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EVOLUTION 
 
 AND 
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 C. F. CLAY, Manager 
 
 Hontion: fetter lane, e.g. 
 
 BDinburgij: loo PRINCES STREET 
 
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 Brnnbag, Calcutta anli piaUras : MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. 
 
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 SToftgo: THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
EVOLUTION 
 
 AND 
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 BY 
 STEWART A. McDOWALL, M.A. 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 CHAPLAIN AND ASSISTANT MASTER AT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
 
 Author of E'uolution and the Need of Atonement 
 
 Cambridge : 
 at the University Press 
 
Camtiittrge: 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
■ ^ 
 
 /^5 
 
 TO MY FATHER 
 
 iw375599 
 
PREFACE 
 
 II /T ANY laymen feel that the humanity of a doctor 
 ^^-*- is generally, though by no means always, 
 richer than the humanity of a clergyman. Not a 
 few courageously proclaim the fact; greatly to the 
 discomfort, and perhaps the benefit, of the clergy. 
 And as we mentally run through the long roll of 
 literary doctors, beginning with Luke the Beloved 
 Physician, noting the names of Sir Thomas Browne, 
 Dr John Brown, Dr Oliver Wendell Holmes, and many 
 more, till we reach contemporary writers like Douglas 
 White and the author of The Corner of Harley Street, 
 we cannot but agree that the laymen have a good 
 deal of justice on their side. And our personal ex- 
 perience teaches us the same. 
 
 The reason of this is not far to seek. 
 
 The humanity of the doctor is richer than the 
 humanity of the parson because he knows so much 
 more about the mechanism in which the soul lives. 
 Very few doctors fall into the mistake of thinking 
 they have to talk to, and counsel, a mechanism without 
 a soul; while "quite a many" clergymen talk to a 
 soul as if it had not got a mechanism tied on to it. 
 Unfortunately, the doctor has not time to be a parson 
 
viii Preface 
 
 as well (though many are both in all but name and 
 technical knowledge); and, still more unfortunately, 
 a medical degree and a hospital appointment, followed ' 
 by some years of general practice, are not within the 
 sphere of practical politics in the training of the parson. \ 
 But, at least, we parsons can learn to reverence the 
 doctors' point of view, and the doctors ours. 
 
 Each will have to be honest and openminded, and 
 unready to take offence. But the outcome will be 
 pure gain for both. We parsons shall learn to admire 
 the body a great deal more than we do; and to see 
 what a very useful servant, what a very valuable 
 ally, it has been, and still is, for the soul. We shall ' 
 learn to be rather more charitable to some sinners, 
 and rather less complacent to some respectable folk. 
 We may learn to lighten our condemnation of sins 
 of the body, and to put far more vigour into our 
 denunciation of harshness and lovelessness and such- 
 like sins of the soul. We shall get love into truer 
 perspective, and bring our code more into line with 
 our Master's. We may find saints in rather unexpected 
 places — and sinners too, for the matter of that. And 
 the doctors will learn something as well, but we may 
 leave that matter to them. 
 
 The spread of knowledge has imposed a very serious ' 
 duty upon all parsons, for it has taught men to ask 
 "Why?" And if the clergy cannot give a reason for 
 the faith that is in them, and further, a reason that 
 
Preface ix 
 
 takes full cognisance of, and welcomes, modem 
 discoveries, men will turn to others for help. The 
 phase of doubt and questioning is in itself thoroughly 
 healthy; but it may become a real menace to the 
 Church, unless her accredited teachers are prepared 
 to teach, and to learn. It is no good to say to a man 
 "This is what you ought to want to hear about." 
 Our duty is to let him tell us what he wants to hear 
 about himself, and then to try to answer his questions. 
 For the common-sense man asks questions which are 
 full of common sense. St Peter was not told to be 
 content to roam with the flock, and to snatch a 
 mouthful for himself where he could; nor, on the 
 other hand, does the skilful shepherd feed his flock 
 with roots all the year round. 
 
 The present book, and its precursor, represent an 
 attempt to look at the human being as a soul closely 
 connected to a mechanism. I have tried as far as 
 possible to see eye to eye with the doctor and the 
 common-sense man, while keeping steadily in view 
 the conviction that the mechanism exists because of 
 the soul, and not the soul because of the mechanism. 
 Furthermore, stress is laid on the fact that neither 
 soul nor mechanism is fixed: the one is growing 
 through the activities of the other, and both are 
 changing. Much is to be gained by the effort to view 
 life as a whole, and without bias. Naturally, a rooted 
 conviction that the soul is more important than the 
 
X Preface 
 
 mechanism renders it impossible to write altogether 
 without bias; one can only try to avoid prejudice, 
 as far as is humanly possible. 
 
 Comparatively little detailed consideration is given 
 in the present book to the conclusions of particular 
 schools of philosophy, except where a reference to 
 one system or another has seemed desirable for the 
 purpose of illustrating a definite point. William James 
 justly complains that "The abuse of technicality is 
 seen in the infrequency with which, in philosophical 
 literature, metaphysical questions are discussed directly 
 on their own merits. Almost always they are handled, 
 as if through a heavy woollen curtain, the veil of pre- 
 vious philosophers' opinions. Alternatives are wrapped 
 in proper names, as if it were indecent for a truth to 
 go naked." I have tried, rather, to work from point 
 to point, handling everything with bare fingers, and 
 only discovering by touch the shape of each lump of 
 fact and its contacts with the next. And the shapes 
 and contacts of some were unexpected. 
 
 But clothes are ornamental; and these ornaments 
 we have come to consider essential to decency. There- 
 fore, both for the sake of our ideas of what is suitable, 
 and to escape arrest by the police who guard our 
 thoughts, I have decked the body of my work with 
 more or less of the usual habiliments i. 
 
 1 Those who have never studied Metaphysics, but who wish to 
 gain some general idea of the scope and aim of Philosophy, cannot 
 
Preface xi 
 
 The debt I owe to many writers, and especially 
 to M. Bergson, is manifest throughout. But, for the 
 above reason, no copious bibliography is given, though 
 reference is made to some of the works which proved 
 specially helpful ; and also, of set purpose, to various 
 small manuals, which may be consulted with profit by 
 those who have not leisure or opportunity to study 
 larger books. 
 
 I would emphasise the fact that the outlook on 
 the problems of life and religion is in a sense narrow. 
 The standpoint of evolution has been adopted, and 
 from that, and that alone, the whole has been viewed. 
 Very much that is true and valuable, very much that 
 is important, must necessarily lie outside our purview. 
 And everything that does lie outside has been rigorously 
 excluded. I cannot hope to have avoided serious 
 omissions, any more than positive errors; but many 
 aspects of the problems discussed are outside our 
 range, and one may not justly be brought to task 
 for failing to include matters which it was never 
 intended to discuss. 
 
 The first part of the book deals with certain basal 
 problems which lie at the root of religion, and an 
 attempt is made to show that the chief contradictions 
 
 do better than read F. B. Jevons' Philosophy. What is it? (Camb. 
 Univ. Press, 1/6 net) and the Hon. Bertrand Russell's The Problems 
 oj Philosophy (Williams and Norgate, 1/- net), both of which are 
 admirable summaries. 
 
xii Preface 
 
 of our experience are due to the limitation of freedom, 
 and the bearing of this limitation on the mechanism of 
 thought. Necessarily, the discussion of many aspects 
 of the subject-matter is somewhat technical; and 
 I fear that I may not altogether have avoided ob- 
 scurity, though I have tried to do so. The conclusions 
 are simple, and so is their application, but one has first 
 to dig deep, in order to discover this, and make it clear. 
 In the second part the great realities of the personal 
 religious life of a Christian are examined from the same 
 standpoint — that of limited, but growing, freedom. 
 
 Of necessity frequent reference is made to my 
 earlier book. Evolution and the Need of Atonement, to 
 which the present volume is a sequel, and in some 
 sense a corollary ; though complete in itself. 
 
