ASPECTS OF THEISM ASPECTS OF THEISM WILLIAM ANIGHT, LL.D. PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS iLottUon MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1893 All rights reserved SL ,5.00 PKEFACE IN the year 1870, I gave a course of twelve lectures in Dundee, on the subject of Theism. These were mainly historical, and were intended to be wrought out more fully for publication ; but the pressure of other interests prevented the completion of this project. Most of the conclusions reached were embodied in an article published in The British Quarterly Review in July 1871, and afterwards in- cluded in a volume of Studies in Philosophy and Literature (1879). In 1890 I was asked to give a short course of lectures on the same subject to the Theological College at Salisbury. These I repeated in London in 1891. In the present volume these lectures are enlarged, with several addenda. It contains little of the ASPECTS OF THEISM history of the proofs, which I endeavoured to trace in detail, in 1868; but it discusses the problem of Theism under aspects which may perhaps be more useful at the present time. In any case, it is for the student of Theology, rather than of Philosophy, to supply the former which remains a desideratum in our British literature. It is obvious that, to understand the precise nature of the problem, and what has really to be proved, is an indispensable preliminary to any solution of it; and, while I believe and have tried in the following pages to show that the theistic interpreta- tion of the Universe is the most luminous, the most comprehensive, and the least likely to be undermined by future critical assault, I at the same time suggest that we should include much within it, which has at times been excluded, and even supposed to be an- tagonistic. It is scarcely necessary to add that it is impossible to deal with the problem, either as one of experience or of history, while ignoring its philosophical basis. Just as a psychology whether psychical or physio- logical which ignores metaphysic, is disqualified, at the outset, from reaching conclusions which the human race can ultimately endorse ; so a Theism, PREFACE vii which dispenses with Philosophy, can have neither an adequate basis nor a root of endurance. If based on mere authority, or unsifted dogma, it can have no evidential warrant that is trustworthy or lasting. I have treated it throughout these pages as a problem of Philosophy. It was my original intention to fill the latter half of the volume with " notes," referring to the literature of the subject ; and, with this end in view, I have kept it back for two years. That literature, however, is so vast, and is becoming so increasingly complex, that I have thought it better to print these Aspects of Theism 1 very much as they were spoken, and to offer them without notes, as a short study of a great problem. Something in the way of history may be written by and by. The discussion of the subject has brought me into partial antagonism with men whom I greatly honour, with friends deceased, and many contemporaries of eminence. It is difficult to exaggerate the debt we owe in Criticism, Philosophy, and Science to such writers as the late Mr. Matthew Arnold, Mr. Spencer, Mr. Huxley, Mr. Tyndall, and others, from whose 1 This was the title under which the lectures were originally delivered. ASPECTS OF THEISM opinion, on ultimate problems I nevertheless dissent. My appreciation of their work is not to be measured by the extent of the speculative difference which separates us. W. K. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE ....... v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY ...... 1 CHAPTER II THE EVOLUTION OP THEISM . . . . .19 CHAPTER III ITS HISTORIC TYPES . . . . . .30 CHAPTER IV INADEQUATE AND PARTIAL THEORIES . . .39 CHAPTER V INADEQUATE AND PARTIAL THEORIES Continued . .59 CHAPTER VI THE METAPHYSIC OP PHYSICS . . . .77 CHAPTER VII CAUSALITY . . . . .93 ASPECTS OF THEISM :APTER vm PAGE THE EVIDENCE OP /INTUITION } . . . .106 CHAPTER IX OUR KNOWLEDGE OP THE INFINITE^ 131 CHAPTER X THE CONSCIOUSNESS OP THE INFINITE . . .145 CHAPTER XI PERSONALITY^ AND THE INFINITE . 157 CHAPTER XII THE ETHICAL ARGUMENT . . . . .175 CHAPTER XIII THE BEAUTIFUL IN ITS RELATION TO THEISM . .190 CHAPTER XIV THE FAILURE OP AGNOSTICISM . . . .198 CHAPTER XV A SOLUTION BY WAY OF COMPREHENSION, AND NOT OP EX- CLUSION . . 204 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY IN the nineteenth century, it is unlikely that any one will be able to discover a new theistic argument. The subject has been already dealt with, in almost every conceivable way, and from the most opposite points of view. It has been, before all others, a "problem of the ages." Nevertheless, in each suc- cessive era, a re -statement, which is a new state- ment, of the question at issue has been found to be necessary. The nineteenth century cannot and it ought not to rest contented with the way in which preceding centuries have discussed it ; and those who most of all inherit the spirit of philoso- phical inquiry that of reverent criticism and con- struction combined will be the least satisfied with traditional modes of proof, even when profoundly grateful for them. In saying this, I know that I am in antagonism to the spirit which dominated Mediaeval Philosophy, and to which many nowadays B 2 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. desire to bring us back ; i.e. the unreasoning atti- tude of intellectual deference to Authority, presented ab extra. Those, however, who have the profoundest admiration for Scholasticism and who themselves owe a thousand things to it may, at the same time, differ from its characteristic note, and its dominant tendency. But when, in this century, Theism is represented, even in highly intellectual quarters, as an old- fashioned tradition an effete superstition, trans- mitted from weak and credulous ages as a relic of Medievalism now quite out of date, as well as out of touch with the spirit and results of modern Science ; when, in other quarters, it is regarded as a miserable half-way house to live in which is worse than to be an agnostic, or speculative nihilist it is evident that the discussion of the subject cannot be inopportune. It is not only from those who are explicitly agnostic, however, that opposition to a theistic view of the Universe