people unattached must 
 know that this will never serve that this is paltering 
 with the greatest of all things. What, then, is the only 
 solution which can ultimately satisfy both the devotees of 
 science and the believers in religion ? Surely but 
 this, to make religion scientific by placing religion under 
 the methods of science. Let science come to see that 
 religion, morality, life, are within its field, or, rather, are 
 the main part of its field. Let religion come to see that 
 it can be nothing but a prolongation of science, a rational 
 and homogeneous result of cosmology and biology, not a 
 matter of fantastic guessing. Then there will be no true 
 science which does not aim at, and is not guided by, sys- 
 tematic religion. And there will be no religion which 
 pretends to any other basis but positive knowledge and 
 scientific logic. But for this science must consent to add 
 spiritual phenomena to its curriculum, and religion must 
 consent to give up its vapid figments. 
 
 Positivism in dealing with the soul discards the 
 exploded errors of the materialists and spiritualists alike. 
 On the one hand, it not only admits into its studies the 
 spiritual life of men, but it raises this life to be the 
 essential business of all human knowledge. All the 
 spiritual sentiments of man, the aspirations of the consci- 
 ous soul in all their purity and pathos, the vast religious 
 
46 A MODEKN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 experience and potentialities of the human heart seen in 
 the history of our spiritual life as a race this is, we say, 
 the principal subject of science and of philosophy. No 
 philosophy, no morality, no polity, can rest on stable 
 foundations if this be not its grand aim ; if it have not a 
 systematic creed, a rational object of worship, and a 
 definite discipline of life. But, then, we treat these 
 spiritual functions of the soul, not as mystical enigmas, 
 but as positive phenomena, and we satisfy them by philo- 
 sophic and historic answers and not by naked figments. And 
 we think that the teaching of history and a true synthesis 
 of science bring us far closer to the heart of this spiritual 
 life than do any spiritualist guesses, and do better equip 
 us to read aright the higher secrets of the soul : meaning 
 always by soul the consensus of the faculties which 
 observation discovers in the human organism. 
 
 On the other hand, without entering into an idle dis- 
 pute with the spiritualist orthodoxy, we insist on regard- 
 ing this organism as a perfectly homogeneous unit, to be 
 studied from one end of it to the other by rational scien- 
 tific methods. We pretend to give no sort of cause as 
 lying'behind the manifold powers of the organism. We 
 say the immaterial entity is something which we cannot 
 grasp, which explains nothing, for which we cannot have 
 a shadow of evidence. We are determined to treat man 
 as a human organism, just as we treat a dog as a canine 
 organism ; and we know no ground for saying, and no 
 good to be got by pretending, that man is a human 
 organism plus an indescribable entity. We say the human 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 47 
 
 organism is a marvellous thing, sublime if you will, of 
 subtilest faculty and sensibility ; but we, at any rate, can 
 find nothing in man which is not an organic part of this 
 organism ; we find the faculties of mind, feeling, and will, 
 directly dependent on physical organs ; and to talk to us 
 of mind, feeling, and will, continuing their functions in 
 the absence of physical organs and visible organisms, is to 
 use language which, to us at least, is pure nonsense. 
 
 And now to turn to the grand phenomenon of material 
 organisms which we call Death. The human organism, 
 like every other organism, ultimately loses that unstable 
 equilibrium of its correlated forces which we name Life, 
 and ceases to be an organism or system of organs, adjust- 
 ing its internal relations to its external conditions. There- 
 upon the existence of the complex independent entity to 
 which w<P attribute consciousness undoubtedly i. e., for 
 aught we know to the contrary comes to an end. But the 
 activities of this organism do not come to an end, except 
 so far as these activities need fresh sensations and 
 material organs. And a great part of these activities, and 
 far the noblest part, only need fresh sensations and 
 material organs in other similar organisms. While there 
 is an abundance of these in due relation, the activities go 
 on ad infinitum, with increasing energy. We have not 
 the slightest reason to suppose that the consciousness 
 of the organism continues, for we mean by consciousness 
 the sum of sensations of a particular organism, and the 
 particular organism being dissolved, we have nothing 
 left whereto to attribute consciousness, and the proposal 
 
48 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 strikes us like a proposal to regard infinity as conscious. 
 So, of course, with the sensations separately, and with 
 them the power of accumulating knowledge, of feeling, 
 thinking, or of modifying the existence in correspondence 
 with the outward environment. Life, in the technical 
 sense of the word, is at an end, but the activities of which 
 that life is the soui^e were never so potent. Our age is 
 familiar enough with the truth of the persistence of energy, 
 and no one supposes that with the dissolution of the body 
 the forces of its material elements are lost. They only 
 pass into new combinations and continue to work else- 
 where. Far less is the energy of the activities lost. The 
 earth, and every country, every farmstead, and every city 
 on it, are standing witnesses that the physical activities 
 are not lost. As century rolls after century, we see in 
 every age more potent fruits of the labour whict raised the 
 pyramids, or won Holland from the sea, or carved the 
 Theseus out of marble. The bodily organisms which 
 wrought them have passed into gases and earths, but the 
 activity they displayed is producing the precise results 
 designed on a far grander scale in each generation. Much 
 more do the intellectual and moral energies work 
 unceasingly. Not a single manifestation of thought or 
 feeling is without some result so soon as it is communi- 
 cated to a similar organism. It passes into the sum of 
 his mental and moral being. 
 
 But there is about the persistence of the moral energies 
 this special phenomenon. It marks the vast interval be- 
 tween physical and moral science. The energies of ma- 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 49 
 
 terial elements, so far as we see, disperse, or for the most 
 part disperse. The energies of an intellectual and moral 
 kind are very largely continued in their organic unities. 
 The consensus of the mental, of the moral, of the emo- 
 tional powers may go on, working as a whole, producing 
 precisely the same results, with the same individuality, 
 whether the material organism, the source and original 
 base of these. powers, be in physical function or not. The 
 mental and moral powers do not, it is true, increase and 
 grow, develop or vary, within themselves. Nor do they 
 in their special individuality produce visible results, for 
 they are no longer in direct relations with their special 
 material organisms. But the mental and moral powers 
 are. not dispersed like gases. They retain their unity, 
 they retain their organic character, and they retain the 
 whole of their power of passing into and stimulating the 
 brains of living men ; and in these they carry on their 
 activity precisely as they did, while the bodies in which 
 they were formed absorbed and exhaled material sub- 
 stance. 
 
 Nay, more : the individuality and true activity of these 
 mental and moral forces is often not manifest, and some- 
 times is not complete, so long as the organism continues 
 its physical functions. Newton, we may suppose, has ac- 
 complished his great researches. They are destined to 
 transform half the philosophy of mankind. But he is 
 old, and incapable of fresh achievements. We will say 
 he is feeble, secluded, silent, and lives shut up in his 
 
 rooms. The activity of his mighty intellectual nature is 
 4 
 
50 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 being borne over the world on the wings of Thought, and 
 works a revolution at every stroke. But otherwise the 
 man Newton is not essentially distinguishable from the 
 nearest infirm pauper, and has as few and as feeble rela- 
 tions with mankind. At last the man Newton dies that 
 is, the body is dispersed into gas and dust. But the 
 world, which is affected enormously by his intellect, is not 
 in the smallest degree affected by his death.. His activity 
 continues the same ; if it were worth while to conceal the 
 fact of his death, no one of the millions who are so greatly 
 affected by his thoughts would perceive it or know it. If 
 he had discovered some means of prolonging a torpid ex- 
 istence till this hour, he might be living now, and it would 
 not signify to us in the slightest degree whether his body 
 breathed in the walls of his lodgings or mouldered in the 
 vaults of the Abbey. 
 
 It may be said that, if it does not signify much to us, 
 it signifies a great deal to Isaac Newton. But is this 
 true ? He no longer eats and sleeps, a burden to himself ; 
 he no longer is destroying his great name by feeble theo- 
 logy or querulous pettiness. But if the small weaknesses 
 and wants of the flesh are ended for him, all that makes 
 Newton (and he had always lived for his posthumous, not 
 his immediate, fame) rises into greater activity and purer 
 uses. We make no mystical or fanciful divinity of Death ; 
 we do not deny its terrors or its evils. We are not res- 
 ponsible for it, and should welcome any reasonable pros- 
 pect of eliminating or postponing this fatality, that waits 
 upon all organic Nature. But it is no answer to philoso- 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 51 
 
 phy or science to retort that Death is so terrible, therefore 
 man must be designed to escape it. There are savages 
 who persistently deny that men do die at all, either their 
 bodies or. their souls, asserting that the visible consequen- 
 ces of death are either an illusion or an artfully-contrived 
 piece of acting on the part of their friends, who have 
 really decamped to the happy hunting-fields. This seems 
 on the whole a more rational theory than that of imma- 
 terial souls flying about space, as the spontaneous fancies 
 of savages are sometimes more .rational than the elabor- 
 ate hypotheses of metaphysics. 
 
 But though we do not presume to apologize for death, 
 it is easy to see that many of the greatest moral and in- 
 tellectual results of life are only possible, can only begin, 
 when the claims of the animal life are satisfied ; when the 
 stormy, complex, and checkered career is over, and the 
 higher tops of the intellectual or moral nature alone stand 
 forth in the distance of time. What was the blind old 
 harper of Scio to his contemporaries, or the querulous 
 refugee from Florence, or even the boon-companion and 
 retired playwright of Stratford, or the blind and stern old 
 malignant of Bunhill Field ? The true work of Socrates 
 and his life only began with his resplendent death, to say 
 nothing of yet greater religious teachers, whose names I 
 refrain from citing ; and as to those whose lives have been 
 cast in conflicts the Caesars, the Alfreds, the Hilde brands, 
 the Cromwells, the Fredericks it is only after death, 
 oftenest in ages after death, that they cease to be com 
 batants, and become creators. It is not merely that they 
 
52 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 are only recognized in after ages ; the truth is, that their 
 activity only begins when the surging of passion and sense 
 ends, and turmoil dies away. Great intellects and great 
 characters are necessarily in advance of their age ; the 
 care of the father and the mother begins to tell most 
 truly in the ripe manhood of their children, when the 
 parents are often in the grave, and not in the infancy 
 which they see and are confronted with. The great must 
 always feel with Kepler, " It is enough, as yet, if I have 
 a hearer now and then in a century." John Brown's body 
 lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his soul is marching 
 along. 
 
 We can trace this truth best in the case of great men ; 
 but it is not confined to the great. Not a single act of 
 thought or character ends with itself. Nay more ; not a 
 single nature in its entirety but leaves its influence for 
 good or for evil. As a fact the good prevail ; but all act, 
 all continue to act indefinitely, often in ever- widening 
 circles. Physicists amuse us by tracing for us the infinite 
 fortunes of some wave set in motion by force, its circles 
 and its repercussions perpetually transmitted in new com- 
 plications. But the career of a single intellect and charac- 
 ter is a far more real force when it meets with suitable 
 intellects and characters into whose action it is incorpo- 
 rated. Every life more or less forms another life, and 
 lives in another life. Civilization, nation, city, imply this 
 fact. There is neither mysticism noi hyperbole, but sim- 
 ple observation in the belief, that the career of every hu- 
 man being in society does not end with the death of its 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 53 
 
 body. In some sort its higher activities and potency can 
 only begin truly when change is no longer possible for it. 
 The worthy gain in influence and in range at each gene- 
 ration, just as the founders of some populous race gain a 
 greater fatherhood at each succeeding growth of their 
 descendants. And, in some infinitesimal degree, the 
 humblest life that ever turned a sod sends a wave no, 
 more than a wave, a life through the ever-growing har- 
 mony of human society. Not a soldier died at Marathon 
 or Salamis, but did a stroke by which our ^thought is en- 
 larged and our standard of duty formed to this day. 
 
 Be it remembered that this is not hypothesis, but some- 
 thing perfectly real we may fairly say undeniable. We 
 are not inventing an imaginary world, and saying it must 
 be real because it is so pleasant to think of ; we are only 
 repeating truths on which our notion of history and so- 
 ciety is based. The idea, no doubt, is usually limited to 
 the famous, and to the great revolutions in civilization. 
 But no one who thinks it out carefully can deny that it 
 is true of every human being in society in some lesser 
 degree. The idea has not been, or is no longer, systema- 
 tically enforced, invested with poetry and dignity, and 
 deepened by the solemnity of religion. But why is that ? 
 Because theological hypotheses of a new and heterogene- 
 ous existence have deadened our interest in the realities? 
 the grandeur, and the perpetuity of our earthly life. In 
 the best days of Rome, even without a theory of history 
 or a science of society, it was a living faith, the true re- 
 ligion of that majestic race. It is the real sentiment of 
 
54 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 all societies where the theological hypothesis has disap- 
 peared. It is no doubt now in England the great motive 
 of virtue and energy. There have been few seasons in 
 the world's history when the sense of moral responsibility 
 and moral survival after death was more exalted and 
 more vigorous than with the companions of Vergniaud 
 and Danton, to whom the dreams of theology were hardly 
 intelligible. As we read the calm and humane words of 
 Condorcet on the very edge of his yawning grave, we 
 learn how the conviction of posthumous activity (not of 
 posthumous fame), how the consciousness of a coming in- 
 corporation with the glorious future of his race, can give 
 a patience and a happiness equal to that of any martyr 
 of theology. 
 
 It would be an endless inquiry to trace the means 
 whereby this sense of posthumous participation in the life 
 of our fellows can be extended to the mass, as it certainly 
 affects already the thoughtful and the refined, Withou^ 
 an education, a new social opinion, without a religion I 
 mean an organized religion, not a vague metaphysic it is 
 doubtless impossible that it should become universal and 
 capable of overcoming selfishness. But make it at once 
 the basis of philosophy, the standard of right and wrong, 
 and the centre of a religion, and this will prove, perhaps, 
 an easier task than that of teaching Greeks and Romans, 
 Syrians and Moors, to look forward to a future life of 
 ceaseless psalmody in an immaterial heaven. The aston- 
 ishing feat was performed ; and, perhaps, it may be easier 
 to fashion a new public opinion, requiring merely that an 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTUKE LIFE. 55 
 
 accepted truth of philosophy should be popularized, which 
 is already the deepest hope of some thoughtful spirits 
 and which does not take the suicidal course of trying to 
 cast out the devil of selfishness by a direct appeal to the 
 personal self. 
 
 It is here that the strength of the human future over 
 the celestial future is so clearly pre-eminent. Make the 
 future hope a social activity, and we give to the present 
 life a social ideal. Make the future hope personal beati- 
 tude, and personality is stamped deeper on every act of 
 of our daily life. Now we make the future hope, in the 
 truest sense, social, inasmuch as our future is simply an 
 active existence prolonged by society. And our future 
 hope rests not in any vague yearning, of which we have 
 as little evidence as we have definite conception : it rests 
 on a perfectly certain truth, accepted by all thoughtful 
 minds, the truth that the actions, feelings, thoughts, of 
 every one of us our minds, our characters, our souls, as 
 organic wholes do marvellously influence and mould each 
 other ; that the highest part of ourselves, the abiding part 
 of us, passes into other lives and continues to live in other 
 lives. Can we conceive a more potent stimulus to recti- 
 tude, to daily and hourly striving after true life, than 
 this ever-present sense that we are indeed immortal ; not 
 that we have an immortal something within us, but that 
 in very truth we ourselves, our thinking, feeling, acting 
 personalities, are immortal; nay, cannot die, but must 
 ever continue what we make them, working and doing, if 
 no longer receiving and enjoying ? And not merely we 
 
56 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 ourselves, in our personal identity, are immortal, but each 
 act, thought, and feeling, is immortal ; and this immortal- 
 ity is not some ecstatic and indescribable condition in 
 space, but activity on earth in the real and known work 
 of life, in the welfare of those whom we have loved, and 
 in the happiness of those who come after us. 
 
 And can it be difficult to idealize and give currency to 
 a faith which is a certain and undisputed fact of common 
 sense as well as of philosophy ? As we live for others in 
 life, so we live in others after death, as others have lived 
 in us, and all for the common race. How deeply does 
 such a belief as this bring home to each moment of life 
 the mysterious perpetuity of ourselves ! For good, for evil, 
 we cannot die ; we cannot shake ourselves free from this 
 eternity of our faculties. There is here no promise, it is 
 true, of eternal sensations, enj oyments, meditations. There 
 is no promise, be it plainly said, of anything but an im- 
 mortality of influence, of spiritual work, of glorified activ- 
 ity. We cannot even say that we shall continue to love ; 
 but we know that we shall be loved. It may well be 
 that we shall consciously know no hope ourselves ; but we 
 shall inspire hopes. It may be that we shall not think ; 
 but others will think our thoughts, and enshrine our minds. 
 If no sympathies shall thrill along our nerves, we shall be 
 the spring of sympathy in distant generations ; and that, 
 though we be the humblest and the least of all the soldiers 
 in the human host, the least celebrated and the worst re- 
 membered. For our lives live when we are most forgot- 
 ten ; and not a cup of water that we may have given to 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 57 
 
 an unknown sufferer, or a wise word spoken in season to 
 a child, but has added (whether we remember it, whether 
 others remember it or not) a streak of happiness and 
 strength to the world. Our earthly frames, like the grain 
 of wheat, may be laid in the earth and this image of our 
 great spiritual Master is more fit for the social than for the 
 celestial future but the grain shall bear spiritual fruit, 
 and multiply in kindred natures and in other selves. 
 
 It is a merely verbal question if this be the life of the 
 Soul when the Soul means the sum of the activities, or if 
 there be any immortality where there is no consciousness. 
 It is enough for us that we can trust to a real prolongation 
 of our highest activity in the sensible lives of others, even 
 though our own forces can gain nothing new, and are not 
 reflected in a sensitive body. We do not get rid of Death, 
 but we transfigure Death. Does any religion profess to 
 do more ? It is enough for any creed that it can teach 
 non omnis moriar ; it would be gross extravagance to say 
 omnis non moriar, no part of me shall die. Death is the 
 one inevitable law of Life. The business of religion is to 
 show us what are its compensations. The spiritualist or- 
 thodoxy, like every other creed, is willing to allow that 
 Death robs us of a great deal, that very much of us does 
 die ; nay, it teaches that this dies utterly, forever, leaving 
 no trace but dust. And thus the spiritualist orthodoxy 
 exaggerates death, and adds a fresh terror to its power. 
 We, on the contrary, would seek to show that much of us, 
 and that the best of us, does not die, or at least does not 
 end. And the difference between our faith and that of 
 
58 A MODEKN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 the orthodox is this : we look to the permanence of the 
 activities which give others happiness ; they look to the 
 permanence of the consciousness which can enjoy happi- 
 ness. Which is the nobler ? 
 
 What need we then to promise or to hope more than an 
 eternity of spiritual influence? Yet, after all, 'tis no 
 question as to what kind of eternity man would prefer to 
 select. We have no evidence that he has any choice be- 
 fore him. If we are creating a universe of our own and 
 a human race on an ideal mould, it might be rational to 
 discuss what kind of eternity was the most desirable, and 
 it might then become a question if we should not begin by 
 eliminating death. But as we are, with death in the world, 
 and man as we know him submitting to the fatality of his 
 nature, the rational inquiry is this how best to order his 
 life, and to use the eternity that he has. And an immor- 
 tality of prolonged activity on earth he has as certainly 
 as he has civilization, or progress, or society. And the wise 
 man in the evening of life may be well content to say : 
 " I have worked and thought, and have been conscious in 
 the flesh ; I have done with the flesh, and therewith with 
 the toil of thought and the troubles of sensation ; I am 
 ready to pass into the spiritual community of human 
 souls, and when this man's flesh wastes away from me, 
 may I be found worthy to become part of the influence of 
 humanity itself, and so 
 
 ' . . . . join the choir invisible 
 Whose music is the gladness of the world.' " 
 
 That the doctrine of the celestial future appeals toHhe 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 59 
 
 essence of self appears very strongly in its special rebuke 
 to the doctrine of the social future. It repeats : " We 
 agree with all you say about the prolonged activity of 
 man after death, we see of course that the solid achieve- 
 ments of life are carried on, and we grant you that it sig- 
 nifies nothing to those who profit by his work that the 
 man no longer breathes in the flesh ; but what is all that 
 to the man, to you, and to me ? We shall not feel our 
 work ; we shall not have the indescribable satisfaction 
 which our souls now have in living, in effecting our work, 
 and profiting by others. What is the good of mankind 
 to me, when I am mouldering unconscious ?" This is the 
 true materialism ; here is the physical theory of another 
 life ; this is the unspiritual denial of the soul, the binding 
 it down to the clay of the body. We say, " All that is 
 great in you shall not end, but carry on its activity per- 
 petually and in a purer way ; " and you reply : " What 
 care I for what is great in me, and its possible work in this 
 vale of tears ? I want to feel life, I want to enjoy, I want 
 my personality" in other words, " I want my senses, I 
 want my body." Keep your body and keep your senses 
 in any way that you know. We can only wonder 
 and say, with Frederick to his runaway soldiers, " Wollt 
 ihr immer leben ? " But we, who know that a higher 
 form of activity is only to be reached by a subjective life 
 in society, will continue to regard a perpetuity of sensation 
 as the true hell, for we feel that the perpetual worth of our 
 lives is the one thing precious to care for, and not a vacu- 
 ous eternity of consciousness. 
 
60 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 It is not merely that this eternity of the tabor is so 
 gross, so sensual, so indolent, so selfish a creed ; but its 
 worst evil is that it paralyzes practical life, and throws it 
 into discord. A life of vanity in a vale of tears to be fol- 
 lowed by an infinity of celestial rapture, is necessarily a 
 life which is of infinitesimal importance. The incongruity 
 of the attempts to connect the two, and to make the vale 
 of tears the antechamber of the judgment-dock of heaven, 
 grows greater and not less as ages roll on. The more we 
 think and learn, and the higher rises our social philosophy 
 and our insight into human destiny, the more the reality 
 and importance of the social future impresses us, while the 
 fancy of the celestial future grows unreal and incongru- 
 ous. As we get to know what thinking means, and feel- 
 ing means, and the more truly we understand what life 
 means, the more completely do the promises of the celes- 
 tial transcendentalism fail to interest us. We have come to 
 see that to continue to live is to carry on a series of corre- 
 lated sensations, and to set in motion a series of corres- 
 ponding forces ; to think is to marshal a set of observed 
 perceptions with a view to certain observed phenomena 
 to feel implies something of which we have a real assur- 
 ance affecting our own consensus within. The whole 
 set of positive thoughts compels us to believe that it is an 
 infinite apathy to which your heaven would consign us, 
 without objects, without relations, without change, with- 
 out growth, without action, an absolute nothingness, a 
 nirvana, of impotence this is not life; it is not conscious- 
 ness ; it is not happiness. So far as we can grasp the hy- 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 61 
 
 pothesis, it seems equally ludicrous and repulsive. You 
 may call it paradise ; but we call it conscious annihilation. 
 You may long for it, if you have been so taught ; just as 
 if you had been taught to cherish such hopes, you might 
 be now yearning for the moment when you might become 
 the immaterial principle of a comet, or as you might tell 
 me that you really were the ether, and were about to take 
 your place in space. This is how these sublimities affect 
 us. But we know that to many this future is one of 
 spiritual development, a life of growth and continual up- 
 soaring of still higher affection. It may be so ; but to our 
 mind these are contradictions in terms. We cannot un- 
 derstand what life and affection can mean, where you pos- 
 tulate the absence of every condition by which life and 
 affection are possible. Can there be development where 
 there is no law, thought or affection where object and 
 subject are confused into one essence ? How can that 
 be existence, where everything of which we have experi- 
 ence, and everything which we can define, is presumed to 
 be unable to enter ? To us these things are all incoher- 
 ences ; and in the midst of practical realities and the solid 
 duties of life, sheer impertinences. The field is full : each 
 human life has a perfectly real and a vast future to look 
 lorward to ; these hyperbolic enigmas disturb our grave 
 duties and our solid hopes. No wonder, then, while they 
 are still so rife, that men are dull to the moral responsi- 
 bility which, in its awfulness, begins only at the grave ; 
 that they are so little influenced by the futurity which 
 will judge them ; that they are blind to the dignity and 
 beauty of death, and shuffle off the dead life and the dead 
 
62 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 body with such cruel disrespect. The fumes of the celes- 
 tial immortality still confuse them. It is only when an 
 earthly future is the fulfilment of a w'orthy, earthly life, 
 that we can see all the majesty as well as the glory of the 
 world beyond the grave ; and then only will it fulfil its 
 moral and religious purpose as the great guide of human 
 conduct. 
 
 R. H. BUTTON. 
 
 THE imaginative glow and rhetorical vivacity which 
 are visible throughout Mr. Harrison's essays on "The 
 Soul and Future Life" are very remarkable, and should guard 
 those of us who recoil in amazement from its creed or no- 
 creed from falling into the very common mistake of as- 
 suming that the effect which such ideas as these produce 
 on ourselves is the effect, which, apart from all questions of 
 the other mental conditions surrounding the natures into 
 which they are received, they naturally produce. It is 
 clear, at least, that if they ever tended to produce on the 
 author of these papers the same effect which they not only 
 tend to produce, but do produce on myself, that tendency 
 must have been so completely neutralized by the redun- 
 dant moral energy inherent in his nature, that the char- 
 acteristic effect which I should have ascribed to them is 
 absolutely unverifiable, and, for anything we have the 
 right to assert, non-existent. There is at least but one 
 instance in which I should have traced any shade of what 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTUEE LIFE. 63 
 
 I may call the natural view of death as presented in the 
 light of this creed, and that is the sentence in which Mr. 
 Harrison somewhat superfluously disclaims and, more- 
 over, with an accent of hauteur, as though he resented 
 the necessity of admitting that death is a disagreeable 
 certainty his own or his creed's responsibility for the 
 fact of death. " We make no mystical or fanciful divinity 
 of death," he says : " we do not deny its terrors or its 
 evils. We are not responsible for it, and should welcome 
 any reasonable prospect of eliminating or postponing this 
 fatality that waits upon all organic nature." After read- 
 ing that admission, I was puzzled when I came to the 
 assertion that " we who know that a higher form of 
 activity is only to be reached by a subjective life in 
 society, will continue to regard a perpetuity of sensation 
 as the true hell," a sentence in which Mr. Harrison would 
 commonly be understood to mean that he and all his 
 friends, if they had a vote in the matter, would give a 
 unanimous suffrage against this "perpetuity of sensation," 
 and, so far from trying to eliminate and postpone death, 
 would be inclined to cling to and even hasten it. For, in 
 this place at least, it is not the perpetuation of deteriora- 
 ted energies of which Mr. Harrison speaks, but the 
 perpetuation of life pure and simple. Indeed, nothing 
 puzzles me more in this paper than the diametrical con- 
 tradictions, both of feeling and thought, which appear to 
 me to be embodied in it. Its main criticism on the com- 
 mon view of immortality seems to be that the desire for it 
 is a grossly selfish desire. Nay, nicknaming the conception 
 
64 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 of a future of eternal praise, "the eternity of the tabor," 
 he calls it a conception " so gross, so sensual, so indolent, 
 so selfish," as to be worthy of nothing but scorn. I think 
 he can never have taken the trouble to realize with any 
 care what he is talking of. Whatever the conception 
 embodied in what Mr. Harrison calls "ceaseless psalmody," 
 may be and certainly it is not my idea of immortal life 
 it is the very opposite of selfish. No conception of life 
 can be selfish of which the very essence is adoration, that 
 is, wonder, veneration, gratitude to another. And gross 
 as the conception necessarily suggested by psalm-singing is 
 to those who interpret it, as we generally do, by the sten- 
 torian shoutings of congregations who are. often thinking 
 a great deal more of their own performances than of the 
 object of their praise, it is the commonest candour to 
 admit that this conception of immortality owes its origin 
 entirely to men who were thinking of a life absorbed in 
 the interior contemplation of a God full of all perfections 
 a contemplation breaking out into thanksgiving only 
 in the intensity of their love and adoration. Whatever 
 else this conception of immortality may be, the very last 
 phrase which can be justly applied to it is " gross " or 
 " selfish." I fear that the positivists have left the 
 Christian objects of their criticism so far behind that they 
 have ceased not merely to realize what Christians mean, 
 but have sincerely and completely forgotten that Chris- 
 tians ever had a meaning at all. That positivists should 
 regard any belief in the " beatific vision " as a wild piece of 
 fanaticism, I can understand, but that, entering into the 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTUKE LIFE. 65 
 
 meaning of that fanaticism, they should describe the 
 desire for it as a gross piece of selfishness, I cannot under- 
 stand ; and I think it more reasonable, therefore, to assume 
 that they have simply lost the key to the language of 
 adoration. Moreover, when I come to note Mr. Harrison's 
 own conception of the future life, it appears to me that it 
 differs only from the Christian's conception by its infinite 
 deficiencies, and in no respect by superior moral qualities 
 of any kind. That conception, is in a word, posthumous 
 energy. He holds that if we could get rid of the vulgar 
 notion of a survival of personal sensations and of growing 
 mental and moral faculties after death, we should conse- 
 crate the notion of posthumous activity, and anticipate 
 with delight our " coming incorporation with the glorious 
 future of our race," as we cannot possibly consecrate 
 those great hopes now. 
 
 But, in the first place, what is this " glorious future of 
 our race " which I am invited to contemplate ? It is the 
 life in a better organized society of a vast number of these 
 merely temporary creatures whose personal sensations, if 
 they ever could be " perpetuated," Mr. Harrison regards 
 as giving us the best conception of a " true hell." Now 
 if an improved and better organized future of ephemerals 
 be so glorious to anticipate, what elements of glory are 
 there in it which would not belong to the immortality 
 looked forward to by the Christian a far more improved 
 future of endlessly growing natures ? Is it the mere fact 
 that I shall myself belong to the one future which renders 
 it unworthy, while the absence of any " perpetuity" of my 
 5 
 
66 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 personal " sensations " from the other renders it unselfish ? 
 I always supposed selfishness to consist, not in the desire 
 for any noble kind of life in which I might share, but in 
 the preference for my own happiness at the expense of 
 some one else's. If it is selfish to desire the perpetuation 
 of a growing life, which not only does not, as far as I know, 
 interfere with the volume of moral growth in others, but 
 certainly contributes to it, then it must be the true un- 
 selfishness to commit suicide at once, supposing suicide to 
 be the finis to personal " sensation." But then universal 
 suicide would be inconsistent with the glorious future of 
 our race, so I suppose it must at least be postponed till our 
 own sensations have been so far " perpetuated " as to leave 
 heirs behind them. If Condorcet is to be held up to our 
 admiration for anticipating on the edge of the grave his 
 " coming incorporation with the glorious future of his 
 race," i. e., with ourselves and our posterity, may we not 
 infer that there is something in ourselves, i. e. } in human 
 society as it now exists, which is worthy of his vision 
 something in which we need not think it " selfish " to 
 participate, even though our personal "sensations" do 
 form a part of it ? Where, then, does the selfishness of 
 desiring to share in a glorious future even through per- 
 sonal "sensations" begin? The only reasonable or 
 even intelligible answer, as far as I can see, is this : as 
 soon as that personal " sensation " for ourselves excludes a 
 larger and wider growth for others, but no sooner. But 
 then no Christian ever supposed for a moment that his 
 personal immortality could or would interfere with any 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 67 
 
 other being's growth. And, if so, where is the selfishness ? 
 What a Christian desires is a higher, truer, deeper union 
 with God for all, himself included. If his own life drop 
 out of that future, he supposes that there will be so much 
 less that really does glorify the true righteousness, and no 
 compensating equivalent. If it be Mr. Harrison's mission 
 to disclose to us that any perpetuity of sensation on our own 
 parts will positively exclude something much higher 
 which would exist if we consented to disappear, he may, 
 I think, prove his case. But in the absence of any 
 attempt "to do so, his conception that it is noble and 
 unselfish to be more than content grateful for ceasing 
 to live any but a posthumous life seems to me simply 
 irrational. 
 
 But, further, the equivalent which Mr. Harrison offers 
 me for becoming, as I had hoped to become in another 
 world, an altogether better member of a better society, 
 does not seem to me more than a very doubtful good. 
 My posthumous activity will be of all kinds, some of 
 which I am glad to anticipate, most of which I am very 
 sorry to anticipate, and much of which I anticipate with 
 absolute indifference. Even our best actions have bad 
 effects, as well'as good. Macaulay and most other historians 
 held that the Puritan earnestness expended a good deal 
 of posthumous activity in producing the license of the 
 world of the Restoration. Our activity, indeed, is strictly 
 posthumous in kind, even before our death from the very 
 moment in which it leaves our living mind and has begun 
 to work beyond ourselves. What I did as a child is, in 
 
68 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 this sense, as much producing posthumous effects, i. e., 
 effects over which I can no longer exert any control, now, 
 as what I do before death will be producing posthumous 
 effects after my death. Now, a considerable proportion 
 of these posthumous activities of ours, even when we can 
 justify the original activity as all that it ought to have 
 been, are unfortunate. Mr. Harrison's papers, for instance, 
 have already exerted a very vivid and very repulsive 
 effect on my mind an activity which I am sure he will 
 not look upon with gratification, and I do not doubt that 
 what I am now writing will produce the same effect on 
 him, and in that effect I shall take no delight at all. A 
 certain proportion, therefore, of my posthumous activity is 
 activity for evil, even when the activity itself is on the 
 whole good. But when we come to throw in the posthu- 
 mous activity for evil exerted by our evil actions and the 
 occasional posthumous activity for good which evil also 
 fortunately exerts, but for the good results of which we 
 can take no credit to ourselves, the whole constitutes a 
 melange to which, as far as I am concerned, I look with 
 exceedingly mixed feelings, the chief element being humi- 
 liation, though there are faint lights mingled with it here 
 and there. But as for any rapture of satisfaction in 
 contemplating my "coming incorporation with the glorious 
 future of our race," I must wholly and entirely disclaim 
 it. What I see in that incorporation of mine with the 
 future of our race glorious or the reverse, and I do not 
 quite see why the positivist thinks it so glorious, since 
 he probably holds that an absolute term must be put to 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTUKE LIFE. 69 
 
 it, if by no other cause, by the gradual cooling of the sun 
 is a very patchwork sort of affair indeed, a mere 
 miscellany of bad, good, and indifferent, without organiza- 
 tion and without unity. What I shall be, for instance, 
 when incorporated, in Mr. Harrison's phrase, with the 
 future of our race, I have very little satisfaction in con- 
 templating except so far, perhaps, as my " posthumous 
 activity " may retard the acceptance of Mr. Harrison's 
 glorious anticipations for the human race. One great 
 reason for my personal wish for a perpetuity of volition 
 and personal energy is, that I may have a better oppor- 
 tunity, as far as may lie in me, to undo the mischief I shall 
 have done before death comes to my aid. The vision of 
 " posthumous activity " ought indeed, I fancy, to give even 
 the best of us very little satisfaction. It may not be, and 
 perhaps is not, so mischievous as the vision of " posthu- 
 mous fame," but yet it is not the kind of vision which, to 
 my mind, can properly occupy very much of our attention 
 in this life. Surely, the right thing for us to do is to con- 
 centrate attention on the life of the living moment to 
 make that the best we can and then to leave its posthu- 
 mous effects, after the life of the present has gone out of 
 it, to that power which, far more than anything in it, trans- 
 mutes at times even our evil into good, though sometimes, 
 too, to superficial appearance at all events, even our good 
 into evil. The desire for an immortal life that is, for a 
 perpetuation of the personal affections and of the will 
 seems to me a far nobler thing than any sort of anticipa- 
 tion as to our posthumous activity ; for high affections 
 
70 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 and a right will are good in themselves, and constitute, 
 indeed, the only elements in Mr. Harrison's " glorious 
 future of our race " to which I can attach much value 
 while posthumous activity may be either good or evil, and 
 depends on conditions over which he who first puts the 
 activity in motion often has no adequate control. 
 
 And this reminds me of a phrase in Mr. Harrison's 
 paper, which I have studied over and over again without 
 making out his meaning. I mean his statement that on 
 his own hypothesis " there is ample scope for the spiri- 
 tual life, for moral responsibility, for the world beyond 
 the grave, its hopes and its duties, which remain to us 
 perfectly real without the unintelligible hypothesis." 
 Now, I suppose, by " the hopes " of the " world beyond 
 the grave," Mr. Harrison means the hopes we form for the 
 " future of our race," and that I understand. But what 
 does he mean by its " duties ? " Not, surely, our duties 
 beyond the grave, but the duties of those who survive us ; 
 for he expressly tells us that our mental and moral powers 
 do not increase and grow, develop or vary within them- 
 selves do not, in fact, survive at all except in their effects 
 and hence duties for us in the world beyond the grave 
 are, I suppose, in his creed impossible. But if he only 
 means that there will be duties for those who survive us 
 after we are gone, I cannot see how that is in any respect 
 a theme on which it is either profitable or consolatory for 
 us to dwell by anticipation. One remark more : When 
 Mr. Harrison says that it is quite as easy to learn to 
 long for the moment when you shall become " the imma- 
 terial principle of a comet," or that you " really were the 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 71 
 
 ether, and were about to take your place in space," as to 
 long for personal immortality he is merely talking at 
 random on a subject on which it is hardly seemly to talk 
 at random. He knows that what we mean by the soul is 
 that which lies at the bottom of the sense of personal 
 identity the thread of the continuity running through 
 all our checkered life ; and how it can be equally un- 
 meaning to believe that this hitherto unbroken continuity 
 will continue unbroken, and to believe that it is to be 
 transformed into something else of a totally different 
 kind, I am not only unable to understand, but even to 
 understand how he could seriously so conceive us. My 
 notion of myself never had the least connection with the 
 principle of any part of any comet, but it has the closest 
 possible connection with thoughts, affections, and voli- 
 tions, which, as far as I know, are not likely to perish 
 with my body. I am sorry that Mr. Harrison should 
 have disfigured his paper by sarcasms so inapplicable and 
 apparently so bitter as these. 
 
 PROF. HUXLEY. 
 
 MR. HARRISON'S striking discourse on " The Soul 
 and Future Life " has a certain resemblance to the 
 famous essay on the snakes of Iceland. For its purport is to 
 show that there is no soul, nor any future life, in the ordinary 
 sense of the terms. With death, the personal activity of which 
 
72 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 the soul is the popular hypostasis is put into commission 
 among posterity, and the future life is an immortality by 
 deputy. 
 