 In that book an attempt was made to show that 
 sin, though it is the result of evolution, is yet not an 
 inevitable result. It is failure to progress; but it is 
 more than mere failure. It is the conscious choice of 
 the lower course by beings who are capable of higher 
 things. By sin man sets up a very real barrier between 
 himself and God, since he has of his own will chosen 
 a course of action that commits him to an evolution 
 which can never end in perfectness. Imperfection is 
 ingrained in his being. God must remove that imper- 
 fection by some means which leaves man's freedom 
 untouched, if there is ever to be union between Him- 
 self and man ; for there can be no true union between 
 
Preface xiii 
 
 a Being Who is perfect, and beings eternally doomed 
 to imperfection by their own free act. And so the 
 evolutionary conception of sin in no degree does 
 away with the need of Atonement, but, rather, lays 
 stress on the necessity of an Atonement that could only 
 be wrought by God Himself. It in no degree removes 
 the need for a God, but rather gives clear indication 
 of His existence and His plan for the world; for 
 spiritual evolution is a real fact, and implies a spiritual 
 environment. 
 jk Now philosophers have long been divided into two 
 hostile camps : those who consider everything in terms 
 of mind, and those who consider everything in terms 
 of matter. The first includes the Sensationalists and 
 Idealists; the second, the Materialists. But people 
 are beginning to realise that the camps lie on opposite 
 sides of a line; and that each group says the line 
 has only one side. The common-sense man, who 
 may be also a philosopher — for the prevailing view 
 that the two are mutually incompatible is un- 
 sound — is objecting that every line has two sides, 
 and must have two sides, even though it is without 
 breadth. And so a species of philosophy, not very 
 different from a kind of practical dualism, has grown 
 up, which admits that Mind and Matter alike really 
 exist in some sort of way, and that they are very 
 closely related. As to what exactly constitutes this 
 relation, views difier widely; but Mind is generally 
 
 M. 6 • 
 
xiv Preface 
 
 given a more prominent place in the system than 
 Matter. In the course of the present work the reader 
 will find a good many arguments adduced which seem 
 to point towards the conception that Matter is inti- 
 mately connected with the limitation of freedom. And 
 freedom is necessarily to be regarded as an attribute 
 of a Personal Being, and only of a Personal Being. 
 It is further suggested that what we call Matter may 
 be simply the expression or manifestation of this limitor 
 tion of freedom. 
 
 In the beginning this must have been a limitation 
 of the freedom of God, since freedom is an attribute 
 of personality. Hence arise the kenosis-aspect of 
 Creation and the doctrine of Immanence. As soon as 
 other personalities develope, the limitation affects them 
 also as part of their experience, and matter becomes 
 a limitation of man's freedom as well as God's. 
 
 Moreover, the problem becomes explicable when, 
 and only when, we seek and find an end or aim in 
 limitation. Our whole examination will lead us to 
 conclusions that involve a very definite teleology. 
 We shall see matter as an instrument; for the end is 
 something that can only be brought about by the 
 limitation of the freedom of God. And this must 
 necessarily be willed by God, for there is no one else 
 to will it; and it must be, so, a self-limitation. 
 
 With the elucidation of this thought the first six 
 chapters are concerned. Of necessity they are in a 
 
Preface xv 
 
 great degree metaphysical. The remaining chapters 
 are more practical, for they deal with the everyday, 
 wonderful certainties of religious life. 
 
 If anything is herein written that gives offence to 
 one or another, I can but ask pardon. If anything 
 appears too dogmatic in form, it is due simply to a 
 desire for clearness and brevity. The whole matter 
 is far too high for adequate presentation. One can 
 but outline, to the best of one's ability, such aspects 
 of the truth as seem to be revealed. 
 
 The pen is a poor instrument at best; and the 
 awe and reverence of the heart, however deep, cannot 
 be forced into the narrow compass of words and 
 syntax. The ineptitude of the Prologue in Pyramus 
 and Thisbe resulted from his inability to "stand upon 
 points." 
 
 I can only say that I have tried to search out the 
 truth honestly, and plead for lenient judgment. 
 
 For all of us there is one great belief, that "God 
 so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten 
 Son, to the end that all who believe on Him should 
 not perish, but have Everlasting Life." This is the 
 great, universal Truth; and we can only strive, each 
 in his own way, to understand those aspects of it for 
 which our training makes us able. 
 
 I must again express my gratitude to Canon 
 V. F. Storr. He has read the manuscript, and offered 
 many valuable suggestions. While he can in no way 
 
 62 
 
xvi Preface 
 
 be held responsible for the general argument, or for 
 the mistakes and omissions that may still remain, 
 he is responsible for the absence of some, and for 
 suggestions towards the reshaping of certain passages 
 which were obscure or doubtful. 
 
 I am also indebted to my wife for many hints 
 and criticisms, and for constant and ungrudging help 
 in preparing this book for the press. 
 
 Acknowledgment is due to the Editor of the 
 Church Quarterly Review for his kind permission to 
 make use of my article on " The Problem of Continuity," 
 which appeared in July 1914, and which forms the 
 basis of Chapter II. A few omissions, verbal altera- 
 tions, and additions have been made, but it remains 
 substantially unaltered. 
 
 S. A. McD. 
 
 WiNTON, 
 
 February 1916. 
 
ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Some Antinomibs of Thottqht 
 
 FAOE 
 
 Primitive religion based on Personality ... 1 
 
 Underlying idea of Fetishism spiritual ... 4 
 Complexity of tribal pantheon leads to conception of One 
 
 Creator ........ 6 
 
 "Nearness" of tribal Gods absorbed in Immanent aspect 
 
 of Creator ....... 6 
 
 ReUgion must find ideals in every aspect of God . . 7 
 
 Metaphysical attempts to evade the necessary conception 
 
 of a Personal Ood 
 
 Mechanistic Philosophy ...... 8 
 
 Spinoza — Pantheism — Conception of Unity ... 9 
 
 Leibnitz — Conception of PluraUty .... 10 
 
 Empiricists ........ 10 
 
 Transcendentalists . . . . . . . 11 
 
 The Vindication of Personality — Lotze. . . . 11 
 
 Monism and Pluralism ...... 12 
 
 Bergson ......... 15 
 
 Stages of Growth of Belief in Immanence and Transcend- 
 ence ........ 16 
 
 Multiplicity of metaphysical systems due to selection of 
 
 premisses ........ 18 
 
 Pairs of correlated opposites appear in the three chief 
 domains of rational thought 
 
 (1) Theology: Transcendence and Immanence . . 20 
 
 (2) Philosophy: Unity and multipHcity . . . 21 
 
 (3) Natural Science: Freedom and determination . . 21 
 
xviii Analysis of Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 (1) Instinctive understanding of man that matter is the 
 
 instrument of spirit .... . . 23 
 
 God causes matter, yet indwells matter . . 26 
 
 (2) The human mind demands unity, but finds pluraUty ; 
 
 hence arise rival systems of philosophy . . 28 
 
 (3) Determination of matter ..... 30 
 Freedom of hving organism ..... 32 
 Summary: "As transcendence is to immanence, so 
 
 is unity to multipUcity, and so is freedom to deter- 
 mination" ....... 33 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Some aspects of the Idea op Continuity 
 
 The modern mind sees activity of God rather in serial 
 
 progress than in adaptive design ... 34 
 
 Can Spirit, land and water be placed in series ? Rather, 
 
 all are parts of one continuous Environment . 35 
 
 Man can only have perceptual knowledge of the material 
 
 part of this Environment ..... 36 
 
 Only conceptual knowledge of a continuum possible . 37 
 
 Mind always moves from recognition of discontinuity to 
 conception of a continuum : e.g. the Ether. Matter 
 is now known to be based on knots or strains in a 
 continuous ether ...... 37 
 
 Quanta ......... 39 
 
 There can be only one ultimate continuum, though it may 
 
 be conceived under spatial or temporal aspects . 41 
 
 AU lines of thought lead independently to conception of 
 
 a continuum ....... 43 
 
 Freedom is synonymous with continuity, Umitation with 
 
 discontinuity ....... 45 
 
Analysis of Contents xix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Spiritual nature of the Cosmos ..... 46 
 
 The idea of Creation as a self -limitation of God . . 47 
 This limitation can only vanish when the creature becomes 
 
 perfect ........ 48 
 
 Progress from perception to conception ... 50 
 Man's realisation that discontinuity is temporal, spirit 
 
 eternal ........ 51 
 
 ReaUty of dualism for God in so far as He is Immanent . 51 
 Sin is the rejection of knowledge of the sacramental nature 
 
 of matter ....... 53 
 
 Summary ......... 64 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Some aspects of Unity and Multiplicity 
 IN Living Mattbb 
 
 Unity and Multiplicity in the Environment and in the 
 
 Organism. ....... 57 
 
 Physiological division of labour based on the impulse of 
 
 Mving matter towards unity .... 58 
 Regeneration exempUfies the same impulse ... 60 
 The impulse towards unity in insect colonies . . 62 
 The more highly organised the colony, the less independent 
 
 the individual unit ...... 64 
 
 The Problem of IndividuaUty : is individuaUty to be 
 
 sought in the unit or in the colony ? . . . 65 
 
 Mr Huxley's definition of the Individual ... 68 
 This definition includes human societies, but fails to take 
 
 account of Personality ..... 69 
 SoUdarity achieved in two ways, by instinct and by 
 
 intelligence ....... 70 
 
 Intelligence based on the possession of a central nervous 
 
 system ........ 72 
 
XX Analysis of Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Corporate consciousness ...... 74 
 
 Impossibility of corporate intelligence, since intelligence 
 
 is a phenomenon of personality .... 75 
 
 When corporate instincts are based on reason, it is the 
 
 reason of the individual, not of the race . . 76 
 
 Tribal instinct ........ 78 
 
 Ethics based on intelligence, and a manifestation of 
 
 personaUty ....... 79 
 
 Importance of central nervous system : freedom can only 
 arise where in the organism itself there is almost 
 complete certainty of determinate interaction of 
 the parts ........ 81 
 