comes. Its claim is set aside, and the evidence of its fundamental truth is quite as much obscured, by those who have built around it a superstructure of dogma, which does not belong to it by natural affinity ; and the addenda, which specialists have annexed to it, must be removed, before its simple foundations can be be laid bare. The proofs of Theism are not philosophically INTRODUCTORY recondite. They do not require any great, or original, speculative power to apprehend them. If they did, it would be extremely unfortunate for the masses of mankind the " dim common populations," who must be " hewers of wood and drawers of water" to the rest of the world. To see, and to feel the force of, some of these proofs rather demands the cessation of a strictly philo- sophic struggle with problems, and the exercise instead of what one poet calls a " wise passiveness" ; along with the possession of sundry moral virtues, such as reverence, candour, and openness of mind to evidence when it is presented ab intra, as well as ab extra. It was almost a commonplace of Hebraism that we cannot " by searching find out God " ; and this has found notable expression in the language of one of our modern idealistic poets, who, while he glorifies the exercise of Reason in its higher syn- thetic flights, distrusts the "meddling intellect" in its incessant analyses of things. To him, as to the seers in Palestine, it was not by the nimblest intel- lectual scrutiny that we could find " the secret of the world," but by simple receptivity ; in other words, and in his own language, by bringing with us, when we enter the temple of Nature, a heart ''that watches and receives." Wordsworth saw, as very few have ever seen, that an incessant apocalypse is going on in Nature, 4 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. which many of us altogether miss, and to which we all at times are blind; and that, in the appre- hension of this which is a real disclosure of the Infinite to the finite, as constant as the sunrise, or as the ebbing and the flowing of the tide we find the basis of Theism laid for us. There are many other lines of evidence besides this, which we shall try to follow out. Probably we shall find none of them more interesting, or more satisfactory. The agnostic position on the subject of Theism has assumed many phases, but none is more curious than the following. It has been said that no evidence for the being of God exists, or in the nature of things is possible ; but that, nevertheless, the belief is most useful to the race, because it has an uplifting influence on conduct. It is a buttress to morality. It is therefore wise to hold to it, in one form or another, although it is altogether unverifiable when we apply a logical test, and rigorously scrutinise its evidence ; because in abandoning it we lose one of the moral forces of the world, and to that extent weaken the elements of social order and stability. It is impossible to despise any conclusion honestly come to by the agnostic, who finds no evidence of the Divine Existence although it might be better, both fbr him and for the world, that " whatsoever can be shaken," in the way of proof, should also be removed out of the way, in order that what " cannot INTRODUCTORY be shaken may remain " but this clinging to one of the immemorial traditions of the race, in the absence of any evidence in support of it, may be adduced as indirect testimony to the belief in question ; one of those latent tributes sub -conscious to the indi- vidual which are more interesting to the student of evidence than direct testimony can be. If there be no real Object corresponding to the theistic belief, the phenomena of religious history may be at once set down as abnormal ones. They are aspects of social disease ; and the fact that this belief is welcomed, for any purpose whatsoever, by one who is speculatively agnostic, is an indirect witness in its favour. A philosophical illusion can have no moral value in the sphere of belief. It will be the aim of the following chapters to approach by degrees to a solution of the problem, which will combine the truth of Theism with what has been called " the higher Pantheism," and will also represent the theistic view of the Universe as a focus, at which the conclusions of Speculative Philosophy, Science, Poetry, Art, History, and Religion meet a focus at which the personal and the impersonal view of the ultimate mystery combine; and at w T hich the wonder, in which all Philosophy begins, may unite with the admiration and the ecstasy in which Poetry culminates, and the worship in which Religion "lives, and moves, and has its 6 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. being." It will perhaps be seen that the most comprehensive solution of the problem when God is regarded as " the master light of all our seeing " is at the same time the most precise. In certain moods of mind one may recognise separate powers in Nature, co-operating to effect great cosmic ends ; in other moods, we may con- strue the whole life of the Cosmos as the outcome of a single protean Force ; and, again, we may see a real alter ego, transcending ourselves, in that im- measurable Personality before which we bow in worship. At the same time it is necessary to bring these different views of the Universe which may be separately legitimate as they appeal to the imagination, the reason, and the heart to a focus, that we may find them authenticated by the humanity to which each appeals, and which alone can interpret the whole. If we break up our theodicy, or doctrine of God, into a number of separate sections and try to pass from one to the other of them, as we would go from room to room in a house, or from province to province in Nature, or even from one science to another in the realm of knowledge we run the risk of the whole con- ception becoming attenuated, nebulous, and vague. It is for this reason that the encyclopaedic view, which an eclectic Theism presents to us, is as unsatisfactory to the mind and the heart, as the INTRODUCTORY irreverent precision, which pretends to be as familiar with the ways of the Infinite as with the procedure of a next-door neighbour. A point worthy of consideration at this stage belongs almost to the prolegomena of theistic dis- cussion. It is that no single mind could by any possibility construct for itself a theodicy, or