 Neither in these views nor in the arguments by which 
 they are supported is there much novelty. But that 
 which appears both novel and interesting to me is the 
 author's evidently sincere and heart-felt conviction 
 that his powerful advocacy of soulless spirituality and 
 mortal immortality is consistent with the intellectual 
 scorn and moral reprobation which he freely pours forth 
 upon the " irrational and debasing physicism " of mate- 
 rialism and materialists, and with the wrath with which 
 he visits what he is pleased to call the intrusion of phy- 
 sical science, especially of biology, into the domain of 
 social phenomena. 
 
 Listen to the storm : 
 
 "We certainly do reject, as earnestly as any school can, that 
 which is most fairly called materialism, and we will second every 
 word of those who cry out that civilization is in danger if the work- 
 ings of the human spirit are to become questions of physiology, and 
 if death is the end of a man, as it is the end of a sparrow. We not 
 only assent to such protests, but we see very pressing need for mak- 
 ing them. It is a corrupting doctrine to open a brain, and to tell us 
 that devotion is a definite molecular change in this and that convo- 
 lution of gray pulp, and that, if man is the first of living animals, 
 he passes away after a short space like the beasts that perish. And 
 all doctrines, more or less, do tend to this, which offer physical 
 theories as explaining moral phenomena, which deny man a spiri- 
 tual in addition to a moral nature, which limit his moral life to the 
 span of his bodily organism, and which have no place for ' religion ' 
 in the proper sense of the word." 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 73 
 
 Now, Mr. Harrison can hardly think it worth while to 
 attack imaginary opponents, so that I am led to believe 
 that there must be somebody who holds the " corrupting 
 doctrine," " that devotion is a definite molecular change 
 in this and that convolution of gray pulp." Nevertheless, 
 my conviction is shaken by this passage : " No rational 
 thinker now pretends that imagination is simply the 
 vibration of a particular fibre." If no rational thinker 
 pretends this of imagination, why should any pretend it 
 of devotion ? And yet I cannot bring myself to think 
 that all Mr. Harrison's passionate rhetoric is hurled at 
 irrational thinkers : surely he might leave such to the 
 soft influences of time and due medical treatment of 
 their " gray pulp " in Colney Hatch or elsewhere. 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. Harrison cannot possibly be 
 attacking those who hold that the feeling of devotion is 
 the concomitant, or even the consequent, of a molecular 
 change in the brain ; for he tells us, in language the expli- 
 citness of which leaves nothing to be desired, that 
 
 "To positive methods every fact of thinking reveals itself as 
 having functional relation with molecular change. Every factor 
 of will or feeling is in similar relation with kindred molecular 
 facts. ' 
 
 On mature consideration, I feel shut up to one or two 
 alternative hypotheses. Either the " corrupting doctrine " 
 to which Mr. Harrison refers is held by no rational 
 thinker in which case, surely, neither he nor I need 
 trouble ourselves about it or the phrase " Devotion is a 
 definite molecular change in this and that convolution of 
 
r* A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 gray pulp/' means that devotion has a functional relation 
 with such molecular change : in which case it is Mr. Har- 
 rison's own view, and therefore, let us hope, cannot be a 
 " corrupting doctrine." 
 
 I am not helped out of the difficulty I have thus 
 candidly stated, when I try to get at the meaning of 
 another hard saying of Mr. Harrison's, which follows 
 after the " corrupting doctrine '' paragraph : " And all 
 doctrines, more or less, do tend to this [corrupting doc- 
 trine], which offer physical theories as explaining moral 
 phenomena." 
 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Harrison says, with great force and 
 tolerable accuracy : 
 
 ' ' Man is one, however compound. Fire his conscience and he 
 blushes. Check his circulation and he thinks wildly, or thinks not 
 at all. Impair his secretions, and moral sense is dulled, discoloured, 
 or depraved ; his aspirations flag ; his hope, love, faith, reel. Impair 
 them still more, and he becomes a brute. A. cup of drink degrades 
 his moral nature below that of a swine. Again, a violent emotion 
 of pity or horror makes him vomit. A lancet will restore him from 
 delirium to clear thought. Excess of thought will waste his sinews ; 
 excess of muscular exercise will deaden thought. An emotion will 
 double the strength of his muscles ; and at last the prick of a needle 
 or a grain of mineral will in an instant lay to rest forever his body 
 and its unity, and all the spontaneous activities of intelligence, 
 feeling, and action, with which that compound organism was 
 charged. 
 
 1 ' These are the obvious and ancient observations about the human 
 organism. But modern philosophy and science have carried these 
 hints into complete explanations. By a vast accumulation of proof 
 positive, thought at last has established a distinct correspondence 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 75 
 
 between every process of thought or of feeling, and some corporeal 
 phenomenon." 
 
 I cry with Shylock : 
 
 " "Tis very true, O wise and upright judge." 
 
 But, if the establishment of the correspondence between 
 physical phenomena on the one side, and moral and intell- 
 ectual phenomena on the other, is properly to be called an 
 explanation (let alone a complete explanation), of the 
 human organism, surely Mr. Harrison's teachings come 
 dangerously near that tender of physical theories in ex- 
 planation of moral phenomena which he warns us leads 
 straight to corruption. 
 
 But perhaps I have misinterpreted Mr. Harrison ; for a 
 few lines further on we are told, with due italic emphasis, 
 that no man can explain volition by purely anatomical 
 study." I should have thought that Mr. Harrison might 
 have gone much further than this. No man ever ex- 
 plained any physiological fact by purely anatomical study. 
 Digestion cannot be so explained, nor respiration, nor 
 reflex action. It would have been as relevant to affirm 
 that volition could not be explained by measuring an arc 
 of the meridian. 
 
 I am obliged to note the fact that Mr. Harrison's bio- 
 logical studies have not proceeded so far as to enable him 
 to discriminate between the province of anatomy and 
 that of physiology, because it furnishes the key to an 
 otherwise mysterious utterance which occurs thus : 
 
 " A man whose whole thoughts are absorbed in cutting up dead 
 
7C A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 monkeys and live frogs, has no more business to dogmatize about 
 religion than a mere chemist to improvise a zoology." 
 
 Qu is, negavit ? But if, as, on Mr. Harrison's own show- 
 ing, is the case, the progress of science (not anatomical, 
 but physiological) has " established a distinct correspond- 
 ence between every process of thought or of feeling, and 
 some corporeal phenomenon," and if it is true that " im- 
 paired secretions " deprave the moral sense, and make 
 "hope, love, and faith reel," surely the religious feelings 
 are brought within the range of physiological inquiry. If 
 impaired secretions deprave the moral sense, it becomes 
 an interesting and important problem to ascertain what 
 diseased viscus may have been responsible for the priest 
 in absolution ; and what condition of the gray pulp may 
 have conferred on it such a pathological steadiness of 
 faith as to create the hope of personal immortality, which 
 Mr. Harrison stigmatizes as so selfishly immoral. 
 
 I should not like to undertake the responsibility of 
 advising anybody to dogmatize about anything ; but 
 surely if, as Mr. Harrison so strongly urges, " the whole 
 range of man's powers, from the finest spiritual sensibility 
 down to a mere automatic contraction, falls into one co- 
 herent scheme, being all the multiform functions of a 
 living organism in presence of its encircling conditions," 
 then the man who endeavours to ascertain the exact 
 nature of these functions, and to determine the influence 
 of conditions upon them, is more likely to be in a position 
 to tell us something worth hearing about them, than one 
 who is turned from such study by cheap* pulpit thunder 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 77 
 
 touching the presumption of " biological reasoning about 
 spiritual things." 
 
 Mr. Harrison, as we have seen, is not quite so clear as 
 is desirable respecting the limits of the provinces of ana- 
 tomy and physiology. Perhaps he will permit me to 
 inform him that physiology is the science which treats of 
 the functions of the living organism, ascertains their 
 coordinations and their correlations in the general chain 
 of causes and effects, and traces out their dependence up- 
 on the physical state of the organs by which these func- 
 tions are exercised. The explanation of a physiological 
 function is the demonstration of the connection of that 
 function with the molecular state of the organ which 
 exerts the function. Thus the function of motion is ex- 
 plained when the movements of the living body are found 
 to have certain molecular changes for their invariable 
 antecedents ; the function of sensation is explained when 
 the molecular changes, which are the invariable anteced- 
 ents of sensations, are discovered. 
 
 The fact that it is impossible to comprehend how it is 
 that a physical state gives rise to a mental state, no more 
 lessens the value of the explanation in the latter case, 
 than the fact that it is utterly impossible to comprehend 
 how motion is communicated from one body to another 
 weakens the force of the explanation of the motion of one 
 billiard-ball by showing that another has hit it. 
 
 " The finest spiritual sensibility," says Mr. Harrison 
 (and I think that there is a fair presumption that he is 
 right), is a function of a living organism is iri relation 
 
7N A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 with molecular facts. In that case the physiologist may 
 reply : "It is my business to find out what these molecular 
 facts are, and whether the relation between them and the 
 said spiritual sensibility is one of antecedence in the 
 molecular fact, and sequence in the spiritual fact, or vice 
 versa. If the latter result comes out of my inquiries, I 
 shall have made a contribution toward a moral theory of 
 physical phenomena; if the former, I shall have done 
 somewhat toward building up a physical theory of moral 
 phenomena. But in any case I am not outstepping the 
 limits of my proper province ; my business is to get at the 
 truth respecting such questions at all risks ; and if you 
 tell me that one of these two results is a corrupting doc- 
 trine, I can only say that I perceive the intended reproach 
 conveyed by the observation, but that I fail to recognize 
 its relevance. If the doctrine is true, its social septic or 
 antiseptic properties are not my affair. My business as a 
 biologist is with physiology, not with morals." 
 
 This plea of justification strikes me as complete; whence, 
 then, the following outbreak of angry eloquence ? 
 
 " The arrogant attempt to dispose of the deepest moral truths of 
 human nature, on a bare physical or physiological basis, is almost 
 enough to justify the insurrection of some impatient theologians 
 against science itself." 
 
 " That strain again : it has a dying fall ;" nowise similar 
 to the sweet south upon a bank of violets, however, but 
 like the death-wail of innumerable " impatient theolo- 
 gians," as from the high " drum ecclesiastic " they view 
 the waters of science flooding the Church on all hands. 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTUEE LIFE. 79 
 
 The beadles have long been washed away ; escape by pul- 
 pit stairs is even becoming doubtful, without kirtling 
 those outward investments which distinguish the priest 
 from the man so high, that no one will see that there is 
 anything but the man left. But Mr. Harrison is not an 
 impatient theologian indeed, no theologian at all, unless, 
 as he speaks of " soul " when he means certain bodily 
 functions, and of " future life " when he means personal 
 annihilation, he may make his master's grand tre supreme 
 the subject of a theology ; and one stumbles upon this 
 well-worn fragment of too-familiar declamation among his 
 vigorous periods with the unpleasant surprise of one who 
 finds a fly in a precious ointment. 
 
 There are people from whom one does not expect well- 
 founded statement and thoughtful, however keen, argu- 
 mentation, embodied in precise language ; from Mr. 
 Harrison one does. But I think he will be at a loss to 
 answer the question, if I pray him to tell me of any 
 representative of physical science who, either arrogantly 
 or otherwise, has ever attempted to dispose of moral truths 
 on a physical or physiological basis. If I am to take the 
 sense of the words literally, I shall not dispute the arrog- 
 ance of the attempt to dispose of a moral truth on a bare, 
 or even on a covered, physical or physiological basis ; for, 
 whether the truth is deep or shallow, I cannot conceive 
 how the feat is to be performed. Columbus's difficulty 
 with the egg is as nothing to it. But I suppose what is 
 meant is, that some arrogant people have tried to upset 
 morality by the help of physics and physiology. I am 
 
80 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 sorry if such people exist, because I shall have to be much 
 ruder to them than Mr. Harrison is. I should not call them 
 arrogant, any more than I should apply that epithet to a 
 person who attempted to upset Euclid by the help of the 
 Rig- Veda. Accuracy might be satisfied, if not propriety, 
 by calling such a person a fool ; but it appears to me that 
 it would be the height of injustice to term him arrogant. 
 
 Whatever else they may be, the laws of morality, under 
 their scientific aspect, are generalizations based upon the 
 observed phenomena of society ; and, whatever may be 
 the nature of moral approbation and disapprobation, these 
 feelings are, as matter of experience, associated with cer- 
 tain acts. 
 
 The consequences of men's actions will remain the same, 
 however far our analysis of the causes which lead to them 
 may be pushed ; theft and murder would be none the less 
 objectionable if it were possible to prove that they were the 
 result of the activity of special theft and murder cells in 
 that "gray pulp" of which Mr. Harrison speaks so scorn- 
 fully. Does any sane man imagine that any quantity of 
 physiological analysis will lead people to think breaking 
 their legs or putting their hands into the fire desirable ? 
 And when men really believe that breaches of the moral 
 law involve their penalties as surely as do breaches of the 
 physical law, is it to be supposed that even the very 
 firmest disposal of their moral truths upon " a bare phy- 
 sical or physiological basis " will tempt them to incur 
 those penalties ? 
 
 I would gladly learn from Mr. Harrison where, in the 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 81 
 
 course of his studies, he has found anything inconsistent 
 with what I have just said in the writings of physicists 
 or biologists. I would entreat him to tell us who are the 
 true materialists, "the scientific specialists" who "neglect 
 all philosophical and religious synthesis," and who " sub- 
 mit religion to the test of the scalpel or the electric bat- 
 tery ;" where the materialism which is " marked by the 
 ignoring of religion, the passing by on the other side and 
 shutting the eyes to the spiritual history of mankind," is 
 to be found. 
 
 I will not believe that these phrases are meant to apply 
 to any scientific men of whom I have cognizance, or to any 
 recognized system of scientific thought they would be 
 too absurdly inappropriate and I cannot believe that Mr. 
 Harrison indulges in empty rhetoric. But I am disposed 
 to think that they would not have been used at all, ex- 
 cept for that deep-seated sympathy with the " impatient 
 theologian" which characterizes the positivist school, and 
 crops out, characteristically enough, in more than one part 
 of Mr. Harrison's essay. 
 
 Mr. Harrison tells us that "positivism is prepared to 
 meet the theologians." I agree with him, though not 
 exactly in his sense of the words indeed, I have formerly 
 expressed the opinion that the meeting took place long 
 ago, and that the faithful lovers, impelled by the instinct of 
 a true affinity of nature, have met to part no more. Eccle- 
 siastical to the core from the beginning, positivism is now 
 exemplifying the law that the outward garment adjusts 
 itself, sooner or later, to the inward man. From its 
 6 
 
82 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 founder onward, striken with metaphysical incompetence, 
 and equally incapable of appreciating the true spirit of 
 scientific method, it is now essaying to cover the naked- 
 ness of its philosophical materialism with the rags of a 
 spiritualistic phraseology out of which the original sense 
 has wholly departed. I understand and I respect the 
 meaning of the word "soul," as used by Pagan and Chris- 
 tian philosophers for what they believe to be the impe- 
 rishable seat of human personality, bearing throughout 
 eternity its burden of woe, or its capacity for adoration 
 and love. I confess that my dull moral sense does not 
 enable me to see anything base or selfish in the desire for 
 a future life among the spirits of the just made perfect : 
 or even among a few such poor fallible souls as one has 
 known here below. 
 
 And if I am not satisfied with the evidence that is 
 offered me that such a soul and such a future life exists, 
 I am content to take what is to be had and to make the 
 best of the brief span of existence that is within my reach, 
 without reviling those whose faith is more robust and 
 whose hopes are richer and fuller. But in the interest of 
 scientific clearness, I object to say that I have a soul, when 
 I mean, all the while, that my organism has certain mental 
 functions which, like the rest, are dependent upon its 
 molecular composition, and come to an end when I die ; 
 and I object still more to affirm that I look to a future 
 life, when all that I mean is, that the influence of my say- 
 ings and doings will be more or less felt by a number of 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 83 
 
 people after the physical components of that organism are 
 scattered to the four winds. 
 
 Throw a stone into the sea, and there is a sense in which 
 it is true that the wavelets which spread around it have an 
 effect through all space and all time. Shall we say that 
 the stone has a future life ? 
 
 It is not worth while to have broken aw r ay, not without 
 pain and grief, from beliefs which, true or false, embody 
 great and fruitful conceptions, to fall back into the arms 
 of a half-breed, between science and theology, endowed, 
 like most half-breeds, with the faults of both parents and 
 the virtues of neither. And it is unwise by such a lapse 
 to expose one's self to the temptation of holding with the 
 hare and hunting with the hounds of using the weapons 
 of one progenitor to damage the other. I cannot but think 
 that the members of the positivist school in this country 
 stand in some danger of falling into that fatal error ; and 
 I put it to them to consider whether it is either consistent 
 or becoming for those who hold that the " finest spiritual 
 sensibility" is a mere bodily function, to join in the view-' 
 halloo, when the hunt is up against biological science 
 to use their voices in swelling the senseless cry that "civi- 
 lization is in danger if the workings of the human spirit 
 are to become questions of physiology." 
 
84 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 LORD BLACHFORD. 
 
 MR. HARRISON is of opinion that the difference be- 
 tween l 'Imstians and himself on this question of 
 the soul and the future life, " turns altogether on habits of 
 thought." What appears to the positivist flimsy will, he 
 says, seem to the Christian sublime, and vice versa" simply 
 because our minds have been trained in different logical 
 methods," and this apparently because positivism "pretends 
 to no other basis than positive knowledge and scientific 
 logic." But if this is so, it is not, I think, quite consistent 
 to conclude, as he does, that " it is idle to dispute about our 
 respective logical methods, or to put this or that habit of 
 mind in a combat with that." As to the combatants this 
 may be true. But it surely is not idle, but very much to the 
 purpose, for the information of those judges to whom the 
 very act of publication appeals, to discuss habits and mej 
 thods on which, it is declared, the difference altogether 
 turns. 
 
 I note, therefore, in limine what, as I go on, I shall 
 have occasion to illustrate, one or two differences between 
 the methods of Mr. Harrison and those in which I have 
 been trained. 
 
 I have been taught to consider that certain words or 
 ideas represent what are called by logicians substances, by 
 Mr. Harrison, I think, entities, and by others, as the case 
 may be, persons, beings, objects, or articles. Such are air, 
 earth, man, horses, chairs, and tables. Their peculiarity 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 85 
 
 is that they have each of them a separate, independent, 
 substantive existence. They are. 
 
 There are other words or ideas which do not represent 
 existing things, but qualities, relations, consequences, pro- 
 cesses, or occurrences, like victory, virtue, life, order, or 
 destruction, which do but belong to substances, or result 
 from them without any distinct existence of their own. A 
 thing signified by a word of the former class cannot pos- 
 sibly be identical or even homogeneous with a thing sig- 
 nified by a word of the second class. A fiddle is not only 
 a different thing from a tune, but it' belongs to another 
 and totally distinct order of ideas. To this distinction the 
 English mind at some period of its history must have been 
 imperfectly alive. If a Greek confounded KTIO-IS with KTur/xa, 
 an act with a thing, it was the fault of the individual. 
 But the English language, instead of precluding such a 
 confusion, almost, one would say, labours to propagate 
 it. Such words as "building," "announcement," "prepa- 
 ration," or " power," are equally available to signify either 
 the act of construction or an edifice either the act of 
 proclaiming or a placard either the act of preparing or a 
 surgical specimen either the ability to do something or 
 the being in which that ability resides. Such imperfections 
 of language infuse themselves into thought. And I ven- 
 ture to think that the slight superciliousness with which 
 Mr. Harrison treats the doctrines, which such persons as 
 myself entertain respecting the soul is in some degree due 
 to the fact that positive " habits of thought " and " logical 
 methods," <i<> not recognize so completely as ours the dis- 
 
86 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 tinction which I have described as that between a fiddle 
 and a tune. 
 
 Again, my own habit of mind is to distinguish more 
 pointedly than Mr. Harrison does between a unit and a 
 complex whole. When I speak of an act of individual 
 will, I seem to myself to speak of an indivisible act pro- 
 ceeding from a single being. The unity is not merely in 
 my mode of representation, but in the thing signified. If 
 I speak of an act of the national will say a determination 
 to declare war I speak of the concurrence of a number of 
 individual wills, each acting for itself, and under an infi- 
 nite variety of influences, but so related to each other and 
 so acting in concert that it is convenient to represent them 
 under the aggregate term " nation." I use a term which 
 signifies unity of being, but I really mean nothing more 
 than cooperation, or correlated action and feeling. So, 
 when I speak of the happiness of humanity, I mean noth- 
 ing whatever but a number of particular happinesses of 
 individual persons. Humanity is not a unit, but a word 
 which enables me to bring a number of units under view 
 at once. In the case of material objects, I apprehend, 
 unity is simply relative and artificial a grain of corn is 
 a unit relatively tc a bushel, and an aggregate relatively 
 to an atom. But I, believing myself to be a spiritual 
 being, call myself actually and without metaphor one. 
 
 Mr. Harrison, who acknowledges the existence of no 
 being but matter, appears either to deny the existence of 
 any real unity whatever, or to ascribe the real unity to an 
 aggregate of things or beings who resemble each other, 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 87 
 
 like the members of the human race, or cooperate toward 
 a common result, like the parts of a picture, a melody, or 
 the human frame, and which may thus be conveniently 
 viewed in combination, and represented by a single word 
 or phrase. 
 
 I think that the little which I have to say will be the 
 clearer for these preliminary protests. 
 
 The questions in hand relate first to the claim of the 
 soul of man to be treated as an existing thing not bound 
 by the laws of matter : secondly to the immortality of 
 that existing thing. 
 
 The claim of the soul to be considered as an existing 
 and immaterial being presents itself to my mind as 
 follows : 
 
 My positive experience informs me of one thing per- 
 cipient myself; and of a multitude of things per- 
 ceptible perceptible, that is, not by way of consciousness, 
 as I am to myself, but by way of impression on other 
 things capable of making themselves felt through the 
 channels and organs of sensation. These things thus per- 
 ceptible constitute the material world. 
 
 I take no account of percipients other than myself, for 
 I can only conjecture about them what I know about 
 myself. I take no account of things neither percipient 
 nor perceptible, for it is impossible to do so. I know of 
 nothing outside me of which I can say it is at once per- 
 cipient and perceptible. But I enquire whether I am 
 myself so whether the existing being to which my sense 
 of identity refers, in which my sensations reside, and 
 
A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 which for these two reasons I call " myself," is capable also 
 of being perceived by beings outside myself, as the ma- 
 terial world is perceived by me. 
 
 I first obs<-rv> that things perceptible comprise not on- 
 ly objects, but instruments and media of perception an 
 immense vaijpty of contrivances, natural or artificial, for 
 transmitting information to the sensitive being. Such 
 are telescopes, microscopes, ear-trumpets, the atmosphere, 
 and various other media which, if not at present the ob- 
 jects of direct sensation, may conceivably become so 
 and such, above all, are various parts of the human body 
 the lenses which collect the vibrations which are the 
 conditions of light ; the tympanum which collects the 
 vibrations which are the conditions of sound ; the muscles 
 which adjust these and other instruments of sensation to 
 the precise performance of their work ; the nerves which 
 convey to and fro molecular movements of the most in- 
 comprehensible significance and efficacy. Of all these it 
 is, I understand, more and more evident, as science ad- 
 vances, that they are perceptible, but do not perceive. 
 Ear, hand, eye, and nerves, are alike machinery mere 
 machinery for transmitting the movement of atoms to 
 certain nervous centres ascertained localities which (it 
 is proper to observe in passing), though small relatively 
 to ourselves and our powers of investigation, may since 
 size is entirely relative be absolutely large enough to 
 contain little worlds in themselves. 
 
 Here the investigation of things perceptible is stopped, 
 abruptly and completely. Our inquiries into the size, 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 89 
 
 composition and movement of particles, have been push- 
 ed, for the present at any rate, as far as they will go. 
 But at this point we come across a field of phenomena to 
 which the attributes of atoms, size, movement, and physi- 
 cal composition, are wholly inapplicable the phenomena 
 of sensation or animal life. 
 
 Science informs me that the movements of these per- 
 ceptible atoms within my body bear a correspondence, 
 strange, subtle, and precise, to the sensations of which I, 
 as a percipient, am conscious ; a correspondence (it is again 
 proper to observe in passing) which extends not only to 
 perceptions, as in sight or hearing, but to reflection and 
 volition, as in sleep and drunkenness. The relation is 
 not one of similarity. The vibrations of a white, black, 
 or gray pulp are not in any sensible way similar to the 
 perception of colour or sound, or the imagination of a noble 
 act. There is no visible may I not say no conceivable ? 
 reason why one should depend on the other. Motion 
 and sensation interact, but they do not overlap. There 
 is no homogeneity between them. They stand apart. 
 Physical science conducts us to the brink of the chasm 
 which separates them, and by so doing only shews us its 
 depth. 
 
 I return then to the question, "What am I?" My 
 own habits of mind and logical methods certainly require 
 me to believe that I am something something percipient 
 bu t am I perceptible ? I find no reason for supposing it. 
 I believe myself to be surrounded by things percipient. 
 An- they perceptible? Not to my knowledge. Their 
 
90 
 
 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 existence is to me a matter of inference from their per- 
 ceptible appendages. Them their very selves I cer- 
 tainly cannot perceive. As far as I can understand 
 things perceptible, I detect in them no quality no capac- 
 ity for any quality tike that of percipiency, which, with 
 its homogeneous faculties, intellect, affections, and so on, 
 is the basis of my own nature. Physical science, while 
 it develops the relation, seems absolutely to emphasize 
 and illuminate the ineradicable difference between the 
 motions of a material and the sensations of a living being. 
 Of the attributes of a percipient we have, each for him- 
 self, profound and immediate experience. Of the attri- 
 butes of the perceptible we have, I suppose, distinct 
 scientific conceptions. Our notions of the one and our 
 notions of the other appear to attach to a different order 
 of being. 
 
 It appears therefore to me that there is no reason to 
 believe, and much reason for not believing, that the per- 
 cipient is perceptible under our present conditions of 
 existence, or indeed under any conditions that our pre- 
 sent faculties enable us to imagine. 
 
 And this is my case, which of course covers the whole 
 animal creation. Perception must be an attribute of 
 something; and there is reason for believing that this 
 something is imperceptible. This is what I mean when I 
 say that I have, or more properly that I am, a soul Or 
 a spirit, or rather it is the point on which I join issue 
 with those who say that I am not. 
 
 I am not, as Mr. Harrison seems to suppose, running 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 91 
 
 about in search of a " cause." I am inquiring into the 
 nature of a being, and that being myself. I am sure I 
 am something. I am certainly not the mere tangible 
 structure of atoms which I affect, and by which I am af- 
 fected after a wonderful fashion. In reflecting on the 
 nature of my own operations I find nothing to suggest 
 that my own being is subject to the same class of physi- 
 cal laws as the objects from which my sensations are de- 
 rived, and I conclude that I am not subject to those laws. 
 The most substantial objection to this conclusion is con- 
 veyed, I conceive, in a sentence of Mr. Harrison's: "To 
 talk to us of mind, feeling and will, continuing their 
 functions in the abence of physical organs and visible 
 organisms, is to use language which, to us at least, is pure 
 nonsense." 
 
 It is probably to those who talk thus that Mr. Harrison 
 refers when he says that argument is useless. And in 
 point of fact I have no answer but to call his notions 
 anthropomorphic, and to charge him with want of a cer- 
 tain kind of imagination. By imagination we commonly 
 mean the creative faculty which enables a man to give a 
 palpable shape to what he believes or thinks possible ; 
 and this, I do not doubt, Mr. Harrison possesses in a high 
 degree. But there is another kind of imagination which 
 enables a man to embrace the idea of a possibility to 
 which no such palpable shape can be given, or rather of 
 a world of possibilities beyond the range of his experi- 
 ence or the grasp of his faculties; as Mr. John Mill em- 
 braced the idea of a possible world in which the coiinec- 
 
92 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 tion of cause and effect should not exist. The want of 
 this necvssary though dangerous faculty makes a man 
 the victim of vivid impressions, and disables him from 
 believing what his impressions do not enable him to rea- 
 lize. Questions respecting metaphysical possibility turn 
 much on the presence, or absence, or exaggeration, of this 
 kind of imagination. And when one man has said, " I 
 can perceive it possible," and another has said, "I can- 
 not," it is certainly difficult to get any further. 
 
 To me it is not in the slightest degree difficult to 
 conceive the possible existence of a being capable of love 
 and knowledge without the physical organs through 
 which human beings derive their knowledge, nor in sup- 
 posing myself to be such a being. Irideed, I seem actually 
 to exercise such a capacity (however I got it) when I shut 
 my eyes and try to think out a moral or mathematical 
 puzzle. If it is true that a particular corner of my brain 
 is concerned in the matter, I accept the fact not as a self- 
 evident truth (which would seem to be Mr. Harrison's 
 position), but as a curious discovery of the anatomists. 
 But having said this I have said everything, and, as Mr. 
 Harrison must* suppose that I deceive myself, so I sup- 
 pose that in his case the imagination which founds itself 
 on experience is so active and vivid as to cloud or dwarf 
 the imagination which proceeds beyond or beside exper- 
 ience. 
 
 Mr. Harrison's own theory I do not quite understand. 
 He derides the idea, though he does not absolutely deny 
 the possibility, of an immaterial entity which feels. And 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. . 93 
 
 he appears to be sensible of the difficulty of supposing 
 that atoms of matter which assume the form of a gray 
 pulp can feel. He holds accordingly, as I understand, 
 that feeling, and all that follows from it, are the results 
 of an " organism." 
 
 If he had used the word " organization," I should have 
 concluded unhesitatingly that he was the victim of the 
 Anglican confusion which I have above noticed, and that 
 in his own mind, he escaped the alternative difficulties of 
 the case by the common expedient of shifting as occasion 
 required from one sense of that word to the other. If 
 pressed by the difficulty of imagining sensation not resi- 
 dent in any specific sensitive thing, the word organiz- 
 ation would supply to his mind the idea of a thing, a 
 sensitive aggregate of organized atoms. If, on the con- 
 trary, pressed by the difficulty of supposing that these 
 atoms, one or all, thought, the word would shift its 
 meaning and present the aspect not of an aggregate bulk, 
 but of orderly arrangement not of a thing, or a collec- 
 tion of things, but of a state of things. 
 
 But the word " organism " is generally taken to indi- 
 cate a thing organized. And the choice of that word 
 would seem to indicate that he ascribed the spiritual acts 
 (so to call them) which constitute life to the aggregate 
 bulk of the atoms organized, or the appropriate part of 
 them. But this he elsewhere seems to disclaim. " The 
 philosophy which treats man as man simply affirms that 
 man loves, thinks, acts, not that ganglia, or the sinews, 
 or any organ of man loves, and thinks, and acts." Yes, 
 
94- A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 but we recur to the question, " What is man ? " If the 
 ganglia do not think, what is it that does ? Mr. Harri- 
 son, as I understand, answers that it is a consensus of 
 faculties, an harmonious system of parts, and he denoun- 
 ces an attempt to introduce into this collocation of parts 
 or faculties an underlying entity or being which shall 
 possess those faculties or employ those parts. It is then 
 not after all to a being or aggregate of beings, but to a 
 relation or condition of beings, that will and thought and 
 love belong. If this is Mr. Harrison's meaning, I certainly 
 agree with him that it is indeed impossible to compose a 
 difference between two disputants of whom one holds, and 
 the other denies, that a condition can think. If my op- 
 ponent does not admit this to be an absurdity, I do not 
 pretend to drive him any further. 
 
 With regard to immortality, I have nothing material to 
 add to what has been said by those who have preceded 
 me. I agree with Prof. Huxley that the natural world 
 supplies nothing which can be called evidence of a future 
 life. Believing in God, I see in the constitution of the 
 world which he has made, and in the yearnings and as- 
 pirations of that spiritual nature which he has given to 
 man, much that commends to my belief the revelation of 
 a future life which I believe him to have made. But it 
 is in virtue of his clear promise, not in virtue of these 
 doubtful intimations, that I rely on the prospect of a 
 future life. Believing that he is the author of that moral 
 insight which in its ruder forms controls the multitude, 
 and in its higher inspires the saint, I revere those great 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 95 
 
 men who were able to forecast this great announcement, 
 but I cannot and do not care to reduce that forecast to 
 any logical process, or base it on any conclusive reason- 
 ing. Rather I admire their power of divination the more 
 on account of the narrowness of their logical data. For 
 myself, I believe because I am told. 
 
 But whether the doctrine of immortality be true or 
 false, I protest, with Mr. Hutton, against the attempt to 
 substitute for what, at any rate, is a substantial idea, 
 something which can hardly be called even a shadow or 
 echo of it. 
 
 The Christian conception of the world is this : It is a 
 world of moral as of physical waste. Much seed is sown 
 which will not ripen, but some is sown that will. This 
 planet is a seat, among other things, of present goodness 
 and happiness. And this our goodness and happiness, 
 like our crime and misery, propagate or fail to propagate 
 themselves during our lives and after our deaths. But, 
 apart from these earthly consequences, which are much to 
 us and all to the positivist, the little fragment of the uni- 
 verse on which we appear and disappear is, we believe, 
 a nursery for something greater. The capacities for love 
 and knowledge, which in some of us attain a certain de- 
 velopment here, we must all feel to be capable, with 
 greater opportunities, of an infinitely greater development; 
 and Christians believe that such a development is in fact 
 reserved for those who, in this short time of apprentice- 
 ship, take the proper steps for approaching it. 
 
 This conception of a glorious and increasing company, 
 
96 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 into which the best of men are continually to be gathered 
 to be associated with each other (to say no more) in all 
 that can make existence happy and noble, may be a dream, 
 and Mr. Harrison may be right in calling it so. In de- 
 riding it he cannot be right. " The eternity of the tabor " 
 he calls it ! Has he never felt, or, at any rate, is he not 
 able to conceive, a thrill of pleasure at a sympathetic in- 
 terchange of look, or word, or touch, with a fellow-crea- 
 ture kind and noble and brilliant, and engaged in the 
 exhibition of those qualities of heart and intellect which 
 make him what he is ? Multiply and sustain this sup- 
 pose yourself surrounded by beings with whom this in- 
 terchange of sympathy is warm and perpetual. Intensify 
 it. Increase indefinitely the excellence of one of those 
 beings, the wonderful and attractive character of his 
 operations, our own capacities of affection and intellect, 
 the vividness of our conception, the breadth and firmness of 
 of our mental grasp, the sharp vigour of our admiration ; and, 
 to .exclude satiety, imagine if you like that the operations 
 which we contemplate and our relations to our companions 
 are infinitely varied a supposition for which the size of 
 the known and unknown universe affords indefinite scope 
 or otherwise suppose that sameness ceases to tire, as the 
 old Greek philosopher thought it might do if we were 
 
 better than we are (//-era/JoA.^ TTOLVTW yXvKvrarov BLOL TTovypiav 
 
 nva), or as it would do, I suppose, if we had no memory 
 of the immediate past. Imagine all this as the very least 
 that may be hoped, if our own powers of conception are 
 as slight in respect to the nature of what is to be as our 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 97 
 
 bodies are in relation to the physical universe. And re- 
 member that, if practical duties are necessary for the per- 
 fection of life, the universe is not so small but that in 
 some corner of it its Creator might always find something 
 to do for the army of intelligences whom he has thus 
 formed and exalted. 
 
 All this, I repeat, may be a dream, but to characterize 
 it as " the eternity of the tabor " shows surely a feeble- 
 ness of conception or carelessness of representation more 
 worthy of a ready writer than of a serious thinker. And 
 to place before us as a rival conception the fact that some 
 of our good deeds will have indefinite consequences to 
 call this scanty and fading chain of effects, which we shall 
 be as unable to perceive or control as we have been un- 
 able to anticipate to call this a " posthumous activity," 
 " an eternity of spiritual influence," and a " life beyond 
 the grave," and finally, under the appellation of " incor- 
 poration into the glorious future of our race," to claim for 
 it a dignity and value parallel to that which would attach 
 to the Christian's expectation (if solid) of a sensible life 
 of exalted happiness for himself and all good men, is surely 
 nothing more or less than extravagance founded on mis- 
 nomer. 
 
 With regard to the ^promised incorporation, I should 
 really like to know what is the exact process, or event, or 
 condition, which Mr. Harrison considers himself to under- 
 stand by the incorporation of a consensus of faculties with 
 a glorious future ; and whether he arrived at its appre- 
 
98 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 hension by way of " positive knowledge," or by way of 
 " scientific logic." 
 
 Mr. Harrison's future life is disposed of by Professor 
 Huxley in a few words : " Throw a stone into the sea, 
 and there is a sense in which it is true that the wavelets 
 which spread around it have an effect through all space 
 anl time. Shall we say that the stone has a future life?" 
 
 To this I only add the question whether I am not jus- 
 tified in saying that Mr. Harrison does not adequately 
 distinguish between the nature of a fiddle and the nature 
 of a tune, and would contend (if consistent) that a violin 
 which had been burnt to ashes would, notwithstanding, 
 continue to exist, at least as long as a tune which had 
 been played upon it survived in the memory of any one 
 who had heard it the consensus of its capacities being, 
 it would seem, incorporated into the glorious future of 
 music. 
 
 HON. RODEN NOEL. 
 
 DEATH is a phenomenon ; but are we phenomena ? 
 The question of immortality seems, philosophically 
 speaking, very much to resolve itself into that of person- 
 ality. Are we persons, spirits, or are we things ? Perhaps 
 we are a loose collection of successive qualities ? That 
 seems to be the latest conclusion of positive and Agnostic 
 biological philosophy. The happy thought 'which, as Dr. 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 99 
 
 Stirling suggests, was probably thrown out in a spirit of 
 persiflage by Hume has been adopted in all seriousness by 
 his followers. Mr. Harrison is very bitter with those who 
 want to explain mental and moral phenomena by physi- 
 ology. But, as Prof. Huxley remarks, he seems in many 
 parts of his essay to do the same thing himself. What 
 could Biichner, or Carl Vogt, say stronger than this ? "At 
 last, the priek of a needle, or a grain of mineral, will in 
 an instant lay to rest forever man's body and its unity, 
 and all the spontaneous activities of intelligence, feeling, 
 and action, with which that compound organism was 
 charged." Again, he says^ the spiritual faculties are " di- 
 rectly dependent on physical organs " "stand forth as 
 functions of living organs in given conditions of the or- 
 ganism." Again : " At last the man Newton dies, that is, 
 the body is dispersed into gas and dust." Mr. Harrison, 
 then, though a positivist, bound to know only successive 
 phenomena, seems to know the body as a material entity 
 possessed of such functions as conscience, reason, imagina- 
 tion, perception to know that Newton's body thought out 
 the " Principia," and Shakespeare's conceived " Hamlet." 
 Indeed, Agnosticism generally, though with a show of 
 humility, seems rather arbitrary in its selection of what we 
 shall know, and what we shall not ; we must know something ; 
 so we shall know that we have ideas and feelings, but not- 
 the personal identity that alone makes them intelligible, or 
 we shall use the word, and yet speak as if the idea were 
 a figment ; we shall know qualities, but not substance ; 
 " functions " and " forces," but not the some one or some- 
 
100 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 thing of which they must be functions and forces to be 
 conceivable at all. Yet naturam ixpellas furca, etc. 
 Common-sense insists on retaining the fundamental laws 
 of human thought, not being able to get rid of them ; and 
 hence the hap-hazard, instead of systematic and orderly, 
 fashion in which the new philosophy deals with universal 
 convictions, denying even that they exist out of theology 
 and me't< ij>li // x / q lie. 
 