 Recapitulation : animal societies based on instinct ; human 
 
 societies, largely at least, guided by reason . . 82 
 
 Survival of instinct in human societies. ... 83 
 
 Development of personality dependent on possession and 
 
 integrity of central nervous system ... 85 
 
 Conclusion : Where intelligence is absent there appears to 
 be a tendency towards unity, where it is present, 
 towards plurality, yet with a reasoned advance 
 towards union ....... 88 
 
 Note on Herd Instinct ...... 90 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Some aspects of the Winning op Freedom 
 
 Conclusive proof of existence of freedom eludes us ; of its 
 
 truth we seldom doubt ..... 92 
 
 Definition of freedom: the true alternative ... 94 
 
 Freedom must be won, not given .... 94 
 Is the gift of the power of winning freedom not really 
 
 equivalent to a gift of freedom itself? . . 96 
 
 The element of contingency negatives this ... 97 
 
Analysis of Contents xxi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The process of evolution is new spirit in the making, not 
 pre-existing spirit striving towards freedom and 
 self-expression. Pluralism, not pantheism, is its 
 result ......•• 99 
 
 God can only create good spirits, and the achieval of 
 goodness which has an ethical value rests on the 
 possibihty of not-goodness. There must be no 
 compulsion for the individual .... 100 
 
 The moral problem of pain loses much of its urgency if we 
 realise that the seK-Umitation of God is the only 
 possible basis of man's freedom .... 103 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Immanence and Transcendence; two aspects of the 
 Christian idea op God 
 
 The antinomies that confront us are : Transcendence and 
 Immanence ; Unity and Multiplicity ; Freedom and 
 Determination . . . . . . .112 
 
 Inadequacy of monistic and pluralistic explanations . 114 
 Origin and growth of the ideas of Immanence and Tran- 
 scendence ........ 117 
 
 Personality must underlie Divine activity, and the judg- 
 ment of values which activity involves . . . 121 
 Conception of unity static, of union dynamic . . . 126 
 The activity of love is directed towards union . . 127 
 Freedom in the creature involves three difficulties : (1) the 
 limitation of God; (2) the creation of a pluralistic 
 universe; and (3) the passage of the Timeless into 
 
 Time 128 
 
 (1) Creation must be a kenosis, and must entail pain 
 both for God and the creature, since freedom can 
 only be won through struggle with a determinate 
 environment .....•• 129 
 
xxii Analysis of Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Transcendent freedom is complete self-determination; 
 Immanence involves a measure of determination 
 from without ....... 133 
 
 Absorption of the perfected creature into Grod is impossible 136 
 
 Pain is inevitable ; sin is not, because it is not a necessary 
 consequence of the existence of a lower course of 
 action ........ 136 
 
 Pain becomes part of the experience of Grod, but sin does 
 
 not 138 
 
 (2) The eventual solution of the pluralism that exists in 
 
 Time, is to be sought in the union of the wiUs and 
 experience of men with Grod's, in Eternity . . 139 
 
 (3) Immanence involves duration, since it involves the 
 
 interpenetration of states ..... 142 
 
 The relation between Transcendence and Immanence in the 
 Godhead. Immanent and Transcendent activities ; 
 the first external, the second internal. . . 146 
 
 Transcendence is the relation of God to that which is perfect^ 
 eternal and simultaneous, and so to Himself ; while 
 Immanence is His relation to thai which is imperfect 
 or becoming J and so is durational . . . .148 
 
 Man, Hke God, is both transcendent and immanent; but 
 with this difference, that God's Transcendence and 
 Immanence are the cause of man's . . . 150 
 
 Summary ......... 153 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Etebnal Life 
 
 Recapitulation of arguments leading to the conclusion 
 
 that the antinomies are due to absence of freedom 157 
 The basis of freedom must be sought in personality . . 160 
 
 Limitation and Immanence involve change, and change 
 
 introduces the time-factor . . . . .162 
 
Analysis of Contents xxiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Thus Time must be real for God, in so far as He is Immanent 163 
 Transcendent activity is directed towards union . . 165 
 The meaning of Matter ...... 168 
 
 Four metaphysical problems: 
 
 (1) Can one experieTice he shared hy many experients ? 
 
 (2) Can man and God share a common experience ? 
 
 (3) What is the transcendent part of man ? 
 
 (4) What is marCs relation to the two aspects of Ood ? . 170 
 (3) and (4) More and more of man's being passes out of 
 
 time into simultaneity, and hence his transcendental 
 
 ego is constantly being added to . . .171 
 
 The question whether this appHes to animals . . . 175 
 
 Man has relation with God in both His aspects . . 176 
 
 (2) Pure memory is in the past, and therefore cannot 
 exist in the simultaneous: hence in eternal life 
 man's experience cannot differ from that of God by 
 including memory ...... 177 
 
 Nevertheless the character of the personaUty was built up 
 largely through the agency of memory, so that its 
 results persist ....... 182 
 
 God's Transcendence is antecedent and causal in its 
 
 relation to man's . . . . . . 185 
 
 (1) Suggestions towards an understanding of the meaning 
 
 of Transcendent Experience . . . .185 
 
 The difficulty of a common experience is overcome in the 
 
 conception of perfect penetrabihty . . . 187 
 
 Conclusions : that all the difficulties of thought have their 
 origin in the absence of complete freedom, and that 
 freedom will find its final consummation in Union, 
 not in Unity ....... 191 
 
 Summary of argument 192 
 
xxiv Analysis of Contents 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Prayeb 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prayer is only possible for a Creature who recognises the 
 
 relation between means and ends . . .197 
 The Creature at first uses part of his environment as a 
 "tool"; later comes the power of tool-making — a 
 mediate act, involving reflection, and the recogni- 
 tion of causaUty ...... 202 
 
 Mediate action involves voUtion ..... 204 
 
 Recognition of causality leads to a sense of dependence on 
 
 God . . 205 
 
 Is the efficacy of prayer due to self -stimulation, or to 
 
 external aid? ....... 207 
 
 In either case its validity is derived from God . . 208 
 Prayer is voluntary use of the Spiritual Environment of 
 man, making a "tool " of it ; and so the external aid 
 thereby received cannot Umit man's freedom . 209 
 God cannot answer prayer for mistaken ends ; otherwise 
 
 He would contradict Himself . . . .211 
 
 The question whether external aid is actually given . 213 
 Every answer to prayer involves a change in matter, both 
 within, and external to, the petitioner; and so it 
 is not justifiable to draw a hard and fast line 
 between prayer for spiritual and for material gifts 215 
 
 Conclusions 222 
 
 Note on Prayer for the Dead . . . . . 224 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Sacraments 
 The material side of man's experience has all the essential 
 features of a sacrament ; so that we may speak of 
 the Sacrament of Matter, or the Sacrament of 
 Environment 226 
 
Analysis of Contents xxv 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Theological views of the Holy Communion . . . 228 
 Congruity of aid through the Holy Communion . .231 
 Constant renewal of union with God, through Christ, in 
 
 the Holy Communion ..... 234 
 
 Von Hiigel's discussion of Institutionalism in Religion . 235 
 
 The essentials of a sacrament ..... 237 
 
 Hort on the Holy Communion ..... 239 
 
 Nettleship on symbolism in the Holy Communion . 241 
 
 Inge on the Sacraments ...... 244 
 
 The sacramental nature of matter is emphasised in the 
 
 Eucharist 246 
 
 A modified form of the Receptionist doctrine is indicated 
 
 as a result of our discussion .... 250 
 
 Conclusions . . . . . . . .251 
 
 The aid given in the Eucharist is directed towards the 
 
 immanent side of man; the appeal of communion 
 
 is for his transcendent side .... 252 
 Our argument tends to suggest that the importance of 
 
 Baptism lies in soUdarity rather than in special 
 
 gift of Divine aid ...... 253 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Faith, Providence, and Revelation 
 
 Faith defined as movement from Hope towards Certainty 258 
 But Faith always involves the relation of one Person to 
 
 another Person ....... 263 
 
 Faith tends towards Action ..... 265 
 
 Relation between Intuition, Hope, Faith, and Certainty 267 
 
 Faith involves belief in the existence and purpose of God 269 
 
 Analysis of the conception of Providence . . . 272 
 
 And of Revelation ....... 274 
 
 True ideas of Providence, and questionable ones . . 277 
 
xxvi Analysis of Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 True ideas of Revelation, and questionable ones . . 282 
 The basis of the ideas of Providence and Revelation is to 
 be sought in progressive movement, not in inter- 
 mittent action ....... 283 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 The Christian Community 
 
 The impulse towards solidarity among animals and men 284 
 Solidarity finds its ultimate meaning in the needs of 
 
 PersonaHty 287 
 
 The eternal meaning of this is clearly foreshadowed in the 
 
 Church 289 
 
 Conclusion ......... 295 
 
 Additional Not« on Prayer ..... 300 
 
PAET I 
 
 FOUNDATION 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 SOME ANTINOMIES OF THOUGHT 
 
 With the earliest dawn of social life among men 
 arose a belief in higher beings who had power to 
 influence the course of the little world that centred 
 round the community. 
 