doctrine of God. It was a fancy of Rousseau's that the intellectual evidence of Theism is such that were one placed in childhood on an uninhabited desert island, he would grow up in the unsophisticated recognition of one Supreme Being. In such circum- stances a nineteenth century child would not probably develop into anything else than a savage. We have all grown into the beliefs we now entertain, through the myriad influences of civilisation, and by educa- tion as much as by inheritance. By this it is not meant that the theistic belief has been created, either by tradition or by education ; but it has certainly been elicited and evolved by both of them. It has not been built up, in the case of any single individual of the human race, by the labour of his own understanding ; but has been, at one and the same time, communicated ab extra, and evolved ab intra, and has thus been handed on throughout the ages. The notions which we now entertain on this subject have been expanded and enriched by the thoughts of all our predecessors. Theism is our ASPECTS OF THEISM heritage ; and we are now the " heirs of all the ages," of Indian, Semitic, Greek, Zoroastrian, Arabic, and Christian thought upon the subject ; but Theism has not been left behind, as Comte affirmed, in the scientific age of the world, as the relic of a primitive " theological period." On the contrary, this belief which, on the evidence of history, may validly be called a central conviction of the human race has expanded, and has assumed phases, both of strength and of refinement, which it did not possess in the infancy of the world. Even if we suppose that many of the celebrated modes of proof, by which philosophers have sought to establish the Divine Existence, are unsatisfactory and I shall have to show this in subsequent chapters, although it brings me into opposition with many contemporary writers they have failed for the most part only when taken by themselves, when detached from one another, and from their source ; and how- ever extravagant their separate pretensions, they all started from a root of truth. Suppose that we admit, to begin with, (what we must concede at the end,) that by no process of reasoning, or argumentative deduction, the inference of Theism can be reached, it is simply because it is the premiss we are in search of. That stupendous premiss the very greatest in the universe may have other proof, however, than the evidence of ratiocination ; and the human race, INTRODUCTORY in which it has arisen, may carry about with it a vast and many-sided conviction on this subject, without realising at all times the evidence on which the conviction reposes. Theistic evidence may be only occasionally seen in exceptional moments of illumina- tion ; but neither the race at large, nor any individual in it, has been able to see lesser truths under a uniform light. In reference to many other things besides Theism, it is impossible to remain on the mountain-tops of evidence. We have been told that to rest a conviction so great and transcendent as that of the Divine Existence, on the evidence of transient moods, is to base it on ecstasy, and therefore not on the rock but on the shifting sand. It is forgotten that no experiential proof,, however clear and satis- fying it may be, can in the nature of things be constant; and while all evidence is only a question of degree, its quality while it lasts may be of special value in proportion to its transiency. A more de- tailed reply to this charge, however, brings us, somewhat early in our discussion, to what may be regarded as the radical evidence, or the unassailable fortress of Theism. To recognise the Infinite on the height above us, or in the depth beneath our feet, is much less im- portant (and perhaps less easy) than to apprehend it, in moments of illumination, as within ourselves as the Personality in which we live. But if it be io ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. true that we have our being in the Infinite, this can only be because the Infinite at the same time has its being in us ; and we discern this fact if we discern it at all not by an effort of thought, but rather by lapsing into the "wise passiveness" already re- ferred to. In other words, it is when we give up the intellectual toil of system-building, or an analysis of the phenomena that surround us in the universe, that we are best able to See into the life of things. We can then perceive as in a mirror the unity that pervades all difference, and the phenomena of sense become transfigured for us in the light of their underlying essence. When thus seen, and as at the same time bound together by organic links of causa- tion and interdependence, they at once obtain a meaning they did not possess before. The special question, however, which we have to answer, is this Is there, or is there not, a spiritual principle at the heart of things, within the matter of the universe, and pervading it from centre to circum- ference ; which is not a mere function of this or that portion of matter that happens to be organised, but rather the interior essence of each separate thing that lives and grows, or feels and thinks ? The question is not, Is there a spiritual realm to which material things may ultimately, and on the last analysis, INTRODUCTORY II belong ? It is, Is the whole universe, at its very core, and in its inmost essence, spiritual ? And do its phenomena, as they evolve and display themselves, give evidence of such an underlying essence if not uniformly, yet occasionally ; so that they become to us " the garment we see it by," or (as another poet says) " the vision of Him who reigns " ? To my own mind no other solution of the problem is in the least degree satisfactory. It must be noted, however, that if the conclusion be a valid one, it is reached, not by deductive reasoning, but by intuition, or intellectual and moral second sight. To those who possess " the inward eye " or perhaps I should say to those who use it matter and force, or atoms and energy, do not exhaust the contents of the universe ; and what they discern, as happening in time, is not the mere transformation of force, or its ceaseless kaleidoscopic change, but the .disclosure of a spiritual Substance revealed through its attributes, and an infinite Reality underneath the flux and reflux of phenomena. Even were we to suppose that