 Thus (in apparent contradiction to the statements 
 quoted), we are told that it is " man who loves, 
 thinks, acts ; not the ganglia, or sinuses, or any 
 organ" that does so. But perhaps the essayist means 
 that all the body together does so. He says a man is " the 
 consensus, or combined activity of his faculties." What 
 is meant by this phraseology ? It is just this " his" this 
 consensus," or "combined acting," that is inconceivable 
 without the focus of unity, in which many contemporane- 
 ous phenomena, and many past and present, meet to be 
 compared, remembered, identified, as belonging to the 
 same self ; so only can they be known phenomena at all. 
 Well, do we find in examining the physical structure of 
 man's body as solid, heavy, extended, devisible, or its 
 living organs and their physical functions, or the rear- 
 rangement of molecules of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, 
 etc., into living tissue, or its oxidation, anything corres- 
 ponding to the consciousness of personal moral agency, 
 and personal identity ? We put the two classes of con- 
 ception side by side, and they seem to refuse to be 
 identified man as one and the same conscious moral 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTUBTC LlVfi. 161 
 
 agent and his body, or the bumps on his skull ; or is 
 man indeed a function of his own body ? Are we right 
 in talking of our bodies as material things, and of our- 
 selves as if we were not things, but persons with mights, 
 rights, and duties ? We ought, perhaps, to talk theolo- 
 gies and philosophies being now exploded not of our 
 having bodies, but of bodies having us, and of bodies 
 having rights or duties. Perhaps Dundreary was mis- 
 taken, and the tail may wag the dog after all. 
 
 Mr. Harrison says : " Orthodoxy has so long been 
 accustomed to take itself for granted, that we are apt to 
 forget how very short a period of human history this 
 sublimated essence" (the immaterial soul) " has been cur- 
 rent. There is not a trace of it in the Bible in its 
 present sense." This reminds one rather of Mr. Matthew 
 Arnold's contention that the Jews did not believe in God. 
 But really it does not much signify what particular intel- 
 lectual theories have been entertained by different men 
 at different times about the nature of God or of the soul : 
 the question is whether you do not find on the whole 
 among them all a consciousness or conviction that there 
 is a Higher Being above them, together with a power of 
 distinguishing themselves from their own bodies, and the 
 world around them in consequence of this, too, a belief 
 in personal immortality. Many in all ages believe that 
 the dead have spoken to us from beyond the grave. But 
 into that I will not enter. Are we our bodies ? that seems 
 to be the point. Now, I do not think positivism has 
 any right to assume that we are, even on its own princi- 
 ples and professions. 
 
A >HM>:;|;\; SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 Mr. ILirri-ui ha^ a \vry i'oiviMr passage, in which 
 he enlarges upon this theme : that "the laws of the 
 separate functions of body, mind, or feeling, have 
 visible relations to each other; are inextricably woven in 
 with each other, act and react. . . . From the summit of 
 spiritual life TO the 1 ase of corporeal life, whether we pass 
 ii} m- down the gamut of human forces, there runs one 
 organic corn-hit inn and sympathy of parts. Touch the 
 smallest film- in the corporeal man, and in some infini- 
 tesimal way we may watch the effect in the moral man. 
 When we rouse chords of the most glorious ecstasy of the 
 soul, we may see the vibrations of them visibly thrilling 
 upon the skin." Here we are in the region of positive 
 facts as specially made manifest by recent investigation. 
 And the orthodox schools need to recognize the signifi- 
 cance of such facts. The close interdependence of body 
 and soul is a startling verity that must be looked in the 
 face ; and the discovery has, no doubt, gone far to shake 
 the faith of many in human immortality, as well as in 
 other momentous kindred truths. It has been so with myself. 
 But I think the old dictum of Bacon about the effect of 
 a little and more knowledge will be found applicable 
 after all. Let us look these facts very steadily in the 
 face. When we have thought for a long time, there is a 
 feeling of pain in the head. That is a feeling, observe, in 
 our own conscious selves. Further, by observation and 
 experiment, it has been made certain that some molecular 
 change in the nervous substance of the brain (to the 
 renewal of which oxygenated blood is necessary) is going 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 103 
 
 on, while the process of thinking takes place though we 
 are not conscious of it in our own case, except as a matter 
 of inference. The thought itself seems, when we renecJ 
 on it, partly due to the action of an external world or 
 cosmos upon us ; partly to our own " forms of thought," 
 or fixed ways of perceiving and thinking, which have 
 been ours so long as we can remember, and which do not 
 belong to us more than to other individual members of 
 the human family ; again partly to our own past experi- 
 ence. But what is this material process accompanying 
 thought, which conceivably we might perceive if we could 
 see the inside of our own bodies ? Why it too can only 
 seem what it seems by virtue of our own . personal past 
 experience, and our own human as well as individual 
 modes of conceiving. Is not *that " positive " too ? Will 
 not men of sciertee agree with me that such is the fact ? 
 In short, our bodies, on any view of them, Science herself 
 has taught us, are percepts and concepts of ours I don't 
 say of the " soul," or the mind, or any bete noire of the 
 sort, but of ourselves, who surely cannot be altogether 
 betes noires. They are as much percepts and concepts of 
 ours as is the material world outside them. Are they 
 coloured ? Colour, we are told, is- a sensation. Are they 
 hard or soft ? These are our sensations, and relative to 
 us. The elements of our food enter into relations we 
 name living ; their molecules enter into that condition of 
 unstable equilibrium ; there is motion of parts fulfilling 
 definite intelligible and constant uses, in some cases subject 
 to our own intelligent direction. But all this is what 
 
104 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 appeai-s to our intelligence, and it appears different, 
 According to the stages of intelligence at which we arrive ; 
 a good deal of it is Irypothesis of our own minds. 
 Readers of Berkeley and Kant need not be told this ; it is 
 now universally acknowledged by the competent. The 
 atomic tin-on- is a working hypothesis of our minds only. 
 Spa iv and tinu- arc relative to our intelligence, to the 
 
 ion of our thoughts, to our own faculties of motion, 
 motion being also a conception of ours. Our bodies, in 
 fact, as positivists often tells us, and as we now venture 
 to remind ///-//i, are phenomena, that is, orderly appear- 
 ances to U8. They further tell us generally that there is 
 nothing which thus appears, or that we cannot know that 
 there is anything beyond the appearance. What, then, 
 
 ling to positivism itseli*, is the most we are entitled 
 to attirm with regard to the dead ? Simply that there 
 arc no <> /'/" durances f<> 'us of a living personality in con- 
 
 >n with those phenomena which we call a dead 
 body, any more than there are in conneciion with the 
 used-up materials of burned tissues that pass by osmosis 
 into the capillaries, and away by excretory ducts. But 
 are we entitled to affirm that the person is extinct is 
 dissolved the one conscious self in whom these bodily 
 phenomena centred (except so far as they centred in us), 
 who was the focus of them, gave them form, made them 
 what they were ; whose thoughts wandered up and down 
 through eternity ; of whom, therefore, the bodily as well 
 as mental and spiritual functions were functions, so far as 
 the body entered into the conscious self at all, ? We can, 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 105 
 
 on the contrary, only affirm that probably the person no 
 longer perceives, and is conscious, in connection with 
 this form we look upon, wherein so-called chemical affini- 
 ties now prevail altogether over so-called vital power. 
 But even in life the body is always changing and decom- 
 posing foreign substances are always becoming a new 
 body, and the old body becoming a foreign substance. Yet 
 the person remains one and the same. True, positivism 
 tries to eliminate persons, and reduce all to appearances ; 
 but this is too glaring a violation of common-sense, and 
 I do not think from his language Mr. Harrison quite 
 means to do this. Well, by spirit, even by " soul," most 
 people, let me assure him, only mean our own conscious 
 personal selves. For myself, indeed, I believe that there 
 cannot be appearances without something to appear. But 
 seeing that the material world is in harmony with our 
 intelligence, and presents all the appearance of intelligent 
 cooperation of parts with a view to ends, I believe, with 
 a great English thinker, whose loss we have to deplore 
 (James Hinton), that all this is the manifestation of life 
 of living spirits or persons, not of dead, inert matter, 
 though from our own spiritual deadness or inertness it 
 appears to us material. Upon our own moral and 
 spiritual life, in fact, depends the measure of our 
 knowledge and perception. I can indeed admit with 
 Mr. Harrison that probably there must always be to 
 us the phenomenon, the body, the external ; but it may 
 be widely different from what it seems now. We may be 
 made one with the great Elohim, or angels of Nature who 
 
100 A MODKRN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 us, 01- \\r may still grovel in dead material bodily 
 life. We now appear to ourselves and to others as bodily, 
 as material. Body, and soul or mind, are two opposite 
 phenomenal poles of one reality, which is self or spirit ; 
 but though these phenomena may vary, the creative, 
 informing spirit, which underlies all, of which we par- 
 take, which is absolute, divine, this can never be destroyed. 
 " In God we live, move, and have our being." It is held, 
 indeed, by the new philosophy, that the temporal, the 
 physical, and the composite (elements of matter and 
 " feeling"), are the basis of our higher consciousness : on 
 the contrary, I hold that this is absurd, and that the one 
 eternal consciousness or spirit must be the basis of the 
 physical, composite, and temporal ; is needed to give unity 
 and harmony to the body. One is a little ashamed of 
 agreeing with an old-fashioned thinker, whom an old- 
 fashioned poet pronounced the " first of those who know," 
 that the spirit is organizing vital principle of the body, 
 not vice versa. The great difficulty, no doubt, is that 
 apparent irruption of the external into the personal, when, 
 as the essayist says, " impair a man's secretions, and moral 
 sense is dulled, discoloured, depraved." But it is our spiritual 
 deadness that has put us into this physical condition ; and 
 probably it is we who are responsible in a fuller sense 
 than we can realize now for this effect upon us, which 
 must be in the end too for purposes of discipline; it 
 belongs to our spiritual history and purpose. Moreover, 
 this external world is not so foreign to us as we imagine ; 
 it is spiritual, and between all spirit there is solidarity. 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 107 
 
 Mr. Hinton observes (and here I agree with him rather 
 than with Mr. Harrison) that the defect and falseness of 
 our knowing must be in the knowing by only part of 
 ourselves. Whereas sense had to be supplemented by 
 intellect, and proved misleading without it, so intellect, 
 even in the region of knowledge, has to be supplemented 
 by moral sense, which is the highest faculty in us. We 
 are at present misled by a false view of the world, based 
 on sense and intellect only. Death is but a hideous il- 
 lusion of our deadness 
 
 " Death is the veil which those who live-call life : 
 We sleep and it is lifted." 
 
 The true definition of the actual is that which is true for, 
 which satisfies the whole being of humanity. We must 
 ask of a doctrine, " Does it answer in the moral region ?" 
 if so, it is as true as we can have it with our present 
 knowledge ; but, if the moral experiment fails, it is not 
 true. Conscience has the highest authority about know- 
 ledge, as it has about conduct. Now apply this to the 
 negations of positivism, and the belief Comte would sub- 
 stitute for faith in God, and personal immortality. Kant 
 sufficiently proved that these are postulates required by 
 Practical Reason, and on this ground he believed them. 
 I am not blind to the beauty and nobleness of Comte's 
 moral ideal (not without debt to Christ's as expounded) 
 by himself, and here by Mr. Harrison. Still I say, The 
 moral experiment fails. Some of us may seek to benefit 
 the world, and then desire rest. But what of the 
 maimed and broken and aimless lives around us ? What 
 
108 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 of those we have lost, who were dearer to us than our own 
 selves, full of fairest hope and promise, unaware annihi- 
 lated in earliest dawn, whose dewy bud yet slept unfolded ? 
 If they were things, doubtless we might count them as 
 so much manure, in which to grow those still more 
 beautiful though still brief-flowering human aloes, which 
 positivism, though knowing nothing but present pheno- 
 mena, and denying God, is able confidently to promise us 
 in some remote future. But alas ! they seemed living 
 spirits, able to hope for infinite love, progressive virtue, 
 the beautific vision of God himself ! And they really 
 ivere so much manure ! Why, as has already been asked, 
 are such ephemerals worth living for, however many of 
 them there may be, whose lives are as an idle flash in the 
 pan, always promising, yet failing to attain any sub- 
 stantial or enduring good ? What of these agonizing 
 women and children, now the victims of Ottoman blood- 
 madness ? What of all the cramped, unlovely, debased, 
 or slow-tortured yet evanescent lives of myriads in our 
 great cities ? These cannot have the philosophic aspira- 
 tions of culture. They have too often none at all. Go 
 proclaim to them this gospel, supplementing it by the 
 warning that in the end there will remain only a huge 
 block of ice in a " wide, gray, lampless, deep, unpeopled 
 world!" I could believe in the pessimism of Schopen- 
 hauer, not in this jaunty optimism of Comte. 
 
 Are we then indeed orphans ? Will the tyrant go ever 
 unpunished, the wrong ever unredressed, the poor and 
 helpless remain always trampled and unhappy ? Must the 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 109 
 
 battle of good and evil in ourselves and others hang al- 
 ways trembling in the balance, forever undecided ; or does 
 it all mean nothing more than we see now, and is the 
 glorious world but some ghastly illusion of insanity ? 
 When " the fever called living is over at last," is all in- 
 deed over ? Thank God that through this Babel of dis- 
 cordant voices modern men can still hear His accents who 
 said, " Come unto me, all ye that are weary and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest." 
 
 LORD SELBORNE. 
 
 I AM too well satisfied with Lord Blachford's paper 
 to think that I can add anything of importance to 
 it. The little I would say has reference to our actual 
 knowledge of the soul during this life meaning by the 
 soul what Lord Blachford means, viz., the conscious 
 being which each man calls " himself." 
 
 It appears to me that what we know and can observe 
 tends to confirm the testimony of our consciousness to 
 the reality of the distinction between the body and the 
 soul. From the necessity of the case, we cannpt observe 
 any manifestations of the soul except during the time of 
 its association with the body. This limit of our experi- 
 ence applies, not to the " ego " of which alone each man 
 has any direct knowledge, but to the perceptible indica- 
 
110 . A MODKHN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 tion of consciousness in others. It is impossible, in the 
 nature of things, that any man can ever have had experi- 
 ence of the total cessation of his own consciousness ; and 
 the idea of such a cessation is much less natural and much 
 more difficult to realize than that of its continuance. We 
 observe the phenomena of death in others, and infer, by 
 irresistible induction, that the same thing will also hap- 
 pen to ourselves. But these phenomena carry us only to 
 the dissociation of the " ego " from the body, not to its 
 extinction. 
 
 Nothing else can be credible if our consciousness is not ; 
 and I have said that this bears testimony to the reality 
 of the distinction between soul and body. Each man is 
 conscious of using his own body as an instrument, in the 
 same sense in which he would use any other machine. 
 He passes a different moral judgment on the mechanical 
 and involuntary actions of his body, from that which he 
 feels to be due to its actions resulting from his own free- 
 will. The unity and identity of the " ego," from the be- 
 ginning to the end of life, is of the essence of his con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 In accordance with this testimony are such facts as the 
 following : that the body has no proper unity, identity, or 
 continuity, through the whole of life all its constituent 
 parts being in a constant state of flux and change ; that 
 many parts and organs of the body may be removed with 
 no greater effect upon the " ego " than when we take off 
 any article of clothing ; and that those organs which can- 
 not be removed or stopped in their action without death 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. Ill 
 
 are distributed over different parts of the body, and are 
 homogeneous in their material and structure with others 
 which we can lose without the sense that any change has 
 passed over our proper selves. If, on the one hand, a 
 diseased state of some bodily organs interrupts the rea- 
 sonable manifestations of the soul through the body, the 
 cases are, on the other, not rare in which the whole body 
 decays and fells into extreme age, weakness, and even 
 decrepitude, while vigour, freshness, and youthfulness, are 
 characteristic of the mind. 
 
 The attempt, in Butler's work, to reason from the in- 
 divisibility and indestructibility, of the soul as ascertained 
 facts, is less satisfactory than most of that great writer's 
 arguments, which are generally rather intended to be 
 destructive of objections than demonstrative of positive 
 truths. But the modern scientific doctrine, that all 
 matter and all force are indestructible, is not without 
 interest in relation to that argument. There must at 
 least be a natural presumption from that doctrine that, if 
 the soul during life has a real existence distinct from the 
 body, it is not annihilated by death. If, indeed, it were 
 a mere " force " (such as heat, light, etc., are supposed by 
 modern philosophers to be though men who are not 
 philosophers may be excused if they find some difficulty 
 in understanding exactly what is meant by the term when 
 so used), it would be consistent with that doctrine that 
 the soul might be transmuted after death into some other 
 form of force. But the idea of " force " in this sense 
 (whatever may be its exact meaning) seems wholly 
 
11- A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 inapplicable to the conscious being which a man calls 
 " himself." 
 
 The resemblances in the nature and organization of 
 animal and vegetable bodies seem to me to confirm, in- 
 stead of weakening, the impression that the body of man 
 is a machine under the government of the soul, and quite 
 listinct from it. Plants manifest no consciousness ; all 
 our knowledge of them tends irresistibly to the conclu- 
 sion that there is in them no intelligent, much less any 
 reasonable, principle of life. Yet they are machines very 
 like the human body ; not, indeed, in their formal devel- 
 opment or their exact chemical processes, but in the 
 general scheme and functions of their organism in their 
 laws of nutrition, digestion, assimilation, respiration, and 
 especially reproduction. They are bodies without souls, 
 living a physical life, and subject to a physical death. 
 The inferior animals have bodies still more like our own ; 
 indeed in their higher orders, resembling them very closely 
 indeed ; and they have also a principle of life quite differ- 
 ent from that of plants, with various degrees of conscious- 
 ness, intelligence, and volition. Even in their principle 
 of life, arguments founded on observation and comparison 
 (though not on individual consciousness), more or less 
 similar to those which apply to man, tend to show that 
 there is something distinct from, and more than, the body. 
 But, of all these inferior animals, the intelligence differs 
 from that of man, not in degree only, but in kind. Nature 
 is their simple, uniform, and sufficient law ; their very 
 arts (which are often wonderful) come to them by 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 113 
 
 Nature, except when they are trained by man ; there is 
 in them no sign of discourse, of reason, of morality, or of 
 the knowledge of good and evil. The very similarity of 
 their bodily structure to that of man tends, when these 
 differences are noted, to add weight to the other natural 
 evidence of the distinctness of man's soul from his body. 
 
 The immortality of the soul seems to me to be one of 
 those truths for the belief in which, when authoritatively 
 declared, man is prepared by the very constitution of his 
 nature. 
 
 CANON BARRY. 
 
 ANY one who from the ancient position of Christianity 
 looks on the controversy between Mr. Harrison and 
 Prof. Huxley on " The Soul and Future Life " (to which 1 
 propose mainly to confine myself) will be tempted with 
 Faulconbridge to observe, not without a touch of grim 
 satisfaction, how, " from north to south, Austria and 
 France shoot in each other's mouth." The fight is fierce 
 enough to make him ask, Tantatne animis sapientibus irce? 
 But he will see that each is far more effective in battering 
 the lines of the enemy than in strengthening his own. 
 Nor will he be greatly concerned if both from time to 
 time lodge a shot or two in the battlements on which he 
 stands, with some beating of that " drum scientific " 
 which seems to me to be in these days always as resonant, 
 8 
 
114 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 sometimes with as much result of merely empty sound, as 
 " the drum ecclesiastic," against which Prof. Huxley is so 
 fond of warning us. Those whom Mr. Harrison calls 
 " theologians," and whom Prof. Huxley less appropriately 
 terms " priests " (for of priesthood there is here no ques- 
 tion), may indeed think that, if the formidable character 
 of an opponent's position is to be measured by the scorn 
 and fuiy with which it is assailed, their ground must be 
 strong indeed ; and they will possibly remember an old 
 description of a basis less artificial than " pulpit-stairs," 
 from which men may look without much alarm, while 
 " the floods come and the winds blow." Gaining from 
 this conviction courage to look more closely, they will per- 
 ceive, as I have said, that each of the combatants is far 
 stronger on the destructive than on the constructive side. 
 Mr. Harrison's earnest and eloquent plea against the 
 materialism which virtually, if not theoretically, makes 
 all that we call spirit a mere function of material organ- 
 ization (like the dp/xovta of the " Phsedo "), and against the 
 exclusive " scientism " which, because it cannot find cer- 
 tain entities along its line of investigation, asserts 
 loudly that they are either non-existent or " unknowable," 
 is strong, and (pace Prof. Huxley) needful; not, indeed, 
 against him (for he knows better than to despise the 
 metaphysics in which he is so great an adept), but against 
 many adherents, prominent rather than eminent, of the 
 school in which he is a master. Nor is its force destroyed 
 by exposing, however keenly and sarcastically, some in- 
 consistencies of argument, not inaptly corresponding (as 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTUKE LIFE. 115 
 
 it seems to me) with similar inconsistencies in the popular 
 exposition of the views which it attacks. If Prof. Huxley 
 is right (as surely he is) in pleading for perfect freedom 
 and boldness in the investigation of the phenomena of 
 humanity from the physical side, the counter-plea is 
 equally irresistible for the value of an independent philo- 
 sophy of mind, starting from the metaphysical pole of 
 thought, and reasoning positively on the phenomena 
 which, though they may have many connections with 
 physical laws, are utterly inexplicable by them. We 
 might, indeed, demur to his inference that the discovery 
 of " antecedence in the molecular fact " necessarily leads 
 to a " physical theory of moral phenomena," and vice versa, 
 as savouring a little of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc. In- 
 separable connection it would imply ; but the ultimate 
 causation might lie in something far deeper, underlying 
 both " the molecular " and " the spiritual fact." But still 
 to establish such antecedence would be an 'important 
 scientific step, and the attempt might be made from 
 either side. 
 
 On the other hand, Prof. Huxley's trenchant attack on 
 the unreality of the positivist assumption of a right to 
 take names which in the old religion at least mean some- 
 thing firm and solid, and to sublime them into the cloudy 
 forms of transcendental theory, and on the arbitrary ap- 
 plication of the word " selfishness," with all its degrading 
 associations, to the consciousness of personality here and 
 the hope of a nobler personality in the future, leaves 
 nothing to be desired. I fear that his friends the priests 
 
11(> A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 would be accused of the crowning sin of " ecclesiasticism" 
 (whatever that may be) if they used denunciations half 
 so sharp. Except with a few sarcasms which he cannot 
 resist the temptation of flinging at them by the way, they 
 will have nothing with which to quarrel ; and possibly 
 they may even learn from him to consider these as claps 
 of - " cheap thunder " from the " pulpit," in that old 
 sense of the word in which it designates the professorial 
 chair. 
 
 The whole of Mr. Harrison's two papers may be resolved 
 into an attack on the true individuality of man, first on 
 the speculative, then on the moral side; from the one 
 point of view denouncing the belief in it as a delusion, 
 from the other branding the desire of it as a moral 
 degradation. The connection of the two arguments is 
 instructive and philosophical. For no argument merely 
 speculative, ignoring all moral considerations, will really 
 be listened to. His view of the soul as " a consensus of 
 human faculties " reminds us curiously of the Buddhist 
 " groups ;" his description of a " perpetuity of sensation as 
 the true hell " breathes the very spirit of the longing for 
 Nirvana. Both he and his Asiatic predecessors are cer- 
 tainly right in considering the " delusion of individual 
 existence " as the chief delusion to be got rid of on the 
 way to a perfect Agnosticism, in respect of all that is nob 
 merely phenomenal. It is true that he protests in terms 
 against a naked materialism, ignoring all spiritual phen- 
 omena as having a distinctive character of their own ; but 
 yet, when he tells us that " to talk about a bodiless being 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 117 
 
 thinking and loving is simply to talk of the thoughts and 
 feelings of Nothing," he certainly appears to assume sub- 
 stantially the position of the materialism he denounces, 
 which (as has been already said) holds these spiritual 
 energies to be merely results of the bodily organization, 
 as the excitation of an electric current is the result of the 
 juxtaposition of certain material substances. If a bodiless 
 being is Nothing, there can be no such thing as an intrinsic 
 or independent spiritual life; and it is difficult for ordinary 
 minds to attach any distinct meaning to the declaration 
 that the soul is " a conscious unity of being," if that being 
 depends on an organization which is unquestionably dis- 
 cerptible, and of which (as Butler remarks) large parts 
 may.be lost without affecting this consciousness of per- 
 sonality. 
 
 Now this is, after all, the only point worth fighting 
 about. Mr. Hutton has already said with perfect truth 
 that by " the soul " we mean that " which lies at the 
 bottom of the sense of personal identity the thread of 
 the continuity running through all our checkered life," 
 and which remains unbroken amidst the constant flux of 
 change both in our material body, and in the circum- 
 stances of our material life. This belief is wholly inde- 
 pendent of any " metaphysical hypothesis " of modern 
 " orthodoxy," whether it is, or is not, rightly described as 
 a "juggle of ideas," and of any examination of the ques- 
 tion (on which Lord Blachford has touched) whether, if 
 it seem such to "those trained in positive habits of 
 though t," the fault lies in it or in them. I may remark^ 
 
118 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 in passing, that in this broad and simple sense it certainly 
 runs through the whole Bible, and has much that is " akin 
 to it in the Old Testament." For even in the darkest 
 and most shadowy ideas of the Shedl of the other world, 
 the belief in a true personal identity is taken absolutely 
 for granted ; and it is not a little curious to notice how in 
 the Book of Job the substitution for it of " an immor- 
 tality in the race " (although there, not in the whole of 
 humanity, but simply in the tribe or family) is offered, 
 and rejected as utterly insufficient to satisfy either the 
 speculation of the intellect or the moral demands of the 
 conscience. * Now is it not worth while to protest against 
 the caricature of this belief, as a belief in " man plus a 
 hetereogeneous entity " called the soul, which can be only 
 intended as a sarcasm. But we cannot acquiesce in any 
 statement which represents the belief in this immaterial 
 and indivisible personality as resting simply on the no- 
 tion that it is needed to explain the acts of the human 
 organism. For, as a matter of fact, those who believe in 
 it conceive it to be declared by a direct consciousness, the 
 most simple and ultimate of all acts of consciousness. 
 They hold this consciousness of a personal identity and 
 individuality, unchanging amid material change, to be 
 embodied in all the language and literature of man ; and 
 they point to the inconsistencies in the very words of 
 those who argue against it, as proofs that man cannot 
 divest himself of it. No doubt they believe that so the 
 acts of the organism are best explained, but it is not on the 
 
 i See Job, xiv. 21, 22. 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 119 
 
 necessity of such explanation that they base their belief, 
 and this fact separates altogether their belief in the human 
 soul, as an immaterial entity, from those conceptions of 
 a soul, in animal, vegetable, or even inorganic substances, 
 with which Mr. Harrison insists on confounding it. Of 
 the true character of animal nature we know nothing 
 (although we may conjecture much), just because we 
 have not in regard to it the direct consciousness which 
 we have in regard to our own nature. Accordingly, we 
 need not trouble our argument for a soul in man with 
 any speculation as to a true soul in the brute creatures. 
 
 In what relation this personality stands to the particles 
 which at any moment compose the body, and which are 
 certainly in a continual state of flux, or to the law of 
 structure which in living beings, by some power to us un- 
 known, assimilates these particles, is a totally different 
 question. I fear that Mr. Harrison will be displeased 
 with me if I call it " a mystery." But, whatever future 
 advances of science may do for us in the matter and I 
 hope they may do much I am afraid I must still say 
 that this relation is a mystery which has been at differ- 
 ent times imperfectly represented, both by formal theories 
 and by metaphors, all of which by the very nature of 
 language are connected with original physical conceptions. 
 Let it be granted freely that the progress of modern phy- 
 siological science has rendered obsolete the old idea that 
 the various organs of the body stand to the true personal 
 being in a purely instrumental relation, such as (for 
 example) is described by Butler in his " Analogy," in the 
 
120 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 celebrated chapter on " The Future Life." The power of 
 physical influences acting upon the body to affect the 
 energies of thought and will is unquestionable. The be- 
 lief that the action of all these energies is associated with 
 the molecular change is, to say the least, highly probable. 
 And I may remark that Christianity has no quarrel with 
 these discoveries of modern science ; for its doctrine is that 
 for the perfection of man's being a bodily organization is 
 necessary, and that the " intermediate state " is a state of 
 suspense and imperfection, out of which at the word of 
 the Creator, the indestructible personality of man shall 
 rise, to assimilate to itself a glorified body. The doc- 
 trine of the resurrection of the body boldly faces the per- 
 plexity as to the connection of a body with personality, 
 which so greatly troubled ancient speculation on the im- 
 mortality of the soul. In respect of the intermediate 
 " state," it only extends (I grant immeasurably) the expe- 
 rience of those suspensions of the will and the full con- 
 sciousness of personality which we have in life, in sleep, 
 swoon, stupor, dependent on normal and abnormal con- 
 ditions of the bodily organization ; and in respect of the 
 resurrection, it similarly extends the action of that mys- 
 terious creative will which moulds the human body of the 
 present life slowly and gradually out of the mere germ, 
 and forms with marvellous rapidity and exuberance of 
 prolific power, lower organisms of high perfection and 
 beauty. 
 
 But while modern science teaches us to recognize the 
 influence of the 'bodily organization on mental energy, it 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 121 
 
 has, with at least equal clearness, brought out in compen- 
 sation the distinct power of that mental energy, acting 
 by a process wholly different from the chain of physical 
 causation, to alter functionally, and even organically, the 
 bodily frame itself. The Platonic Socrates (it will be re- 
 membered) dwells on the power of the spirit to control 
 bodily appetite and even passion (TO 0v/xoi8eY), as also on 
 its having the power to assume qualities, as a proof that 
 it is more appovia. Surely modern science has greatly 
 strengthened the former part of his argument, by these dis- 
 coveries of the power of mind over even the material 
 of the body. This is strikingly illustrated (for exam- 
 ple to the physician, both by the morbid phenomena 
 of what is called " hysteria," in which the belief in the 
 existence of physical disease actually produces the most 
 remarkable physical effects on the body ; and also by 
 the more natural action of the mind on the body, when 
 in sickness a resolution to get well masters the force 
 of disease, or a desire to die slowly fulfils itself. Per- 
 haps even more extraordinary is the fact (I believe 
 sufficiently ascertained) that during pregnancy the pre- 
 sentation of ideas to the mind of the mother actually 
 affects the physical organization of the offspring. Hence 
 I cannot but think that, at least as distinctly as ever, our 
 fuller experience discloses to us two different processes of 
 causation acting upon our complex humanity the one 
 wholly physical, acting sometimes by the coarser mechani- 
 cal agencies, sometimes by the subtiler physiological 
 agencies, and in both cases connecting man through the 
 
122 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 I " H 1 y with the great laws ruling the physical universe 
 the other wholly metaphysical, acting by the simple pre- 
 sentation of ideas to the mind (which may, indeed, be so 
 purely subjective that they correspond to no objective 
 reality whatever), and through them, secondarily acting 
 upon the body, producing, no doubt, the molecular 
 changes in the brain and the affections of the nervous 
 tissue which accompany and exhibit mental emotion. 
 In the normal condition of the earthly life, these two 
 powers act and react upon each other, neither being abso- 
 lutely independent of the other. In the perfect state of 
 the hereafter we believe that it shall be so still. But we 
 do know of cases in which the metaphysical power is 
 apparently dormant or destroyed, in which accordingly 
 all emotions can be produced automatically by physical 
 processes only, as happens occasionally in dreams 
 (whether of the day or night), and in morbid conditions, 
 as of idiocy, which may themselves be produced either by 
 physical injury or by mental shock. I cannot myself see 
 any difficulty in conceiving that the metaphysical power 
 might act, though no doubt in a way of which we have 
 no present experience, and (according to the Christian 
 doctrine) in a condition of some imperfection, when the 
 bodily organization is either suspended or removed. For 
 to me it seems clear that there is something existent, 
 which is neither material nor even dependent on mate- 
 rial organization. Whether it be stigmatized as a " hetero- 
 geneous entity," or graciously designated by the " good 
 old word soul," is a matter of great indifference. There, 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 it is ; and if it is, I cannot see why it is inconceivable 
 that it should survive all material change. For here, as 
 in other cases, there seems to be a frequent confusion 
 between conceiving that a thing may be, and conceiving 
 how it may be. Of course, we cannot figure to ourselves 
 the method of the action of a spiritual energy apart from 
 a bodily organization ; in the attempt to do so the mind 
 glides into quasi-corporeal conceptions and expressions, 
 which are a fair mark for satire. But that there may be such 
 action is to me far less inconceivable than that the mere 
 fact of the dissolution of what is purely physical should 
 draw with it the destruction of a soul that can think, love 
 and pray. 
 
 I do not think it necessary to dwell at any length on 
 the second of Mr. Harrison's propositions, denouncing the 
 desire of personal and individual existence as " selfish- 
 ness," with a vigour quite worthy of his royal Prussian 
 model. But history, after all, has recognized that the 
 poor grenadiers had something to say for themselves. 
 Mr. Hutton has already suggested that, if Mr. Harrison 
 had studied the Christian conception of the future life, 
 he could not have written some of his most startling pas- 
 sages, and has protested against the misapplication of the 
 word " selfishness," which in this, as in other controver- 
 sies, quietly begs the question proposed for discussion. 
 The fact is, that this theory of " altruism," so eloquently 
 set forth by Mr. Harrison and others of his school, simply 
 contradicts human nature, not in its weaknesses or sins, but 
 in its essential characteristics. It is certainly not the 
 
124 A Mt)DERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 weakest or ignoblest of human souls who have felt, at the 
 times of deepest thought and feeling, conscious of but 
 two existences their own and the Supreme Existence, 
 whether they call it Nature, Law or God. Surely^ this 
 humanity is a very unworthy deity, at once a vague and 
 shadowy abstraction, and so far as it can be distinctly 
 conceived, like some many-headed idol, magnifying the 
 evil and hideousness as well as the good and beauty of the 
 individual nature. But if it were not so still that indivi- 
 duality, as well as unity, is the law of human nature, is 
 singularly indicated by the very nature of our mental 
 operations. In the study and perception of truth, each 
 man, though he may be guided to it by others, stands 
 absolutely alone; in love, on the other hand, he 
 loses all but the sense of unity ; while the conscience 
 holds the balance, recognizing at once individuality and 
 unity. Indeed, the sacredness of individuality is so 
 guarded by the darkness which hides each soul from all 
 perfect knowledge of man, so deeply impressed on the 
 mind by the consciousness of independent thought and 
 will, and on the soul by the sense of incommunicable 
 responsibility, that it cannot merge itself in the life of 
 the race. Self-sacrifice or unselfishness is the conscious 
 sacrifice, not of our own individuality, but of that which 
 seems to minister to it, for the sake of others. The law 
 of human nature, moreover, is such that the very attempt 
 at such sacrifice inevitably strengthens the spiritual indi- 
 viduality in all that makes it worth having. To talk of 
 " a perpetuity of sensation as a true hell " in a being sup- 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 125 
 
 posed capable of indefinite growth in wisdom, righteous- 
 ness, and love, is surely to use words which have no intel- 
 ligible meaning. 
 
 No doubt, if we are to take as our guiding principle 
 either altruism or what is rightly designated " selfish- 
 ness," we must infinitely prefer the former. But where 
 is the necessity ? No doubt the task of harmonizing the 
 two is difficult. But all things worth doing are difficult ; 
 and it might be worth while to consider whether there is 
 not something in the old belief which finds the key to 
 this difficult problem in the consciousness of the relation 
 to One Supreme Being, and, recognizing both the love of 
 man and the love of self, bids them both agree in conscious 
 subordination to a higher' love of God. What makes our 
 life here will, we believe, make it up hereafter, only in a 
 purer and nobler form. On earth we live at once in our 
 own individuality and in the life of others. Our heaven is 
 not the extinction of either element of that life either 
 of individuality, as Mr. Harrison would have it, or of the 
 life in others, as in that idea of a selfish immortality 
 which he has, I think, set up in order to denounce it 
 but the continued harmony of both under an infinitely 
 increased power of that supreme principle. 
 
126 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 MR. W. R. GREG. 
 