 Sun, moon and stars, fire and hail, snow and 
 vapours, wind and storm, fulfilled their word. Tree 
 and shrub, bird, beast and fish, were under their 
 dominion ; so was the community itself. And because 
 "They" were persons, naturally Their interest was 
 focussed on the community of persons who were so 
 like Them, yet so much fettered by material needs. 
 For the tribe the gods created the world and everything 
 in it, and in its interest all was controlled. 
 
 Nevertheless the gods had their own concerns, and 
 they were apt to be distracted from their duty to the 
 tribe by the pressure of private affairs. The sun or 
 moon might be put out by a troublesome fellow-deity, 
 or some monster might swallow the one or the other. 
 Such things had to be dealt with at once, and the 
 
 M. 1 
 
2 Primitive Religions Personal 
 
 offender punished or made to disgorge. Celestial 
 harmony had no part in the conception of the pantheon. 
 Therefore the gods required reminders, when they 
 forgot for the moment that the centre of the universe 
 could not get enough to eat without their help. 
 
 Again, since they were of a touchy temperament, 
 jealous gods, they had to be cajoled into forgiveness 
 of past neglect when they manifested their wrath, and 
 the sickness was sore in the land; when the sun was 
 darkened, or the moon gave no light. Clearly, since 
 they were many, the right god must be appeased. It 
 was easy enough to determine the particular god 
 involved in simple cases, but in more general disasters 
 expert advice was needed. Even in the simplest 
 matters it was important to select the best mode of 
 propitiation. Hence, naturally, arose the rudiments 
 of a priestly system. 
 
 Each tribe was perhaps, in its own opinion, the 
 hub arouud which the universe moved; for whose 
 benefit the sun and moon ran their never-ending race, 
 and the stars swung out to cheer the dark hours that 
 were given for a time of rest. But practical experience 
 taught that there were other tribes all round, with 
 other* gods, whose existence and actions could not 
 be overlooked. As the tribes waged war, so did 
 the gods also. Evidently, if the tribe was to retain 
 its position, and even its existence, its own gods 
 must be kept in good humour. They must also 
 
Polydaemonism and Fetishism 3 
 
 be kept up to the mark, and be reminded constantly 
 that celestial quarrels afforded no excuse for the neglect 
 of terrestrial duties. 
 
 Since there appeared to be design in each detail 
 of the world ; since man himself was a designer of tools 
 and an organiser of action; all design was explained 
 as the immediate action of a personal being. And 
 because man was only capable of comparatively 
 simple and immediate acts himself, so each portion 
 of the design of the world must have immediate 
 origin in the will of a special being. In this way 
 probably arose the promiscuous attribution of person- 
 ality to the spirits of wind and rain, of mountain 
 and river, of tree and cornfield. Furthermore, the 
 whole system was complicated by the idea of individual 
 as opposed to tribal, guardian spirits, which took up 
 a temporary residence in some natural or artificial 
 object^. From this arose the system of fetishism. 
 A fetish may be defined as the temporary, or more 
 rarely permanent, guardian spirit of an individual 
 which resides for a time in some material object. 
 The spirit is not a god, for its modes of action are 
 limited, and are directed towards the welfare of the 
 individual, often only in regard to some special under- 
 taking, which may be contrary to that of the tribe. 
 
 * Jevons, The Idea of God in Early Beligions. Haddon, Magic 
 and Fetishism, does not draw such a clear line between the individual 
 reference of a fetish and the tribal reference of an idol or totem, 
 
 1—2 
 
4 The many Tribal Gods 
 
 But even when the fetish was used for the purpose 
 of injuring another member of the tribe, the under- 
 lying idea was still spiritual. To the savage the 
 spiritual world, peopled by strangely anthropopathic 
 beings certainly, is as real as the objective world 
 around him. And the rudiments of all this are to 
 be sought in the first dawnings of self-consciousness 
 and of realisation of the personality of other men^. 
 Partly owing to the ever widening range of com- 
 mercial transactions, partly to the recognition that 
 the anthropomorphic pantheon and pandaemonium 
 are peopled by beings whose natures are lower in some 
 respects than those of their worshippers, a change 
 of ideas inevitably comes. Economic intercourse 
 brings a knowledge of parallel religions, and the 
 pantheon grows in complexity as the tribal system 
 gives place to the national. Similar gods seem to 
 be different aspects of the same being, and identifica- 
 tion takes place, while others, often antagonistic 
 to one another, are incorporated and go to swell the 
 
 1 I cannot agree (with Jevons) that "common consciousness" 
 precedes " self -consciousness," even allowing for the fact that he 
 uses the words in a more loose and colloquial sense than I am prepared 
 to give them in such a connection, since it inevitably leads to vagueness 
 and confusion of thought. The attribution of personality to the 
 essential nature underlying material objects is the result of reasoning, 
 even if very imperfect reasonings And the power of reasoning is 
 an attribute of the self-conscious individual, not of the community. 
 I am not sure, however, that more is meant than herd-instinct 
 see ch. in). 
 
merge in One Great Spirit 6 
 
 confusion of the celestial host. Growing confusion 
 brings with it growing anthropomorphism. The clash 
 and strife of communal and personal interests become 
 intensified as they are translated into the spirit - 
 world. Human actions which are questionable, though 
 immediately expedient, assume a very different com- 
 plexion when the gods perform them. Propitiation 
 and cult persist, but true worship dies, for the god 
 is lower than the man, in morality, though not in 
 power. The spirit of man wanders further in its 
 search for a higher being. Where so many gods 
 exist, it is difficult to beheve that any one of them 
 was the creator ; they sink into mere tutelary deities ; 
 and the mind finds solution of the deeper problems, 
 and satisfaction of the need of worship, in another 
 Being, further off perhaps from the everyday life, 
 standing out of sight behind the phalanx of minor 
 gods — the Great Spirit; even the All-Father. 
 
 In modern phrase we may say that He is tran- 
 scendent, but He is emphatically not immanent. 
 
 Slowly the gods die. The unity of the human 
 soul which is the very core of personaUty demands 
 unity in that which it worships, and the tribal or 
 national god is merged in the Great Spirit. At the 
 same time He draws nearer, for the search of the mind 
 for a reasonable ordered explanation of everyday 
 happenings does not grow less. The cult of the 
 lesser gods becomes more and more formal, and when 
 
6 Spiritual Nature of Primitive Religion 
 
 the rhythm of tradition is disturbed by some crisis, 
 it dies away. He must increase, they must decrease; 
 it is the eternal law. And so the old gods die. The 
 demand for a God who is near, in the house, in the 
 field, in the temple, is met in the idea of a Great Creator 
 who is, and who is yet becoming; the Distant All- 
 Father who is yet the Spirit of Manhood and the 
 very Dweller in the Innermost. 
 
 From the lowest to the highest stage it is the 
 spiritual side of man's nature which seeks fulfilment 
 through relationship with spirit. Even in the fetish, 
 it is the indwelHng spirit that gives the gnarled root, 
 the fantastic stone, or the pipe bowl filled with dirt 
 and ordure their potency. Even in the grotesque 
 idol it is the God that is worshipped. The spirits of 
 the wind or of the tree are to be feared, not winds 
 and trees themselves. The Linga and the Fig-tree do 
 not themselves confer fertiUty, but the spirits or the 
 gods that dwell in them. True, the Hnga may de- 
 generate into an amulet, the fig-tree into a charm. 
 But so too does polytheism degenerate into a mockery 
 of religion. Each stage of thought outgrown brings 
 death to the spirit that chngs to it, just as surely as 
 the physical inertia of the unadaptive organism brings 
 destruction in the evolution of the creature that is 
 being prepared for a soul. Greece mocked the Gods 
 before she passed. Kome mocked and prayed while 
 barbarian races drove her in upon herself. Plato 
 
Religimi based on Ideals 7 
 
 and Marcus Aurelius saw with clearer eyes, but they 
 could not carry the nation with them. 
 
 On the other hand the Jewish race was scattered 
 so that it was no more a nation. Twice its spiritual 
 vitaHty overcame national disaster, and even at the 
 last the soul of Judaism conquered the world, and 
 still Uves, a worthy foundation for the Saviour of the 
 world to build on. 
 
 The only rehgion that rests on a firm foundation 
 is the reUgion which finds an ideal in every aspect 
 of its God. Just in so far as one aspect falls beloW 
 the ethical and spiritual ideal of the nation, just 
 so far will the seeds of decay manifest themselves; 
 and without ruthless excision the decay will spread 
 beneath the surface until the whole fabric of society 
 becomes rotten and collapses; even as the tiny fibrils 
 of a fungus spread insidiously and all unsuspected 
 in an elm tree, till the tree crashes to the ground 
 in an autumn gale, and the rot is revealed. The 
 prophet is the mycologist of the nation, whose office 
 is to watch for the first indications of decay. Happy 
 the nation that hstens to its prophets, and is flexible 
 enough to alter its rehgious system to suit the advance 
 of its intellectual and moral growth ! 
 