Matter and Force exhaust the contents of the universe, the explanation of matter and force as we shall see in future chapters demands something beyond themselves ; it involves a spiritual principle at work within them. And if all the life and movement of the universe can be shown to be an apocalypse of Mind, if the forces that work beyond us can be proved to be 12 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. kindred to those that are within ourselves ; if, in other words, Nature and Man are fundamentally akin, and between them there is a radical affinity, then for us the foundations of Theism are laid. If we say that the essence of both realms is the same that both Man and Nature are phases of one infinite Substance we adopt the theory of Pantheism ; and, according to it, each of the two elements, Man and Nature, is lost in the other. Theism maintains that they are distinct, that they exist in everlasting dualism ; but, at the same time, that the sub-strata of both or that which underlies phenomenal show and appearance- is the same ; and that, in this sense, ive, who know the Infinite, live within it, and are upheld by its imperishable essence. I humbly think that we are warranted in thus interpreting the Power we recognise in Nature that mysterious protean Force, which seems remote in its infinitude, but which at the same time evokes in us thought, feeling, and desire as fundamentally kin- dred to our own. The special charm of Nature lies in its being a mirror of humanity, in its reflecting what is deepest in man, and revealing some aspects of personality in a way in which the introspection of consciousness does not disclose them. It is not that external Nature is a duplicate or copy of our own. Human nature would soon weary of that. Indeed, one of the functions of the natural world is to take I NT ROD UCTOR Y 1 3 us away from ourselves, that is to say, from our individual or egoistic selves ; but it does this by at the same time disclosing a Presence underneath its forms, colours, and sounds that is radically like our own a transcendent life different from ours, and yet one with it. The realm of the visible and audible thus hides the Divine, quite as much as it discloses it. Perhaps we construe it best as a veil, interposed to prevent the brightness of such an apocalypse, as would hinder us from seeing anything else. As it is happily put by Browning Naked belief in God the omnipotent, Omniscient, omnipresent, sears too much The sense of conscious creatures to be borne. Some think creation's meant to show Him forth ; I say it's meant to hide Him all it can. Its use in time is to environ us Against that sight, till we can bear its stress Under a vertical sun. The exposed brain And lidless eye and disimprisoned heart, Less certainly would wither up at once Than mind, confronted with the sight of Him. This extract from our philosophic poet brings us back to the way in which the most profoundly imaginative minds, from the Vedic and the Hebrew seers to Dante, and from Dante to Tennyson, have helped the metaphysicians (whose final word is of ultimate essence), the biologists (who take us in the i 4 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. end to protoplasm), and the physicists (who bring us to atoms, or molecules, and their changes). It is not a new idea that the poet can aid the philosopher, as much as he helps the religious man ; but the extent of the debt is perhaps yet to be seen. In our modern era Goethe and Schiller aided the metaphysicians of Germany more than the latter knew, although the debt was reciprocal ; while amongst ourselves Wordsworth and Coleridge helped the English philo- sophical mind perhaps more powerfully, and certainly with fuller ultimate recognition. In this respect perhaps no poets in the history of Literature have performed so great a service, both to contemporaries and successors, as Browning and Tennyson have done. These men as future generations may see better than we do have intuitively discerned a truth, after which metaphysicians have laboriously toiled, and often toiled in vain. By simple intuition they have seen that the universe is one, and that its unity explains its diversity, while the diversity illustrates the unity. They have further seen that Nature's highest function, in its kindredness with man, is to teach him this truth, as well as to delight his senses and to raise and soothe his spirit ; and finally, that it does this by a direct disclosure of the Infinite. In that vision of the One and the All, to which the poet attains, there is an unconscious protest against the mere analytic separation of things, INTRODUCTORY however skilfully made in the interests of science. All science is analytic, and marks off the phenomena of Nature into departmental groups, arranging them in classes ; but there is no separation corresponding to this, in the nature of things. Poetry, on the contrary, is synthetic. It combines the multitudin- ous details of the separate sciences, in a unity which embraces them all within it; and in this it is quite as true to Nature as science is. The poet of necessity occupies the higher point of view, im- measurably valuable as the lower view - point of science is ; because he brings us within sight of realities, which transcend the phenomenal sphere, and which have reached himself through other channels than the all-important ones of sense. Thus, his moments of ecstasy are at the same time moments of insight into the truth of things ; and every one inheriting or sharing his spirit may experience the same. We may not be able to remain long at this point of view, and may find it, as one of our poets has said, the most difficult of tasks to keep Heights which the soul is competent to gain. At these times, however, we may apprehend with certainty, and even with precision, what we cannot afterwards state articulately ; and this may be one explanation of the sacredness of Religion. The poet 1 6 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. discerns truths which transcend our ordinary formulae, which cannot be re-stated in the language of common speech, truths which evade the categories of logic, and refuse to be compressed within our frames of theory. But it does not follow that marticulate truths thus discerned in moments of ecstasy are less real than those which we can afterwards succeed in making explicit