 IT would seem impossible for Mr. Harrison to write 
 anything that is not stamped with a vigour and racy 
 eloquence peculiarly his own ; and the paper which has 
 opened the present discussion is probably far the finest 
 he has given to the world. There is a lofty tone in its 
 imaginative passages which strikes us as unique among 
 negationists, and a vein of what is almost tenderness per- 
 vading them, which was not observed in his previous 
 writings. The two combined render the second portion 
 one of the most touching and impressive speculations we 
 have read. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Harrison's in- 
 nate energy is apt to boil over into a vehemence approach- 
 ing the intemperate ; and the antagonistic atmosphere is 
 so native to his spirit that he can scarcely enter the lists 
 of controversy without an irresistible tendency to become 
 aggressive and unjust ; and he is too inclined to forget 
 the first duty of the chivalric militant logician namely, 
 to select the adversary you assail from the nobler and 
 not the lower form and rank of the doctrine in dispute. 
 The inconsistencies and weaknesses into which this ne- 
 glect has betrayed him in the instance before us have, 
 however, been so severely dealt with by Mr. Hutton and 
 Prof. Huxley, that I wish rather to direct attention to 
 two or three points of his argument that might otherwise 
 be in danger of escaping the appreciation and gratitude 
 they may fairly claim. 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 127 
 
 We owe him something, it appears to me, for having 
 inaugurated a discussion which has stirred so many minds 
 to give us on such a question so much interesting and 
 profound, and more especially so much suggestive, 
 thought. We owe him much, too, because, in dealing 
 with a thesis which it is specially the temptation and the 
 practice to handle as a theme for declamation, he has so 
 written as to force his antagonists to treat it argumenta- 
 tively and searchingly as well. Some gratitude, more- 
 over, is due to the man who had the moral courage 
 boldly to avow his adhesion to the negative view when 
 that view is not only in the highest degree unpopular, 
 but is regarded for the most part as condemnable into the 
 bargain, and when, besides, it can scarcely fail to be pain- 
 ful to every man of vivid imagination and of strong af- 
 fections. It is to his credit also, I venture to think, that, 
 holding this view, he has put it forward, not as an 
 opinion or speculation, but as a settled and deliberate con- 
 viction, maintainable by distinct and reputable reason- 
 ings, and to be controverted only by pleas analogous in 
 character. For if there be a topic within the wide range 
 of human questioning in reference to which tampering 
 with mental integrity might seem at first sight pardon- 
 able, it is that of a future and continued existence. If 
 belief be ever permissible perhaps I ought to say, if be- 
 lief be ever possible on the ground that " there is peace 
 and joy in believing," it is here, where the issues are so 
 vast, where the conception in its highest form is so enno 
 bling, where the practical influences of the Creed are, in 
 
128 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 appearance at least, so beneficent. But faith thus arrived 
 at has ever clinging to it the curse belonging to all ille- 
 gitimate possessions. It is precarious, because the flaw 
 in its title-deeds, barely suspected perhaps and never 
 acknowledged, may any moment be discovered; misgivings 
 crop up most surely in those hard and gloomy crises of 
 our lives when unflinching confidence is most essential to 
 our peace ; and the fairy fabric, built up not on grounded 
 conviction but on craving need, crumbles into dust, and 
 leaves the spirit with no solid sustenance to rest upon. 
 
 Unconsciously, and by implication, Mr. Harrison bears 
 a testimony he little intended, not, indeed, to the future 
 existence he denies, but to the irresistible longing and ne- 
 cessity for the very belief he labours to destroy. Perhaps 
 no writer has more undesignedly betrayed his conviction 
 that men will not and cannot be expected to surrender 
 their faith and hope without at least something like a 
 compensation ; certainly no one has ever toiled with more 
 noble rhetoric to gild and illuminate the substitute with 
 which he would fain persuade us to rest satisfied. The 
 nearly universal craving for posthumous existence and 
 enduring consciousness, which he depreciates with so 
 harsh a scorn, and which he will not accept as offering 
 even the shadow or simulacrum of an argument for the 
 Creed, he yet respects enough to recognize that it has its 
 foundation deep in the framework of our being, that it 
 cannot be silenced, and may not be ignored. Having no 
 precious metal to pay it with, he issues paper-money in- 
 stead, skilfully engraved and gorgeously gilded to look 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 129 
 
 as like the real coin as may be. It is in vain to deny 
 that there is something touching and elevating in the 
 glowing eloquence with which he paints the picture of 
 lives devoted to efforts in the service of the race, spent in 
 labouring, each of us in his own sphere, to bring about 
 the grand ideal he fancies for humanity, and drawing 
 strength and reward for long years of toil in the antici- 
 pation of what man will be when those noble dreams 
 shall have been realized at last even though we shall 
 never see what we have wrought so hard to win. It is 
 vain to deny, moreover, that these dreams appear more 
 solid and less wild or vague when we remember how close 
 an analogy we may detect in the labours of thousands 
 around us who spend their whole career on earth in 
 building up, by sacrifice and painful struggles, wealth, 
 station, fame, and character, for their children, whose en- 
 joyment of these possessions they will never live to wit- 
 ness, without their passionate zeal in the pursuit being 
 in any way cooled by the discouraging reflection. Does 
 not this oblige us to confess that the posthumous exis- 
 tence Mr. Harrison describes is not altogether an airy fic- 
 tion ? Still, somehow, after a few moments spent in the 
 thin atmosphere into which his brilliant language and 
 unselfish imagination have combined to raise us, we 
 ninety-nine out of every hundred of us at the least sink 
 back breathless and wearied after the unaccustomed soar- 
 ing amid light so dim, and craving, as of yore, after some- 
 thing more personal, more solid, and more certain. 
 
 To that more solid certainty I am obliged to confess, 
 9 
 
130 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 sorrowfully and with bitter .disappointment, that I can 
 contribute nothing nothing, I mean, that resembles evi- 
 dence, that can properly be called argument, or that I 
 can hope will be received as even the barest confirmation. 
 Alas ! can the wisest and most sanguine of us all bring 
 anything beyond our own personal sentiments to swell 
 the common hope ? We have aspirations to multipty, 
 but who has any knowledge to enrich our store ? I have 
 of course read most of the pleadings in favour of the or- 
 dinary doctrine of the future state ; naturally also, in 
 common with all grayer natures, I have meditated yet 
 more ; but these pleadings, for the most part, sound to 
 anxious ears little else than the passionate outcries of 
 souls that cannot endure to part with hopes on which they 
 have been nurtured, and which are entertwined with their 
 tenderest affections. Logical reasons to compel conviction, 
 I have met with none even from the interlocutors in 
 this actual Symposium. Yet few can have sought for 
 such more yearningly. I may say I share in the antici- 
 pations of believers; but I share them as aspirations, 
 sometimes approaching almost to a faith, occasionally, and 
 for a few moments, perhaps rising into something like a 
 trust, but never able to settle into the consistency of a 
 definite and enduring creed. I do not know how far even 
 this incomplete state of mind may not be merely the resi- 
 duum of early upbringing and habitual associations. But 
 I must be true to my darkness as courageously as to my 
 light. I cannot rest in comfort on arguments that to my 
 spirit have no cogency, nor can I pretend to respect or be 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 131 
 
 content with reasons which carry no penetrating convic- 
 tion along with them. I will not make buttresses do the 
 work or assume the posture of foundations. I will not 
 cry " Peace, peace, when there is no peace." I have said 
 elsewhere, and at various epochs of life, why the ordinary 
 " proofs " confidently put forward and gorgeously arrayed 
 " have no help in them; " while, nevertheless, the pictures 
 which imagination depicts are so inexpressibly alluring. 
 The more I think and question, the more do doubts and 
 difficulties crowd around my horizon, and cloud over my 
 sky. Thus it is that I am unable to bring aid or sustain- 
 ment to minds as troubled as my own, and perhaps less 
 willing to admit that the great enigma is, and must remain, 
 insoluble. Of two things, however, I feel satisfied that 
 the negative doctrine is no more susceptible of proof than 
 the affirmative, and that our opinion, be it only honest 
 can have no influence whatever on the issue, nor upon its 
 bearing on ourselves. 
 
 Two considerations that have been borne in upon my 
 mind while following this controversy may be worth men- 
 tioning, though neither can be called exactly helpful. One 
 is, that we find the most confident, unquestioning, dog- 
 matic belief in heaven (and its correlative) in those whose 
 heaven is the most unlikely and impossible, the most en- 
 tirely made up of mundane and material elements, of gor- 
 geous glories and of fading splendours 1 just such things 
 
 1 " There may be crowns of material splendour, there may be trees of un- 
 fading loveliness, there may be pavements of emerald, and canopies of the 
 brightest radiance, and gardens of deep and tranquil security, and palaces 
 
132 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 as uncultured and undisciplined natures most envied or 
 pined after on earth, such as the lower order of minds 
 could best picture and would naturally be most dazzled 
 by. The higher intelligences of our race, who need a 
 spiritual heaven, find their imaginations fettered by the 
 scientific training which, imperfect though it be, clips 
 their wings in all directions, forbids their glowing fancy, 
 and annuls that gorgeous creation, and bars the way to 
 each successive local habitation that is instinctively want- 
 ed to give reality to the ideal they aspire to ; till, in the 
 effort to franie a future existence without a future world, 
 to build up a state of being that shall be worthy of its 
 denizens, and from which everything material shall be ex- 
 cluded, they at last discover that in renouncing the " phy- 
 sical " and inadmissible they have been forced to renounce 
 the " conceivable " as well ; and a dimness and fluctuating 
 uncertainty gathers round a scene from which all that is 
 concrete and definable, and would therefore be incongru- 
 ous, has been shut out. The next world cannot, it is felt, 
 be a material one ; and a truly " spiritual " one even the 
 saint cannot conceive so as to bring it home to natures 
 still shrouded in the garments of the flesh. 
 
 The other suggestion that has occurred to me is this 
 
 of proud and stately decoration and a city of lofty pinnacles, through which 
 there unceasingly flows a river of gladness, and where jubilee is ever sung by 
 a concord of seraphic voices. "Dr. Chalmers Sermons. 
 
 " Poor fragments all of this low earth- 
 Such as in dreams could hardly soothe 
 A soul that once had tasted of immortal truth." 
 
 Christian Year. 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 133 
 
 It must be conceded that the doctrine of a future life is 
 by no means as universally diffused as it is the habit 
 loosely to assert. It is not always discoverable among 
 primitive and savage races. It existed among pagan na- 
 tions in a form so vague and hazy as to be describable 
 rather as a dream than a religious faith. It can scarcely 
 be determined whether the Chinese, whose cultivation is 
 perhaps the most ancient existing in the world, can be 
 ranked among distinct believers ; while the conception of 
 Nirvana, which prevails in the meditative minds of other 
 Orientals, is more a sort of conscious non-existence than a 
 future life. With the Jews, moreover, as is well known, 
 the belief was not indigenous, but imported, and by no 
 means an early importation. But what is not so generally 
 recognized is that, even among ourselves in these days, the 
 convictio|i of thoughtful natures varies curiously in strength 
 and in features at different periods of life. In youth, 
 when all our sentiments are most vivacious and dogmatic, 
 most of us not only cling to it as an intellectual creed, but 
 are accustomed to say and feel that, without it as a solace 
 and a hope to rest upon, this world would be stripped of 
 its deepest fascinations. It is from minds of this age, 
 whose vigour is unimpaired and whose relish for the joys 
 of earth is most expansive, that the most glowing deline- 
 ations of heaven usually proceed, and on whom the thirst 
 for felicity and knowledge, which can be slaked at no 
 earthly fountains, has the most exciting power. Then 
 comes the busy turmoil of our mid-career, when the pres- 
 ent curtains off the future from our thoughts, and when a 
 
134 A MODEKN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 renewed existence in a different scene is recalled to our 
 fancy chiefly in crises of bereavement. And, finally, is it 
 not the case that in our fading years when something of 
 the languor and placidity of age is creeping over us, just 
 when futurity is coming consciously and rapidly more 
 near, and when one might naturally expect it to occupy 
 us more incessantly and with more anxious and searching 
 glances we think of it less frequently, believe in it less 
 confidently, desire it less eagerly, than in our youth ? 
 Such, at least, has been my observation and experience, 
 especially among the more reflective and inquiring order 
 of men. The life of the hour absorbs us most completely* 
 as the hours grow fewer and less full ; the pleasures, the 
 exemptions, the modest interests, the afternoon peace, the 
 gentle affections, of the present scene, obscure the 
 future from our view, and render it, curiously enough, 
 even less interesting than the past. To-day, which may 
 be our last, engrosses us far more than to-morrow, which 
 may be our FOREVER; and the grave into which we are just 
 stepping down troubles us far less than in youth, when 
 half a century lay between us and it. 
 
 What is the explanation of this strange phenomenon ? 
 Is it a merciful dispensation arranged by the Ruler of our 
 life to soften and to ease a crisis which would be too grand 
 and awful to be faced with dignity or calm, if it were 
 actually realized at all ? Is it that thought or that vague 
 substitute for thought which we call time has brought 
 us, half unconsciously, to the conclusion that the whole 
 question is insoluble, and that reflection is wasted where 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 135 
 
 reflection can bring us no nearer to an issue ? Or, finally, 
 as I know is true far oftener than we fancy, is it that three- 
 score years and ten have quenched the passionate desire 
 for life with which at first we stepped upon the scene ? We 
 are tired, some of us, with unending and unprofitable toil ; 
 we are satiated, others of us, with such ample pleasures as 
 earth can yield us; we have had enough of ambition, alike in 
 its successes and its failures; the joys and blessings of hu- 
 man affection on which, whatever their crises and vicissi- 
 tudes, no righteous or truthful man will cast a slur, are 
 yet so blended with pains which partake of their intensity ; 
 the thirst for knowledge is not slaked, indeed, but the 
 capacity for the labour by which alone it can be gained 
 has consciously died out ; the appetite for life, in short, is 
 gone, the frame is worn and the faculties exhausted ; and 
 possibly this is the key to the phenomenon we are ex- 
 amining age CANNOT, from the ve*ry law of its nature, 
 conceiveitself endowed with the bounding energies of youth, 
 and without that vigour, both of exertion and desire, re- 
 newed existence can offer no inspiring charms. . Our being 
 upon earth has been enriched by vivid interests and rm>- 
 cious joys, and we are deeply grateful for the gift ; but 
 we are wearied with one life, and feel scarcely qualified 
 to enter on the claims, even though balanced by the felici- 
 ties and glories, of another. It may be the fatigue which 
 comes with age fatigue of the fancy as well as of the 
 frame ; but, somehow, what we yearn for most instinctive- 
 ly at last is rest, and the peace which we can imagine the 
 easiest because we know it best is that of sleep. 
 
136 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 REV. BALDWIN BROWN. 
 
 ^ I ^ HE theologians appear to have fallen upon evil days. 
 Like some of old, they are filled with rebuke from all 
 sides. They are bidden to be silent, for their day is over. 
 But some things, like nature, are hard to get rid of. Expelled, 
 they " recur " swiftly. Foremost among these is theology. 
 It seems as if nothing could long restrain man from this, 
 the loftiest exercise of his powers. The theologians and 
 the Comtists have met in the sense which Mr. Huxley 
 justly indicates ; he is himself working at the foundations 
 of a larger, nobler, and more complete theology. But, for 
 the present, theology suffers affliction, and the theologians 
 have in no small measure themselves to thank for it. The 
 protest rises from all sides, clear and strong, a-gainst the 
 narrow, formal, and in these last days, selfish system of 
 thought and expectation, which they have presented as 
 their kingdom of heaven to the world. 
 
 I never read Mr. Harrison's brilliant essays, full as they 
 always are of high aspiration and of stimulus to noble en- 
 deavour, without finding the judgment which I cannot but 
 pass in my own mind on his unbeliefs and denials, largely 
 tempered by thankfulness. I rejoice in the passionate 
 earnestness with which he lifts the hearts of his readers 
 to ideals which it seems to me that Christianity that 
 Christianity which as a living force in the apostles' days 
 turned the world upside down, that is, right side up, with 
 ts face toward heaven and God alone can realize fqr 
 man. 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 137 
 
 I recall a noble passage written by Mr. Harrison some 
 years ago : " A religion of action, a religion of social duty 
 devotion to an intelligible and sensible Head, a real sense 
 of incorporation with a living and controlling force, the 
 deliberate effort to serve an immortal Humanity this, 
 and this alone, can absorb the musings and the cravings 
 of the spiritual man." 1 It seems to me that it would be 
 difficult for any one to set forth in more weighty and elo- 
 quent words the kind of object which Christianity pro- 
 poses, and the kind of help toward the attainment of the 
 object which the Incarnation affords. And in the matter 
 now under debate, behind the stern denunciation of the 
 selfish striving toward a personal immortality which Mr. 
 Harrison utters with his accustomed force, there seems to 
 lie not only a yearning for, but a definite vision of, an im- 
 mortality which shall not be selfish, but largely fruitful 
 to public good. It is true that, as has been forcibly 
 pointed out, the form which it wears is utterly vain and 
 illusory, and wholly incapable, one would think, of ac- 
 counting for the enthusiastic eagerness with which it ap- 
 pears to be sought. May not the eagerness be really 
 kindled by a larger and more far-reaching vision the 
 Christian vision, which has become obscured to so many 
 faithful servants of duty by the selfishness and vanity 
 with which much that goes by the name of the Christian 
 life in these days has enveloped it ; but which has not 
 ceased and will not cease, in ways which even conscious- 
 
 , vol. xii.. p. r,-j< 
 
138 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 ness cannot always trace, to cast its spell on human 
 hearts ? 
 
 Mr. Harrison seems to start in his argument with the 
 conviction that there is a certain baseness in this longing 
 for immortality, and he falls on the belief with a fierce- 
 ness which the sense of its baseness alone could justify. 
 But surely he must stamp much more with the same 
 brand. Each day's struggle to live is a bit of the base- 
 ness, and there seems to be no answer to Mr. Button's re- 
 mark that the truly unselfish action under such conditions 
 would be suicide. But, at any rate, it is clear from his- 
 tory that the men who formulated the doctrine and per- 
 fected the art of suicide in the early days of imperial 
 Rome belonged to the most basely selfish and heartless 
 generation that has ever cumbered this sorrowful world. 
 The love of life is, on the whole, a noble thing, for the 
 staple of life is duty. The more I see of classes in which, 
 at first sight, selfishness seems to reign, the more am I 
 struck with the measure in which duty, thought for others, 
 and work for others, enters into their lives. The desire 
 to live on, to those who catch the Christian idea, and 
 would follow him who " came, not to be ministered unto, 
 but to minister," is a desire to work on, and by living to 
 bless more richly a larger circle in a wider world. 
 
 I can even cherish some thankfulness for the fling at 
 the eternity of the tabor, in which Mr. Harrison indulges 
 and which draws on him a rebuke from his critics the 
 severity of which one can also well understand. It is a 
 Jast fling at the Iwiis perennis, which once seemed so beau- 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 139 
 
 tiful to monastic hearts, and which, looked at ideally, to 
 those who can enter into Mr. Hutton's lofty view of ado- 
 ration, means all that he describes. But practically it 
 was a very poor, narrow, mechanical thing ; and base 
 even when it represented, as it did to multitudes, the 
 loftiest form of a soul's activity in such a sad, suffering 
 world as this. I, for one, can understand, though I could 
 not utter, the anathema which follows it as it vanishes 
 from sight. And it bears closely on the matter in hand. 
 It is no dead, mediaeval idea. It tinctures strongly the 
 popular religious notions of heaven. The favourite hymns 
 of the evangelical school are set in the same key. There 
 is an easy, self-satisfied, self-indulgent temper in the 
 popular way of thinking and praying, and above all of 
 singing, about heaven, which, sternly as the singers would 
 denounce the cloister, is really caught from the monastic 
 choir. There is a very favourite verse which runs thus : 
 
 ' ' There, on a green and .flowery mount, 
 
 Our weary souls shall sit, 
 And with transporting joys recount 
 The labours of our feet." 1 
 
 It is a fair sample of the staple of much pious forecast- 
 ing of the occupations and enjoyments of heaven. I can- 
 not but welcome very heartily any such shock as Mr. 
 Harrison administers to this restful and self-centred 
 vision of immortality. Should he find himself at last en- 
 
 1 Mr. Martin's picture of " The Plains of Heaven" exactly presents it. 
 and it is a picture greatly admired in the circles of which we speak. 
 
140 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 dowed with the inheritance which he refuses, and be 
 thrown in the way of these souls mooning on the mount* 
 it is evident that he would feel tempted to give them a 
 vigorous shake, and to set them with some stinging words 
 about some good work for God and for their world. And 
 as many of us want the shaking now badly enough, I can 
 thank him for it, although it is administered by an over- 
 rough and contemptuous hand. 
 
 I feel some hearty sympathy, too, with much which he 
 says about the unity of the man. The passage to which 
 I refer commences with the words "The philosophy 
 which treats man as man simply affirms that man loves, 
 thinks, acts, not that the ganglia, the senses, or any 
 organ of man, loves, thinks, and acts." 
 
 So far as Mr. Harrison's language and line of thought 
 are a protest against the vague, bloodless, bodiless notion 
 of the life of the future, which has more affinity with 
 Hades than with Heaven, I heartily thank him for it. 
 Man is an embodied spirit, and wherever his lot is cast he 
 will need and will have the means of a spirit's manifesta- 
 tion to and action on its surrounding world. But this is 
 precisely what is substantiated by the resurrection. The 
 priceless value of the truth of the resurrection lies in the 
 close interlacing and interlocking of the two worlds which 
 it reveals. It is the life which is lived here, the life of 
 the embodied spirit, which is carried through the veil and 
 lived there. The wonderful powers of the gospel of 
 " Jesus and the resurrection " lay in the homely human 
 interest which it lent to the life of the immortals. The. 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 141 
 
 risen Lord took up life just where he left it. The things 
 which he had taught His disciples to care about here, were 
 the things which those who had passed on were caring 
 about there, the reign of truth, righteousness and love. I 
 hold to the truth of the resurrection, not only because it 
 appears to be firmly established on the most valid testi- 
 mony, but because it alone seems to explain man's consti- 
 tution as a spirit embodied in flesh which he is sorely 
 tempted to curse as a clog. It furnishes to man the key 
 to the mystery of the flesh on the one hand, while on the 
 other it justifies his aspiration and realizes his hope. 
 
 Belief in the risen and reigning Christ was at the heart 
 of that wonderful uprising and outburst of human energy 
 which marked the age of the Advent. The contrast is 
 most striking between the sad and even despairing tone 
 which breathes through the noblest heathen literature 
 which utters perhaps its deepest wail in the cry of Epic- 
 tetus, " Show me a Stoic by Heaven, I long to see a 
 Stoic ! " and the sense of victorious power, of buoyant, ex- 
 ulting hope, which breathes through the word and shines 
 from the life of the infant Church : " As dying, and be- 
 hold we live; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, 
 yet making many rich ; as having nothing, and yet pos- 
 sessing all things." The Gospel which brought life and 
 immortality to light won its way just as dawn wins its 
 way, when " jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty moun- 
 tain-tops," and flashes his rays over a sleeping world. 
 Everywhere the radiance penetrates ; it shines into every 
 nook of shade ; and all living creatures stir, awake, and 
 
142 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 come forth to bask in its beams. Just thus the flood of 
 kindling light streamed forth from the resurrection, and 
 spread like the dawn in the morning sky ; it touched all 
 forms of things in a dark, sad world with its splendour 
 and called man forth from the tomb in which his higher 
 life seemed to be buried, to a new career of fruitful, sun- 
 lit activity ; even as the Saviour prophesied, " The hour 
 is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice 
 of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." 
 
 The exceeding readiness and joyfulness with which the 
 truth was welcomed, and the measure in which Christen- 
 dom and that means all that is most powerful and pro- 
 gressive in human society has been moulded by it, are 
 the most notable facts of history. Be it truth, be it fic- 
 tion, be it dream, one thing is clear : it was a fcaptism of 
 new life to the world which was touched by it, and it has 
 been near the heart of all the great movements of human 
 society from that day until now. I do not even exclude 
 " the Revolution," whose current is under us still. Space 
 is precious, or it would not be difficult to show how deeply 
 the Revolution was indebted to the ideas which this gos- 
 pel brought into the world. I entirely agree with Lord 
 Blachford that revelation is the ground on which faith 
 securely rests. But the history of the quickening and 
 the growth of Christian society is a factor of enormous 
 moment in the estimation of the arguments for the truth 
 of immortality. We are assured that the idea had the 
 dullest and even basest origin. Man has a shadow, it 
 suggested the idea of a second self to him ! he has me- 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 143 
 
 mories of departed friends, he gave them a body and 
 made them ghosts ! Very wonderful, surely, that mere 
 figments should be the strongest and most productive 
 things in the whole sphere of human activity, and should 
 have stirred the spirit and led the march of the strongest, 
 noblest, and most cultivated peoples ; until now, in this 
 nineteenth century, we think that we have discovered, as 
 Miss Martineau tersely puts it, that " the theological be- 
 lief of almost everybody in the civilized world is baseless." 
 Let who will believe it, I cannot. 
 
 It may be urged that the idea has strong fascination, 
 that man naturally longs for immortality, and gladly 
 catches at any figment which seems to respond to his 
 yearning and to justify his hope. But this belief is among 
 the clearest, broadest, and strongest features of his ex- 
 perience and history. It must flow out of something very 
 deeply imbedded in his constitution. If the force that is 
 behind all the phenomena of life is responsible for all that 
 is, it must be responsible for this also. Somehow man, 
 the masterpiece of the Creation, has got himself wedded 
 to the belief that all things here have relations to issues 
 which lie in a world that is behind the shadow of death. 
 This belief has been at the root of his highest endeavour 
 arid of his keenest pain ; it is the secret of his chronic un- 
 rest. Now Nature, through all her orders, appears to have 
 made all creatures contented with the conditions of 
 their life. The brute seems fully satisfied with the re- 
 sources of his world. He shows no sign of being tor- 
 mented by dreams ; his life withers under no blight of re- 
 
144 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 gret. All things rest, and are glad and beautiful in their 
 spheres. Violate the order of their nature, rob them of 
 their fit surroundings, and they grow restless, sad, and 
 poor. A plant shut out from light and moisture will 
 twist itself into the most fantastic shapes, and strain it- 
 self to ghastly tenuity ; nay, it will work its delicate tis- 
 sues through stone walls or hard rock, to find what its 
 nature had made needful to its life. Having found it, 
 it rests and is glad in its beauty once more. Living things, 
 perverted by human intelligent effort, revert swiftly the 
 moment that the pressure is removed. This marked 
 tendency to reversion seems to be set in Nature as a sign 
 that all things are at rest in their natural conditions, con- 
 tent with their life and its sphere. Only in ways of 
 which they are wholly unconscious, and which rob them 
 of no contentment with their present, do they prepare the 
 way for the higher developments of life. 
 
 What then, means this restless longing in man for that 
 which lies beyond the range of his visible world ? Has 
 Nature wantonly and cruelly made man, her masterpiece 
 alone of all the creatures, restless and sad ? Of all beings 
 in the Creation must he alone be made wretched by an 
 unattainable longing, by futile dreams of a visionary 
 world ? This were an utter breach of the method of Na- 
 ture in all her operations. It is impossible to believe 
 that the harmony that runs through all her spheres fails 
 and falls int,o discord in man. The very order of Nature 
 presses us to the conviction that this insatiable longing 
 which somehow she generates and sustains in man, and 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTUKE LIFE. 14)5 
 
 which is unquestionably the largest feature of his life, is not 
 visionary and futile, but profoundly significant ; pointing 
 with firm finger to the reality of that sphere of being to 
 which she has taught him to lift his thoughts and aspira- 
 tions, and in which he will find, unless the prophetic or- 
 der of the Creation has lied to him, the harmonious com- 
 pleteness of his life. 
 
 And there seems to be no fair escape from the conclu- 
 sion by giving up the order, and writing Babel on the 
 world and its life. Whatever it is, it is not confusion. 
 Out of its disorder, order palpably grows ; out of its con- 
 fusion arises a grand' and stately progress. Progress is a 
 sacred word with Mr. Harrison. In the progress of hu- 
 manity he finds his longed-for immortality. But, if I 
 may repeat in other terms a remark which I offered 
 some time ago, while progress is the human law, 
 law, the world, the sphere of the progress, is tending 
 slowly but inevitably to dissolution. Is there discord 
 again in this highest region ? Mr. Harrison writes of an 
 immortal humanity. How immortal, if the glorious pro- 
 gress is striving to accomplish itself in a world of wreck ? 
 Or is the progress that of a race born with sore but joyful 
 travail from the highest level of the material creation in- 
 to a higher region of being, whence it can watch with 
 calmness the dissolution of all the perishable worlds ? 
 
 The belief in immortality is so dear to man because he 
 grasps through it the complement of his else unshaped 
 and imperfect life. It seems to be equally the comple- 
 ment of this otherwise hopelessly jangled and disordered 
 10 
 
14(5 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 world. It is asked triumphantly, " Why, of all the hosts 
 of creatures, does man alone lay claim to this great inheri- 
 tance ? " Because in man alone we see the experiences > 
 the strain, the anguish, that demand it, as the sole key to 
 what he does and endures. There is to me something 
 horrible hi the thought of such a life as ours, in which 
 for all of us, in some form or other, the cross must be the 
 most sacred symbol, lived out in that bare, heartless, 
 hopeless world of the material, to which Prof. Clifford so 
 lightly limits it. And I cannot but think that there are 
 strong signs in many quarters of an almost fierce revul- 
 sion from the ghastly drearihood of such a vision of 
 life. 
 
 There seems to me to run through Mr. Harrison's utter- 
 ances on these great subjects I say it with honest diffi- 
 dence of one whose large range of power I so fully recog- 
 nize, but one must speak frankly if this Symposium is to 
 be worth anything an instinctive yearning toward 
 Christian ideas, while that faith is denied which alone 
 can vivify them, and make them a living power in our 
 world. There is everywhere a shadowy image of a 
 Christian substance ; but it reminds one of that formless 
 form, wherein " what seemed a . head, the likeness of a 
 kingly crown had on." And it is characteristic of much 
 of the finest thinking and writing of our times. The sa- 
 viour Deronda, the prophet Mordecai, lack just that living 
 heart of faith which would put blood into their pallid 
 lineaments, and make them breathe and move among men. 
 Again I say that we have largely ourselves to thank for 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 147 
 
 this saddening feature of the higher life of our times we 
 who have narrowed God's great kingdom to the dimen- 
 sions of our little theological sphere. I am no theologian, 
 though intensely interested in the themes with which the 
 theologians occupy themselves. Urania, with darkened 
 brow, may, perhaps, rebuke my prating. But I seem to 
 see quite clearly that the sad strain and anguish of our 
 life, social, intellectual, and spiritual, is but the pain by 
 which great stages of growth accomplish themselves. We 
 have quite outgrown our venerable, and in its time large 
 and noble, theological shell. We must wait, not fearful, 
 far less hopeless, while by the help of those who are work- 
 ing with such admirable energy, courage, and fidelity, out- 
 side the visible Christian sphere, that spirit in man which 
 searches and cannot but search " the deep things of God," 
 creates for. itself a new instrument of thought which will 
 give to it the mastery of a wider, richer, and nobler 
 world. 
 
 PR. W. G. WARD. 
 
 MR. HARRISON considers that the Christian's con- 
 ception of a future life is "so gross, so sensual, so in- 
 dolent, so selfish," as to be unworthy of respectful consider- 
 ation. He must necessarily be intending to speak of this 
 conception in the shape of which we Christians entertain it; 
 because otherwise his words of reprehension are unmeaning. 
 But our belief as to the future life is intimately and indis- 
 
148 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 solubly bound up with our belief as to the present ; with 
 our belief as to what is the true measure and standard of 
 human action in this world. And I would urge that no 
 part of our doctrine can be rightly apprehended, unless it 
 be viewed in its connection with all the rest. This is a 
 fact which (I think) infidels often drop out of sight, and 
 for that reason fail of meeting Christianity on its really 
 relevant and critical issues. 
 
 Of course, I consider Catholicity to be exclusively the 
 one authoritative exhibition of revealed Christianity. 
 I will set forth, therefore, the doctrine to which I would 
 call attention, in that particular form in which Catholic 
 teachers enounce it ; though I am very far indeed from 
 intending to deny that there are multitudes of non-Cath- 
 olic Christians who hold it also. What, then, according 
 to Catholics, is the true measure and standard of human 
 action ? This is in effect the very first question pro- 
 pounded in our English elementary Catechism : " Why 
 did God make you ? " The prescribed answer is, " To know 
 him, serve him, and love him in this world, and to be 
 happy with him forever in the next." And St. Ignatius's 
 " Spiritual Exercises " a work of the very highest author- 
 ity among us having laid down the very same " founda- 
 tion," presently adds that " we should not wish on our 
 part for health rather than for sickness, wealth rather 
 than poverty, honour rather than ignominy ; desiring 
 and choosing those things alone which are more expedient 
 to us for the end for which we were created." Now, what 
 will be the course of a Christian's life in proportion as he 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 149 
 
 is profoundly imbued with such a principle as this, and 
 vigorously aims at putting it into practice? The 
 number of believers, who apply themselves to this task 
 with reasonable consistency, is no doubt comparatively 
 small. But in proportion as any given person does so, he 
 will in the first place be deeply penetrated with a sense of 
 his moral weakness ; and (were it for that reason alone) 
 his life will more and more be a life of prayer. Then he 
 will necessarily give his mind with great earnestness and 
 frequency to the consideration what it is which at this 
 or that period God desires at his hands. On the whole 
 (not to dwell with unnecessary detail on this part of my 
 subject), he will be ever opening his heart to Almighty 
 God ; turning to him for light and strength under emer- 
 gencies, for comfort under affliction ; pondering on his 
 adorable attributes ; animated toward him by intense love 
 and tenderness. Nor need I add how singularly how 
 beyond words this personal love of God is promoted and 
 facilitated by the fact that a Divine Person has assumed 
 human nature, and that God's human acts and words are 
 so largely offered to the loving contemplation of redeemed 
 souls. 
 
 In proportion, then, as a Christian is faithful to his 
 creed, the thought of God becomes the chief joy of his 
 life. "The thought of God," says F. Newman, "and 
 nothing short of it, is the happiness of man ; for though 
 ^ there is much besides to serve as the subject of knowledge, 
 or motive for action, or instrument of excitement, yet the 
 affections require a something more vast and more en- 
 
150 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 during than anything created. He alone is sufficient for 
 the heart who made it. The contemplation of him, and 
 nothing but it, is able fully to open and relieve the mind, 
 to unlock, occupy, and fix our affections. We may indeed 
 1 ove things created with great intenseness ; but such af- 
 fection, when disjoined from the love of the Creator, is 
 like a stream running in a narrow channel, impetuous, 
 vehement, turbid. The heart runs out, as it were, only 
 at one door ; it is not an expanding of the whole man. 
 Created natures cannot open to us, or elicit, the ten 
 thousand mental senses which belong to us, and through 
 which we really love. None but the presence of our 
 Maker can enter us ; for to none besides can the whole 
 heart in all its thoughts and feelings be unlocked and sub- 
 jected. It is this feeling of simple and absolute confidence 
 and communion which soothes and satisfies those to whom 
 it is vouchsafed. We know that even our nearest friends 
 enter into us but partially, and hold intercourse with us 
 only at times ; whereas the consciousness of a perfect and 
 enduring presence, and it alone, keeps the heart open. 
 Withdraw the object on which it rests, and it will relapse 
 again into its state of confinement and constraint; and in 
 proportion as it is limited, either to certain seasons or to 
 certain affections, the heart is straitened and distressed." 
 
 Now, Christians hold that God's faithful servants will 
 enjoy hereafter unspeakable bliss, through the most inti- 
 mate imaginable contact with him whom they have here 
 so tenderly loved. They will see face to face him whose 
 beauty is dimly and faintly adumbrated by the most 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 151 
 
 exquisitely transporting beauty which can be found on 
 earth ; him whose adorable perfection they have in this 
 life imperfectly contemplated, and for the fuller appre- 
 hension of which they have so earnestly longed here 
 below. I by no means intend to imply that the hope of 
 this blessedness is the sole or even the chief inducement 
 which leads saintly men to be diligent in serving God. 
 Their immediate, reason for doing so is their keen sense 
 of his claim on their allegiance ; and, again, the misery 
 which they would experience, through their love of him, 
 at being guilty of any failure in that allegiance. Still the 
 prospect of that future bliss, which I have so imperfectly 
 sketched, is doubtless found by them at times of invalu- 
 able service in stimulating them to greater effort, and in 
 cheering them under trial and desolation. 
 
 Such is the view taken by Christians of life in heaven; 
 and, surely, any candid infidel will at once admit that it 
 is profoundly harmonious and consistent with their view 
 of what should be man's life on earth. To say that their 
 anticipation of the futuie, as it exists in them, is gross, 
 sensual, indolent, and selfish, is so manifestly beyond the 
 mark that I am sure Mr. Harrison will, on reflection, 
 retract his affirmation. Apart, however, from this par- 
 ticular comment, my criticism of Mr. Harrison would be 
 this : He was bound, I maintain, to consider the Christian 
 theory of life as a whole ; and not to dissociate that part 
 of it which concerns eternity from that part of it which 
 concerns time. 
 
 now as to the merits of this Christian theory. For 
 
152 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 my own part, I am, of course, profoundly convinced that, 
 as on the one hand it is guaranteed by revelation, so on 
 the other hand it is that which alone harmonizes with 
 the dicta of reason and the facts of experience, so far as 
 it comes into contact with these. Yet I admit that 
 various very plausible objections may be adduced against 
 its truth. Objectors may allege very plausibly that by 
 the mass of men it cannot be carried into practice : that 
 it disparages most unduly the importance of things secu- 
 lar ; that it is fatal to what they account genuine 
 patriotism ; that it has always been, and will always be, 
 injurious to the progress of science ; above all, that it 
 puts men (as one may express it) on an entirely wrong 
 scent, and leads them to neglect many pursuits which, as 
 being sources of true enjoyment, would largely enhance 
 the pleasurableness of life. All this, and much more may 
 be urged, I think, by antithesists with very great super- 
 ficial plausibility ; and the Christian controversialist is 
 bound on occasion steadily to confront it. B.ut there is 
 one accusation which has been brought against this 
 Christian theory of life and that the one mainly (as 
 would seem) felt by Mr. Harrison which to me seems so 
 obviously destitute of foundation that I find difficulty in 
 understanding how any infidel can have persuaded him- 
 self of its truth : I mean the accusation that this theory 
 is a selfish one. There is no need of here attempting a 
 philosophical discussion on the respective claims of what 
 are now called " egoism " and " altruism :" a discussion in 
 itself (no doubt) one of much interest and much im- 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 153 
 
 portance, and one, moreover, in which I should be quite 
 prepared (were it necessary) to engage. Here, however, 
 I will appeal, not to philosophy, but to history. In the 
 records of the past we find a certain series of men, who 
 stand out from the mass of their brethren, as having pre- 
 eminently concentrated their energy on the love and 
 service of God, and preeminently looked away from 
 earthly hopes to the prospect of their future reward. I 
 refer to the saints of the Church. And it is a plain 
 matter of fact, which no one will attempt to deny, that 
 these very men stand out no less conspicuously from the 
 rest in their self-sacrificing and (as we ordinary men re- 
 gard it) astounding labours in behalf of what they believe 
 to be the highest interests of mankind. 
 