 From first to last the mainspring of religion is, 
 as we have said, the behef in personal entities dwelling 
 in the spirit world. Personality is the basis of God- 
 head. The idea that this demand for personaUty as 
 
8 Failure of Mechanistic Philosophy 
 
 a background to the shifting drama of the universe 
 may be the result of an anthropomorphic projection 
 of the human mind into the imperfectly understood 
 is a late development of thought. In its logical or 
 modern form it was bound to come, as the result 
 both of over estimation of the importance and univer- 
 sality of Natural Laws, half understood, which seemed 
 capable of indefinite application as fact after newly- 
 discovered fact fell into place, and of the science of 
 comparative Religion. The mechanistic and atomistic 
 interpretations of nature seemed all-satisfpng when 
 first they were formulated, and even philosophy was for 
 a time carried away by the seductive simpUcity of such 
 views. Mechanism, and the solar myth turned out by 
 a German workshop, proved as fascinating to the half- 
 educated intellect as the clockwork railway to the boy. 
 But as the boy grows he soon tires of clockwork and 
 asks for a train that goes by steam. So man very 
 quickly asks for something that has more living force 
 and reality at the back of it. The artificial simpHcity of 
 the solar myth suggests too clearly its lack of reality. 
 It is but a model — a working model, it is true, but 
 still very different from the real thing. It will only 
 work on a small scale; no mechanical spring would 
 be strong enough to drive a life-size universe. The 
 attribution of personahty is no "disease of language," 
 as Max Muller held it to be. The solar myth passes 
 like a meteor, leaving no trace behind. 
 
Pantheism — Spinoza 9 
 
 None the less, the search for origins must be pursued 
 till rational knowledge becomes coextensive with 
 experience. And so philosophy must play her part, 
 questing through the unknown ; blindly perhaps, in as 
 much as she does not know whither her investigations 
 will lead her : she has no revelation, such as Keligion 
 claims, to aid her in her search : yet she starts from the 
 sure foundation of the known, and works methodically 
 and honestly towards further understanding. 
 
 Impersonal pantheism achieves a temporary 4 
 success, inspired by the genius of Spinoza. For. him 
 God is immanent, not transcendent. He is without 
 passions, without will, without goodness, without 
 purpose. One of His attributes is pure absolute 
 thought. He thinks Himself, imderstands Himself, 
 and so is self-conscious; yet He is not personal, and 
 everything that exists is the necessary result of His 
 nature. God does not create the world. He is the world^, 
 and the world is real. 
 
 The same that exists in the attribute of consciousness 
 as object (objective), as the content of our ideas, exists in 
 the attribute of extension as something actual, independent 
 
 * Cf. Windelband, History of Philosophy, p. 418: "Spinozism 
 is a consistent identification of the relation of Cause and Effect 
 with that of Ground and Consequent. The causality of the Deity 
 is, therefore, not in time, but is eternal, that is timeless; and true 
 knowledge is a consideration of things stib quadam aeiernitcUia 
 specie." This idea has much in common with the results to which 
 we are driven in chh. v and vi. 
 
1 Leibnitz — Empiricists — Idealists 
 
 of any idea or mental representation {formaliter). But 
 neither of these two modes of existence is more original 
 than the other, or forms a prototype for the other: both 
 equally express the nature of God (exprimere). Hence 
 an idealistic interpretation of Spinoza is as incorrect as 
 a materialistic, although both might be developed out of 
 his system^. 
 
 The doctrine of unity is Spinoza's great contribution 
 to thought. 
 
 Leibnitz added plurality, and indeed destroyed 
 unity in so doing, only saving it by the mechanical 
 device of the Pre-established Harmony. 
 
 The Empirical School, ruled by recent discoveries 
 in the physical world, left only three possibilities 
 open to the mind by its rationalistic investigation 
 of the data of the senses; agnosticism, atheism and 
 deism. The Deist might believe in a personal god, 
 but he set up a dualism which rendered the idea of 
 infinite personality untenable. His personal God was 
 a limited being: His very personality was in itself 
 a limitation. " God was regarded as standing apart 
 from the world and man in splendid isolation 2." 
 Intellect was everything, feeling and emotion nothing. 
 
 ^ Windelband, History of Philosophy, p. 419. 
 
 2 Storr, Development of English Theology in the Nineteenth Century, 
 p. 202. Consult further Harte, The Philosophical Treatment of 
 Divine Personality from Spinoza to Herman Lotze; Seth, Scottish 
 Philosophy ; Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics ; Windelband, History 
 of Philosophy, etc. 
 
Lotze — Y indication of Personality 11 
 
 The reaction came with the German Ideahsts. 
 TranscendentaHsm took the place of Eationahsm 
 and Empiricism in speculation, and thought as a whole 
 moved once more in the direction of pantheism. 
 Necessarily, on such lines also, personaHty is looked 
 upon as a limitation, and the impersonal absolute 
 replaces the deistic God. Finally, thought rises above 
 the idea of personality as a Umitation. Lotze tries 
 to show that all the contradictions which appear 
 when we regard God as a Person are resolved when 
 the impHcations of Infinite PersonaUty are fully 
 understood. The contradictions, he says, are due 
 either to making thought, instead of experience, 
 the basis of our discussion {e.g. for instance the Ego 
 is only thinkable in relation to the Non-Ego, but may 
 be experienced previous to and out of every such 
 relation^) or by the realisation that an Infinite Person- 
 aUty does not require the quahfication of external 
 things for its realisation. Lotze's God is immanent 
 yet transcendent, an Infinite Person. Finite person- 
 aUties are modes of the Infinite Person. Yet we 
 may notice that finite persons have a certain indepen- 
 dence of their own, which to Lotze is nothing less 
 than an "inexhaustible wonder." He cannot explain 
 it, but takes refuge in the idea that unless the many 
 are severally comparable, or are of the same generic 
 nature, they can have no knowledge of each other: 
 
 1 Harte, ojp. cit. p 139 
 
12 The Vindication of Personality 
 
 if they are comparable they are ultimately one. 
 6/jLoio<: becomes 6fMoov(TLo<;, as Athanasius would ex- 
 press it. Here lies the weakness of Lotze's system. 
 But with the aspects of pluralism and monism we 
 shall have to deal immediately^. 
 
 And so the whirligig of time brings in his revenges, 
 and the philosopher of the nineteenth century returns 
 to the view of the savage, that the world is ruled by 
 personal powers. It is true that philosophers still 
 tend to fall into two groups, and that the tenets of 
 neither are wholly in accord with the data of religious 
 consciousness; but there are clear indications that 
 a change is coming, and that thought is steadily 
 tending in a theistic direction, towards the acceptance 
 of a Personal God, while the metaphysic of Bergson 
 renders a re-examination of the older systems urgent 
 and inevitable. 
 
 The philosophical solutions current to-day fall, 
 broadly speaking, under the two headings, the absolute 
 or monistic, and the pluralistic. Materialism has gone 
 for ever. Crude dualism is shaken to its founda- 
 tions. Only an idealistic interpretation of some kind 
 is possible, or else a transcended dualism in which 
 spirit is progress in pure duration, while matter is 
 the perceived present of duration. With this last 
 difficult thought it is not necessary for us to deal 
 at present. It lies at the centre of the Bergsonian 
 
 1 Cf. Ward, Pluralism and Theism, pp. 216-224. 
 
Pluralistic mid Monistic Idealism 13 
 
 metaphysic, and for a full account of it reference 
 must be made to Bergson's Matter and Memory'^. 
 
 (1) On the idealistic side, starting with the argu- 
 ment that for ourselves nothing exists except in relation 
 to experience — either our own or that of others — 
 and that to exist is to be experienced, philosophers 
 contend that the ultimate Reality also can only be 
 a datum of consciousness or experience. The question 
 is, whose experience ? That of Alice and Tweedledum 
 and Tweedledee, or that of the Red King? Clearly 
 there are two main lines along which thought may 
 move. We may either look on ultimate Reality as 
 the sum total of one complete experience, which we 
 call the Absolute, in which case our own experiences 
 are finite fragments of the whole — bits of the Red 
 King's dream — or we may say that the sum total of 
 the experiences of finite beings, each separate and 
 independent, constitute the ultimate Reahty. In this 
 case the difficulty is to find any underlying unity. 
 In a sense the two systems difier in being inclusive 
 and exclusive respectively. The first is monism, the 
 second pluralism. 
 
 The monists claim, and prove by what James 
 terms "vicious intellectuahsm" — reasoning based on 
 logic pushed to extremes and applied in matters 
 
 1 Brief yet clear summaries may be found in Wildon Carr's 
 excellent little book on Bergson (in "The People's Books" series) 
 and in Lindsay's Philosophy of Bergson. 
 
14 Monists and Pluralists 
 
 where its applicability is doubtful — that the units of 
 the pluralist must be isolated and unable to inter- 
 communicate in any way ; and further, that pluralism 
 must end in reahsm (or materiaUsm), since the mutual 
 independence of the units involves of necessity their 
 own independence, as real entities, of any experience. 
 