by the use of words. It may be that what is implicit and ideal is at the same time the most real of all the truths that we are competent to apprehend. It is easy to satirise this channel of knowledge, and it is certainly liable to abuse. All its reports must be verified ; but, when they are not crude states of consciousness, giving rise to tumult or outbursts of undisciplined feeling such as those to which the theosophist appeals they may be their own vindica- tion. States of consciousness, which thus attest themselves, do not abrogate reason, or hide themselves from intellectual cross-examination. The theistic intuition is rather the result of intellectual scrutiny pushed to the very utmost, in wrestling with the problem of the Infinite. It is after this has been accomplished, when scientific analysis has done its best, when metaphysical synthesis has followed after, and no adequate solution has been reached, that the poet finds as every one in poetic mood may find- that he can pass, in a moment, from the isolation INTRODUCTORY 17 and particularity of finite things, and become one with the Infinite, which is then and there and thus discerned. What I have tried in previous paragraphs to unfold was expressed much better, in years long past, by a college-friend now at the Antipodes who was distinguished, in his student days, both as a meta- physician and a poet in stanzas which he has never published. He called his poem The Secret of ike World. Its idea is that God is known, not by any effort of the scientific or metaphysical intellect in rising upwards, but by a direct disclosure of the Infinite to finite consciousness. Canst thou read the secret of the earth, Wind, As thou sweepest o'er the moorland, buffeting the mountain's breast And against its headlands beating, with a sobbing as entreating, Shelter in its bosom from thy wild unrest 1 Canst thou read the secret of the earth, Sea, By thy seeking, straining, raging for it all the winter night ; When against the depths that hold thee, and the shores that would enfold thee, Blindly dashing in the fury of thy might ? Canst thou read the secret of the earth, Soul, As thou strivest towards the Infinite and Absolute unknown ; Tracing firmamental courses, seeking elemental sources, Making all the wisdom of the Schools thine own ? Xo. The secret of the earth is hid, Wind, From thy storm-wail o'er her surface, from thy beating as in strife ; C 1 8 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP, i Yet each gentlest breeze that bloweth with that secret over- floweth, Breathed in measured cadence from earth's hidden life. And the secret of the earth is hid, Sea, Though to press against her fire-heart all thy mighty tides are rolled ; Only in the current's meeting may'st thou feel her pulses beating, Action and reaction, law-ruled, manifold. And the secret of the earth is hid, Soul, From thy many Titan strivings, Pelion upon Ossa hurled ; In the heart contrite and lowly, in the heart upright and holy, God reveals himself, the " secret of the world." CHAPTER II THE EVOLUTION OF THEISM A NEW field of research lias been entered, and traversed with some success, during the present century, viz. the archaeology of Theism ; in other words, the evolution of the belief out of its pre- historic phases and conditions. It has been thought by some that if we could prove that the belief arose out of others unlike it beliefs that were rude ele- mentary guesses, with no theistic significance whatso- ever the discovery of such an origin would discredit it, as one of the rational convictions of educated men. This, however, is a totally erroneous reading of the origin of belief in general. If, in the history of the race, a higher belief has emerged as the sequel of a lower one, it does not follow that the higher is the progeny of the lower, and has no authority beyond it. Succeeding it in time, the higher may have emerged out of the lower, only because it is a more accurate apprehension or interpretation of the essential truth of things ; in other words, a superior 20 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. witness to a Reality, which exists quite independently of the evolution of belief regarding it. Suppose that we go back to Totemism, to the recognition of a second- self, suggested by the shadow cast by the sun, by reflection in water, or by the spiritual shadow (or double) disclosed in dreams. Suppose that this belief which might at first be limited to certain individuals grew, in course of time, to a general conviction ; and that it further developed into the idea that the spirit of the individual, as a second shadowy self, could come and go from the body leaving it during sleep, and returning again, its return in fact awakening the body the belief in its separability at death, and its separate existence after death, would be the most natural of inferences. Suppose that, along with this, the heroes in a tribe or the chiefs in a clan were regarded as worthy of special honour after death, because of great achievements in life, their worship would be the most natural thing in the world. Hero- worship would thus grow out of ancestor-worship. Then, things that had been associated with the departed during their lifetime the garments they wore, the ornaments they were fond of, the places which they visited would become, for their sake, more than usually interesting; and, in course of time, would be venerated. Things and places w r ould gradually be endowed with special charms, because ii THE EVOLUTION OF THEISM 21 of their relation to those who formerly owned them, or lived in them ; and they would afterwards be supposed to be the receptacles of mysterious in- fluence. Thus, by a natural process of development, Fetishism succeeded Totemism. The recognition of mysterious powers in certain animals followed naturally. Originally a struggle for existence went on amongst all animals, and the stronger crushed the weaker aside. None could be esteemed above the rest, although doubtless some would be more feared than others. But suppose the stage to be reached in which some men possessed either a near or a far-off resemblance to some animals. In the primitive tribe they would very naturally be called by the names of these animals. The chief of a tribe who had an accidental resemblance, in any sort of way, to a bull, a horse, an eagle, or a crow, would be