 Before I conclude, I must not omit a brief comment on 
 one other point, because it is the only one on which I 
 cannot concur with Lord Blachford's masterly paper. I 
 cannot agree with him that the doctrine of human 
 immortality fails of being supported by " conclusive 
 reasoning." I do not, of course, mean that the dogma of 
 the Beatific Vision is discoverable apart from revelation ; 
 but I do account it a truth cognizable with certitude by 
 reason, that the human soul is naturally immortal, and 
 that retribution of one kind or an'other will be awarded 
 us hereafter, according to what our conduct has been in 
 this our state of probation. Here, however, I must 
 explain myself. When theists make this statement, 
 sometimes they are thought to allege that human immor- 
 tality is sufficiently proved by phenomena ; and some- 
 
154 A MODEKN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 times they are thought to allege that it is almost 
 intuitively evident. For myself, however, I make neither 
 of these allegations. I hold that the truth in question is 
 conclusively established by help of certain premises; and 
 that these premises themselves can previously be known 
 with absolute certitude, on grounds of reason or ex- 
 perience. 
 
 They are such as these : 1. There exists that Personal 
 Being, infinite in all perfections, whom we call God. 2. 
 He has implanted in his rational creatures the sense of 
 right and wrong ; the knowledge that a deliberate perpe- 
 tration of certain acts intrinsically merits penal retribu- 
 tion. 3. Correlatively, he has conferred freedom on the 
 human will ; or in other words, has made acts of the 
 human will exceptions to that law of uniform sequence 
 which otherwise prevails throughout the phenomenal 
 world. 1 4. By the habit of prayer to God we can obtain 
 augmented strength for moral action, in a degree which 
 would have been quite incredible antecedently to ex- 
 perience. 5. Various portions of our divinely given 
 nature clearly point to an eternal destiny. 6. The 
 conscious self or ego is entirely heterogeneous to the 
 material world : entirely heterogeneous, therefore, to 
 that palpable body of ours which is dissolved at the 
 period of death. 
 
 I do not think any one will account it extravagant to 
 hold that the doctrine of human immortality is legiti- 
 
 1 I shall not, of course, be understood to deny the existence and fre- 
 quency of miracles. 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 155 
 
 mately deducible from a combination of these and similar 
 truths. The anti-theist will of course deny that they 
 are truths. Mr. Greg, who has himself " arrived at no 
 conviction" on the subject of immortality, yet says that 
 considerations of the same kind as those which I have 
 enumerated " must be decisive " in favour of immortality 
 " to all to whose spirits communion with their Father is 
 the most absolute of verities.." 1 Nor have I any reason 
 to think that even Mr. Huxley and Mr. Harrison, if they 
 could concede my premises, would demur to my conclusion. 
 
 MR. FREDERIC HARRISON. 
 
 I HAVE now, not so much to close a symposium, or 
 general discussion, as to reply to the convergent fire of 
 nine separate papers. Neither time, nor space, nor the in- 
 dulgence of the reader, would enable me to do justice to the 
 weight of this array of criticism, which reaches me in frag- 
 ments while I am otherwise occupied abroad. I will ask 
 those critics whom I have not been able to notice to believe 
 that I have duly considered the powerful appeals they 
 have addressed to me. And I will ask those who are 
 interested in this question to refer to the original papers 
 in which my views were stated. And I will only add, 
 by way of reply, the following remarks, which were, for 
 
 l See his letter in the London Spectator of August 25th, 1877. 
 
156 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 the most part, written and printed, while I had nothing 
 before me but the first three papers in this discussion. 
 They contain what I have to say on the theological, the 
 metaphysical, and the materialist aspect of this question. 
 For the rest, I could only repeat what I have already 
 said in the two original essays. 
 
 Whether the preceding discussion has given much new 
 strength to the doctrine of man's immaterial soul and 
 future existence I will not pretend to decide. But I can- 
 not feel that it has shaken the reality of man's posthumous 
 influence, my chief and immediate theme. It seemed to 
 me that the time had come, when, seeing how vague and 
 hesitating were the prevalent beliefs on this subject, it 
 was most important to remember that, from a purely 
 earthly point of view, man had a spiritual nature, and 
 could look forward after death to something that marked 
 him off from the beasts that perish. I cannot see that 
 what I urged has been in substance displaced ; though 
 much criticism (and some of it of a verbal kind) has been 
 directed at the language which I used of others. My 
 object was to try if this life could not be made richer ; 
 not to destroy the dreams of another. But has the old 
 doctrine of a future life been in any way strengthened ? 
 Mr. Hutton, it is true, has a " personal wish " for a per- 
 petuity of volition. Lord Blachford " believes because he 
 is told." And Prof. Huxley knows of no evidence that 
 " such a soul and a future life exist ;" and he seems not to 
 believe in them at all. 
 
 Philosophical discussion must languish a little, if, when 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 157 
 
 we ask for the philosophical grounds for a certain belief, 
 we find one philosopher believing because he has a " per- 
 sonal wish " for it, and another " believing because he is 
 told." Mr. Hutton says that, as far as he knows, " the 
 thoughts, affections, and volitions, are not likely to perish 
 with his body." Prof. Huxley seems to think it just as 
 likely that they should. Arguments are called for to 
 enable us to decide between these two authorities. And 
 the only argument we have hitherto got is Mr. Hutton's 
 " personal wish," and Lord Blachford's ita scriptum est. 
 I confess myself unable to continue an argument which 
 runs into believing " because I am told." It is for this 
 reason that the lazzarone at Naples believed in the blood 
 of St. Januarius. 
 
 My original propositions may be stated thus': 
 
 1. Philosophy as a whole (I do not say specially biolo- 
 gical science) has established a functional relation to ex- 
 ist between every fact of thinking, willing, or feeling, on 
 the one side, and some molecular change in the body on 
 the other side. 
 
 2. This relation is simply one of correspondence be-^ 
 tween moral and physical facts, not one of assimilation. 
 The moral fact does not become a physical fact, is not 
 adequately explained by it, and must be mainly studied 
 as a moral fact, by methods applicable to morals not as 
 a physical fact, by methods applicable to physics. 
 
 3. The moral facts of human life, the laws of man's 
 mental, moral, and affective nature, must consequently 
 be studied, as they have always been studied, by direct 
 
158 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 observation of these facts ; yet the correspondence, spe- 
 cially discovered by biological science, between man's 
 mind and his body, must always be kept in view. They 
 are an indispensible, inseparable, but subordinate part of 
 moral philosophy. 
 
 4. We do not diminish the supreme place of the spirit- 
 ual facts in life and in philosophy by admitting these 
 spiritual facts to have a relation with molecular and or- 
 ganic facts in the human organism provided that we 
 never forget how small and dependent is the part which 
 the study of the molecular and organic phenomena must 
 play in moral and social science. 
 
 5. Those whose minds have been trained in the modern 
 philosophy of law cannot understand what is meant by 
 sensation,' thought, and energy, existing without any 
 basis of molecular change ; and to talk to them of sensa- 
 tion, thought and energy, continuing in the absence 
 of any molecules whatever, is precisely such a contradic- 
 tion in terms as to suppose that civilization will continue 
 in the absence of any men whatever. 
 
 6. Yet man is so constituted as a social being that the 
 energies which he puts out in life mould the minds, 
 characters, and habits, of his fellow-men ; so that each 
 man's life is, in effect, indefinitely prolonged in human so- 
 ciety. This is a phenomenon quite peculiar to man and 
 to human society, and of course depends on there being 
 men in active association with each other. Physics and 
 biology can teach us nothing about it ; and physicists and 
 biologists may very easily forget its importance. It can 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 159 
 
 be learned only by long and refined observations in moral 
 and mental philosophy as a whole, and in the history of 
 civilization as a whole. 
 
 7. Lastly, as a corollary, it may be useful to retain the 
 words soul and future life for their associations; provided 
 we make it clear that we mean by soul the combined fa- 
 culties of the living organism, and by future life the sub- 
 jective effect of each man's objective life on the actual 
 lives of his fellow-men. 
 
 I. Now, I find in Mr. Hutton's paper hardly any at- 
 tempt to disprove the first six of these propositions. He 
 is- employed for the most part in asserting that his hypo- 
 thesis of a future state is a more agreeable one than mine, 
 and in earnest complaints that I should call his view of a 
 future state a selfish or personal hope. As to the first, I 
 will only remark that it is scarcely a question whether 
 his notion of immortality is beautiful or not, but whether 
 it is true. If there is no rational ground for expecting 
 such immortality to be a solid fact, it is to little purpose 
 to show us what a sublime idea it would be if there were 
 anything in it. As to the second, I will only say that I 
 do not call his notion of a future existence a selfish or 
 personal hope. In the last paragraph of my second 
 paper I speak with respect of the opinion of those who 
 look forward to a future of moral development instead of 
 to an idle eternity of psalm-singing. My language as to 
 the selfishness of the vulgar ideas of salvation was di- 
 rected to those who insist that, unless they are to feel a 
 continuance of pleasure, they do not care for any continu- 
 
160 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 ance of their influence at all. The vulgar are apt to say 
 that what they desire is the sense of personal satisfaction, 
 and, if they cannot have this, they care for nothing else. 
 This, I maintain, is a selfish and debasing idea. It is the 
 common notion of the popular religion, and its tendency 
 to concentrate the mind on a merely personal salvation 
 does exert an evil effect on practical conduct. I once 
 heard a Scotch preacher, dilating on the narrowness of the 
 gate, etc., exclaim, " dear brethren, who would care to 
 be saved in a crowd ? " 
 
 I do not say this of the life of grander activity in 
 which Mr. Hutton believes, and which Lord Blachford so 
 eloquently describes. This is no doubt a fine ideal, and 
 I will not say other than an elevating hope. But on what 
 does it rest ? Why this ideal rather than any other ? 
 Each of us may imagine, as I said at the outset, his own 
 Elysian fields, or his own mystic rose. But is this phil- 
 osophy? Is it even religion? Besides, there is this 
 other objection to it : It is not Christianity, but Neo- 
 Christianity. It is a fantasia with variations on the 
 orthodox creed. There is not a word of the kind in the 
 Bible. Lord Blachford says he believes in it " because he 
 is told." But it so happens that he is not told this, at 
 any rate in the creeds and formularies of orthodox faith. 
 If this view of future life is to rest entirely on revelation, 
 it is a very singular thing that the Bible is silent on the 
 matter. Whatever kind of future ecstacy may be sug- 
 gested in some texts, certain it is that such a glorified en- 
 ergy as Lord Blachford paints in glowing colours is no- 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 161 
 
 where described in the Bible. There is a constant prac- 
 tice nowadays, when the popular religion is criticised, 
 that earnest defenders of it come forward exclaiming : 
 " Oh ! that is only the vulgar notion of our religion. My 
 idea of the doctrine is so and so," something which the 
 speaker has invented without countenance from the offi- 
 cial authority. For my part, I hold Christianity to be 
 what is taught in average churches and chapels to the 
 millions of professing Christians. And I say it is a very 
 serious fact when philosophical defenders of religion begin 
 by repudiating that which is taught in average pulpits. 
 
 Perhaps a little more attention to my actual words 
 might have rendered unnecessary the complaints in all 
 these papers as to my language about the hopes which 
 men cherish for the future. In the first place I freely 
 admit that the hopes of a grander energy in heaven are 
 not open to the charge of vulgar selfishness. I said that 
 they are unintelligible, not that they are unworthy. They 
 are unintelligible to those who are continually alive- to the 
 fact I have placed as my first proposition that every 
 moral phenomenon is in functional relation with some 
 physical phenomenon. To those who deny or ignore this 
 truth, there is, doubtless, no incoherence in all the ideals 
 so eloquently described in the papers of Mr. Hutton and 
 Lord Blachford. Bur, once get this conception as the 
 substratum of your entire mental and moral philosophy, 
 and it is as incoherent to talk to us of your immaterial 
 development as it Vould be to talk of obtaining redness 
 without any red thing. 
 11 
 
162 A MODERN. SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 I will try to explain more fully why this idea of a 
 glorified activity implies a contradiction in terms to those 
 who are imbued with the sense of correspondence be- 
 tween physical and moral facts. When we conceive any 
 process of thinking, we call up before us a complex train 
 of conditions : objective facts outside of us, or the re- 
 vived impression of such facts ; the molecular effect of 
 these facts upon certain parts of our organism, the asso- 
 ciation of these with similar facts recalled by memory, an 
 elaborate mechanism to correlate these impressions, an 
 unknown to be made known, and a difficulty to be over- 
 come. All systematic thought implies relations with the 
 external world present or recalled, and it also implies 
 some shortcoming in our powers of perfecting those re- 
 lations. When we meditate, it is on a basis of facts which 
 we are observing, or have observed and are now recalling, 
 and with a view to get at some result which baffles our 
 direct observation and hinders some practical purpose. 
 
 The same holds good of our moral energy. Ecstasy 
 and mere adoration exclude energy of action. Moral de- 
 velopment implies difficulties to be overcome, qualities 
 balanced against one another under opposing conditions, 
 this or that appetite tempted, this or that instinct tested 
 by proof. Moral development does not grow like a fun- 
 gus ; it is a continual struggle in surrounding conditions 
 of a specific kind, and an active putting forth of a var- 
 iety of practical faculties in the midst of real obstacles. 
 
 So, too, of the affections : they Equally imply condi- 
 tions. Sympathy does not spurt up like a fountain in 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 163 
 
 the air ; it implies beings in need of help, evils to be alle- 
 viated, a fellowship of giving and taking, the sense of 
 protecting and being protected, a pity for suffering, an 
 admiration of power, goodness and truth. All of these 
 imply an external world to act in, human beings and ob- 
 jects, and human life under human conditions. 
 
 Now, all these conditions are eliminated from the ortho- 
 dox ideal of a future state. There are to be no physical 
 impressions, no material difficulties, no evil, no toil, no 
 struggle, no human beings, and no human objects. The 
 only condition is a complete absence of all conditions, or 
 all conditions of which we have any experience. And we 
 say, we cannot imagine what you mean by your intensi- 
 fied sympathy, your broader thought, your infinitely 
 varied activity, when you begin by postulating the ab- 
 sence of all that makes sympathy, thought, and activity 
 possible, all that makes life really noble. 
 
 A mystical and inane ecstacy is an appropriate ideal 
 for this paradise of negation, and this is the orthodox 
 view ; but it is not a high view. A glorified existence of 
 greater activity and development may be a high view, 
 but it is a contradiction in terms ; exactly, I say, as if you 
 were to talk of a higher civilization without any human 
 beings. But this is simply a metaphysical after-thought 
 to escape from a moral dilemma. Mr. Hutton is surely 
 mistaken in saying that Positivists have forgotten that 
 Christians ever had any meaning in their hopes of a 
 " beatific vision." He must know that Dante and Thomas 
 a; Kempis form the religious books of Positivists, and they 
 
164 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 are, with some other manuals of Catholic theology, among 
 the small number of volumes which Comte recommended 
 for constant use. We can see in the celestial " visions " 
 of a mystical and unscientific age, much that was beauti- 
 ful in its time, though not the highest product even of 
 theology. But in our day, these visions of paradise have 
 lost what moral value they had, while the progress of 
 philosophy has made them incompatible with our modern 
 canons of thought. 
 
 Mr. Button supposes me to object to any continuance 
 of sensation as an evil in itself. My objection was. not 
 that consciousness should be. prolonged in immortality, 
 but that nothing else but consciousness should be pro 1 
 longed. All real human life, energy, thought, and active 
 affection, are to be made impossible in your celestial para- 
 'dise, but you insist on retaining consciousness. To retain 
 the power of feeling, while all means and objects are 
 taken away from thinking, all power of acting, all oppor- 
 tunity of cultivating the faculties of sympathy are stifled; 
 this seems to me something else than a good. It would 
 seem to me that simply to be conscious, . and yet to lie 
 thoughtless, inactive, irresponsive, with every faculty of 
 a man paralyzed within you, as if by that villainous drug 
 which produces torpor while it intensifies sensation 
 such a consciousness as this must be a very place of tor- 
 ment. 
 
 I think some contradictions, which Mr. Hutton supposes 
 he detects in my paper, are not very hard to reconcile. I 
 admitted that death is an evil, it seems ; but I spoke of 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 165 
 
 our posthumous activity as a higher kind of influence. 
 We might imagine, of course, a Utopia, with neither 
 suffering, waste, nor loss; and compared with such a 
 world, the world, as we know it, is full of evils, of which 
 death is obviously one. But relatively, in such a world 
 as alone we know, death becomes simply a law of orga/iized 
 Nature, from which we draw some of our guiding motives 
 of conduct. In precisely the same way the necessity of 
 toil is an evil in itself ; but, with man and his life as we 
 know them, we dj:aw from it some of our highest moral 
 energies. The grandest qualities of human nature, such 
 as we know it at least, would become forever impossible 
 if Labour and Death were not the law of life. 
 
 Mr. Hutton again takes but a pessimist view of life 
 when he insists how much of our activity is evil, and how 
 questionable is the future of the race. I am no pessimist, 
 and I believe in a providential control over all human 
 actions by the great Power of Humanity, which indeed 
 brings good out of evil, and assures, at least for some 
 thousands of centuries, a certain progress toward the 
 higher state. Pessimism, as to the essential dignity of 
 man and the steady development of his race, is one of the 
 surest marks of the enervating influence of this dream of 
 a celestial glory. If I called it as wild a desire as to go 
 roving through space in a comet, it is because I can attach 
 no meaning to a human life to be prolonged without a 
 human frame and a human world ; and it seems to me as 
 rational to talk of becoming an angel as to talk of becom- 
 ing an ellipse. 
 
166 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 By " duties " of the world beyond the grave, I meant 
 the duties which are imposed on us in life, by the certainty 
 that our action must continue to have an indefinite effect. 
 The phrase may be inelegant, but I do not think the 
 meaning is obscure. 
 
 II.. I cannot agree with Lord Blachford that I have 
 fallen into any confusion between a substance and an 
 attribute. I am quite aware that the word li soul " has 
 been hitherto used for some centuries as an entity. And 
 I proposed to retain the term for an attribute. It is a 
 very common process in the history of thought. Electri- 
 city, life, heat, were once supposed to be substances; We 
 now very usefully retain these words for a set of observed 
 conditions or qualities. 
 
 I agree with Mr. Spencer that the unity of the social 
 organism is quite as complete as that of the individual 
 organism. I do not confuse the two kinds of unity ; but 
 I say that man is in no important sense a unit that society 
 is not also a unit. 
 
 With regard to the " percipient " and the "perceptible" I 
 cannot follow Lord Blachford. He speaks a tongue thatl do 
 not understand. 1 have no means of dividing the universe 
 into "percipients'* and "perceptibles." I know no reason 
 why a "percipient" should not be a "perceptible," none why 
 I should not be " perceptible," and none why beings about 
 me should not be " perceptible." I think we are all per- 
 fectly " perceptible " indeed, some of us are more " per- 
 ceptible " than "percipient" though I cannot say that 
 Lord Blachford is always " perceptible " to me. And how 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE 167 
 
 does my being " perceptible " or not being " perceptible," 
 prove that I have an immortal soul ? Is a dog " percep- 
 tible ?" is he "percipient?" Has he not some of the 
 qualities of a "percipient?" and if so, has he an immortal 
 soul ? Is an ant, a tree, a bacterium, " percipient ?" and 
 has any of these an immortal soul ? for I find Lord Blach- 
 ford declaring there is an " ineradicable difference between 
 the motions of a material and the sensations of a living 
 being," as if the animal world were " percipient," and the 
 inorganic " perceptible." But surely in the sensations of 
 a living being the animal world must be included. Where 
 does the vegetable world come in ? 
 
 I used the word " organism " advisedly, when I said 
 that will, thought, and affection, are functions of a living 
 organism. I decline exactly to localize the organ of any 
 function of mind or will. When I am asked, What are 
 we ? I reply, We are men. When I am asked, Are we our 
 bodies ? I say, No, nor are we our minds. Have we no 
 sense of personality, of unity ? I am asked. I say, Cer- 
 tainly ; it is an acquired result of our nervous organiza- 
 tion, liable to be interrupted by derangements of that 
 nervous organization. What is it that makes us think 
 and feel ? The facts of our human nature ; I cannot get 
 behind this, and I need no further explanation. We are 
 men, and can do what men can do. I say the tangible 
 collection of organs known as a " man" (not the consensus 
 or the condition, but the man), thinks, wills, and feels, 
 just as much as that visible organism lives and grows. 
 We do not say that this or that ganglion in particular 
 
A MnpKUN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 lives and grows ; we say tho rna it grows. It is as easy to 
 nit 1 to imagine that we shall grow fifteen feet high, when 
 we have no body, as that we shall grow in knowledge, 
 goodness, activity, etc., etc., etc., when we have no organs. 
 And the absence of all molecular attributes would be, I 
 should think, particularly awkward in that life of comet- 
 ary motion in the interstellar spaces with which Lord 
 Blachford threatens us. But, as the poet says : 
 
 " Trasumanar significar per verba 
 Non si porria "- 
 
 " If" says he, " practical duties are necessary for the per- 
 fection of life," we can take a little interstellar exercise. 
 Why, practical duties are the sum and substance of life ; 
 and life which does not centre in practical duties is not 
 life, but a trance. 
 
 Lord Blachford, who is somewhat punctilious in terms, 
 asks me what I consider myself to understand " by the 
 incorporation of a consensus of faculties with a glorious 
 future." Well, it so happens that I did not use that phrase. 
 I have never spoken of an immortal soul anywhere, nor 
 do I use the word soul of any but the living man. I said 
 a man might look forward to incorporation with the 
 future of his race, explaining that to mean his " posthum- 
 ous activity." And I think at any rate the phrase is 
 quite as reasonable as to say that I look forward, as Mr. 
 Hutton does, to a "union with God." What does Mr. 
 Hutton or Lord Blachford understand himself to mean by 
 that? 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 169 
 
 Surely Lord Blachford's epigram about the fiddle and 
 the tune is hardly fortunate. Indeed, that exactly ex- 
 presses what I find faulty in the view of himself and the 
 theologians. He thinks the tune will go on playing when 
 the fiddle is broken up and burned. I say nothing of the 
 kind. I do not say the man will continue to exist after 
 death. I simply say that his influence will ; that other 
 men will do and think what he taught them to do or to 
 think. Just so, a general would be said to win a battle 
 which he planned and directed, even if he had been killed 
 in an early part of it. What is there of fiddle and tune 
 about this ? I certainly think that when Mozart and 
 Beethoven have left us great pieces of music, it signifies 
 little to art if the actual fiddle, or even the actual com- 
 poser continue to exist or not. I never said the tune 
 would exist. I said that men would remember it and 
 repeat it. I must thank Lord Blachford for a happy 
 illustration of my own meaning. But it is he who ex- 
 pects the tune to exist without the fiddle, /say you can't 
 have a tune without a fiddle, nor a fiddle without wood. 
 
 III. I have reserved the criticism of Prof. Huxley, be- 
 cause it lies apart from the principal discussion, and turns 
 mainly on some incidental remarks of mine on " biologi- 
 cal reasoning about spiritual things." 
 
 I note three points at the outset. Prof. Huxley does 
 not himself pretend to any evidence for a theological soul 
 and future life. Again, he does not dispute the account 
 I give of the functional relation of physical and moral 
 facts. He seems surprised that I should understand it, 
 
170 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 not being a biologist ; but he is kind enough to say that 
 my statement may pass. Lastly, he does not deny the 
 reality of man's posthumous activity. Now, these three 
 are the main purposes of my argument ; and in these I 
 have Prof. Huxley with me. He is no more of a theolo- 
 gian than I am. Indeed, he is only scandalized that I 
 should see any good in priests at all. He might have said 
 more plainly that, when the man is dead, there is an end 
 of the matter. But this clearly is his opinion, and he in- 
 timates as much in his paper. Only he would say no 
 more about it, bury the carcass, and end the tale, leaving 
 all thoughts about the future to those whose faith is more 
 robust and whose hopes are richer ; by which I under- 
 stand him to mean persons weak enough to listen to the 
 priests. 
 
 Now, this does not satisfy me. I call it materialism, 
 for it exaggerates the importance of the physical facts 
 and ignores that of the spiritual facts ; and the object of 
 my paper was simply this that as the physical facts 
 are daily growing quite irresistible, it is of urgent impor- 
 tance to place the spiritual facts on a sound scientific 
 basis at once. Prof. Huxley implies that his business is 
 with the physical facts, and the spiritual facts must take 
 care of themselves. I cannot agree with him. That is 
 precisely the difference between us. The spiritual facts 
 of man's nature are the business of all who undertake to 
 denounce priestcraft, and especially of those who preach 
 " Lay Sermons." 
 
 Prof. Huxley complains that I should join in the view- 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 171 
 
 halloo against biological science. Now, I never have sup- 
 posed that biological science was in the position of the 
 hunted fox. I thought it was the hunter, booted and 
 spurred and riding over us all, with Prof. Huxley leaping 
 the most terrific gates and cracking his whip with intense 
 gusto. As to biological science, it is the last thing that I 
 should try to run down ; and I must protest, with all sin- 
 cerity, that I wrote without a thought of Prof. Huxley 
 at all. He insists on knowing, in the most peremptory 
 way of whom I was thinking, as if I were thinking of 
 him. Of whom else could I be thinking, forsooth, when 
 I spoke of biology ? Well ! I did not bite my thumb at 
 him, but I bit my thumb. 
 
 Seriously, I was not writing at Prof. Huxley, or I 
 should have named him. I have a very great admiration 
 for his work in biology ; I have learned much from him ; 
 I have followed his courses of lectures years and years 
 ago, and have carefully studied his books. If, in questions 
 which belong to sociology, morals, and to general philoso- 
 phy, he seems to me hardly an authority, why need we 
 dispute ? Dog should not bite dog ; and he and I have 
 many a wolf that we both would keep from the fold. 
 
 But, if I did not mean Prof. Huxley, whom did I mean ? 
 Now, my paper, I think clearly enough, alluded to two 
 very different kinds of materialism. There is systematic 
 materialism, and there is the vague materialism. The 
 eminent example of the first is the unlucky remark of 
 Cabanis that the brain secretes thought, as the liver sec- 
 retes bile ; and there is much of the same sort in many 
 
IT'2 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 foreign theories in the tone of Moleschott, Biichiier, and 
 the like. The most distinct examples of it in this coun- 
 try are found among phrenologists, spiritualists, some 
 mental pathologists, and a few communist visionaries. 
 The far wider, vaguer, and more dangerous school of ma- 
 terialism is found in a multitude of quarters in all those 
 who insist exclusively on the physical -side of moral 
 phenomena all, in short, who, to use Prof. Huxley's 
 phrase, are employed in " building up a physical theory 
 of moral phenomena." Those who confuse moral and 
 physical phenomena are indeed few. Those who exag- 
 gerate the physical side of phenomena are many. 
 
 Now, though I did not allude to Prof. Huxley in what 
 I wrote, his criticism convinces me that he is sometimes 
 at least found among these last. I' is paper is an excel- 
 lent illustration of the very error which I condemned. 
 The issue between us is this : We both agree that every 
 mental and moral fact is in functional relation with some 
 molecular fact. So far we are entirely on the same side, 
 as against all forms of theological and metaphysical doc- 
 trine which conceive the possibility of human feeling 
 without a human body. But, then, says Prof. Huxley, if 
 I can trace the molecular facts which are the antecedents 
 of the mental and moral facts, I have explained these 
 mental and moral facts. That I deny ; just as much as I 
 should deny that a chemical analysis of the body could 
 ever lead to an explanation of the physical organism. 
 Then, says the professor, when I have traced out the 
 molecular facts, I have built up a physical theory of moral 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 173 
 
 phenomena. That again I deny. I say there is no such 
 thing, or no rational thing, that can be called a phy- 
 sical theory of moral phenomena, any more than there 
 is a moral theory of physical phenomena. What sort 
 of a thing would be a physical theory of history- 
 history explained by the influence of climate or the 
 like ? The issue between us centres in this : I say 
 that the physical side of moral phenomena bears about 
 the same part in the moral sciences that the facts 
 about climate bear in the sum of human civilization. And 
 that to look to the physical facts as an explanation of the 
 moral, or even as an independent branch of the study of 
 moral facts, is perfectly idle; just as it would be if a 
 mere physical geographer pretended to give us, out of his 
 geography, a climatic philosophy of history. Yet Prof. 
 Huxley has not been deterred from the astounding para- 
 dox of proposing to us a physiological theory of religion. 
 He tells us how " the religious feelings may be brought 
 within the range of physiological inquiry." And he pro- 
 poses as a problem " What diseased viscus may have 
 been responsible for the ' priest in absolution ? " I will 
 drop all epithets ; but -I must say that I call that materi- 
 alism, and materialism not very nice of its kind. One 
 might as reasonably propose as a problem What barome- 
 trical readings are responsible for the British Constitution ? 
 and suggest a congress of meteorologists to do the work 
 of Hallam, Stubbs, and Freeman. Mo doubt there is 
 some connection between the House of Commons and the 
 English climate, and so there is no doubt some connection 
 
174- A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 between religious theories and physical organs. But to 
 talk of " bringing religion within the range of physiolo- 
 gical inquiry " is simply to stare through the wrong end 
 of the telescope, and to turn philosophy and science up- 
 side down. Ah ! Prof. Huxley, this is a bad day's work 
 for scientific progress 
 
 Ilpia/xos, Ilpta/xoio re 
 
 Pope Pius 1 and his people will be glad when they read that 
 fatal sentence of yours. When I complained of the "at- 
 tempt to dispose of the deepest moral truths of human 
 nature on a bare physical or physiological basis," I could 
 not have expected to read such an illustration of my 
 meaning by Prof. Huxley. 
 
 Perhaps he will permit me to inform him (since that is 
 the style which he affects) that there once was and, in- 
 deed, we may say still is an institution called the Catho- 
 lic Church ; that it has had a long and strange history, 
 and subtile influences of all kinds ; and I venture to 
 think that Prof. Huxley may learn more about the priest 
 in absolution by a few weeks' study of the Catholic 
 system than by inspecting the diseased 'viscera of the 
 whole human race. When Prof. Huxley's historical and 
 religious studies " have advanced so far as to enable him 
 to explain " the history of Catholicism, I think he will 
 admit that " priestcraft " cannot well be made a chapter 
 in a physiological manual. It may be cheap pulpit thunder, 
 but this idea of his of inspecting a " diseased viscus " is 
 
 1 This was written previous to the death of Pope Pius IX. 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 175 
 
 precisely what I meant by " biological reasoning about 
 spiritual things." And I stand by it, that it is just as 
 false in science as it is deleterious in morals. It is an 
 attempt (I will not say arrogant, I am inclined to use an- 
 other epithet) to explain, by physical observations, what 
 can only be explained by the most subtile moral, sociolo- 
 gical, and historical observations. It is to think you can 
 find the golden eggs by cutting up the goose, instead ol 
 watching the goose to see where she lays the eggs. 
 
 I am quite aware that Prof. Huxley has elsewhere for- 
 mulated his belief that biology is the science which " in- 
 cludes man and all his ways and works." If history, law, 
 politics, morals, and political economy, are merely branches 
 of biology, we shall want new dictionaries indeed ; and 
 biology will embrace about four-fifths of human know- 
 ledge. But this is not a question of language ; for we 
 here have Prof. Huxley actually bringing religion within 
 the range of physiological inquiry, and settling its pro- 
 blems by references to " diseased viscus." But the differ- 
 ences between us are a long story ; and since Prof. Huxley 
 has sought me out, and in somewhat monitorial tone has 
 proposed to set me right, I will take an early occasion to 
 try and set forth what I find paradoxical in his notions 
 of the relations of biology and philosophy. 
 
 I note a few special points between us, and I have done. 
 Prof. Huxley is so well satisfied with his idea of a " phy- 
 sical theory of moral phenomena," that he constantly at- 
 tributes that sense to my words, though I carefully 
 guarded my language from such a construction. Thus 
 
176 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 he quotes from me a passage beginning, " Man is one, 
 however compound," but he breaks off the quotation just 
 as I go on to speak of the direct analysis of mental and 
 moral faculties by mental and moral science, not by phy- 
 siological science. I say : " philosophy and science " have 
 accomplished explanations ; I do not say biology ; and 
 the biological part of the explanation is a small and sub- 
 ordinate part of the whole. I do not say that the corres- 
 pondence between physical and moral phenomena is an 
 explanation of the human organism. Prof. Huxley says 
 that, and T call it materialism. Nor do I say that " spiri- 
 tual sensibility is a bodily function." I say, it is a moral 
 function ; and I complain that Prof. Huxley ignores the 
 distinction between moral and physical functions of the 
 human organism. 
 
 As to the distinction between anatomy and physiology, 
 if he will look at my words again, he will see that I use 
 these terms with perfect accuracy. Six lines below the 
 passage he quotes, I speak of the human mechanism being 
 only explained by a " complete anatomy a fid biology," 
 showing that anatomy is merely one of the instruments 
 of biology. 
 
 He might be surprised to hear that he does not himself 
 give an accurate definition of physiology. But so it is. 
 He says, " Physiology is the science which treats of the 
 functions of the living organism." Not so, for the finest 
 spiritual sensibility is, as Prof. Huxley admits, a function 
 of living organism ; and physiology is not the science 
 which treats of spiritual sensibilities. They belong to 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 177 
 
 
 
 moral science. There are mental, moral, affective func- 
 tions of the living organism ; and they are not within the 
 province of physiology. Physiology is the science which 
 treats of the bodily functions of the living organism ; as 
 Prof. Huxley says in his admirable " Elementary Lessons/' 
 it deals with the facts " concerning the action of the body' 1 
 I complain of the pseudo-science which drops that distinc- 
 tion for a minute. He says, " The explanation of a phy- 
 siological function is the demonstration of the connection 
 of that function with the molecular state of the organ 
 which exerts the function." That I dispute. It is only 
 a small part of the explanation. The explanation sub- 
 stantially is the demonstration of the laws and all the 
 conditions of the function. The explanation of the cir- 
 culation of the blood is the demonstration of all its laws, 
 modes, and conditions ; and the molecular antecedents of 
 it are but a small part of the explanation. The principal 
 part relates to the molar (and not the molecular) action 
 of the heart and other organs. " The function of motion 
 is explained," he says, " when the movements of the living 
 body are found to have certain molecular changes for 
 their invariable antecedents." Nothing of the kind. The 
 function of bodily motion is explained when the laws, 
 modes, and conditions, of that motion are demonstrated ; 
 and molecular antecedents are but a part of these condi- 
 tions. The main part of the explanation, again, deals 
 with molar, not molecular, states of certain organs. " The 
 function of sensation is explained," says Prof. Huxley, 
 "when the molecular changes, which are the invariable 
 12 
 
178 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 antecedents of sensations, are discovered." Not a bit of 
 it. The function of sensation is only explained when the 
 laws and conditions of sensation are demonstrated. And 
 the main part of this demonstration will come from direct 
 observation of the sensitive organism organically, and by 
 no molecular discovery whatever. All this is precisely 
 the materialism which I condemn ; the fancying that one 
 science can do the work of another, and that any molecu- 
 lar discovery can dispense with direct study of organisms 
 in their organic, social, mental, and moral aspects. Will 
 Prof. Huxley say that the function of this Symposium is 
 explained, when we have chemically analyzed the solids 
 and liquids which are now effecting molecular change in 
 our respective digestive apparatus ? If so, let us ask the 
 butler if he cannot produce us a less heady and more mel- 
 low vintage. What irritated viscus is responsible for the 
 materialist 'in philosophy? We shall all philosophize 
 aright, if our friend Tyndall can hit for us the exact 
 chemical formula for our drinks. 
 
 It does not surprise me, so much as it might, to find 
 Prof. Huxley slipping into really inaccurate definitions in 
 physiology, when I remember that hallucination of his 
 about questions of science all becoming questions of mole- 
 cular physics. The molecular facts are valuable enough; 
 but we are getting molecular-mad, if we forget that mole- 
 cular facts have only a special part in physiology, and 
 hardly any part at all in sociology, history, morals, and 
 politics ; though I quite agree that there is no single fact 
 in social, moral, or mental philosophy, that has not its 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 179 
 
 correspondence in some molecular fact, if we only could 
 know it. All human things undoubtedly depend on, and 
 are certainly connected with, the general laws of the 
 solar system. And to say that questions of human organ- 
 isms, much less of human society, tend to become ques- 
 tions of molecular physics, is exactly the kind of confu- 
 sion it would be, if I said that questions of history tend 
 to become questions of astronomy, and that the more 
 refined calculations of planetary movements in the future 
 will explain to us the causes of English Rebellion and the 
 French Revolution. 
 
 There is an odd instance of this confusion of thought 
 at the close of Prof. Huxley's paper, which still more 
 oddly Lord Blachford, who is so strict in his logic, cites 
 with approval. " Has a stone a future life," says Prof. 
 Huxley, " because the wavelets it may cause in the sea 
 persist through space and time ? " Well ! has a stone a 
 life at all ? because if it has no present life, I cannot see 
 why it should have a future life. How is any reasoning 
 about the inorganic world to help us here in reasoning 
 about the organic world ? Prof. Huxley and Lord Blach- 
 ford might as well ask if a stone is capable of civilization 
 because I said that man was. I think that man is wholly 
 different from a stone ; and from a fiddle ; and even from 
 a dog ; and that to say that a man cannot exert any 
 influence on other men after his death, because a dog can- 
 not, or because a fiddle or because a stone cannot, may be 
 to reproduce with rather needless affectation the verbal 
 quibbles and pitfalls which Socrates and the sophists 
 
180 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 prepared for each other in some wordy symposium of 
 old. 
 
 Lastly, Prof. Huxley seems to think that he has dis- 
 posed of me altogether, so soon as he can point to a sym- 
 pathy between theologians and myself. I trust there are 
 great affinity and great sympathy between us ; and pray 
 let him not think that I am in the least ashamed of that 
 coi i n non ground. Positivism has quite as much sympathy 
 with the genuine theologian as it has with the scientific 
 specialist. The former may be working on a wrong 
 intellectual basis, and often it may be by most perverted 
 methods ; but, in the best types, he has a high social aim 
 and a great moral cause to maintain among men. The 
 latter is usually right in his intellectual basis as far as it 
 goes ; but it does not go very far, and in the great moral 
 cause of the spiritual destinies of men he is often content 
 with utter indifference and simple nihilism. Mere raving 
 at priestcraft, and beadles, and outward investments, is 
 indeed a poor solution of the mighty problems of the 
 human soul and of social organization. And the instinct 
 of the mass of mankind will long reject a biology which 
 has nothing for these but a sneer. It will not do for 
 Prof. Huxley to say that he is only a poor biologist and 
 careth for none of these things. His biology, however, 
 " includes man and all his ways and works." Besides, he 
 is a leader in Israel ; he has preached an entire volume of 
 " Lay Sermons ; " and he has waged many a war with 
 theologians and philosophers on religious and philoso- 
 phic problems. What, if I may. ask him, are his own 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 181 
 
 religion and his own philosophy ? He says that he 
 knows no scientific men who " neglect all philosophical 
 and religious synthesis." In that he is fortunate in his 
 circle of acquaintances. But since he is so earnest in 
 asking me questions, let me ask him to tell the world 
 what is his own synthesis of philosophy, what is his own 
 idea of religion ? He can laugh at the worship of priests 
 and positivists : whom, or what, does he worship? If he 
 dislikes the word soul, does he think that man has any- 
 thing that can be called a spiritual nature ? If he derides 
 my idea of a future life, does he think that there is any- 
 thing which can be said of a man, when his carcass is 
 laid beneath the sod, beyond a simple final vole ? 
 