 In the monadism of Leibnitz escape from these 
 two dilemmas is sought in the introduction of a Pre- 
 estabhshed Harmony, a kind of transeunt or affective 
 causation, which unites the monads into a systematic 
 whole. 
 
 This introduction of the Will of God as a harmoniser 
 of metaphysical discrepancies, though it obviates the 
 chaos of ideahstic pluralism, is yet so grossly mechanical 
 a device, so wholly without metaphysical justification, 
 that it is needless here to point out the difficulties 
 it introduces^. 
 
 On the other hand the pluralist may point out — 
 James does, with characteristic humour and vigour ^ — 
 that the Absolute is useless for deductive purposes; 
 for if you accept it you never can tell what you are 
 going to meet in the phenomenal world till you have 
 met it ; that it must suffer from an obesity, plethora, 
 and superfoetation of useless information, if it is to 
 include, not only everything that is, but also everything 
 
 ^ For a discussion of this from the monistic standpoint reference 
 may be made to Taylor's Elements of Metaphysics, Book II. Chapter n, 
 2 Pluralistic Universe, ohh. ii and m. 
 
Incompleteness of Berg son's System 15 
 
 that is not ; and that it introduces an insoluble problem 
 of evil. Finally the intellectualism which gives rise 
 to such a conception is landed in innumerable reduc- 
 tiones ad ahsurda when it has to face the common 
 aspects of phenomenal experience, if it be true to 
 its own method. 
 
 (2) On the other hand, standing apart, we find 
 Bergson, for whom the ultimate reahty is spirit, and 
 spirit is progress. God is eternal freedom and growth, 
 eternal activity, ever increasing "God has nothing of 
 the already made^." We cannot say that He is, 
 for while we think it He has changed. Indeed we 
 may not speak of Him, but merely of a centre of 
 activity without hypostasis or being, or anything but 
 growth. Clearly the mind cannot rest here. M. Bergson 
 has done a great work in exposing the fallacies of 
 intellectuahst philosophy; his critique is as original 
 as that of Kant, and his constructive genius is un- 
 rivalled ; nevertheless in losing touch with the problem 
 of personahty he has thus far missed the coping stone 
 of his edifice. He has raised but a roofless temple, 
 and the defect cannot be hid by the beauty and purity 
 of its outhne. It is an uncompleted Parthenon, in 
 which no god dwells, and where no soul can fulfil 
 itself in worship. His system is not far removed 
 from a progressive pantheism, spreading in ever- 
 widening circles. There is freedom, ever increasing, 
 
 ^ Creative EvoliUion, p. 262. 
 
16 Philosopher and Savage alike reach 
 
 but there is no perfect day. True, he admits the 
 existence of personaUty, but only as, so to speak, 
 the substratum of intuition. PersonaUty is for him 
 essentially a flux. It has a unity, but only through 
 intuition. Reahty is only reached by the integration 
 of intuitional experience — an integration that must 
 be without limits; for Reality must be an indefinite 
 integral, since all things "flow from form to form 
 and nothing stands." 
 
 The savage then simply believes; the philosopher 
 reasons laboriously, ever harking back, examining and 
 re-examining the work of those who have gone before 
 him; correcting errors, suggesting new modes of 
 attacking the old problems. The savage finds his 
 gods near him and far away. The spiritual world 
 is a vast industrial hive, full of individual gods with 
 each his own work, and behind all the great General 
 Manager who superintends the whole. Naturally, even 
 this belief is of slow growth. It requires an effort 
 of the mind to argue back from the Many, with whom 
 he is in immediate daily contact, to the One far off, 
 out of sight. Yet it is not merely, or even chiefly, 
 an effort of reason. In his own experience as a 
 person, as the head of a family, as the head of a tribe, 
 he sees exemplified the law of sohdarity; and he 
 perceives, rather than reasons, that at the back of 
 every undertaking must he one mind. He beheves 
 that the gods are persons, because he sees activity 
 
Ideas of Immanence and Transcendence 17 
 
 and apparent design in every phenomenon of life, 
 and his own experience as an active being, who can 
 design schemes and carry them into effect, leads him 
 to beheve that such things must have origin in the 
 mind of a person. He sees also that there is apparent 
 design and harmony in the world as a whole, while 
 yet each god must have his own interests; just as 
 in the tribe there are conflicting individual interests, 
 while to an outsider the policy of the tribe is seen 
 to be a unity. He knows that in the tribe this is 
 brought about by the presence of a chief, and so he 
 argues to the existence of a spiritual chief in the 
 pantheon. And thus the savage reaches, more by 
 intuition and analogy than by logical reasoning, a 
 beUef in the co-existence of immanence and tran- 
 scendence. Not at first in the same being, it is true ; 
 but as the lesser gods go they are absorbed into the 
 great God; and so deeply is the double reahty of 
 immanence and transcendence — the near and the 
 far — felt, that there is never a moment's question of 
 the conception dying out as those conceptions of 
 the gods which are really incompatible with each 
 other or with ethical standards die out. 
 
 The philosopher sets down his premisses and then 
 slowly, testing each step, reaches his conclusion. And the 
 conclusions of philosophers differ strangely, as we have 
 seen. According to the premisses chosen, one arrives 
 at pure immanence, another at pure transcendence, 
 
 M. 2 
 
18 Metaphysical Systems constrvxited 
 
 another at results incompatible with either. And 
 then, to cover the glaring unreahty of the cosmology 
 that results from their systems, too often they introduce 
 an extraneous and irrelevant supposition in order to 
 bring it more into harmony with the everyday experi- 
 ence of men. We find God as a person, as an impersonal 
 sum total, as pure activity, as an abstract idea imposed 
 on mankind by the solidarity of human existences 
 treated as spiritual units; or we j&nd no God at all. 
 The very multiplicity of philosophical systems 
 must make us pause to enquire whether, after all, 
 the explanation of it is not to be sought in the fact 
 that the philosophers are making an unjustifiable and 
 arbitrary selection of the premisses which they propose 
 to admit. One is impressed with the unity of the 
 cosmos, and rejects all postulates that seem irre- 
 concileable with that; — and then finds that his system 
 leads to a glorious Absolute, the essence of Oneness. 
 Another sees the manifold complexity of human 
 relations, and a suitable selection gives him a system 
 that reflects this multiplicity a thousandfold increased. 
 One sees the powers of personality, and lo, his God 
 or his Absolute shows the same powers. Another 
 sees personahty as a limitation, and his God becomes 
 an Impersonal Entity. Yet another sees change 
 everywhere, and for him God is Essential Flux. Is 
 it so strange that suitably selected premisses should 
 lead to the desired result ? And, in spite of all, Rehgion 
 
by Selection of Premisses 19 
 
 lives and grows, content, or forced, to accept help 
 from each new truth that the philosopher and the 
 scientist supply, more than content to reject the 
 doubtful panaceas that enthusiastic individual workers 
 in these fields vociferously commend. ReHgion is \ 
 ready to accept the data of experience, but demands i 
 that no part of the realm of experience shall be excluded. 
 She is wilKng to accept the dictum of Science and 
 Philosophy that knowledge can only come through 
 experience, but refuses to allow that Revelation is 
 y thereby excluded, since, or if, it is experienced. She 
 refuses to look upon a section of Reality cut in an 
 arbitrary plane as representative of the whole of 
 Reahty, and rejects with scorn the suggestion that, 
 because something does not appear in the section 
 in question, it therefore has no real existence. Physical 
 Science now admits that it does but investigate one 
 such plane^ — as Hegel pointed out: even Philosophy 
 is beginning to doubt whether the experience of the 
 intellect can justly be claimed as the only mode by 
 which Reahty can be experienced ^ ; and this growing 
 acceptance of the limitations imposed by method 
 leaves Rehgion in a stronger position than she has 
 occupied for many years, as far as the appeal to reason 
 is concerned. 
 
 As we have seen, Rehgion has for ages been 
 
 ^ Cf. Whetham, Recent Development of Physical Science, ch. i. 
 2 Cf. Bergson, eap. An Introduction to Metaphysics. 
 
 2—2 
 
20 Antinomies: Transcendence — Immanence; 
 
 cognisant of two seemingly antithetical truths, and 
 has accepted both, each in a greater or lesser degree; 
 while the intellectual recognition of the antithesis is 
 only of recent growth. These truths are comprised 
 in the doctrines of Immanence and Transcendence. 
 To the intellect they may appear incompatible, mutually 
 exclusive, yet to the spirit they appeal with all the 
 force of a realised fact. Reason may and does find 
 here a battle-ground; the soul acclaims the double 
 truth and cherishes it, content — perhaps too easily 
 content — to say with Thomas k Kempis "It is a 
 blessed simplicity when a man leaves the difficult 
 ways of question and disputings, and goes forward 
 in the plain and firm path of God's command- 
 ments." 
 