named accordingly, not in derision, but in honour ; and then, by degrees, these animals would come to be specially honoured, as the supposed ancestors of the tribe. Long after the chief died, the legend would pass from the fact that in life he had some resemblance to the animal, to the notion that the animal itself was his ancestor ; and thus the latter would come to be worshipped. From this the transition to Polytheism was easy, to the deification of places and of powers ; the recognition of separate divine energies leading to a personification of the 22 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. forces at work, and therefore to a pantheon of divinities. The subsequent progress from the latter to a monotheistic interpretation of the world is easier to trace. The links become more obvious, as the chain of development lengthens. But now suppose that we could scientifically trace out every link in the chain for it is strictly a ques- tion of science by discovering all the phases that the belief has assumed, and every cause that has led up to it in the process of historic and pre- historic evolution, the discovery of these missing- links would not prove that the later beliefs were due to the earlier ones, in the sense that they had been created by them. That a " process " explains a " pro- duct " is the most helpless of all philosophical theories. The process in question is simply the onward effort of the human mind to know the real state of the case, to ascertain the truth of things, or to get a satisfactory explanation of the mystery which has transcended its insight at every successive stage. There is a very evident parallel between the evolution of consciousness in the child and in the race. It is obvious that at his birth the child knows nothing, and can know nothing of the Infinite, although " heaven lies about us in our infancy/' So the race, emerging out of savage antecedents, for ages and generations knew nothing consciously of the Being in whom nevertheless it lived, and to ii THE EVOLUTION OF THEISM 23 whom it sustained a relationship of unconscious dependence. The admission that all phenomena have been evolved, instead of being inconsistent or enabling us to dispense with an evolving Power, may be a conspicuous illustration of it. The evolution of the entire realm of Nature is perfectly consistent with the existence or superintendence of a " Providence," in the literal sense of that term ; viz. a " sight " which precedes, and also succeeds the evolution. Within each element, and at every stage in the pro- cess of development which has advanced by in- finitely slow gradations there must have been a Power at work, differentiating and directing the whole. Even if we had evidence that the intellect and will which are the highest manifestations of energy in man were the product of movements of protoplasm, it would be more natural to interpret the entire process in the light of its latest phases, than of its earlier ones ; and that is, in other words, to say that we should find it in the mature reason and volition of to-day in the achievements of the race, in know- ledge, and character and not in the condensation of gases, the movements of molecules, or the impact of one atom on another. It is true that what we thus take as our clue to the whole is itself a changing and progressive element, since Human Nature has not yet reached its goal, and what it attains to at any one 24 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. time immediately becomes a point of departure for future attainment in a process that never ends ; but it seems wiser to read the story of the past in the light of the present, than to reverse the process, and try to decipher the hieroglyphics which remain, by going back to the language of our infancy, or to the conditions of an ante-natal state. If science were to prove the unity of all force although (as we shall see) it will require more than science to do so it would not compel us to interpret this unity by the lowest of its phases, and to take the elements and the affinities of protoplasm as our key to the mysteries of the whole. Three things, however, must here be noted in a paragraph. (l) The chasm between chemical and physical force and vital energy between dead matter and living movement has not yet been bridged over ; nor has the second interval (which is like the first), between vital and self-conscious energy or the blind action of life and the intelligent force of mind been spanned by any arch of Science or Philosophy. (2) The law of natural selection amongst competitors in the struggle for existence presupposes the existence of these competitors as rival powers. (3) The mere fact that they do compete does not explain how it comes about that the one beats the other down. To find out, and to explain, its cause we require to get behind the process of struggle. A selective force it THE EVOLUTION OF THEISM 25 utilising circumstances, can alone explain the move- ments of matter, which result in the building up of organic structure. Although every theory that has been advanced as to the origin of Eeligion may have some truth in it, we may perhaps most easily discover its source if we consider the way in which the material world appealed to primitive man. We are probably right in thinking that to his eye it was a field of vast confusion. It contained many separate things which came and went, appeared and disappeared ; but they were all regarded as the ever-changing spectacle of a single thing. At first man did not seek for an explanation of what arrested his attention. He found one before him. The powers of heaven and earth were seen to be productive powers, and very early they were honoured as such. Nature being recognised as a source of beneficence, its individual forms were soon filled up in imagination with life after the human pattern. In this, idealising fancy was at work, and most legiti- mately. A belief in spiritual essences detached from material objects came later, but it came soon after this. Possibly it had its origin in the phenomena of dreaming. The early races may have come to think of the soul as distinct from the body, because in sleep they seemed to be themselves away in distant places ; and so they thought that something within them did actually go away in sleep, and return to the 26 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. body