 P.S. And now space fails me to reply to the appeals 
 of so many critics. I cannot enter with Mr. Roden Noel 
 on that great question of the materialization of the spirits 
 of the dead ; I know not whether we shall be " made one 
 with the great Elohim, or angels of Nature, or if we shall 
 grovel in dead material bodily life." I know nothing of 
 this high matter: I do not comprehend this language. 
 Nor can I add anything to what I have said on that 
 sense of personality which Lord Selborne and Canon 
 Barry so eloquently press on me. To me that sense of 
 personality is a thing of somewhat slow growth, resulting 
 from our entire nervous organization and our composite 
 mental constitution. It seems to me that we can often 
 trace it building up and trace it again decaying away. 
 We feel ourselves to be men, because we have human 
 
182 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 bodies and human minds. Is that not enough ? Has the 
 baby of an hour this sense of personality ? Are you sure 
 that a dog or an elephant has not got it ? Then has the 
 baby no soul ; has the dog a soul ? Do you know more 
 of your neighbour, apart from inference, than you know 
 of the dog? Again, I cannot enter upon Mr. Greg's 
 beautiful reflections, save to point out how largely he 
 supports me. He shows, I think with masterly logic, 
 how difficult it is to fit this new notion of a glorified 
 activity on to the old orthodoxy of beatific ecstacy. 
 Canon Barry reminds us how this orthodoxy involved the 
 resurrection of the body, and the same difficulty has 
 driven Mr. Roden Noel to suggest that the material world 
 itself may be the debris of the just made perfect. But 
 Dr. Ward, as might be expected, falls back on the beatific 
 ecstacy as conceived by the mystics of the thirteenth 
 centuiy. No word here about moral activity and the 
 social converse, as in the Elysian fields, imagined by 
 philosophers of less orthodox severity. 
 
 One word more. If my language has given any belie- 
 ver pain, I regret it sincerely. It may have been some- 
 what obscure, since it has been so widely arraigned, and 
 I think misconceived. My position is this : The idea of 
 a glorified energy in an ampler life is an idea utterly 
 incompatible with exact thought, one which evaporates 
 in contradictions, in phrases which when pressed have no 
 meaning. The idea of beatific ecstacy is the old and 
 orthodox idea ; it does not involve so many contradictions 
 as the former idea, but then it does not satisfy our moral 
 
THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE. 183 
 
 judgment. I say plainly that the hope of such an infinite 
 ecstacy is an inane and unworthy crown of a human life. 
 And when Dr. Ward assures me that it is merely the 
 prolongation of the saintly life, then I say the saintly life 
 is an inane and unworthy life. The words I used about 
 the " selfish " views of futurity, I applied only to those who 
 say they care for nothing but personal enjoyment, and to 
 those whose only aim is "to save their own souls." Mr. 
 Baldwin Brown has nobly condemned this creed in words 
 far stronger than mine. And here let us close with the 
 reflection that the language of controversy must always 
 be held to apply not to the character of our opponents, 
 but to the logical consequences of their doctrines, if 
 uncorrected and if forced to their extreme. 
 
THE INFLUENCE UPON MORALITY 
 
 OF A 
 
 DECLINE IN EELIGIOUS BELIEF. 
 
THE 
 
 INFLUENCE UPOIN MORALITY 
 
 OF A 
 
 DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 
 
 SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 MANY persons regard everything which tends to 
 discredit theology with disapprobation, because 
 they think that all such speculations must endanger 
 morality as well. Others assert that morality has a basis 
 of its own in human nature, and that, even if all theo- 
 logical belief were exploded, morality would remain 
 unaffected. 
 
 My own view is, that each party is to a considerable 
 extent right, but that the true practical inference is often 
 neglected. 
 
 Understanding by the theology of an age or country 
 the theory of the universe generally accepted then and 
 there, and by its morality the rules of life then and 
 there commonly regarded as binding, it seems to me 
 extravagant to say that the one does not influence the 
 
188 .A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 other. The difference between living in a country where 
 the established theory is that existence is an evil, and an- 
 nihilation the highest good, and living in a country where 
 the established theory is that the earth is the Lord's and the 
 fullness thereof, the round world and they that dwell there- 
 in, has surely a good deal to do with the other differences 
 which distinguish Englishmen from Buddhists. 
 
 Even if it be said that such differences are merely a 
 way of expressing the result of a difference of tempera- 
 ment and constitution otherwise caused, this does not 
 diminish the effect of a belief in the truth of the theory. 
 Kali, Bhowanee, and other malevolent deities worshipped 
 in India, are probably phantoms engendered by fear 
 working on a rank fancy ; but this does not make the 
 belief in their real existence less influential in those who 
 hold it. A man who cuts off the end of his tongue to 
 propitiate Kali would let it alone if he ceased to believe 
 in her existence, though the temper of mind which created 
 her might still remain, and show itself in other ways. 
 
 The belief that the course of the world is ordered by a 
 good God, that right and wrong are in the nature of a 
 divine law, that this world is a place of trial, and part 
 only of a wider existence in a word, the belief in God 
 and a future state may be accounted for in various ways. 
 Now that in this country (to go no farther) the vast 
 majority of people believe these doctrines to be true, in 
 fact, just as they believe it to be true, in fact, that ships 
 and carriages can be driven by steam, and that their con- 
 duct is in innumerable instances as distinctly influenced 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 189 
 
 by the one belief as by the other, appear to me to be pro 
 positions too plain to be proved. 
 
 On the other hand, it seems at least equally evident 
 that morality has a basis of its own quite independent of 
 all theology whatever. It is difficult to imagine any 
 doctrine about theology which has not prevailed at some 
 time or place ; but no one ever heard of men living to- 
 gether without some rules of life that is, without some 
 sort of morality. Given human action and human pas- 
 sion, and a vast number of people all acting and feeling, 
 moral rules of conduct of some sort are a necessary con- 
 sequence. The destruction of religion would, I think, in- 
 volve a moral revolution ; but it would no more destroy 
 morality than a political revolution destroys law. It 
 would substitute one set of moral rules and sentiments for 
 another, just as the establishment of Christianity and 
 Mohammedanism did when they superseded various forms 
 of paganism. 
 
 It would be scarcely worth while to write down these 
 commonplaces, if it were not for the sake of the practical 
 inference. It is that theology and morality ought to 
 stand to each other in precisely the same relation as facts 
 and legislation. 
 
 No one would propose to support by artificial means 
 a law passed under a mistake, for fear it should have to 
 be altered. To say that the truth of a theological doctrine 
 must not be questioned, lest the discovery of its falsehood 
 should produce a bad moral effect, is in principle precisely 
 the same thing. It is at least as unlikely that false 
 
190 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 theology should produce good morals as that legislation 
 based on a mistaken view of facts should work well in 
 practice. 
 
 I will give two illustrations of this any number mi^ht 
 be given : Suicide is commonly regarded as wrong; and 
 this moral doctrine is defended on theological grounds > 
 which are summed up in the old saying that the soldier 
 must not leave his post till he is relieved. I will not in- 
 quire whether any other argument can be produced for- 
 bidding suicide to a person labouring under a disease which 
 converts his whole life into one long scene of excruciating 
 agony, and which must kill him in the course of a few 
 useless months, during which he is a source of misery, and 
 perhaps danger, to his nearest and dearest friends. I con- 
 fine myself to saying that, if it could be shown that there 
 is no reason to suppose that God has in fact forbidden 
 such an act, its morality might be discussed and decided 
 upon on different grounds from those, on which it must 
 be considered and decided upon on the opposite hypothesis. 
 
 Take again, the law of marriage. Suppose a man's wife 
 is hopelessly insane ought he be allowed to marry again ? 
 Ought divorce to be permitted in any case ? These ques- 
 tions will be discussed in a very different spirit, though it 
 is possible that they might be answered in the same way 
 by persons who do and by persons who do not believe in 
 sacraments, and that marriage is a sacrament. 
 
 Now, let us suppose for the sake of argument that it 
 could be shown that, if all theological considerations were 
 set aside, it would be desirable that a person dying of 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 191 
 
 cancer should be permitted to commit suicide, and that a 
 man whose wife was incurably mad should be allowed to 
 marry again ; and that, on the other hand, if theological 
 considerations were taken into account, the opposite was 
 desirable. Upon these suppositions the question whether 
 the theological beliefs which make the difference are 
 beneficial or not will depend on the question whether 
 they are true or not. Applied generally, this shows that 
 the support which an existing creed gives to an existing 
 system of morals is irrelevant to its truth, and that the 
 question whether a given system of morals is good or bad 
 cannot be fully determined until after the determination 
 of the question whether the theology on which it rests is 
 true or false. The morality is good if it is founded on a 
 true estimate of the consequences of human actions. But 
 if it is founded on a false theology, it is founded on a 
 false estimate of the consequences of human actions ; and, 
 so far as that is the case, it cannot be good ; and the cir- 
 cumstance that it is supported by the theology to which 
 it refers is an argument against, and not in favour of, that 
 theology. 
 
 LORD SELBORNE. 
 
 I BEGIN by observing that (putting special cases aside, 
 and looking at the question in a general way) morality 
 has not flourished, among either civilized or uncivilized 
 men, when religious belief has been generally lost, or 
 
192 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 utterly debased. Not to dwell upon the case of savage 
 races, the modern Hindoos and Chinese have long been 
 civilized, but are certainly not moral ; nor can anything 
 worse be conceived than the morality of the Greeks and 
 Romans, at the height of their civilization. The morality 
 of the Romans, in the old republican times when they 
 knew nothing of Greek philosophy, was praised by Poly- 
 bius, who connected it, directly and emphatically, with 
 the influence among them of religious belief. After their 
 intellectual cultivation had taken its tone from the irre- 
 religious or agnostic materialism of Epicurus (hardly dis- 
 tinguishable, I think, from that sort of philosophy which 
 some persons think destined to supplant religious belief 
 in the present day), their morality became what is de- 
 scribed in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans 
 and in the Satires of Juvenal ; nor does it seern to have 
 been worse than that of the other civilized races on the 
 shores of the Mediterranean, over whom, at the same time, 
 religion had equally lost its influence. 
 
 On the other hand, it seems to me certain, as an his- 
 torical fact, that the place which the principles of love and 
 benevolence, humility and self-abnegation, have assumed 
 in the morality of Christian nations (with a wide-spread- 
 ing influence which has been advancing till the present 
 time with the growth of civilization) is specifically due 
 to Christianity. To Christianity are specially due 1. 
 Our respect for human life, which condemns suicide, in- 
 fanticide, political assassination, and I might almost say 
 homicide generally, in a way previously unknown, and 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 193 
 
 still unknown* where Christianity does not prevail ; 2. 
 recognition of such moral and spiritual relations between 
 man and man as are inconsistent with the degradation of 
 women, and with the practice of slavery ; 3. Our rever- 
 ence for the bond of marriage ; and, 4. Our abhorrence of 
 some particular forms of vice. I do not mean to deny 
 that traces of a state of opinion, more or less similar upon 
 some of these points, are discoverable in what we know 
 of the manners of some non-Christian nations ; but it is 
 historically true to say that the prevalence of each of 
 these principles, as manifested among ourselves, is speci- 
 fically due to Christianity. Of Christianity I speak 
 in a sense inclusive of all that it derives from the ante- 
 cedent Jewish system ; of which it claims to be the true 
 continuation and development. 
 
 If freedom of inquiry is not to be stopped, after the re- 
 jection of religious belief, it must gradually extend itself 
 to the whole circle of morality, most, if not all, of which 
 is as little capable of demonstrative proof through the 
 evidence of the senses as any of the doctrines of religion. 
 Those who reject religion will not voluntarily submit to 
 moral restraints founded upon the religion which they 
 reject, unless they can be placed upon some other intel- 
 lectual basis, sufficiently cogent to themselves to resist the 
 attractions of appetite or self-interest. That large part of 
 mankind who are always too much under the government 
 of their inclinations and passions will be quicker in draw- 
 ing moral corollaries from irreligious principles than the 
 philosophers by whom those principles are propounded ; 
 13 
 
194 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 and the advanced posts of morality, in which the influence 
 of religion culminates, and of which the necessity may 
 not be so evident on natural or social grounds, are not 
 likely to be very strenuously defended by those philoso- 
 phers themselves. 
 
 If the religious foundations and sanctions of morality 
 are given up, what is to be substituted for them ? 
 
 First : will the modern notion of a duty to act so as may 
 conduce to the greatest happiness of the greatest number 
 of men be sufficient ? I think, certainly not. The idea 
 of duty is not, to my mind, practical or intelligible without 
 religious conceptions ; and this particular conception of 
 duty depends entirely upon a test extrinsic, and not per- 
 sonal, to the individual a test, too, which it is difficult 
 (not to say impossible) for each individual to verify for 
 himself ; though it may be verified, to their own satis- 
 faction, by philosophical students of casuistry or political 
 economy. Those motives are of necessity strongest which 
 directly concern the man himself : and a moral principle 
 which attempts to counteract influences operating directly 
 and immediately upon the will by others which are 
 speculative and remote, without any higher sanctions 
 realized by and reacting upon the individual, must neces- 
 sarily be weak. 
 
 But, secondly : will this idea be sufficient, if so modified 
 as to present to the man the pursuit of his own happiness 
 in this world as the rule of life, but teach him to discover 
 it by observing and doing those things which most con- 
 duce to the happiness of men in general ? In this f orm it 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 195 
 
 is older and more plausible ; but the difficulties of making 
 it practical are really very much the same. This doctrine, 
 as Aristotle observes, depends upon a general induction : 
 it deals only with general truths and general conclusions, 
 to which there are many apparent and (if there were no 
 jaw of moral retribution and adjustment behind) many 
 real exceptions. The foundations of a man's moral 
 character and habits must .be laid in his youth : when (as 
 Aristotle also says) he is inexperienced, naturally inclined 
 to follow his passions, and not predisposed to accept the 
 disquisitions of philosophers as proof that his own happi- 
 ness will not be promoted by seeking it in his own way. 
 The temperament most likely to act consciously on such 
 a rule of life is not the most generous ; it is rather that 
 which is cold and calculating, and which values the 
 reputation more than the reality of virtue. Upon such 
 men, at the best, its influence is to establish a low stand- 
 ard of virtue : perhaps only to check and impose limits 
 on their tendency to vice. Over others it can have little 
 or no power, except when operating in combination with, 
 and subordination to, higher principles. 
 
 Not only did the ethical systems of the ancients which 
 were based upon this principle fail to make men moral, 
 but we see its impotence constantly exemplified among 
 those whom we call " men of the world " a class of per- 
 sons who are by no means indifferent to their own happi- 
 ness, or to the good opinion of the world, but by whom 
 the influence of religious belief is not practically felt ; 
 exemplified, too, on points of morality of which the 
 
196 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 reasonaMciK-ss st-cms most manifest. There are no virtues, 
 I suppose, which can more readily be shown to be con- 
 ducive to happiness, whether particular or general, than 
 that which the Greeks called eyK/aareta, and that of -benevo- 
 lence. What can be more contrary, to both at once of 
 these, than the irregular indulgence of sensual appetite at 
 the cost of the permanent degradation, and almost certain 
 misery, of human beings who are its instruments and 
 victims, and of innumerable physical as well as moral 
 evils to individuals, families, and mankind at large ? Yet 
 how very common is this sort of immorality, even among 
 cultivated men, living on good terms with society ! How 
 little is it reproved, how seldom restrained, except by the 
 authority, or through the influence, direct or indirect, of 
 religion ! All readers of Horace remember the sententia 
 dia Catonis, and I doubt whether non-religious opinion 
 among ourselves is much stricter on this subject, though 
 . it may be less freely expressed. If it is otherwise as to 
 some of the more abnormal forms of d/cpao-ia, I have al- 
 ready said that is specifically due to Christianity. The 
 cultivated Greeks and Romans spoke and wrote lightly 
 and familiarly of vices of which we do not speak at all : they 
 regarded them, indeed, as effeminate, but not as infamous, 
 and certainly did not visit them with grave social penal 
 ties. So tainted was their moral atmosphere, that even 
 such really religious men among them as Socrates and 
 Plato (to whom, however, a religion teaching morals with 
 definiteness and authority was unknown) surprise us by 
 their want of sensitiveness on these points, as manifested 
 in some passages of the Socratic Dialogues. 
 
 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 197 
 
 - I will next inquire whether a sufficient rule of morality 
 is to be found, when religion is set aside, in any law of our 
 nature : first, regarding the constitution of our nature 
 apart from, and, secondly, taking into account, the exist- 
 ence in it, of a moral instinct or sense. 
 
 If any one calls the application of right reason to human 
 conduct generally a law of our nature, from which such a 
 rule is to be derived, without taking into account the 
 moral sense this, as it seems to me, would be only a 
 different and more indefinite mode of expressing substan- 
 tially the same theories, which have been already dealt 
 with. 
 
 But it may, perhaps, be suggested that laws of our 
 nature, from which such a rule may be derived, are to be 
 found in the final causes and purposes of the several 
 organs and powers which exist in that nature ; and 
 that the use of any of those organs or powers in 
 a manner aberrant from their proper causes and pur- 
 poses is a breach of natural morality. I do not pause 
 to inquire whether the idea of " cause " and " pur- 
 pose," which is involved in such a view, can be veri- 
 fied apart from religion. But such a rule would, at best, 
 be far from co-extensive with the whole field of morality ; 
 some most necessary parts of a moral code (such, e. g., as 
 the regulation of the relations between the sexes) being 
 incapable of being deduced, with any approach to cer- 
 tainity, from the mere constitution of our nature. As to 
 some of our faculties, the determination, with sufficient 
 accuracy, to furnish a rule of life, of their final causes and 
 
198 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 purposes, might involve difficult philosophical inquiries, 
 As to others, though there might be no such difficulty, it 
 is to be remembered that we have a complex nature, in 
 which the forces which operate, either mechanically or in 
 a way resembling the mechanical, upon the will, are 
 constantly in practical antagonism to the regulative 
 faculty. The faculties of which the final causes are most 
 obvious exist, not apart from, but in combination with, 
 other elements of our nature which (either generally or 
 often) result in tendencies to their use without any direct 
 view to the fulfilment of their proper purposes. The 
 gratification of some of those tendencies (such, e. g., as 
 eating and drinking for the mere pleasure of taste, and not 
 for nourishment) can hardly be condemned as immoral, 
 on natural grounds, unless carried so far as to overpower 
 reason, or impair strength or health. When it is carried 
 to that excess (as in the case of intemperance), it is still 
 true that the origin of the vice has been in the natural 
 constitution of men's bodies, by which a sensible gratifi- 
 cation has been found in its indulgence : which (as it seems 
 to me) goes far to prove that this conception of a physical 
 law cannot be relied upon, even in the cases to which it 
 is most directly applicable, as a practical basis of morality 
 a view which is confirmed by the actual prevalence 
 among men of that class of vices, even when, to all natural 
 safeguards, is superadded the external influence of re- 
 ligion. 
 
 When we proceed to take into account the moral 
 instinct or sense, we come upon the border-ground, if not 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 199 
 
 into the proper territory, of Religion. To a man who 
 believes in a moral government of the universe, in the 
 distinctness of the Ego, the real man, from his bodily 
 organization, and in the doctrines of moral responsibility 
 and moral adjustment in a future state, nothing can be 
 more real, nothing more intelligible, than this moral 
 instinct or sense, with its suggestions of right and wrong, 
 of duty, guilt and sin, and its judicial conscience. But, if all 
 these postulates are denied, what is then to be thought of 
 this moral instinct or sense ? Why is it, on that hypo- 
 thesis, less a mere accident of the nervous system, or of 
 some other part of the bodily organization, than the 
 religious instinct, which is already supposed to be set 
 aside, as resting upon no demonstrable ground ? As a 
 phenomenon, and in some sense a fact, it exists, just as 
 the religious instinct does (if they be not really the same) ; 
 but those principles of thought which explain away the 
 one, as having no proper objective cause, and as indicative 
 of no objective truth, may as easily explain away the 
 other also. The one is not more susceptible of sensible 
 and experimental demonstration than the other. If man 
 were merely a higher order of the organization of matter, 
 homogeneous with, and produced by spontaneous develop- 
 ment from inorganic substances, plants, and inferior 
 animals, and under no responsibility to any moral intel- 
 ligence greater than his own, what reality would there be 
 in the conception of a moral law of obligation, inappli- 
 cable to all other known forms of matter, and applicable 
 only to man, 
 
200 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 These questions are practical. Experience, on the large 
 scale, shows that men who disregard the religious, cannot 
 generally be trusted to pay regard to the moral, sense. A 
 moral sense, not believed in, can never supply a practical 
 foundation for morality. On the other hand, a moral 
 sense, believed in, is (in reality) itself religion possibly 
 inarticulate, but religion still. Such a belief cannot exist, 
 without accepting the evidence of the moral sense as 
 equally trustworthy concerning those things of which it 
 informs us, as the evidence of the bodily senses is concern- 
 ing those things of which they inform us. It is, of 
 course, only from the impressions made upon our own 
 minds that we can know anything about any of the 
 subjects, either of physical, or of intellectual, or of moral 
 sensation : their intrinsic nature, abstracted from those 
 impressions, is to us, in each case alike,an inaccessible mys- 
 tery. But belief in the sense is belief in the truth of the 
 information which the sense gives to us ; that is, that this 
 information, if rightly apprehended, is trustworthy, as far 
 as it goes ; that there are objective realities corresponding 
 with it. The moral sense, believed .in, is not merely a 
 possible, but I suppose it to be the only possible, human 
 foundation of morality. An intelligent belief in the 
 moral sense naturally takes the man beyond himself, to a 
 higher source of his moral conceptions, which it really 
 presupposes ; and any truths correlative to it, which are 
 either ascertainable by the processes of reason, or capable 
 of being otherwise made known, will naturally, when they 
 become known, be recognized, in their proper relation to 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 201 
 
 it, and cannot be rejected without doing it violence. Any 
 such correlative knowledge of the higher truths (to the 
 existence of which the moral sense testifies, though it does 
 not fully reveal them) must enlighten, inform, and 
 strengthen it. It is the office of such knowledge to ans- 
 wer authoritatively those questions, as to the real nature, 
 the proper work, the true happiness, the true place in the 
 universe of man, which philosophy has always been asking 
 and has never, by itself, been able to solve. It harmonizes, 
 accounts for, and enforces by authoritative sanctions, the 
 concurrent testimonies of the moral sense, the religious 
 1 nstinct, Nature interpreted by reason, and reason en- 
 lightened by experience. On the other hand, the want, 
 and still more the rejection of such knowledge (supposing 
 it to be attainable and true) must, in a corresponding 
 degree, obscure, perplex, or discredit, the moral sense. 
 
 I am well aware that some who seem to reject all dog- 
 matic theology and even the principles of natural religion, 
 do nevertheless live up to a high moral standard ; just as 
 there are too many others, professing (not always insin- 
 cerely) to believe in religion, who do the reverse. The 
 moral sense never has been, and never will be, extinguished 
 among mankind ; and in all ages and countries, of which 
 we have any real historical knowledge, there have been 
 conspicuous examples of men who have made it their rule 
 of life. Doubtless there have been many more who did so 3 of 
 whom we know nothing ; nor is it unreasonable to believe 
 that there may be many such even among very degraded 
 races. But these facts do not invalidate general conclu- 
 
202 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 sions as to the general moral tendency of a decline of 
 religious belief. Those examples of exceptional goodness 
 have not been sufficient to prevent or to arrest a progres- 
 sive deterioration of general morality when the light of 
 religion has been absent or obscured ; and the best ancient 
 schemes of philosophy, which were founded upon the 
 moral sense, failed to compete practically with that of 
 materialism, which did all that was possible to destroy it. 
 " Live while we may " " let us eat and drink, for to- 
 morrow we die " are natural corollaries from the doctrine 
 of Epicurus ; whatever more refined conceptions that 
 philosophers or any of his followers may have propounded. 
 Such will ever be the effect, in the world generally, of a 
 popular disbelief in the doctrines of immortality and re- 
 tribution ; not because the hope of rewards or the fear of 
 punishments is the foundation of religious morality (which 
 to fulfil the requirements either of religion or of the 
 moral sense, must ascend much higher), but because our 
 nature is so constituted that the destiny of the individual, 
 for good or evil, for happiness or the reverse, is insepar- 
 ably bound up with the moral law of his being ; and 
 because those aids and defences which result from the 
 recognition of this truth are necessary for the ascendency 
 of the higher over the lower elements of our nature, and 
 for the education of man to virtue. A boy, whose main- 
 springs of right action are conscience and love, will not 
 endeavour to fulfil the objects for which he is sent to 
 school more selfishly, or from less worthy motives, when 
 he is informed of their relation to his future life, than if 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 203 
 
 he were left in ignorance of it; but the knowledge of 
 that relation, by making him understand the importance 
 of the future as compared with the present, and the mean- 
 ing and reasonableness of his present duties, may enable 
 him better to fulfil them. 
 
 All that has been said assumes, of course, that there is 
 such a thing as religious truth : nor is it possible to deny 
 that, if this could really be disproved, the morality founded 
 upon it would fail. But it cannot be without importance, 
 whenever the proper evidences of the truth of religion are 
 considered, to take into account, as one of them, its rela- 
 tion to morality : the certainty that, if it were displaced, 
 the system of morality now received among men would, 
 to a great extent, fall with it ; and the extreme intellectual 
 difficulty of maintaining, in that event, the supremacy of 
 the moral sense, or placing the morality of the future 
 upon a new basis, likely to acquire general authority 
 among mankind. If it should be suggested that a suffi- 
 cient moral code, for practical purposes, might be main- 
 tained by increasing the stringency of human laws in 
 proportion to the failure of religious sanctions, J should 
 reply that the power of human laws depends upon morality, 
 and not morality upon human laws ; and that any legis- 
 lation, greatly in advance of the moral sentiment of the 
 community, would certainly not be effectual, and could 
 not long be maintained. 
 
 It has been no part of my purpose to enter into an 
 examination of any questions as to particular doctrines of 
 religion. I have throughout used the word " religion " in 
 
204 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 a sense exclusive of all systems, usurping that name, 
 which take no cognizance of morality, or which are repug- 
 nant, in their practical precepts, to the general moral sense 
 of mankind; and I have not dissembled my belief that 
 ( 'hristianity (regarded in its general aspect, with reference 
 to the points of agreement rather than those of difference 
 among Christians) does fulfil the conditions necessary for 
 moral efficacy. Error, inconsistency, incompleteness, or 
 admixture of foreign elements, in particular modes of ap- 
 prehending or representing it, must, no doubt, as far as 
 they prevail, and in proportion to their importance, de- 
 tract from the authority, or deteriorate the quality, of its 
 influence. So also must the mere fact of disagreement. 
 But, notwithstanding all these drawbacks, Christianity is 
 the great moral power of the world. It has often been 
 supposed to be declining, but has, as often, renewed its 
 strength ; nor has any other power been found to take its 
 place, where it has seemed to lose ground. As to other 
 forms of religion it may, without difficulty, be admitted 
 that such elements as they have in common with Christi- 
 anity may be expected (except so far as they are neutralized 
 or counteracted by other contrary elements) to tend, in their 
 measure, toward the same standard of morality. It is proper 
 (as I suppose) to Christianity, rightly understood, to assert 
 the identity of its own essential principles with those of 
 natural religion, while teaching that the moral govern- 
 ment of the world has been so conducted as not to leave 
 mankind dependent upon natural religion only ; and it 
 refers to a common origin with itself all the elements of 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 205 
 
 religious belief, consistent with its own doctrines, which 
 have been, at any time or place, accepted among the na- 
 tions of the world These propositions, and also that of 
 the presence of the religious principle in any -practical 
 belief of the moral sense, appear to be in accordance with 
 what is said by St. Paul in the nineteenth and twentieth 
 verses of the first, and the fourteenth and fifteenth verses 
 of the second chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. 
 
 REV. DR. MARTINEAU. 
 
 IN order to estimate aright the moral influence of de- 
 clining religious belief, the relation between morals 
 and religion must be accurately conceived. They may be 
 regarded as independent, or as identical, or, again, either 
 may be taken to be the foundation of the other. The 
 following positions will serve as a sufficient ground for the 
 opinion which I shall offer : 
 
 A sense of duty is inherent in the constitution of our 
 nature, and cannot be escaped till we can escape from 
 ourselves. It does not wait on any ontological conditions, 
 and incur the risk of non-existence should no assurance 
 be gained with regard to a being and a life beyond us. 
 Even though we came out of nothing, and returned to 
 nothing, we should be subject to the claim of righteous 
 ness so long as we are what we are. Morals have their 
 own base, and are second to nothing. 
 
206 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 Apart from this intrinsic consciousness of ethical dis- 
 tinctions, no ontological discoveries would avail to set up 
 a law of duty, and give us the characteristics of moral 
 beings. A Supreme Power might dictate an external rule, 
 and break us in to obedience by hopes and fears of un- 
 limited extent. But by this sway of preponderant interests 
 we are not carried beyond prudence ; and in the absence 
 of a law within, responding to the demands from without, 
 we do not reach the confines of moral obligation ; and, in 
 case of failure, we incur the sense only of error, not of sin. 
 Theology cannot supply a base for morals that have lost 
 their own. 
 
 Does it follow that, because morals are indigenous, they 
 are therefore self-sufficing ? By no means. Though re- 
 ligion is not their foundation, it is assuredly their crown 
 related to them as Plato says dialectic is to the sciences, 
 worrrep OpiyKos rot? /xaflrj/xao-ii/ 1 the coping that consummates 
 them. Be the genesis of the conscience what it' may, we 
 learn from it at last that there is a better and a worse in 
 the springs of action which contend for us, and that, while 
 it is open to us as a possibility, it is closed against us as a 
 right, to follow the lower when the higher calls. The 
 authority which stamps the one as a temptation, and 
 other as a peremptory claim, is not, we are well aware, of 
 our own making ; for it masters us with compunction, and 
 defies all repeal. Nor is it the mere expression of public 
 self-interest ; for it extends beyond the range of social 
 action, and covers the whole voluntary field. Speaking 
 
 i Rep., vii.,534E, 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 207 
 
 with a voice before which our whole personality bows, 
 and which equally gives law to other men, it issues from 
 a source transcending human life, and infusing into it a 
 moral order from a more comprehensive sphere. It pos- 
 tulates a superior will in communion with ours, and 
 administering this world as a school of character. 
 
 To this result our moral experience naturally runs up, 
 and stops short of it only where its course is artificially 
 arrested. Till it is reached, the ethical demands upon us 
 seem to address us in tones too portentous for their imme- 
 diate significance ; remorse clings to us with a tenacity, 
 aspiration returns upon us with a power, which reason can- 
 not adequately justify. But in the presence of an object- 
 ive moral law pervading the universe, administered by a 
 Mind wherein it perfectly lives, and continued for man be- 
 yond his present term of years, the scale of the ethical 
 passions, and the intensity of admiration and reverence 
 for the good, fall into proportionate place, and escape the 
 irony of being at once the ultimate nobleness and the su- 
 preme extravagance of our nature. Religion, on this side, 
 is but the open blossom of the moral germs implanted 
 within us the explicit form, developed in thought, of 
 faiths implicitly contained in the sense of responsibility 
 and the foreboding of guilt. Its eifect, therefore, is to 
 suffuse with a divine light relations and duties which be- 
 fore were simply personal and social. 
 
 A similar transfiguration befalls the pleasures and pains 
 attending voluntary conduct, and constituting its natural 
 '* sanctions." Treated as ultimate facts, they can never 
 
208 \ MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 acquire more than a prudential significance. Treated as 
 symbolical lineaments of a world under moral government* 
 they are invested with an .expression of character, and 
 look into us with living eyes. Their appeal alights no 
 longer on self -regarding hope and fear, but on the springs 
 of sympathy and shame : they pass from sensitive to ethi- 
 cal phenomena. The new and ideal meaning thus given to 
 a large portion of actual human experience cannot pause 
 there ; it completes itself in the congenial anticipation of 
 a further and invisible store of awards consummating the 
 incipient justice of this world. The faith in a future life 
 where it is more than a belief at second hand has 
 its sheet-anchor in the moral affections. But for the felt 
 interval between what we are and what we ought to 
 be, for the indignation at wrong, for compassion toward 
 innocent suffering, and reverence for high excellence, 
 vaticinations of renewed existence would have no origin 
 and no support. 
 
 In assigning this method of growth to religion, I do not 
 mean to deny that it may have other lines of formation. 
 The Nature-worship which plays so great a part in ancient 
 civilization has a different history, and stands in much 
 less intimate relations with the moral life of its votaries. 
 We pay, I am disposed to think, too great a compliment 
 to the Greek mythology when we attribute the ethical 
 decay of later Athens and Corinth to the growing scepti- 
 cism about its gods. The public life was dead. The the- 
 atre of great passion and great action was closed. The 
 calls for sacrifice, the opportunities for national expansion 
 were gone, and the political school for the discipline of 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 209 
 
 character was no longer there. With the loss of a pro- 
 gressive history , the springs of heroic emulation suffered 
 atrophy, a sickly hue passed over literature, philosophy 
 and art : and the subsidence of human loves and cares 
 upon low Epicurean levels was inevitable, though the Olym- 
 pian deities had never been dethroned. In the absence of 
 any moral religion, no efficacious resistance could be set 
 up, with or without a pantheistic polytheism, against the 
 canker of social degeneracy . r *"s 
 
 In dealing with the present problem, however, we con- 
 fine our attention to the Christian type of religion, which 
 has its hold upon our nature from the moral side. The 
 question is, what practical effect might be expected from 
 a decay of that religion. 
 
 Under that change morality would lose, not its base, 
 but its summit. The ground and principles of duty would 
 remain ; the means for deducing rules of action, estimating 
 the worth of conflicting impulses, and measuring the 
 grades of obligation, would in the main be unaffected ; so 
 that the moral code which would emerge from the labours 
 of a mere philosopher need not materially differ from that 
 recognized by a Christian. This is only an inverse method 
 of saying that the Christian ethics are true to human life 
 and the expression of right reason. I do not think, there- 
 fore, that the form and contents of a moral system would 
 be essentially modified by the decline of religious belief. 
 It may, no doubt, happen that particular problems of con- 
 duct, as in the cases of suicide and of marriage, have be- 
 come the subjects of ecclesiastical legislation, and so have 
 14 
 
A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 passed into preoccupation of religious feeling, and, on the 
 disappearance of that feeling, may be flung back into an 
 indeterminate condition. But to the real solution of such 
 problems it would be difficult to show that religion con- 
 tributes any new elements, so as to turn into duty that 
 which was not duty before. Its ministers and temporary 
 interpreters can give an historical consecration to all sorts 
 of ungrounded opinions, and these will in any case 
 have to look out for an adequate base, whether or not the 
 religious view of life is still upheld. But it is quite pos- 
 sible that a rule of life, once thoughtfully constituted, 
 should be acknowledged in common over the whole range 
 of social duty by persons simply ethical and by those who 
 are also religious. 
 
 But though the decay of religion may leave the insti- 
 tutes of morality intact, it drains off their inward power. 
 The devout faith of men expresses and measures the in- 
 tensity of their moral nature, and it cannot be lost with- 
 out a remission of enthusiasm, and under this low pressure, 
 the successful reentrance of importunate desires and clam- 
 orous passions which had been driven back. To believe 
 in an ever-living and perfect Mind, supreme over the uni- 
 verse, is to invest moral distinctions with immensity and 
 eternity, and lift them from the provincial stage of human 
 society to the imperishable theatre of all being. When 
 planted thus in the very substance of things, they justify 
 and support the ideal estimates of the conscience ; they 
 deepen every guilty shame ; they guarantee every right- 
 eous hope ; and they help the will with a divine casting- 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 211 
 
 vote in every balance of temptation. The sanctity thus 
 given to the claims of duty, and the interest that gathers 
 around the play of character, appear to me more important 
 elements in the power of religion than its direct sanctions 
 of hope and fear. Yet to these also it is hardly possible to deny 
 great weight, not only as extending the range of persona} 
 interests, but as the answer of reality to the retributory 
 verdicts of the moral sense. Cancel these beliefs, and 
 morality will be left reasonable still, but paralyzed ; pos- 
 sible to temperaments comparatively passionless, but with 
 no grasp on vehement and poetic natures ; and gravitating 
 toward the simply prudential wherever it maintains its 
 ground. 
 
 Historical experience appears to confirm this estimate. 
 In no race (notwithstanding conspicuous individual ex- 
 ceptions) have the excesses of sensual passion been so kept 
 in check as among the Jews. There is no more striking 
 feature in their literature during the moral declension of 
 Greek and Roman society (e. g,, in the Sibylline Oracles) 
 than the horror which it expresses of the pervading dis- 
 soluteness of the pagan world. It certainly cannot be said 
 that the problem was rendered easy by the coolness of the 
 Jewish temperament. The phenomena of Christendom 
 presents a more complicated tissue. But a just analysis 
 yields, I believe, the same result, and attests the force of 
 religious conviction as the only successful antagonist, on 
 any large scale, of the animal impulses. True it is that, 
 in the very presence of the Church, and even among its 
 representatives, gross vices have at times prevailed. But 
 
212 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 these have been hollow times, in which/with large classes of 
 persons, the outer shell of religion sheltered no sincere life, 
 and the private Kabits betrayed the inward disintegration 
 which policy or indifference concealed. To test the power 
 of religion, we must limit ourselves to cases where that 
 power is not effete. In the Puritan families of the seven- 
 teenth century, among the present Catholic peasantry of 
 Ireland, throughout the Society of Friends, and in the 
 Wesleyan classes, it can hardly be denied that the control 
 of irregular desires has been attained with an exceptional 
 ease and completeness. 
 