 Theology, the science of the soul and its religion, 
 has then to face the antithesis of Transcendence 
 and Immanence; and, if she can, to give a reasoned 
 account of these. Naturally, at one period she lays 
 stress on the one; at another, on the other. Yet 
 to the soul itself the truths are complementary rather 
 than antithetical. The soul can grasp both aspects; 
 it is only when the mind begins to attempt a logical 
 synthesis that they seem in any degree mutually 
 exclusive. It is customary to assume that the soul 
 is wrong and the mind right. But can we be sure 
 that the assumption is justifiable? 
 
 For if we turn to the other great sciences we find 
 
Unity— Multiplicity ; Freedom — Determination 21 
 
 very similar antitheses. This must strengthen our 
 doubt as to the supreme power of the mind to achieve 
 a full understanding of hfe as a whole, and so of 
 the meaning of every least phenomenon of hfe. We 
 should expect that Philosophy at least, the science 
 of the mind, would be able to frame an harmonious 
 model of the cosmos, since here we have thought 
 working in terms of pure thought. But we find 
 exactly the opposite to be true. At the very outset 
 philosophers are confronted with the problem of Unity 
 and Multiphcity, of the one and the many, and they 
 have never yet solved it. The monists hold that 
 multiphcity is but an illusion resulting from the 
 partial understanding of unity; the plurahsts, that 
 unity is but an illusion of the more or less unexplained 
 interrelationships of the many. And for all alike 
 the matter becomes hopelessly involved as they 
 trespass more and more on the domain of theology 
 and endeavour to incorporate the special problems 
 of that science. 
 
 Again when we turn to Natural Science, the science 
 of the body and its physical environment, we find contra- 
 diction once more. On the one hand there is rigid 
 natural law, on the other evolutionary progress. 
 Energy, in any world where life is possible, is always 
 becoming degraded and rendered unavailable. Evolu- 
 tionary progress in such a world is adaptation to 
 environment, through the utiHsation of the free 
 
22 Pure Reason leads to Antinomies 
 
 energy that obeys this law, while yet complete adapta- 
 tion spells destruction. Yet the result of evolution 
 is the control of matter, which control is the essence 
 of freedom; and progress in freedom is essential to 
 survival. Thus freedom emerges out of the response 
 to a determinate environment. This antinomy of 
 science has been worked out by the author in a previous 
 volume^, and it is needless to recapitulate the argument 
 in detail here. 
 
 We find, then, that in every domain of life attempted 
 explanation in the terms of pure reason leads to 
 irreconcileable contradictions. Necessarily such a dis- 
 covery must shake our belief in the all-sufficient 
 power of the mind, though, emphatically be it said, 
 not in the validity of its critical function. Our 
 immediate concern is to examine and see whether 
 it be not possible to find a solution of all these anti- 
 nomies in the Hght of the deeper insight given by the 
 consideration of them as aspects of one great Reahty ; 
 and then to apply our conclusions to the common 
 facts of rehgious experience. At any rate we may 
 hope to see more clearly in what measure they depend 
 on the exaltation of the intellect to the supreme 
 dominion of man's Hfe, and in what measure the 
 intellect may yet see a mode of reconciliation. For 
 this purpose it is necessary that we first set out the 
 antinomies at length, even at the cost of some repetition ; 
 1 Evolution and the Need of Atonement. 
 
Matter the Instrument of Mind 23 
 
 and to this task the remainder of this chapter must 
 be devoted. 
 
 We have already seen the origin and gradual 
 resolution of the primitive ideas which give rise to 
 the conceptions of Immanence and Transcendence. 
 
 In the childhood of a race we expect, and find, 
 a child-mind. The gods are many and their habita- 
 tions visible. Trees and waters, winds and storms, 
 shrines and fields, have each their indwelling spirits. 
 Bodies terrestrial and bodies celestial are ahke thrones 
 of power. As the child-mind grows the wonder of 
 the world's harmony dawns upon it. The warp and 
 woof of common things blend into a pattern that 
 is full of beauty, full of symbolism and of meaning. 
 And precisely because the symboHsm is instinct with 
 deep meaning man finds in it evidence of purpose. 
 In his own personal experience he discovers that matter 
 can be shaped and utihsed as his mind dictates. 
 Indeed it is this discovery, speaking from an evolu- 
 tionary standpoint, which initiates his self-conscious 
 life. The lower creatures can utihse material objects 
 to subserve their ends, as the bird uses grass or twigs 
 to build its nest, or the caddis bark and tiny stones 
 to strengthen its tube; but man can reason about 
 the ends he wishes to compass, can make use of the 
 memory of past efforts, can discover by induction 
 and deduction the elements that go towards failure 
 or success, and can constantly improve upon his 
 
24 Vague Presentation of Immanence and 
 
 own efforts. And, so doing, he realises himself as 
 a rational being. Matter becomes for him the vehicle 
 of his desires, and the means of their fulfilment. It is 
 clearly for his use and enjoyment. He has dominion 
 over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, 
 and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over 
 every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 
 And just because, as IHingworth^ points out, he sees 
 everywhere matter as a thing usable by, and useful 
 to, his own personal will and spirit, while his will 
 and spirit are utterly useless to matter, he begins to 
 conceive of all matter — even the things he cannot 
 touch or fashion, the winds, the rain, the heavenly 
 bodies — as the instrument of some greater spirit. 
 And so insensibly he grows into the behef that 
 matter is essentially a means to spiritual ends, and 
 has no meaning apart from spirit. Matter is simply 
 matter, and gains nothing from his actions: the 
 changes he makes in it are only of value relatively to 
 himself, and in no way advantage matter. He, not 
 matter, gains by the intercourse. In short, materialism 
 is the offspring of a mind satiated with detail ; bhnded 
 to the larger issues. There is no such thing as a 
 primitive materialist. 
 
 But to communicate with others, to show his 
 affection or his hate to his fellows, man has always 
 to make use of matter as intermediary. He cannot 
 ^ Divine Immanence. 
 
Transcendence to the Primitive Mind 25 
 
 speak, lie cannot write, he cannot give a gift, without 
 using it ; while yet it is only of value when use is made 
 of it. All matter which has a meaning to him is 
 matter which has been moulded for some purpose 
 by himself or by his fellows, which, in being so moulded, 
 has become so to speak saturated with his own person- 
 aUty, with its desires and aims. And so arises the 
 idea that all matter derives its meaning from the 
 spirit that permeates it. 
 
 Again, as we have said, even to the primitive mind 
 the world is full of design. No savage can look on 
 the succession of the seasons, the daily rising and 
 setting of the sun, the seed-time and the harvest, 
 as a constant repetition of fortuitous events. 
 
 Though our teleology is less simple and immediate 
 than his, we hkewise are unable to conceive order 
 without mind. Though our doctrine of immanence 
 is less naive than that which sees in every grotesque 
 rock or root the body of a god, we hkewise are fain 
 to look on matter as the mode of communication, 
 as the expression, almost we might say as the precipi- 
 tate, of a great divine spirit. 
 
 If matter has any meaning, that meaning must be 
 imprinted on it by mind, by which again it can alone 
 be perceived. Even if not in strict metaphysic, yet 
 in practical fact esse est percipi; for there can be no 
 meaning in that which is not perceived, and that 
 which has no meaning cannot be more than an 
 
26 Presentation of Immanence and 
 
 accidental by-product of mind, and the Primal Mind 
 can hardly be imagined as ejecting unforeseen by- 
 products. Thus contingency in the cosmos can only 
 be the result of purposeful self -limitation in the God- 
 head. It is the intuitive recognition of this fact that 
 underlies the idea of matter as the express manifestation 
 of spirit ; the idea which we term immanence. 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, it is impossible to conceive 
 of the Primal Mind as being confined to, and fully 
 expressed in, matter. As IHingworth says^, " to speak 
 of immanence or indwelling inevitably implies some 
 kind of distinction between the indweller and the 
 indwelt. And the phrase can only retain its ordinary 
 meaning so long as this distinction is present to the 
 mind. But if the whole notion of transcendence is 
 rigorously excluded, we can no longer distinguish 
 between God and the universe except as different 
 aspects of one and the same thing." In other words 
 we are landed in pantheism. In such a scheme there 
 is no room for purpose or intellect, will, feeling, or 
 moral values in the whole; God becomes the simple 
 essence of all finite existences. But because the one 
 thing man knows internally and intuitively is his own 
 personahty, and because it is his personality that 
 can impress order on that which surrounds him — 
 which is only another way of saying that man makes 
 matter his tool — and because he finds moral values 
 * Divine Transcendence, iv. p. 68. 
 
Transcendence to the Modern Mind 27 
 
 in his actions and those of his neighbours, he is driven 
 by the existence of order, causaUty, moral values in 
 the cosmos, to believe in a personal God. Pantheism 
 lands him in the inextricable confusion of the One 
 consisting in, and composed of, the Many; to an 
 Absolute which is the result of constant, uncaused, 
 unrelated changes. To this we shall return in a 
 later chapter. Sufl&ce it to say, now, that to the 
 educated man and to the savage aUke, the idea of 
 a Personal God inevitably entails the conception of 
 transcendence. 
 