when it awoke. Then as a very natural sequel primitive man personified the powers of Nature ; that is to say, he thought he saw the working of what resembled his own consciousness in Nature, and concluded that certain phenomena were animated or presided over by beings that resembled himself. The progress from this idea to that of a single power which controlled the many was easy and natural. But a historical exhibition of the way in which this belief has grown even if we could trace out every link in the chain of sequence cannot under- mine the counter-fact which is indeed its correlative that a Power within the universe, kindred to his own, has all the while been disclosing itself to man. The discovery of its germ cannot make a mature pro- duct a chimera, in comparison with that from which it sprang. The inferior must of course precede the superior ; but perhaps the best way of putting the case as regards the theistic argument, is that the Reality, which the mature idea of the race has more clearly grasped, was at first imperfectly seized by the imagination and fancy, and was afterwards more accurately dealt with by the intellect and the heart of man. If any one is surprised at the numerous phases which the conviction has undergone, from its infancy onwards, it may be noted that so soon as any belief ii THE EVOLUTION OF THEISM 27 has reached a relative maturity, and been trans- planted as this one has been within the historic period from race to race, it invariably changes its characteristics. Any nation receiving its religious and philosophical ideas from another, of necessity leaves out, and sets aside, certain things that are unsuitable for it. At the same time, it evolves these ideas in a new direction, and to fresh purpose. It changes all that it assimilates; and so, the next historic outcome is of necessity different from every- thing that preceded it. Evolution is certainly a process at work, not only in inorganic life, but also and perhaps more especially in all our theories, or intellectual schemes of the universe. This may become more obvious if we remember that the recognition of the Infinite by man is really due to the presence of the Infinite in him. The disclosure is due, not to the uprise of finite faculty, but to the energy, within the finite, of that universal Essence which transcends it. In other words, " the light that lighteneth every man that cometh into the world " is the eternal Logos, the universal immanent Divinity. This Logos is without or beyond each individual, in the sense that it is in others as well as in himself. It may not be recognised by the indi- vidual, but it can no more be withdrawn or detached from him, than substance can be detached from phenomena, or a shadow from that which casts 28 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. it. If we can thus discern God as the universal essence of things, the real and abiding sub-strate of the Universe, within and without, the Subject as well as the Object of our consciousness, and therefore both the primal and the final cause of things, the so-called " proofs " of his existence, or apologetic arguments to demonstrate it become less necessary. In fact, the desire to possess, and still more to accumulate, theistic " proofs " betokens a certain amount of restlessness ; as if the great postulate was an uncertain premiss, from which no adequate start could be made, until it is buttressed round about with a large array of ratiocination. 1 We do not need to start in our theodicy, as on a speculative journey to try to " find God " at the end of our quest, as a sort of goal, or terminus ad quern,; because we may find at the close of our studies in Logic, Metaphysic, and Ethic, in the Sciences, in Art, and in History that we have been preoccupied all the while with a theological problem, that we have been dealing with the most radical of all inquiries under an altered name. God has been with us from the first, " when we knew it not " ; and he has remained throughout, at every step, " the master light of all 1 On being told that there was a theological chair in some of the Scottish Colleges devoted to the subject of "Apologetics," the late Thomas Erskine of Linlathen remarked with his delightful ndivetd, " Apologetics, did you say ? I thought that Christianity needed no apology." THE EVOLUTION OF THEISM 29 He is not reached at the close of our inquiry, as a deduction from an assumed premiss more geometrico; He is recognised as the Infinite, who is presupposed in all finite being, and whose existence is implied in every exercise of thought. CHAPTER III ITS HISTORIC TYPES LONG before it became subjective or introspective, human thought was objective and spontaneous. It was world- conscious and concrete, before it became self-conscious and abstract. In the primitive age man never asked a reason for his beliefs. He thought through the medium of pictures and symbols, and was quite satisfied with them. He groped after reality, and found it in a confused sort of way ; and he, of course, expressed his finding obscurely. But, underlying these early processes of half -con- scious activity, reason was at work ; and in the way in which the theistic idea was subsequently evolved, we see at once a picture of primeval thought, and a mirror of those lines of evidence which appeal to the maturer intellect of the modern world. It should also be noted that the various forms which this evidence has assumed have existed side by side contemporaneously ; so that we have not one type that is exclusively Indian CHAP, in ITS HISTORIC TYPES 31 or Indo-European, another distinctively Semitic, a third that is Greek, a fourth Zoroastrian, and a fifth specifically Christian. The different types of Theism have all been inter-related, in the cosmo- politan thought of the world ; and they have inter- mingled more or less in the history of religious belief throughout the ages. The chief historic arguments may be set down- to use technical terms as the ontological, the cosmological, the teleological, the ethical, and the intuitional. This may be a suitable arrangement as regards speculative dignity, but as regards simplicity and historical priority they may be arranged exactly in a reverse order. The ontological argument attempts to prove the objective existence of Deity from the subjective existence of the notion of God in the