 One source of this distinctive power yet remains to be 
 indicated. A simply conscientious man may surrender 
 himself unreservedly to the sense of moral obligation, and 
 be so possessed by it as to feel it more than reasonable, 
 and own a certain sacredness in its appeal. Duty, honour, 
 self-f orgetfulness in other's good, may obtain the real com- 
 mand of such a one. But the persuasive force with which 
 the right speaks to him is beyond all intellectual measure ; 
 it stirs him in depths he cannot reach ; its heat is in excess 
 of its light ; it is something mystic which must have him, 
 but of which he can render no account. Here, in truth, 
 js religion pressing into life, only with form still indistinct, 
 and its organism of thought not yet differentiated and ar- 
 ticulate. Let it complete its development, and what 
 change will ensue ? Once rendered conscious of the Su- 
 preme Source of his moral perceptions, the responsible 
 agent no longer obeys a pressure out of the dark, but 
 rather a drawing toward higher light ; for an impersonal 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 213 
 
 drift of Nature is substituted a profound personal venera- 
 tion, and enthusiasm is turned from a blind nobleness in- 
 to the clear allegiance of living affection. It is not with- 
 out reason that this change has been treated as an emer- 
 gence into new life. Its vast influence is attested by the 
 whole literature of devotion, and especially by its most 
 popular element, the hymns of every age from the Psalter 
 to the " Christian Year." 
 
 Though in theory the contents of morality are not al- 
 tered by acquiring divine obligation, the efficacy of religion 
 is more immediately felt in some parts of the character 
 than in others. The scene to which it introduces the mind 
 is one which throws it instantly into the attitude of look- 
 ing up toward an Infinite Perfection, whose presence it 
 never quits, and thus supplies the true condition of hu- 
 mility, of aspiration, and of felt equality of moral trust for 
 all men before God. These moods of thought are specifi- 
 cally induced by the contract of higher excellence and a 
 most capacious rule of righteousness ; and they are but 
 poorly simulated by the mere sense of personal insignifi- 
 cance amid the immensity of Nature, and the awe of the 
 unknown, and the conscious partnership of us all in the 
 human liabilities. The moral characteristics of the Chris- 
 tian temper are nothing but the natural posture of a mind 
 standing face to face with the invisible reality of the high- 
 est ideals of its conscience and its love. If that presence 
 departs, they cannot survive. 
 
214 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 MR. FREDERIC HARRISON. 
 
 AND all this, to me, describes the moral characteristics, 
 not of the Christian, but of the religious temper. 
 With what has been so finely said in the preceding discourse 
 we ought, I think, most cordially to join. Only for the 
 words " theology " and " Christian " we must put the 
 wider and more ancient terms " religion " and "human ; " 
 and again, for the intrinsic consciousness and emotional 
 intuitions, whereby these are said to prove themselves, 
 we must substitute the reasonable proof of science, phil- 
 osophy, and positive psychology. 
 
 We have had before us three distinctive views, as to 
 the relations of religion and morality. Each of the three 
 has pressed on us a very powerful thought. The recon- 
 ciliation is obscure, yet I hold on to the hope that it may 
 one day be found ; that we shall have to surrender nei- 
 ther religion nor science, neither demonstration on the 
 one hand, nor dogma, worship, and discipline, on the 
 other ; that we shall end by accepting a purely human 
 base for our morality, and withal come to see our moral- 
 ity transfigured into a true religion. 
 
 It is the purport of the first of the arguments before us 
 to establish : that morality has a basis of its own quite 
 independent of all theology whatever; but that, since 
 morality must be deeply affected by any theology, the 
 morality will be undermined if based on a theology 
 which is not true. We must all agree, I think, to that. 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 215 
 
 The second argument insists that, if the religious 
 foundations and sanctions of morality be given up, human 
 life runs the risk of sinking into depravity, since moral- 
 ity without religion is insufficient for general civilization. 
 For my part; I entirely assent to that. 
 
 The third argument rejoins, that theology cannot sup- 
 ply a base for morals that have lost their own ; but that 
 morals, though they have their own base, and are second 
 to nothing, are not adequate to direct human life until 
 they be transfused into that sense of resignation, ador- 
 ation, and communion with an overruling Providence, 
 which is the true mark of religion. I assent entirely to 
 that. 
 
 We, who follow the teaching of Comte, humbly look 
 forward to an ultimate solution of all such difficulties by 
 the force of one common principle. That we acknow- 
 ledge a religion, of which the creed shall be science ; of 
 which the faith, hope, charity, shall be real, not transcen- 
 dental earthly, not heavenly: a religion in a word, 
 which is entirely human in its evidences, in its purposes, 
 in its sanctions and appeals. Write the word; " religion " 
 where we find the word " theology ; " write the word 
 " human " where we find the word " Christian," or the 
 words " theist," " Mussulman," or " Buddhist," and these 
 discussions grow practical and easily reconciled ; the as- 
 pirations and sanctions of religion burst open to us anew 
 in greater intensity, without calling on us to surrender 
 one claim of reality and humanity ; the realm of faith 
 and adoration becomes again conterminous with life, 
 
216 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 without disturbing nay, while sanctifying the invinci- 
 ble resolve of modern men to live in this world, for this 
 world, ivith their fellow-men. 
 
 And this brings us to the source of all difficulties about 
 the relations of morality and religion. We place our 
 morality we are compelled by the conditions of all our 
 positive knowledge to place it in a strictly human 
 world. But it is the mark of every theology (the name of 
 theology assumes it) to place our religion in a non-human 
 world. And thus our human system of morals may pos- 
 sibly be distorted it cannot be supported by a non- 
 human religion. But, on the other hand, it is dwarfed 
 and atrophied for want of being duly expanded into a 
 truly human religion. Our morality, with its human 
 realities, our theology, with its non-human hypotheses, 
 will not amalgamate. Their methods are in conflict. In 
 their base, in their logic, in their aim, they are heterogen- 
 eous. They do not lie in pari inaterid. Give, us a re- 
 ligion as truly human, as really scientific,^ is our moraL 
 system, ami all is harmony. Our morals based as they, 
 must be on our knowledge of life and of society, are then 
 ordered and inspired by a religion which belongs, just as 
 truly as our moral science does, to the world of science 
 and of man. And then religion will be no longer that 
 quicksand of possibility which two thousand years of 
 debate have still left it to so many of us. It becomes, at 
 last, the issue of our knowledge, the meaning of our 
 science, the soul of our morality, the ideal of our imagin- 
 ation, the fulfilment of our aspirations, the law-giver, in 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 217 
 
 short, of our whole lives. Can it ever be this while we 
 still pursue religion into the bubble-world of the whence 
 and the whither ? 
 
 That morality is dependent on theology ; that moral- 
 ity is independent of religion : each of these views pre- 
 sents insuperable difficulties, and brings us to an alterna- 
 tive from which we recoil. To assert that there is no 
 morality but what is based on theology, is to assert 
 what experience, history, and philosophy, flatly contradict 
 nay, that which revolts the conscience of all manly pur- 
 pose within us. History teaches us that some of the best 
 types of morality, in men and in races, have been found 
 apart from anything that Christians can call theology at 
 all. Morality has been advancing for centuries in modern 
 Europe, while the theology, at least in authority, has been 
 visibly declining. The morality of Confucius and of 
 Sakya Mouni, of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius, of Vauve- 
 nargues, Turgot, Condorcet, Hume, was entirely independ- 
 ent of any theology. The moral system of Aristotle was 
 framed without any view to theology, as completely as 
 that of Comte or of our recent moralists. We have ex- 
 perience of men with the loftiest ideal of life and of strict 
 fidelity to their ideal, who expressly repudiate theology, 
 and of many more whom theology never touched. Lastly, 
 there is a spirit within us which will not believe that to 
 know and to do the right we must wait until the mysteries 
 of existence and the universe are resolved 1 its origin, its 
 government, and its future. To make right conduct a 
 corollary of a theological creed, is not only contrary to 
 
218 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 fact, but shocking to our self-respect. We know that 
 the just spiiit can find the right path, even while the 
 judgment hangs bewildered amid the churches. 
 
 To hold, as would seem to require of us the second ar- 
 gument, that, though theology is necessary as a base for 
 morality, yet almost any theology will suffice polytheist, 
 Mussulman, or deist so long as some imaginary being is 
 postulated, this is, indeed, to reduce theology to a mini- 
 mum ; since in this case, it does not seem to matter in 
 which God you may believe. To say that morality is 
 dependent on one particular theology, is to deny that 
 men are moral outside your peculiar orthodoxy ; to say 
 that morality is dependent merely on some form of the- 
 ology, is to say that it matters little to practical virtue 
 which of a hundred creeds you may profess. And when 
 we shrink from the arrogance of the first and the loose- 
 ness of the second position, we have no alternative but to 
 admit that our morality must have a human, and not a 
 super-human, base. 
 
 It does not follow that morality can suffice for life 
 without religion. Morality, if we mean by that the 
 science of duty, after all can supply us only with a know- 
 ledge of what we should do. Of itself it can neither touch 
 the imagination, nor satisfy the thirst of knowledge, nor 
 order the emotions. It tells us of human duty, but noth- 
 ing of the world without us ; .it prescribes to us our duties, 
 but it does not kindle the feelings which are the impulse 
 to duty. Morality has nothing to tell us of a paramount 
 power outside of us, to struggle with which is confusion 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 219 
 
 and annihilation, to work with which is happiness and 
 strength ; it has nothing to teach us of a communion with 
 a great goodness, nor does it 'touch the chords of vener- 
 ation, sympathy and love, within us. Morality does not 
 profess to organize our knowledge and give symmetry to 
 life. It does not deal with beauty, affection, adoration. 
 If it order conduct, it does not correlate this conduct 
 with the sum of our knowledge, or with the ideals of our 
 imagination, or with the deepest of our emotions. To do 
 all this is the part of religion, not of morality ; and inas- 
 much as the sphere of this function is both wider and 
 higher, so does religion transcend morality. Morality 
 has to do with conduct, religion with life. The first is tlie" 
 code of a part of human nature, the second gives its har- 
 mony to the whole of human nature. And morality can 
 no more suffice for life than a just character would suffice 
 for any one of us without intellect, imagination, or affection, 
 and the power of fusing all these into the unity of a man. 
 The lesson, I think, is twofold. On the one hand, 
 morality is independent of theology, is superior to it, 
 is growing. while theology is declining, is steadfast while 
 theology is shifting, unites men while theology separates 
 them, and does its work when theology disappears. 
 There is something like a civilized morality, a standard 
 of morality, a convergence about morality. There is no 
 civilized theology, no standard of theology, no converg- 
 ence about it. Ori_the other hand, morality will never 
 suffice for life ; and every attempt to base our existence 
 with morality alone, or to crown our existence with mor* 
 
220 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 ality alone, must certainly fail ; for this is to fling away 
 the most powerful motives of human nature. To reach 
 these is the privilege of religion alone. And those who 
 trust that the future can ever be built upon science and 
 civilization, without religion, are attempting to build a 
 pyramid of bricks without straw. The solution, we be- 
 lieve, is a non-theloogical religion. 
 
 There are some who amuse themselves by repeating 
 that this is a contradiction in terms, that religion implies 
 theology. Yet no one refuses the name of religion to the 
 systems of Confucius and Buddha, though neither has a 
 trace of theology. But disputes about a name are idle. 
 If they could debar us from the name of religion, no one 
 could disinherit us of the thing. We mean by religion a 
 scheme which shall explain to us the relations of the 
 faculties of the human soul within, of man to his fellow- 
 men beside him, to the world and its order around him ; 
 next, that which brings him face to face with a Power to 
 which he must bow, with a Providence which he must 
 love and serve, with a being which he must adore that 
 which, in fine, gives man a doctrine to believe, a discipline 
 1 to live by, and an object to worship. This is the ancient/ 
 meaning of religion, and the fact of religion all over the 
 world in every age. What is new in our scheme is merely 
 that we avoid such terms as infinite, absolute, immaterial, 
 and vague negatives altogether ; resolutely confining our- 
 selves to the sphere of what can be shown by experience, 
 of what is relative and not absolute, and wholly an4 
 frankly human. 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 221 
 
 THE DEAtf OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 IT seems to me difficult to discuss this question till it is 
 settled, at least generally, what morality is influenced, 
 and what religious belief is declining. 
 
 The morality generally acknowledged in Europe differs 
 in most important points from that of the Hebrews in the 
 days of Moses, of the Greeks in the days of Socrates, of 
 the Romans under the Empire, of the monks of Egypt, of 
 the Puritans of the seventeenth century. All of these 
 had among them high types of character, higher, it may 
 be, than any types among us ; but who among us would 
 accept their morality as a whole ? Our morality has come 
 to be recognized as it is by a definite progress, of which 
 the steps may be traced. It is plain that one form of 
 religious thought and religious faith might aid this pro- 
 gress of morality by its decline, and another might, by its 
 decline, impede or reverse it. On such a morality as we 
 acknowledge, whencesoever derived, the decline of Budd- 
 hist belief or ancient Roman religious belief might act as 
 a stimulus and a help. The decline of another kind of 
 religious belief might, on the other hand, act most in- 
 juriously. 
 
 It seems to me, therefore, that till the question is 
 presented in a concrete and historical form, nothing can 
 be made of it. I do not understand the two terms of the 
 comparison. Before I can attempt to answer it, I must 
 know, at least approximately, what morality, and what 
 religion. 
 
222 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 If by morality is meant the morality generally recog 
 nized in Europe, on the points of truthfulness, honesty, 
 humanity, purity, self-devotion, kindness, justice, fellow- 
 feeling, and not only recognized, but judged by a con- 
 scious superiority of reason and experience to be the right 
 standard as compared with other moralities, such as those 
 of the Puritans, the monks, the Romans, the Hebrews, 
 then I observe that as a matter of fact and history, which 
 to me seems incontrovertible, this morality has synchron- 
 ized in its growth and progress with an historical religion, 
 viz., Christianity. We are come to the end of eighteen of 
 the most eventful and fruitful centuries of all, at least, 
 that are known to us; and we are landed in what we 
 accept as a purer morality than any which has been 
 known in the world before, and one which admits itself 
 not to be perfect, but contains in itself principles of im 
 provement and self -purification. With this progress from 
 the first sometimes, I quite admit, with gross and mis- 
 chievous mistakes, but always with deliberate aim and 
 intention of good, Christianity has been associated. 
 And in proportion as Christian religious belief has thrown 
 off additions not properly belonging to it, and has aimed 
 at its own purification and at a greater grasp of truth, the 
 standard and ideas of morality have risen with it. The 
 difficulty at this moment is to determine how much of our 
 recognized morality, both directly and much more indir- 
 ectly, has come from Christianity, and could not conceiv- 
 ably have come at all supposing Christianity absent. 
 
 I do not here, in these few lines, assume that in 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 223 
 
 Christianity and its long association with human morality, 
 we have a vera causa of its improved and improving 
 character. But with this immense fact of human experi- 
 ence before me, unique, it seems to me, in its kind, and in 
 its broad outlines undeniable, no abstract reasonings can 
 re-assure me as to the probability that with the failing 
 powers of what has hitherto been, directly or indirectly, 
 the source of much, and the support and sanction of still 
 more, of our morality, our morality will fail too. It seems 
 to me quite as easy to be sceptical about morality as it is 
 about religion. If the religion has been proved to be not 
 true, then of course it is no use talking about the matter. 
 But if not, a declining belief in it may, with our present 
 experience, be thought, at least by those who believe in 
 it, to be attacking the roots of morality, if not in our own 
 generation, at least in those which come after. 
 
 It is matter of history that in what we now generally 
 accept as true morality, there are two factors : 1, On the 
 one hand, human experience, human reasonableness, human 
 good-feeling, human self-restraint ; and (2) on the other, 
 the belief, the laws, the ideas, the power of Christianity. 
 It is difficult to conceive what reason there is to expect 
 that if one factor is taken away the result will continue 
 the same ; that the removal or weakening of such an im- 
 portant one as Christianity would not seriously affect 
 such departments of morals as purity, the relations of the 
 strong to the weak, respect for human life, slavery. 
 
224: A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 THE DUKE OF ARGYLL. 
 
 CONSIDERING that these papers are contributed 
 by men belonging to very different schools of 
 thought, and that they deal with a question very abstract 
 and very ill-defined, it is surely very remarkable that so 
 much agreement should- emerge on certain fundamental 
 points. 
 
 Most remarkable of all in this respect, is the paper 
 emanating from one of those who " follow the teaching of 
 Comte." 
 
 In that paper I find the following propositions : 
 
 I. That morality is independent of theology ; but, 
 
 II. That it is not independent of religion, inasmuch as 
 morality without religion cannot " suffice for life." 
 
 III. That religion means a scheme which (among other 
 things), " brings man face to face with a Power to which 
 he must bow, with a Providence which he must love and 
 serve, with a Being which he must adore that which, in 
 fine, gives man a doctrine to believe, a discipline to live 
 by, and an object to worship." 
 
 IV. That this scheme or conception of religion is "new," 
 and differs from mere theology in the following distinctive 
 points : 
 
 1. That it avoids certain words or phrases, such as "in- 
 finite," " absolute," " immaterial." 
 
 2. That it avoids also all " vague negatives." 
 
 3. That it resolutely confines us to the sphere of what 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 225 
 
 can be shown by experience " of what is relative and 
 not absolute," and " of what is wholly and frankly 
 human." 
 
 I will examine these propositions in their order. 
 
 Proposition I. clearly depends entirely on what is meant 
 by theology, and on the distinction which is drawn in the 
 propositions which follow between theology and religion. 
 Two things, however, may be said of this proposition : 
 First, that, as a matter of historical fact, men's concep- 
 tions of moral obligation have been deeply influenced by 
 their conceptions and beliefs about theology, or about the 
 " whence and whither." Secondly, that as all branches of 
 truth are and must be closely related to each other, it 
 cannot possibly be true that morality is independent of 
 theology, except upon the assumption that there is no 
 truth in any theology. But this is an assumption which 
 cannot be taken for granted, being very different indeed 
 from the assumption (which may be reasonable), that no 
 existing theology is unmixed with error. The absolute 
 independence of morality as regards theology assumes 
 much more than this ; it assumes that there is no theology 
 containing even any important element of truth. 
 
 Proposition II. is, I think, perfectly true. 
 
 Proposition III. contains a definition of religion which 
 might probably be accepted by any theological professor 
 in any of our schools of divinity as good and true, if not 
 in all respects adequate or complete. 
 
 Proposition IV. defines the elements in all theologies 
 which constitute their fundamental errors, and which dis- 
 15 
 
2'2(> A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 tinguish them from religion as defined in Proposition III. 
 In short, Proposition III. defines affirmatively what re- 
 ligion is ; and Proposition IV. defines negatively what it 
 is not. It adds also a few more affirmative touches to 
 complete the picture of what it is. 
 
 Looking now at the erroneous theological elements 
 which are to be thrown away, we find three words fixed 
 upon as specimens of what is vicious. One of them is 
 " the Absolute." Most heartily do I wish it were abol- 
 ished. More nonsense has been talked and written under 
 cover of it than under cover of any other of the volumin- 
 ous vocabulary of unintelligible metaphysics. It is 
 admitted that the Absolute is " unthinkable," and things 
 which are unthinkable had better be considered as also 
 unspeakable, or at least be left unspoken. 
 
 Next " immaterial " is another word to be cast away. 
 The worst of this demand is, that the words " material " 
 and " immaterial " express a distinction of which we can- 
 not get rid in thought. I do know that the pen with 
 which I now write is made of that which to me is known 
 as matter ; but I do not know that the ideas which are 
 expressed in this writing are made of any like substance, 
 nor even of any substance like the brain. On the con- 
 trary, it seems to me that these ideas cannot be so made, 
 and that there is an absolute difference between thought 
 and the external substances which it thinks about. This 
 may be my ignorance, but until that ignorance is removed 
 I must accept those distinctions which are founded on 
 the experience and observation of my own nature, and 
 
A DECLINE IN KELIGIOUS BELIEF. 227 
 
 I must retain words which are necessary to express 
 them. 
 
 Then, as regards the word " infinite," in like manner, I 
 cannot dispense with it, for the simple reason that the 
 idea of infinity is one of which I cannot get rid, and 
 which all science teaches me is an idea inseparable from 
 our highest conception of the realities of Nature. Infinite 
 time and infinite space, and the infinite duration of mat- 
 ter and of force, are conceptions which are part of my 
 intellectual being, and I cannot "think them away." 
 Metaphysicians may tell me that they are " forms of 
 thought." But if so, they are at least all the more 
 " frankly human," and I accept them as such. 
 
 Next we are to avoid "vague negatives altogether." 
 Well, but surely a definition of religion as distinguished 
 from theology, which consists in " avoiding " certain 
 terms such as we have now examined, is a definition con- 
 sisting of " vague negatives," and of nothing else. 
 
 But then we come next to an affirmative definition : 
 " confining ourselves resolutely to the sphere of what can 
 be shown by experience." To this I assent, provided 
 experience be not confined to the sphere of sense, and 
 provided everything which any man has ever felt, or 
 known, or conceived, be accepted as in its own place 
 and rank coming within the sphere which is thus de- 
 scribed. 
 
 Again, it is demanded of us that we confine ourselves 
 resolutely within " what is relative and not absolute." To 
 this I assent. All knowledge is relative both to the 
 
228 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 mind which knows, and relative also to all other things 
 which remain to be known. Absolute goodness, and 
 absolute power, and absolute knowledge, are all conceiva- 
 ble, but they are all relative ; and to talk of any object 
 of knowledge, or of any subject of knowledge, as non-rela- 
 tive, is, or seems to me to be, simply nonsense. 
 
 Lastly, it is demanded of us to confine ourselves to 
 what is " wholly and frankly human." If this means 
 that we are not to think of any power or any being who 
 is not related to our human faculties in a most definite 
 and intelligible sense, I accept the limitation. But if it 
 means that we are not to think of any such power or 
 being except under all the imperfections, weaknesses, and 
 vices of humanity, then the limitation is one which I 
 cannot accept either as conceivable in itself, or as consis- 
 tent with what I can see or understand of Nature. 
 
 But ought we not to be agreed in this ? If there is 
 a Power to which man " must bow," " a Being which he 
 must adore," and a " Providence which he must love and 
 serve," it is clearly impossible that this Being, Power, or 
 Providence can be " wholly human," in the sense of being 
 no greater, no wiser, no better, than man himself. 
 
 The whole of this language is the language of theology 
 and of nothing else language, indeed, which may be 
 held consistently with a vast variety of theological 
 creeds, but which is inseparable from those fundamental 
 conceptions which all such creeds involve, which is bor- 
 rowed from them, and without which it has to me no 
 intelligible sense. 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 229 
 
 With these explanations I accept the tenth paragraph 
 of Paper No. IV. , and that part of the last paragraph 
 which has been already quoted, as expressing "with ad- 
 mirable force and truth at least one aspect of the con- 
 nection between morals and religion. 
 
 PROF. CLIFFORD. 
 
 IN the third of the preceding discourses there is so 
 much which I can fully and fervently accept, that I 
 should find it far more grateful to rest in that feeling of 
 admiration and sympathy, then to attend to points of 
 difference which seem to me to be of altogether secondary 
 import. But for the truth's sake this must first be done, 
 because it will then be more easy to point out some of the 
 bearings of the position held in that discourse upon the 
 question which is under discussion. 
 
 That the sense of duty in a man is the prompting of a 
 self other than his own, is the very essence of it. Not 
 only would morals not be self-sufficing if there were no 
 such prompting of a wider self, but they could not exist ; 
 one might as well suppose a fire without heat. Not only 
 is a sense of duty inherent in the constitution of our 
 nature, but the prompting of a wider self than that of 
 the individual is inherent in a sense of duty. It is no 
 more possible to have the right without unselfishness, than 
 to have man without a feeling for the right. 
 
230 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 We may explain or account for these facts in various 
 ways, but we shall not thereby alter the facts. No 
 theories about heat and light will ever make a cold fire. 
 And no doubt or disproof of any existing theory can any 
 more extinguish that self other than myself, which speaks 
 to me in the voice of conscience, than doubt or disproof 
 of the wave-theory of light can put out the noonday sun. 
 
 One such theory is defended in the discourse here dealt 
 with, and, if I may venture to say so, is not quite 
 .sufficiently distinguished from the facts which it is meant 
 to explain. The theory is this : that the voice of con- 
 science in my mind is the voice of a conscious being 
 external to me and to all men, who has made us and all 
 the world. When this theory is admitted, the observed 
 discrepancy between our moral sense and the government 
 of the world, as a whole, makes it necessary to suppose 
 another world and another life in it for men, whereby 
 this discord shall be resolved in a final harmony. 
 
 I fully admit that the theistic hypothesis, so grounded, 
 and considered apart from objections otherwise arising, is 
 a reasonable hypothesis and an explanation of the facts. 
 The idea of an external conscious being is unavoidably 
 suggested, as it seems to me, by the categorical imperative 
 of the moral sense ; and, moreover, in a way quite inde- 
 pendent, by the aspect of Nature, which seems to answer 
 to our questionings with an intelligence akin to our own- 
 It is more reasonable to assume one consciousness than 
 two, if by that one assumption we can explain two dis- 
 tinct facts ; just as if we had been led to assume an ether 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 231 
 
 to explain light and an ether to explain electricity, we 
 might have run before experiment and guessed that these 
 two ethers were but one. But since there is a discordance 
 between Nature and conscience, the theory of their com- 
 mon origin in a mind external to humanity has not met 
 with such acceptance as that of the divine origin of each. 
 A large number of theists have rejected it, and taken 
 refuge in Manichseism and the doctrine of the Demiurgus 
 in various forms; while others have endeavoured, as 
 aforesaid, to redress the balance of the old world by call- 
 ing into existence a new one. 
 
 It is, however, a very striking and significant fact, that 
 the very great majority of mankind who have thought 
 about these questions at all, while acknowledging the 
 existence of divine beings and their influence in the 
 government of the world, have sought for the spring and 
 sanction of duty in something above and beyond the 
 gods. The religions of Brahmanism and of Buddhism, 
 and the moral system of Confucius, have together ruled 
 over more than two-thirds of the human race during the 
 historic period : and in all of these the moral sense is re- 
 garded as arising indeed out of a universal principle, but 
 not as personified in any conscious being. This vast body 
 of dissent might well, it should seem, make us ask if 
 there is anything unsatisfying in the theory which repre- 
 sents the voice of conscience as the voice of a god. 
 
 Although, as I have said, the idea of an external con- 
 scious being is unavoidably suggested by the moral sense, 
 yet, if this idea should be found untrue, it does not follow 
 
232 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 that Nature has been fooling us. The idea is not in the 
 facts, but in our inference from the facts. A mirror 
 unavoidably suggests the idea of a room behind it ; but it 
 is not our eyes that deceive us, it is only the inference 
 we draw from their testimony. Further consideration 
 may lead to a different inference of far greater practical 
 value. 
 
 Now, whether or no it be reasonable and satisfying to 
 the conscience, it cannot be doubted that theistic belief is 
 a comfort and a solace to those who hold it, and that the 
 loss of it is a very painful loss. It cannot be doubted, at 
 least by many of us in this generation, who either profess 
 it now, or received it in our childhood and have parted 
 from it since with such searching trouble as only cradle- 
 faiths can cause. We have seen the spring sun shine out 
 of an empty heaven, to light up a soulless earth ; we have 
 felt with utter loneliness that the Great Companion is 
 dead. Our children, it may be hoped, will know that 
 sorrow only by the reflex light of a wondering compas- 
 sion. But to say that theistic belief is a comfort and a 
 solace, and to say that it is the crown or coping of morality, 
 these are different things. 
 
 For in what way shall belief in God strengthen my sense 
 of duty ? He is a great one working for the right. But I 
 already know so many, and I know these so well. His 
 righteousness is unfathomable ; it transcends all ideals. 
 But I have not yet fathomed the goodness of living men 
 whom I know ; still less of those who have lived, and 
 whom I know. And the goodness of all these is a striving 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 233 
 
 for something better ; now it is not the goal, but the 
 striving for it, that matters to me. The essence of their 
 goodness is the losing of the individual self in another 
 and a wider self ; but God cannot do this ; his goodness 
 must be something different. He is infinitely great and 
 powerful, and he lives forever. I do not understand this 
 mensuration of goodness by foot-pounds, and seconds, and 
 cubic miles. A little field-mouse, which busies itself in 
 the hedge, and does not mind my company, is more to 
 me than the longest ichthyosaurus that ever lived, even if 
 he lived a thousand years. When we look at a starry 
 sky, the spectacle whose awfulness Kant compared with 
 that of the moral sense, does it help out our poetic emo- 
 tion to reflect that these specks are really very very big, 
 and very very hot, and very very far away ? Their heat 
 and their bigness oppress us ; we should like them to be 
 taken still farther away, the great blazing lumps. But 
 when we think of the unseen planets that surround 
 them, of the wonders of life, of reason, of love, that may 
 dwell therein, then indeed there is something sublime in 
 the sight. Fitness and kinship : these are the truly great 
 things for us, not force and massiveness and length of 
 days. 
 
 Length of days, said the old rabbi, is measured not by 
 their number, but by the work that is done in them. We 
 are all to be swept away in the final ruin of the earth. 
 The thought of that ending is a sad thought ; there is no 
 use in trying to deny this. But it has nothing to do with 
 right and wrong ; it belongs to another subject. Like 
 
234 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 All-father Odin, we must ride out gayly to do battle with 
 the wolf of doom, even if there be no Balder to come back 
 and continue our work. At any rate the right will have 
 been done ; and the past is safer than all store-houses. 
 
 The conclusion of the matter is, that belief in God and 
 in a future life is a source of refined and elevated pleasure 
 to those who can hold it. But the foregoing of a refined 
 and elevated pleasure, because it appears that we have no 
 right to indulge in it, is not in itself, and cannot produce a s 
 its consequence, a decline of morality. 
 
 There is Another theory of the facts of the moral sense 
 set forth in the succeeding discourse, and this seems to me 
 to be the true one. The voice of conscience is the voice 
 of our father-man who is within us ; the accumulated in- 
 stinct of the- race is poured into each one of us, and over- 
 flows us, as if the ocean were poured into a cup. 1 Our 
 evidence for this explanation is that the cause assigned is 
 a vera causa ; it undoubtedly exists ; there is no perhaps 
 about that. And those who have tried tell us that it is 
 sufficient ; the explanation, like the fact, " covers the whole 
 voluntary field." The lightest and the gravest action may 
 be consciously done in and for man. And the sym- 
 pathetic aspect of Nature is explained to us in the same 
 way. In so far as our conception of Nature is akin to 
 our minds that conceive it, man made it ; and man made 
 us, with the necessity to conceive it in this way. 2 
 
 1 Schopenhauer. There is a most remarkable article on the "Natural 
 History of Morals " in the North British Review, December, 1867. 
 
 2 For an admirable exposition of the doctrine of the social origin of our 
 conceptions, see Prof. Croom Robertson's paper, "How we come by our 
 Knowledge," in the first number of The Nineteenth Century. 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 235 
 
 I do not, however, suppose that morality would practi- 
 cally gain much from the wide acceptance of true views 
 about its nature, except in a way which I shall presently 
 suggest. I neither admit the moral influence of theism 
 in the past, nor look forward to the moral influence of 
 humanism in the future. Virtue is a habit, not a senti- 
 ment or an -ism. The doctrine of total depravity seems 
 to have been succeeded by a doctrine of partial depravity, 
 according to which there is hope for human affairs, but 
 still men cannot go straight unless some tremendous, all- 
 embracing theory has a finger in the pie. Theories are 
 most important and excellent things when they help us 
 to see the matter as it really is, and so to judge what is 
 the right thing to do in regard to it. They are the guides 
 of action, but not the springs of it. Now the springs of 
 virtuous action is the social instinct, which is set to work 
 by the practice of comradeship. The union of men in a 
 common effort for a common object band-work, if I may 
 venture to translate cooperation into English this is, and 
 always has been, the true school of character. Except in 
 times of severe struggle for national existence, the practice 
 of virtue by masses of men has always been coincident 
 with municipal freedom, and with the vigour of such 
 unions as are not large enough to take from each man his 
 conscious share in the work and in the direction of it. 
 
 What really affects morality is not religious belief, but 
 a practice which, in some times and places, is thought to 
 be religious namely, the practice of submitting human 
 life to clerical control. The apparent destructive tendency 
 
230 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 of modern times, which arouses fear and foreboding of 
 evil in the minds of many of the best of men, seems to me 
 to be not mainly an intellectual movement. It has its in- 
 tellectual side, but that side is the least important, and 
 touches comparatively few souls. The true core of it is 
 a firm resolve of men to know the right at first hand, 
 which has grown out of the strong impulse given to the 
 moral sense by political freedom. Such a resolve is a 
 necessary condition to the existence of a pure and noble 
 theism like that of the third discourse, which learns what 
 God is like by thinking of man's love for man. Although 
 that doctrine has been prefigured and led up to for many 
 ages by the best teaching of Englishmen, and what is 
 far more important by the best practice of Englishmen, 
 yet it cannot be accepted on a large scale without what 
 will seem to many a decline of religious belief. For as- 
 suredly if men learn the nature of God from the moral 
 sense of man, they cannot go on believing the doctrines 
 of popular theology. Such change of belief is of small 
 account in itself, for any consequences it can bring about ; 
 but it is of vast importance a,s a symptom of the increas- 
 ing power and clearness of the sense of duty. 
 
 On the other hand, there is one " decline of religious 
 belief," inseparable from a revolution in human conduct, 
 which would indeed be a frightful disaster to mankind. 
 A revival of any form of sacerdotal Christianity would 
 be a matter of practice and not a matter of theory. The 
 system which sapped the foundation of patriotism in the 
 old world ; which well nigh eradicted the sense of intel- 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 237 
 
 lectual honesty, and seriously weakened the habit of truth - 
 speaking; which lowered men's reverence for the marriage- 
 bond by placing its sanctions in a realm outside of Nature 
 instead of in the common life of men, and by the institu- 
 tions of monasticism and a celibate clergy ; which stunted 
 the moral sense of the nations by putting a priest between 
 every man and his conscience this system, if it should 
 ever return to power, must be expected to produce worse 
 evils than those which it has - worked in the past. The 
 house which it has once made desolate has been partially 
 swept and garnished by the free play gained for the na- 
 tural goodness of men. It would come back accompanied 
 by social diseases perhaps worse than itself, and the wreck 
 of civilized Europe would be darker than the darkest of 
 past ages. 
 
 DR. WARD. 
 
 I AGREE with the Dean of St. Paul's, that the wording 
 of our question is unfortunately ambiguous ; and I 
 think that this fact has made the discussion in several 
 respects less pointed and less otherwise interesting than 
 it might have been. 
 
 For my present purpose, I understand the term " reli- 
 gious belief " as including essentially belief in a personal 
 God and in personal immortality. Less than this is not 
 worthy the name of religious belief ; and, on the other 
 hand, I will not refer to any other religious truths than 
 
238 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 these. I am to inquire, therefore, what would be the in- 
 fluence on morality of a decline in these two beliefs. 
 
 But next, what is meant by " morality ? " I will explain, 
 as clearly as brevity may permit, what I should myself 
 understand by the term; though I am, of course, well 
 a \vare that this is by no means the sense in which Sir J. 
 Fitzjames Stephen, or Mr. Harrison, or Prof. Clifford, un- 
 derstands it. 
 
 I consider that there is a certain authoritative rule of 
 life, 1 necessarily not contingently existing, which may be 
 regarded under a twofold aspect. It declares that certain 
 acts (exterior or interior) are intrinsically and necessarily 
 evil ; it declares, again, that some certain act (exterior or 
 interior), even where not actually evil, is by intrinsic ne- 
 cessity, under the circumstances of some given moment, 
 less morally excellent than some certain other act. Any 
 given man, therefore, more effectively practises "morality," 
 in proportion as he more energetically, predominantly, and 
 successfully aims at adjusting his whole conduct, interior 
 and exterior, by this authoritative rule. Accordingly, when 
 I am asked what is the bearing of some particular influ- 
 ence on morality, I understand myself to be asked how 
 far such influence affects for good or evil the prevalence 
 of that practical habit which I have just described ; how 
 far such influence disposes men (or the contrary) to adjust 
 their conduct by this authoritative rule. 
 
 1 To prevent misapprehension I may explain that, in my view, those 
 various necessary truths which collectively constitute this rule are, like all 
 other necessary truths, founded on the essence of God ; they are what they 
 are because he is what he is. 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 239 
 
 These explanations having been premised, my answer 
 to the proposed question is this : The absence of religious 
 belief of a belief in a personal God and personal immor- 
 tality does not simply injure morality, but, if the dis- 
 believers carry their view out consistently, utterly destroys 
 it. I affirm which, of course, requires proof, though I 
 have no space here to give it that no one except a theist 
 can, in consistency, recognize the necessarily existing au- 
 thoritative rule of which I have spoken. But for prac- 
 tical purposes there is no need of this affirmation, because 
 in what follows I shall refer to no other opponents of re- 
 ligion, except that antitheistic body consisting of agno- 
 stics, positivists, and the like which in England just 
 now heads the speculative irreligious movement. . Now, 
 it is manifest on the very surface of philosophical litera- 
 ture that, SM a matter of fact, these men deny in theory 
 the existence of any such necessary authoritative rule as 
 that on which I have dwelt. A large proportion of theists 
 accept it, and call it " the Natural Law ; " l an agnostic or 
 positivist denies its existence. It is very clear that he 
 who denies that there is such a thing as a necessarily ex- 
 isting authoritative rule of life cannot consistently aim 
 at adjusting any, even the smallest, part of his conduct by 
 the intimations of that rule ; or, in other words, cannot 
 
 1 The Natural Law more strictly includes only God's prohibition of acts 
 intrinsically evil, and his preception of acts which cannot be omitted without 
 doing what is intrinsically evil. But we may with obvious propriety so ex- 
 tend the term as to include under it God's counselling of those acts which, 
 as clothed in their ]full circumstances, are by intrinsic necessity the more 
 morally excellent. 
 
240 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 consistently do so much as one act which (on the theory 
 which 1 follow) can be called morally good. 
 