human mind. The notion, it is said, implies the reality ; the ideal carries the actual with it, or in it. The cos- mological proof endeavours to ascend from the mere fact of existence to its cause ; contingency, it is said, implies necessity the mere fact of relative existence implying absolute existence as its counterpart. The teleological or physico-theological proof tries to infer from the characteristics of finite existence the nature of its source. It finds the evidence of adjustment, or design, in the correlations of finite phenomena ; and it infers that a contriving mind produced them. 32 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. Another branch of the same argument tries to ascend from the order of the cosmos to an intelligent Orderer ; not from present design to a past designer, but from law now in operation to an Operator present within it. The ethical argument interprets the hints of the conscience as the suggestions of an alter-ego within the individual, or as the subjective echo of an objective voice beyond him. The intuitional argu- ment affirms rather than proves for its evidence is higher than formal ratiocination that the Infinite Object is apprehensible by man, and is at times apprehended in the act of disclosing itself to him, and that the disclosure has many aspects physical, intellectual, moral, and aesthetic. The mere statement of these theistic proofs, as they have been formulated throughout the ages, will show that the idea with which they all deal, and which they severally try to compass, is a root-idea of the human consciousness. They are a historic evidence of the continuous effort which human nature has made to explain to itself a transcendent notion, the reality of which it has always appre- hended in one form or another, but the contents of which it has never been able to comprehend or adequately to define. The particular form which the belief has assumed, as mirrored in these "proofs," though always very imperfectly reflected in them while valid for one generation, has often in ITS HISTORIC TYPES 33 proved invalid for the next, or at least for the more original minds that have guided it. This historic fact, however, is not difficult to explain. It has been due to the continuous develop- ment of human nature itself, and to the subjective expansion of the idea which the race has all along been endeavouring to grasp. Not that the expansion of the idea far less the idea itself has been caused by its own evolution, but the transient phases it has assumed have been partially due to the circumstances under which it has come to light; and, in its elaboration of these proofs, we see the mind and heart of the race grasping, apprehending, and strug- gling with a reality, which has always transcended its after-power of articulate statement. It will be admitted by the agnostic that the history of these proofs or of the efforts men have made to demonstrate the Divine Existence is a profoundly interesting chapter in the growth of the human mind, and the evolution of its powers. If the modern theist would maintain his ground against the agnostic, however, he must candidly admit that many of these proofs have failed ; although, it is more necessary to discover the root of truth, whence each and all of them have sprung, than it is either for him, or for the agnostic to find out the error into which they may have expanded. It is further noteworthy that 34 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. it is only when theories on this subject have crystal- lised into dogmas, that they have become inadequate for posterity. It is a philosophical commonplace to say that the most erroneous dogma in the world contains, and must contain, seme truth in it ; else it could never have appeared. It is no less certain that the truest of them contains some element (or elements) of error and inadequacy, and therefore of transitoriness. If our " little systems " " have their day, and cease to be," the decay of our greater ones is only a question of time. The longevity of any one of them may, as a rule, be due to the amount of truth it contains ; but error and heresy in the sense of partial views seem as indigenous to the race as truth is, and quite as inveterate. Certainly it has sometimes been rather due to the way in which a particular " system " has been launched, and to the motive force it has received from the personality of its founder, than to its rationality or its in- tellectual coherence, that it has had a long lease of life. Thus, every Religion that has existed has had some fragments of intellectual as well as of moral truth in it, or it could not have lived for a year, or even for a day or an hour. History has, how- ever, conclusively shown that it is even more necessary that a Religion should administer to the emotions, and provide food for the imagination, than in ITS HISTORIC TYPES 35 that it should appeal to the reason of mankind ; and further, that if it is to live for any length of time, the intellectual elements it contains must always blend with the emotive ones. It must have its root in psychological and metaphysical truth of some kind, in the realities of existence and of character ; but if it does not give scope at the same time to the heart and the imagination in other words, if it does not make room for the ideal, as well as for the real in human nature it very soon decays. For its own sake, therefore, it must utilise the concrete and pictorial elements of human thought and feeling. It is more necessary to its success that it should be homely, and even popular, than that it should appeal to the " dry light " of reason ; while, above all things else, it must offer definite practical help to men in their struggle with adversity and disaster. In reference then to the various phases which Religion has assumed in the world, there may have been a progress, or "increasing purpose" throughout the ages ; but it may be doubted whether the masses of mankind in the nineteenth century of our era are any freer of superstition regarding it than they were in the first century A.D. There are distinct social strata perhaps irremovable ones to which the lower forms of pictorial religion still appeal more forcibly than the conclusions of the cultivated reason, 36 ASPECTS OF THEISM CHAP. to say nothing of the esoteric of scientific schools or philosophical coteries. I