 Here, however, a most important explanation must be 
 made. It continually happens that some given philoso- 
 pher holds some given doctrine speculatively and theore- 
 tically, while he holds the precisely contradictory doctrine 
 implicitly and unconsciously ; inasmuch that it is the lat- 
 ter, and not the- former, which he applies to his estimate 
 of events as they successively arise. Now | the existence 
 of the Natural Law so I would most confidently main- 
 tain is a truth so firmly rooted by God himself in the 
 conviction of every reasonable creature, that practically to 
 leaven the human mind with belief of its contradictory is, 
 even under the circumstances most favourable to that 
 purpose, a slow and up-hill process. In the early stages, 
 therefore, of antitheistic persuasion, there is. $ vast gulf 
 between the antitheist's speculative theory and his prac- 
 tical realization of that theory. Mr. Mallock has set forth 
 this fact, I think, with admirable force, in an article con- 
 tributed by him to the Contemporary of last January. 
 When' antitheists say such is his argument that the 
 pursuit of truth is a " sacred," " heroic," " noble " exercise 
 when they call one way of living mean, and base, and 
 hateful, and another way of living great, and blessed, and 
 admirable they are guilty of most flagrant inconsistency. 
 They therein use language and conceive thoughts which 
 are utterly at variance with their own speculative theory. 
 If it be admitted (1) that the idea expressed by the term 
 " moral goodness " is a simple idea, an idea incapable of 
 
A DECLINE IN KELIGIOUS BELIEF. 241 
 
 analysis ; and (2) that to this idea there corresponds a 
 necessary objective reality in rerum natura if these 
 two propositions be admitted, the existence of the Natural 
 Law is a truth which irresistibly results from the admis- 
 sion. On the other hand, if these two propositions be not 
 postulated, then to talk of one human act being " higher" 
 or " nobler " than another is as simply unmeaning as to 
 talk of a bed being nobler than a chair, or a plough than 
 a harrow. Whether it be the bed, or the plough, or the 
 human act, it may be more useful than the other article 
 with which it is brought into comparison ; but to speak 
 in either case of " nobleness " is as the sound of a tinkling 
 cymbal. Or rather, which is my present point, the fact 
 of antitheists using such language shows that their prac- 
 tical belief is so far essentially opposed and (as I, of course, 
 should say) immeasurably superior to their speculative 
 theory. To my mind there is hardly any truth which 
 needs more to be insisted on than this, in the present 
 crisis of philosophical thought : when antitheism success- 
 fully conceals its hideous deformity from its own votaries, 
 by dressing itself up in the very garments of that rival 
 creed which it derides as imbecile and obsolete. I heartily 
 wish I had space for setting forth in full and clear light 
 the argument on which I would here insist. I may refer, 
 however, to Mr. Mallock's article, for an excellent exposi- 
 tion of it from his own point of view j and, in particular, 
 I cannot express too strongly my concurrence with the 
 following remarks : 
 
 " All the moral feelings " (he says) " at present anoat in the world 
 
 16 
 
242 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 depend, as I have already shown, on the primary doctrines of re- 
 ligion ; but that the former would outlive the latter is nothing more 
 than we should naturally expect ; just as water may go on boiling 
 after it is taken oft' the fire, as flowers keep their scent and colour 
 after we have plucked them, or as a tree whose roots have been cut 
 may yet put out green leaves for one spring more. But a time 
 must come when all this will be over, and when the true effects of 
 what has been done will begin to show themselves. Nor can there 
 be any reason brought forward to show why, if the creed of unbelief 
 was once fully assented to by the world, all morality a thing al- 
 ways attended by some pain and struggle would not gradually 
 wither away, and give place to a more or less successful seeking after 
 pleasure, no matter of what kind." 
 
 I would also recall to Sir J. Fitzjames Stephen's remem- 
 brance an admirable statement of his, which occurred in 
 the work on ' Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." " We 
 cannot judge of the effects of atheism," he says, " from 
 the conduct of persons who have been educated as be- 
 lievers in God, and in the midst of a nation which believes 
 in God. If we should ever see a generation of men, 
 especially a generation . of Englishmen, to whom the. 
 word ' God ' has no meaning at all, we should get a light 
 on the subject which might be lurid enough." 1 
 
 So far I have used the word " morality " in that sense 
 which I account the true one. But a different acceptation 
 of the word is very common ; and it will be better per- 
 haps briefly to consider our proposed question in the sense 
 which that acceptation would give it. Morality, then, is 
 often spoken of as consisting in a man's sacrifice of his 
 
 1 Second edition, p. 326. 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 243 
 
 personal desires for the public good ; so that each man 
 more faithfully practises " morality " in proportion as he 
 more effectively postpones private interests to public ones. 
 I have always been extremely surprised that any theist 
 can use this^ terminology ; though I am well aware, of 
 course, that many do so. To mention no other of its de- 
 fects, it excludes [from the sphere of morality precisely 
 what a theist must consider the most noble and elevating 
 branch thereof, viz., men's duties to their Creator. Con- 
 stant rememberance of God's presence, prayer to him for 
 moral strength, purging the heart from any such wordly 
 attachment as may interfere with his sovereignty over 
 the affections these, and a hundred others, which are 
 man's highest moral actions, are excluded by this strange 
 terminology from being moral actions at all. Still, in one 
 respect there is great agreement between the two " moral- 
 ities " in question, for under either of them morality very 
 largely consists in self-denial and self-sacrifice. 
 
 Now, if it be asked in what way morality, as so under- 
 stood, would be affected by the absence of religious belief, 
 I think the true reply is one which has so often been 
 drawn out that I need do no more than indicate it. Firstly, 
 apart from theistic motives there is no sufficient moral 
 leverage ; men would not have the moral strength re- 
 quired for sustained self -denial and self-sacrifice. Secondly 
 and more importantly, if theistic sanctions were away, no 
 theory could be drawn out explaining why it should be 
 reasonable that a man sacrifice his personal interest to 
 that of his fellows. 
 
-44 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 On this matter I am glad that I have the opportunity 
 of ilrawing attention to a very fine passage of Mr. 
 (Joldwin Smith's, published in the Macmillan of last 
 January r 1 
 
 "Materialism has, in fact, already begun to show its effects on 
 human conduct and on society. They may perhaps be more visible 
 in communities where social conduct depends greatly on individual 
 conviction and motive than in communities which are more ruled by 
 tradition and bound together by strong class organizations though 
 the decay of morality will perhaps be more complete and disastrous 
 in the latter than in the former. God and future retribution being 
 out of the question, it is difficult to see what can restrain the sel- 
 fishness of an ordinary man, and induce him, in the absence of ac- 
 tual coercion, to sacrifice his personal desires to the public good. 
 The service of humanity is the sentiment of a refined mind conver- 
 sant with history ; within no calculable time is it likely to overrule 
 the passions and direct the conduct of the mass. And after all, 
 without God or spirit, what'is ' humanity ? ' One school of science 
 reckons a hundred and fifty different species of man. What is the 
 bond of unity between all these species, and wherein consists the 
 obligation to mutual love and help ? A zealous servant of science 
 told Agassiz that the age of real civilization would have begun when 
 you could go out and shoot a man for scientific purposes ; and in the 
 controversy respecting the Jamaica massacre we had proof enough 
 that the ascendancy of science and a strong sense of human brother- 
 hood might be very different things. l Apparent dirse facies. ' We 
 begin to perceive, looming through the mist, the lineaments of an 
 epoch of selfishness compressed by a government of force." 
 
 In fact, even in the present early stage of English anti- 
 theistic philosophy, if its adherents are directly asked what 
 
 1877. 
 
A DECLINE IN KELIGIOUS BELIEF. 245 
 
 is man's reasonable rule of life, I know of no other answer 
 they will theoretically give except one. They will say 
 that any given person's one reasonable pursuit on earth is 
 to aim at his own earthly happiness to obtain for him- 
 self out of life the greatest amount he can of gratification 
 No doubt they will make confident statements on the in- 
 dissoluble connections between happiness and " virtue." 
 Still, according to their speculative theory, the only rea- 
 sonable ground for practising " virtue " is its conducive- 
 ness to the agent's happiness. 
 
 Now, let us suppose a generation to grow up, profoundly 
 imbued with this principle, carrying it consistently into 
 detail, emancipated from the unconscious influence of 
 (what I must be allowed to call) a more respectable creed. 
 What would be the result ? Evidently a man so trained, 
 in calculating for himself the balance of pleasure and pain, 
 will give no credit on the former side to such gratifica- 
 tions as might arise from consciousness of conquest over 
 his lower nature, or from the pursuit of lofty and gener- 
 ous aims. These, I say, will have no place in his list of 
 pleasures : because he will have duly learned his lesson, 
 that there is no " lower " or " higher " nature ; that no one 
 aim can be "loftier" than any other; that there is nothing 
 more admirable in generosity than in selfishness. On the 
 other hand, neither will he include, under his catalogue 
 of pains, any feeling of remorse for evil committed, or any 
 dread of possible punishment in some future life ; for he 
 will look with simple contempt on those doctrines, which 
 are required as the foundation for such pains. His com- 
 
246 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 mon-sense course will be to make this world as* comfort- 
 able a place as he can, by bringing every possible pru- 
 dential calculation to bear on his purpose. Before all 
 things, he will keep his digestion in good order. He will 
 keep at arms'-length (indeed at many arms' -lengths) every 
 disquieting consideration, such, e. g., as might arise from 
 a remembrance of other men's misery, or from a thought 
 of that repulsive spectre which the superstitious call moral 
 obligation. 
 
 It is plain that duly to pursue the subject thus opened 
 would carry me indefinitely beyond my limits j 1 and I will 
 only, therefore, make one concluding observation. If the 
 term " virtue " be retained by those of whom I am speak- 
 ing, it will be used, I suppose to express any habitual 
 practice which solidly conduces to the agent's balance of 
 earthly enjoyment. I am confident that should this be 
 the recognized terminology, and should the new school be 
 permitted to arrive at its legitimate development there 
 is one habit which would be very prominent among its 
 catalogue of " virtues." The habit to which I refer is in- 
 dulgence in licentiousness licentiousness practised, no 
 doubt, prudently, discreetly, calculatingly, but at the same 
 time habitually, perse veringly, and with keen zest. 
 
 1 I have treated at somewhat greater length in an article which I con- 
 tributed to the Dublin .Review of January, 1877, pp. 15-21. 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 247 
 
 PROF. HUXLEY. 
 
 WE are led to do this thing, and to avoid that, partly 
 by instinct and partly by conscious motives ; and 
 our conduct is said to be moral or the reverse, partly on 
 the ground of its effects upon other beings, partly upon 
 that of its operation upon ourselves. 
 
 Social morality relates to that course of action which 
 tends to increase the happiness or diminish the misery of 
 other beings ; personal morality relates to that which has 
 the like effect upon ourselves. 
 
 If this be so, the foundation of morality must ne"eds lie 
 in the constitution of Nature, and must depend on the 
 mental construction of ourselves and of other sentient 
 beings. 
 
 The constitution of man remaining what it is, his ca- 
 pacity for the pleasures and pains afforded by sense, by 
 sympathy, or by the contemplation of moral beauty and 
 ugliness, is obviously in no way affected by the abbrevia- 
 tion or the prolongation of his conscious life ; nor by the 
 mere existence or non-existence of anything not included 
 in Nature ; nor, so long as he believes that actions have 
 consequences, does it matter to him what connection there 
 may be between these actions and other phenomena of 
 Nature. 
 
 The assertion that morality is any way dependent up- 
 on the views respecting certain philosophical problems a 
 person may chance to hold, produces the same effect upon 
 
248 A MODEEN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 my mind as if one should say that a man's vision depends 
 on his theory of light; or that he has no business to be 
 sure that ginger is hot in the mouth unless he has formed 
 definite views, in the first place, as to the nature of ginger, 
 and, secondly, as to whether he has or has not a sensitive 
 soul 
 
 Social morality belongs to the realm of inductive and 
 deductive investigation. Given a society of human beings 
 under certain circumstances : and the question whether a 
 particular action on the part of one of the members of 
 that society will tend to the increase of the general hap- 
 piness or not is a question of natural knowledge, and, as 
 such, is a perfectly legitimate subject of scientific inquiry. 
 And the morality or immorality of the action will depend 
 upon the answer which the question receives. 
 
 If it can be shown, by observation or experiment, that 
 theft, murder, and adultery, do not tend to diminish the 
 happiness of society, then, in the absence of any but na- 
 ural knowledge, they are not social immoralities. 
 
 It does not follow, however, that they might not be 
 personal immoralities. Without committing myself to 
 any theory of the origin of the moral sense, or even as to 
 the existence of any such special sense, I may suggest 
 that it is quite conceivable that discords and harmonies 
 may affect the congeries of feelings to which we give the 
 name, as they do others. 
 
 I see no reason for doubting that the beauty of holi- 
 ness and the ugliness of sin are, to a great many minds, 
 no mere metaphors, but feelings as real and as intense as 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 249 
 
 those with which the beauty or ugliness of form or colour 
 fills the artist-mind, and that they are as independent of 
 intellectual beliefs, and even of education, as are all the 
 true aesthetic powers and impulses. 
 
 On the other hand, I do not doubt the existence of per- 
 sons, like the hero of the " Fatal Boots," devoid of any 
 sense of moral beauty or ugliness, and for them personal 
 morality has no existence. They may offend, but they 
 cannot sin ; they may be sorry for having stolen or mur- 
 dered, because society punishes them for their social im- 
 moralities, but they are incapable of repentance. 
 
 Before going further, I think it may be needful to dis- 
 criminate between religion and theology. 
 
 I object to the very general use of the terms religion 
 and theology, as if they were synonymous, or indeed had 
 anything whatever to do with one another. Religion is 
 the affair of the affections, theology of the intellect. The 
 religious man loves an ideal perfection, which may be na- 
 tural or non-natural ; the theologian expounds the attri- 
 butes of what he terms " supernatural." Being as so many 
 scientific truths, the consequences of which work into the 
 general scheme of Nature, and are there discernible by 
 ordinary methods of investigation. What the theologian 
 affirms may be put in this way : that beyond the natura 
 naturata, mirrored or made by the natural operations of 
 the human mind, there is a natura naturana, sufficient 
 knowledge of which is attainable only through the chan- 
 nel of revelation. 
 
 Now, I think it cannot be doubted that both religion 
 
250 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 and theology, ds. thus defined, have exercised, and must 
 exercise, a profound influence on morality. For it may 
 be that the object of a man's religion the ideal which 
 he worships is an ideal of sensual enjoyment, or of dom- 
 ination, or of the development of all his faculties toward 
 perfection, or of self-annihilation, or of benevolence ; and 
 his personal morality will, in part, contribute largely to the 
 formation of his ideal, and will, in part, be swayed and 
 bent until it harmonizes with that ideal. 
 
 Moreover, it is clear that a man's theology may give 
 him such views of the action of the natura naturans 
 as will profoundly modify or even reverse his social mor- 
 ality. 
 
 He may see ground for believing that conduct of evil 
 effect upon society, which is part of the natura naturata, 
 is in harmony with the laws of action of the natura na- 
 turans ; and that, as the rewards and punishments of 
 men are but slight and temporary, while those inflicted 
 by the greater power behind the natura naturata, are 
 grievous and endless, common prudence may dictate 
 obedience to the stronger. And history proves that there 
 is no social crime that man can commit which has not 
 been dictated by theology and committed on theological 
 grounds. On the other hand, the belief that the divine 
 commands are identical with the laws of social morality 
 has lent infinite strength to the latter in all ages. 
 
 In like manner it seems to me impossible to over-estimate 
 the influence of speculative beliefs as to the nature of the 
 Deity, apart from all idea of rewards and punishments, 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 251 
 
 upon personal morality. The lover of moral beauty 3 
 struggling through a world full of sorrow and sin, is sure- 
 ly as much the stronger for believing that sooner or later 
 a vision of perfect peace and goodness will burst upon 
 him, as the toiler up a mountain for the belief that beyond 
 crag and snow lie home and rest. For the other side of 
 the picture, who shall exaggerate the deadly influence on 
 personal morality of those theologies which have repre- 
 sented the Deity as vain-glorious, irritable, and revenge- 
 ful as a sort of pedantic drill-sergeant of mankind, to 
 whom no valour, no long-tried loyalty, could atone for the 
 misplacement of a button of the uniform, or the misun- 
 derstanding of a paragraph of the " regulations and in- 
 structions ? " 
 
 While no one can dare histoiy, or even look about him, 
 without admitting the enormous influence of theology on 
 morality, it would perhaps be hard to say whether it has 
 been greater or less than the influence of morality on 
 theology. But the latter topic is not at present under 
 discussion ; and the only further remark I would ven- 
 ture to add is this that the intensity and reality of the 
 action of theological beliefs upon morality are precisely 
 measured by the conviction of those who hold them that 
 they are true. That such and such a doctrine conduces 
 to morality, and disbelief in it to immorality, may 
 be demonstrated by an endless array of convincing 
 syllogisms ; but, unless the doctrine is true, the prac- 
 tical result of this expenditure of logic is not appar- 
 ent. I have not the slightest doubt that if mankind 
 
252 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 could be got to believe that every socially immoral act 
 would be instantly followed by three months' severe 
 toothache, such acts would soon cease to be perpetrated. 
 It would be a faith charged with most beneficent works, 
 but unfortunately this faith can so easily be shown to be 
 disaccordant with fact that it is not worth while to be- 
 come its prophet. 
 
 For my part I do not for one moment admit that mor- 
 ality is not strong enough to hold its own. But if it is 
 demonstrated to me that I am wrong, and that without 
 this or that theological dogma the human race will lapse 
 into bipedal cattle, more brutal than the beasts by the 
 measure of their greater cleverness, my next question is 
 to ask for the proof of the truth of the dogma. 
 
 If this proof is forthcoming, it is my conviction that 
 no drowning sailor ever clutched a hen-coop more ten- 
 aciously than mankind will hold by such dogma, what- 
 ever it may be. But if not, then I verily believe that 
 the human race will go its evil way ; and my only con- 
 solation lies in the reflection that, however bad our pos- 
 terity may become, so long as they hold by the plain rule 
 of not pretending to believe what they have no reason to 
 believe because it may be to their advantage so to pre- 
 tend, they will not have reached the lowest depths of 
 immorality. 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 253 
 
 MR. R H. HUTTON. 
 
 THAT has happened to us which happened to the 
 disputants in that Attic Symposium from which, I 
 suppose, the name for our discussion was taken. We have 
 been interrupted by a " great knocking at the door " and 
 the entrance of an unbidden guest, who, however, shows no 
 sign either of Alcibiades's intoxication, or of that gener- 
 ous disposition to crown the most deserving with garlands 
 which may perhaps have had some connection with the 
 excesses of the brilliant Athenian's potations. The Sat- 
 urday Reviewer, who, without dropping his mask, has 
 thrust upon us his own criticism on our discussion, 1 has 
 certainly not conferred the most meagre of wreaths on 
 any one, unless indeed it may be said that he grudgingly 
 crowns the Dean of St. Paul's and the Duke of Argyll 
 with a withered sprig or two of parsley, for pointing out 
 that our subject is much too vague, and for trying to 
 narrow a discussion so " abstract and ill-defined." His 
 general criticism is contained in the harsh remark that 
 " all the fine talk of the chosen illuminati is a mass of 
 words with very little meaning," and that " the delibera- 
 tions of the Symposium bear a* very strong resemblance 
 to those of the diplomatists who have been lately con- 
 cocting protocols ; that is, they consist of empty phrases 
 to which all the parties can agree because they do not 
 
 i See Saturday Revietg for March 31, 1877. Article, " A Modern Sym- 
 posium." 
 
-">4 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 touch any of the points on which the co-signataries would 
 be likely to differ." That is a much crueler interruption 
 than any caused by Alcibiades to the guests assembled at 
 the Symposium of Plato, nor do I think it is quite just, 
 though there is enough justice in it to make me try to 
 bring out what seem to me the clearly-understood issues 
 between us a little more distinctly, in the few words I 
 have to say. To limit the subject as much as possible, I 
 will speak of nothing but the effect likely to be produced 
 on morality by any decline in the belief in a righteous 
 God independent of. and external to, the human race 
 in one, that is, whose leading purpose in relation to us is 
 believed to be to mould our motives and characters into 
 the likeness of his own. Now it seems to me that all 
 the previous speakers except two, Mr. Frederic Harrison 
 and Prof. Clifford, believe, for different reasons, and in 
 different degrees, that such a decline in such a belief in 
 God would probably result' in a parallel decline in human 
 morality ; though some insist most, like Sir James Ste 
 phen and Prof. Huxley, on the point that any attempt 
 to bolster up the belief artificially for the sake of its 
 moral consequences, by discountenancing free discussion, 
 would result in a worse decline of morality, and others 
 insist most, like Dr. Martineau, Lord Selborne, and Dean 
 Church, on the point that the same causes which result 
 in a decline in this belief (especially as it is represented 
 in Christianity) are likely to result also in a' decline in 
 the force of the ethical principles so closely associated 
 with it. But I do not understand any oe to differ with 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 255 
 
 Prof. Huxley, that if the belief can be shown to be false, 
 be the moral consequence what it may, it ought to go. 
 On the other hand, I understand both Mr. Harrison and 
 Prof. Clifford to assert that the causes which, as they 
 think, have undermined and are undermining the beliet 
 in a righteous God, external to the human race, have no 
 tendency to undermine the binding power of the highest 
 human ethics, but, on the contrary, have a direct ten- 
 dency to elevate and refine them, though Prof. Clifford 
 regards this tendency as, on the whole, slight, and con- 
 fined chiefly to the blow which such a change in belief 
 will have in diminishing the control of the clergy, while 
 Mr. Harrison expects very much indeed from it, if only 
 through its tendency to concentrate on the desirable aims 
 of a real world, an enthusiasm now so much dissipated in 
 his opinion, by lavishing it on imaginary objects. 
 
 Now, while I heartily admit with Prof. Huxley the 
 conceivability that a gross delusion like the belief that 
 " every socially immoral act would instantly be followed 
 by three months' severe toothache" if it could be palmed 
 off successfully upon our race, would have some very ben- 
 eficial consequences (some, also, by no means beneficial) 
 and should not a bit the less regard a conspiracy, even 
 if one were practicable, to impose such a delusion on our 
 race, as a great sin, I cannot the more on that account 
 see how to disentangle the question whether there be a 
 righteous God external to men from the question whether 
 there would be a great moral loss to human nature in the 
 dissipation of the belief in such a God. It is quite con- 
 
256 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 ceivable nay, it has often happened that a sincere de- 
 lusion has produced the best results. The belief in an 
 imaginary danger of death, for instance, has often made 
 a man take life more seriously ; and the belief in an 
 imaginary danger of invasion has probably often bound 
 a divided nation together and given it a greater nervous 
 strength and manliness. But though it is easy to con- 
 ceive a belief, in some respects beneficial, which is wholly 
 false, it seems to me, in the case before us, that the very 
 element in the belief we are discussing, which makes it 
 beneficial, is also a clear note of its truth. What makes 
 the belief in such a God as I have spoken of beneficial is 
 that this belief, and this only, gives to the attitude of man's 
 mind, in relation to right motive and right action, that 
 mixture of courage and cheerful irresponsibility for the 
 result characteristic of a faith. Luther's great saying, 
 " We say to our Lord God that if he will have his Church, 
 he must uphold it, for we cannot uphold it, and, even if 
 we could, we should become the proudest asses under 
 heaven," 1 would be of course simply untranslatable into 
 any humanist or positivist dialect at all. I do not indeed 
 quite know what Mr. Harrison means when he talks of a 
 " frankly human " religion which shall provide us with 
 a " Providence " whom we are " to love and serve ;" but 
 I suppose he must mean that we are to love that law of 
 the universe which produces a certain amount of corres- 
 pondence between our nature and its " environment," 
 
 " Tisohreden," edition Fdrstemaun, Leipsic, 1844, vol. ii., p. 330. 
 
A DECLINE IN KELIGIOUS BELIEF. 257 
 
 and that we are to cooperate with that law. At least 
 this is the only meaning I am able to attach to " loving 
 and serving" a Providence without believing in God. 
 Now for myself I am incapable of loving a mere law of 
 any kind, whether it be a law of gravitation, a law of 
 assimilation between my organism and its environment, 
 or any other ; and as for " serving" it, I like to judge for 
 myself, and, instead of allowing myself always to be 
 assimilated to my "environment," I sometimes prefer 
 what is called, in the language of the same philosophy, 
 " differentiating " myself from it.* But I think even Mr. 
 Harrison would hardly justify language of trust like 
 Luther's, toward a " Being " of whom we are supposed to 
 know nothing except that it has given rise to the earth 
 we live on, and will most likely, in a few thousand years, 
 also put a final end to it. You cannot trust a being of 
 whose purposes, or capacity for having purposes, you 
 know nothing, because trust implies approving those 
 purposes and believing them to be accompanied by a far 
 higher range of knowledge and foresight than your own. 
 Yet has not all the benefit of trust in God arisen from that 
 humility and courage, that self-abandonment to a higher 
 will,. -that sense of complete irresponsibility for the result 
 when the right thing is once done, which constitute moral 
 heroism ? Could such moral heroism sustain the belief 
 in a divine will which is shaping all right action to a per- 
 fect end ? Suppose we believed in unknown causes which 
 produce indeed such moral phenomena as those of human 
 life for a moment in the long ages of evolution which 
 17 
 
258 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 bring them like a ripple to the surface, but quench them, 
 like that ripple, for evermore, and which are as certain 
 so to quench them as the sun is one day to be burned 
 out is it possible we could cast ourselves on such un- 
 known causes with the sort of faith in God that has 
 " moved mountains," and that will move mountains 
 again that will say, for instance, to this huge dead weight 
 of secularism and positivism, "Be thou cast into the sea," 
 and it will obey ? 
 
 Nor can I see any better help in Prof. Clifford's 
 substitute for God namely, the higher self represented 
 by " the voice of our Father Man who is within us," i.e., 
 by " the accumulated instinct of the race poured into each 
 one of us " and overflowing us, " as if the ocean were 
 poured into a cup." The " accumulated instinct of our 
 race" includes a great deal of evil as well as good, and is 
 often unaccompanied by any accumulation of instinct for 
 the suppressing of the evil by the good. I quite agree 
 with those who have urged that it was the " accumulated 
 instinct " of the Athenian people which taught them the 
 necessity of putting down Socrates as one who was under- 
 mining the social order to which he belonged. I do not 
 doubt that Socrates shared that accumulated instinct not 
 less nay, probably much more than the rest of his coun- 
 trymen. Probably it overflooded him " as an ocean might 
 overflow a cup." Nevertheless the solitary voice within 
 him, which he attributed to his " daemon," though it could 
 not drown the voice of this " accumulated instinct," was 
 heard above it, and prevailed over the pleas of comrade- 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 259 
 
 ship, and over what Prof. Clifford deems the only " spring 
 of virtuous action," the impulse which invites men to 
 make individual sacrifices to promote the greater effi- 
 ciency of the social bond. 
 
 " Some one may wonder (says Socrates, in Plato's Apology) 
 why I go about in private giving advice and busying myself with 
 the concerns of others, but do not venture to come forward in pub- 
 lic and advise the state. I will tell you the reason of this. You 
 have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me, 
 and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This 
 sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice which 
 comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am 
 going to do, but never commands me to .do anything, and this 
 is what stands in the way of my being a politician. And rightly, as 
 I think. For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged 
 in politics I should have perished long ago, and done no good either 
 to you or to myself. And don't be afraid of my telling you the 
 truth, for the truth is that no man who goes to war with you or any 
 other multitude, honestly struggling against the commission of 
 unrighteousness and wrong in the state, will save his life ; he will 
 really fight for the right, if he would live even for a little while, 
 must have a private station and not a public one." 1 
 
 This is unsocial doctrine enough, and, of course, Prof. 
 Clifford will say that, though fatal to the existing 
 Athenian state, it had its source in instincts essential to 
 a higher political virtue and to the cohesion of a nobler 
 kind of state. Grant it for a moment. Yet how can we 
 expect moral heroism of the same type as that which is 
 convinced that invisible Power is on its side, and trusts to 
 
 i Prof. Jowett's " Plato," vol. i., p. 346, first edition, 
 
260 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 the vindication of the future, if instead of ascribing the 
 origin of its impulses to a divine power which is the same 
 yesterday, to-day and forever a power above it and 
 beyond it he who has to evince this moral heroism be- 
 lieves that there is no inspiring mind higher than his own, 
 and holds, therefore, that he must rely on himself, and 
 on himself alone, for the fine faculty to discriminate be- 
 tween the inchoate order of a new society and the worn-out 
 guarantees of an order which is passing away ? How is 
 one who is fully aware that he is dissolving the ancient 
 bonds of a venerable society and polity, but who only 
 hopes that he is creating the germs of something better, 
 to set his face against the brotherhood among whom he 
 lives, and to defy the wrath of the fellow-citizens whom 
 he sees, and all without the whisper of approval from 
 any spiritual being behind the veil ? Surely the hesita- 
 ting inspiration of that long-buried ancestor, " our Father 
 Man " to admit, for a moment, Prof. Clifford's assump- 
 tion when it spells out dubious and unaccustomed les- 
 sons which the voices of our brother-men join, in loud 
 chorus, to decry, would not be very likely to triumph 
 over fears and scruples which " our Father Man " also 
 authenticates, and authenticates much more positively 
 than he ever can authenticate the first faintly uttered 
 principles of a new kind of social union against the 
 old. What was it, as I asked before, which stimulated 
 Luther to his gigantic enterprise ? Not the doubtful 
 guess that buried generations had transmitted to him the 
 glimpse of a reform which would transfigure society, but 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 261 
 
 the belief that he could honestly use the language of that 
 psalm that he so much delighted to appropriate to him- 
 self : " They came about me like bees, and are extinct 
 even as the fire among the thorns, for in the name of the 
 Lord I will destroy them." Whether the belief in " our 
 Father Man " and in a tentative Providence which does 
 not foresee, but only accommodates the individual to his 
 " environment," as the only guides of our moral life, be 
 wild or sober, this, I think, is clear, that it does not provide 
 the martyr or the reformer with the stimulating power of 
 a faith ; that it can give no confidence like that in an in- 
 spiration of far wider grasp and far deeper purpose than 
 any which the reformer himself commands ; that it leaves 
 him a mere pioneer amid dangers and difficulties to which 
 it may turn out that both he and his race are quite un- 
 equal, instead of a humble follower obeying the beckoning 
 of one who holds both past and future in his hand. 
 
 And now as to my second point that the very element 
 which gives so beneficial a character to the belief that 
 conscience is the inspiration of God the very element 
 which makes it a useful and practically stimulating be- 
 lief, and not, as Prof. Clifford calls it, a mere source of 
 
 " refined and elevated pleasure" is also a note of its 
 
 
 
 truth. I hold this to be so because the very experience 
 which produces the trust is an experience of life, and of 
 life morally higher than one's self. Surely, if we are 
 competent, as we are, to say when our friends and our 
 favourite books tempt us, and when they raise us above 
 temptation, we are also competent to say when thoughts 
 
262 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 that strike with a living power upon the heart come 
 from a higher and when they come from a lower source 
 than that of our own habitual principles of action 
 when they come with promise and command, and when 
 they come with discordant sneers, discouragement and 
 enervation. When we grasp dimly at a great moral prin- 
 ciple which is full, to use Prof. Tyndall's language, of 
 " the promise and potency " of all forms of life when 
 the more we consider it, the less we see where it is lead- 
 ing us, and yet only feel the more confidence in it on 
 that account when we recognize a clue and a guide 
 without recognizing where that clue and that guide are 
 pointing to when we know that it is our duty to defy 
 the world in the name of a principle of which we cannot 
 gauge the full meaning, or measure even the immediate 
 effects (and this is as I maintain, the true phenomenon 
 visible in all great moral, as in all great intellectual, origina- 
 tion) then it does seem to me to be a sober and whole- 
 some conviction that that which we do not know, there 
 is one who puts the clue into our hands, who does know ; 
 that what we cannot foresee, there is one who does foresee ; 
 that we are grasping the hand of a Power which knows 
 the way before as well as behind; that we are fol- 
 lowing the glimmer of a ray which will lead us on to the 
 day-spring from which it descended. I cannot but believe 
 that we have as secure a faculty to discriminate the superi- 
 ority of the life in which a moral impression orginates 
 as we have to discriminate its rightness itself that it is 
 one and the same act of discrimination which says, "This 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 263 
 
 is obligatory," and which says, " This is instinct with 
 divine life and promise." To suppose that a dead ances- 
 try are flashing though us these commands which at once 
 repudiate their principles and nerve us against the wrath 
 of their descendants, seems to me, I confess, a degrading 
 superstition. If " we boast to be better than our fathers." 
 It must be some one better than our fathers who is giv- 
 ing us our watchword. This is why I hold that to lose 
 the faith in God would be to lose a great inheritance of 
 moral order and moral progress, and also to lose at the 
 same moment a truth in comparison with which all other 
 truths are as dim and isolated sparks beside a pillar of 
 fire that can guide us though a wilderness that we have 
 never even explored. 
 
 SIR JAMES STEPHEN. 
 
 THE paper which began this discussion was entitled 
 " The Influence upon Morality of a Decline in Reli- 
 gious Belief." The Dean of St. Paul's remarks : "It seems to 
 me difficult to discuss this question till it is settled, at least 
 generally, what morality is influenced, and what religious 
 belief is declining." The Duke of Argyll observes that 
 these papers " deal with a question very abstract and 
 ill-defined." Dr. Ward says that " the wording of our 
 question is unfortunately ambiguous, and 1 think that 
 this fact has made the discussion in several respects less 
 
264 A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 pointed and less otherwise interesting than it might 
 have been." 
 
 To these criticisms I reply that the title of my paper 
 contains no question at all, and was not intended to do 
 so. It is simply an indication, in the most general terms 
 of the subject to which the paper of which it is the title 
 relates. Any one who will take the trouble to read the 
 paper will see that its principal object was to assert the 
 proposition with which it concludes, which is in these 
 words: 
 
 " This [i. e., the whole of the preceding argument] shows that the 
 support which an existing creed gives to an existing system of 
 morals is irrelevant to its truth, and that the question whether a 
 given system of morals is good or bad cannot be fully determined 
 until after the determination of the question whether the theology 
 on which it rests is true or false. The morality is [I should have 
 said " may be "] good if it is founded on a true estimate of the con- 
 sequences of human actions. But if it is founded on a false the- 
 ology it is founded on a false estimate of the consequences of human 
 actions ; and, so far as that is the case, it cannot be good ; and the 
 circumstance that it is supported by the theology to which it refers 
 is an argument against, and not in favour of, that theology." 
 
 " The only " question " which my paper was intended 
 to raise is the question whether that proposition is true 
 or not ? I do not see how its truth can depend (as the 
 Dean of St. Paul's suggests) upon further particulars as 
 to " what morality is influenced,'"' or " what theology 
 is declining." I said nothing about the decline of any 
 partciular theological belief, or its influence on any par- 
 
A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 265 
 
 ticular system of morals. My proposition would apply 
 to all creeds and all forms of morality. 
 
 As to the Duke of Argyll's statement that " the ques- 
 tion is very abstract and ill-defined," I should admit its 
 justice if the title of the paper were taken as the state- 
 ment of a question. But this is not the case. The pro- 
 position which I put forward, in the hope that it would 
 be discussed, is no doubt general in its terms, but it 
 seemed, and still seems to me, definite enough to be dis- 
 cussed. As to the " ambiguity " of which Dr. Ward 
 complains, I cannot see how my Jproposition can have 
 more meanings than one. 
 
 The papers which have been written subsequently to 
 my paper raise a great variety of points which I feel much 
 tempted to discuss, but I hardly feel at liberty to do so, 
 as they do not in any way qualify anything said by me. 
 Each paper, indeed, is an illustration of the truth of some 
 part of my proposition or of the assertions by which it 
 is introduced ; for each shows in various ways how very 
 close is the connection in the writer's mind between the 
 theological system which he believes to be true and the 
 moral system which he considers to be good; and this, 
 again, shows that the question of truth must precede the 
 question of goodness, and cannot be determined by any 
 answer which may be given to the latter question. I can- 
 not help thinking that if this were understood generally 
 it would affect very deeply the character of a great pro- 
 ionrpto of current theological speculation. 
 
 18 
 
PUBLISHED MONTHLY. 
 
 THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 Subscription Price, $5,00 Per Annum. Single Copies 50c. 
 
 CONTENTS FOR MARCH, 1878. 
 
 I. Equality. By MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 II. A Plain View of British Interests. By S. LAING, M.P. 
 
 III. Lessing. By EEIGNALD W. MACAN. 
 
 IV. The New Revelation. By the Author of Super- 
 
 natural Religion. 
 
 V. The Strength of England. By T. H. FARRER. 
 VI. Whigs and Liberals. By GOLDWIN SMITH. 
 VII. Modern Japan. By SIR DAVID WEDDERBURN. 
 VIII. The'ophile Gautier. By GEORGE SAINTSBURY. 
 IX. Ceremonial Government, III-By HERBERT SPENCER. 
 X. Home and Foreign Affairs. 
 
 Mailed post-paid to any address in Canada or United 
 States, by 
 
 ROSE-BFLFORD PUBLISHING CO., 
 
TWO IMPORTANT PAMPHLETS. 
 
 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY, 
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN, 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FRQUDE, 
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIAN. 
 
 CROWN 8vo. PAPER COVERS, - - 25 CENTS. 
 
 FUTURE: PUNISHMENT. 
 
 The Present State of the Question Considered on 
 Canon Farrer's " Eternal Hope." 
 
 BY 
 
 PROF. SOLOMON, REV. JOHN HUNT, D.D., 
 
 PRINCIPAL TULLOCH, PROF. J. H. JEWETT, 
 REV. J. BALDWIN BROWN, REV. ED, WHITE, 
 REV. WM. ARTHUR, REV. R, F. LITTLEDALE, D.C.L- 
 
 Crown 8vo., Paper Covers, 25 Cents. 
 
 For sale by all Booksellers, or mailed post-paid, on 
 receipt of price by 
 
 ROSE-BELFORD PUBLISHING CO 
 
 I 
 60 YOKK STREET, 
 
 TORONTO, 
 
BOOK 
 
 14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 LOAN 
 
 APR 3 15 
 
 UNIV. OF CALir., BERK. 
 
 RECEI 
 
 JU.L2 2 1985 
 
 MAY 9 
 
 ClhCULATtON DEPT 
 
 MA! 
 
 < U 
 
 V 
 
 LD 21A-60m-7,'66 
 (G4427slO)476B 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
256253 
 
 AU