 And we have seen already that the fact that matter 
 only has meaning when it is the vehicle of spiritual 
 communication, drives all men alike to a belief in 
 immanence. 
 
 We may not say that all theologies possess both 
 these ideas; as the one or the other becomes over- 
 emphasised, in the search of the intellect after logical 
 completeness of thought, religions move in the direction 
 of pantheism or deism. But we may and do say that 
 the primitive mind grasps both truths in some degree, 
 more by intuition than by reason, and that the j>ro- 
 gressive rehgions, such as Judaism and Christianity, as 
 well as some of the polytheistic religions, like Hinduism 
 and the religion of ancient Egypt, do move more 
 and more towards the acceptance and justification of 
 both those tenets. And the Mystic Way in all ages 
 and in all countries has led towards this same belief, 
 
28 The Problem of 
 
 except where a pantheistic bias has constrained it 
 from the first. 
 
 There is then this fundamental theological antinomy. 
 We shall see that Philosophy has an antinomy that 
 is equally striking; and Science also. And we shall 
 further see that the three antinomies are really one 
 and the same, in origin, if not in statement. All 
 ahke are fundamental and reach to the depths of 
 human thought, and beyond. 
 
 The basis of all human knowledge and all human 
 action is the behef in a systematic unity underlying 
 the cosmos. The more perfect our understanding of 
 natural phenomena, the less do we look for contingency. 
 We find law in the world, ' considered as a physical 
 phenomenon. We find that social and economic ties 
 bind us together in an inextricable nexus of common 
 aims and interest, and mutual accommodation. We 
 find individuals linked naturally into famiUes, famihes 
 into tribes, tribes into nations, nations into empires, 
 empires into alliances. We find the same orders in 
 commerce — ^individuals, firms, companies, syndicates, 
 trusts. Trade unions, churches, confraternities express 
 the same tendency. The very world we hve in is 
 made up of whirling electrons, whirling atoms, 
 whirling molecules, whirling planets — perhaps whirling 
 solar systems. Microcosm pictures macrocosm, and all 
 tend to unity. Whether, with Bergson, we say that 
 Nature tends to form closed systems, or with the 
 
the One and the Many 29 
 
 psychologists we say that there is a demand for a corre- 
 lated unity in the mind of man, the facts are there. 
 
 Naturally men look on the whole of Reality as 
 a great Unity or closed system, an Absolute, a thing 
 complete in itself, without external relation, without an 
 " other." Herein lies the material of monism. Every- 
 thing that exists is but a part or mode of the Whole. 
 
 On the other hand men know themselves as 
 individuals. They exist for themselves. In some 
 measure they are, or feel themselves to be, indepen- 
 dent of external relation. The ego knows itself as 
 a whole, not as a mere system of whirhng particles; 
 a bundle of needs; a note that only has meaning as 
 part of a great universal harmony. And it is constantly 
 and immediately aware of "others." May not ReaHty 
 be the sum total of individual experiences? Yet 
 even so the experience is not truly individual, but 
 must be indefinitely subdivided, for everyone is 
 aware of a clash of purposes and interests within 
 himself. For the thorough-going plurahst the world 
 must crumble into a discrete chaos of unrelated 
 particles or entities, while for the thorough-going 
 monist it becomes a phantasmal whole, the parts of 
 which experience loves and hates, crises and triumphs, 
 that have no real significance, except as fragments 
 of the One Experience, which thus loses its oneness 
 in the intestine strife of its parts. The plurahst 
 finds too much unity, if he claims individual experience 
 
30 DetermiThation of 
 
 as the basis of Reality; the monist finds too much 
 pluraUty if he takes his stand on the Oneness of ReaUty. 
 Systematic Ideahsm — the theory which claims that 
 the parts exist for the whole, and the whole for its 
 parts ; the experience of the whole affecting the parts, 
 and the experience of the parts the whole — is either 
 a verbal compromise, or the importation of a theological 
 dogma into the domain of philosophy. 
 
 Many and various are the shapes which pluraHsm 
 and monism assume, but in this very multipHcity of 
 exposition we find sure proof of the basal nature 
 of the antinomy. 
 
 jk Turning finally to Science, we find again a funda- 
 mental contradiction. The whole structure of Physics 
 and Chemistry rests on the basis of an assumed uni- 
 formity. Experience shows that certain concatenations 
 issue in certain results. Oxygen and hydrogen, heated, 
 combine to form water; and their combination sets 
 energy free as heat, which can be utihsed. In a 
 similar way compounds of carbon can be oxidised, 
 and their oxidation is attended by the evolution of 
 free energy. Chemical changes produce changes in 
 surface-tension, and changes in surface-tension set 
 free energy that can give rise to relative motion. 
 And the movements of animals are brought about by 
 such changes in surface-tension. Experience shows 
 that in every case these effects follow on their causes, 
 and expei:iment confirms the behef that this holds 
 
the Material World 31 
 
 good universally. And thus men are led to formulate 
 what they call natural laws, and even, mistakenly, U- 
 to invest them with an axiomatic certainty, almost 
 with a moral necessity; regardless of the fact that, 
 if there be any meaning in the logical doctrine of 
 Ground and Consequence, cause and efiect are different 
 aspects of one whole, and it is thus impossible logically 
 to differentiate them into cause and effect. Never- 
 theless the postulate which underlies the idea of natural 
 law fulfils the pragmatic requirement. It works. We 
 can in fact prophesy with complete certainty that 
 given the identically similar concatenation of circum- 
 stances, the effect will follow. There is complete 
 practical determination in the material world. 
 
 And living matter is equally subject to the laws y^ 
 of physics and chemistry. Indeed it is the free energy 
 produced by oxidation that is responsible for motion, 
 and for all the vital phenomena of a living organism. 
 Further, it is the changes of surface-tension resulting 
 from this oxidation that immediately determine 
 motion ; and it is the corresponding effect of chemical 
 change on osmotic pressure that determines assimila- 
 tion and growth. Even reproduction is probably 
 susceptible of physico-chemical explanation, were our 
 knowledge sufficientTV Again, the basis of evolution^ 
 is determinate response to a determinate environment, 
 as I have pointed out elsewhere. Yet on the other 
 hand, the saHent feature of the organic world is the 
 
32 Freedom 
 
 appearance and progressive increase of freedom. And 
 by freedom we mean the control of matter, at first 
 unconscious, in the latter end conscious. VoHtion is 
 but the expression of this control raised, so to speak, 
 to a higher power. The leit motif of evolution is the 
 appearance of freedom in response to the interplay 
 of the determinate forces that regulate the creature 
 and its environment. And eventually this freedom 
 is manifested as an attribute of personality. The 
 manifestation of personahty appears to be the aim 
 of the process. Here then we see the uniformity 
 and unity of natural law resulting in the appearance 
 of a pluraHty of persons each in some degree, if not 
 independent of natural law, at least able to control 
 and direct its action. 
 
 Let us now recapitulate what we have said, and 
 set out, definitely and in order, the problems we have 
 to consider in the first part of this book. 
 
 We began with a brief analysis of the appearance 
 of the world to the savage, and with his explanation 
 of its meaning as the manifestation of the power of 
 personal beings — eventually, of one personal being. 
 
 We next summarised the attempts of philosophers 
 to reach an explanation of the same phenomena, 
 and noticed the reasons for the failure of their various 
 cosmogonies. We saw how the philosophical concep- 
 tion tended more and more to approximate to that 
 which originated spontaneously in the savage mind. 
 
Summary 33 
 
 And we may remark, in passing, on the parallelism of 
 this fact with the instinctive phenomena in animals, 
 and especially in animal colonies, and the similar 
 tool-making and social systems that have arisen 
 among men, largely as the outcome of reason. The 
 hymenopteran colony achieves the physiological, even 
 economic division of labour by instinct, the human 
 colony initiates, or at any rate extends, it as the result 
 of intelhgent consideration of economic conditions. 
 
 We then noticed that in each of the three great 
 sciences — those of the spirit, the mind and the body — 
 there was an antinomy, or if we prefer to call it so, 
 a pair of correlated opposites, which underlay them. 
 For the spirit there is the doctrine of immanence 
 and transcendence; for the mind, of multipHcity 
 and unity; and for the body, of determinism and 
 freedom. As transcendence is to immanence, so is 
 unity to multipHcity, and so is freedom to the complex 
 relationships of determination. 
 
 This, which is apparently the result of viewing 
 the whole of each one of the three aspects of Reahty 
 from the point of view of reason alone, must make 
 us pause to wonder whether the rational method is ade- 
 quate for an understanding of any one of these aspects. 
 If it is not, what m^ethod are we to substitute, and what 
 bearing have these antinomies on the experience of 
 personal religion? It is with an attempt to answer 
 these two questions that the present volume deals. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 SOME ASPECTS OF THE IDEA OF CONTINUITY 
 
 Bacon, writing of Atheism, says wisely, "while 
 the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, 
 it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; 
 but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate, 
 and Hnked together, it must needs fly to Providence 
 and Deity." And, though Paley and his fellows, 
 and all their works, may be to some of to-day anathema, 
 as they seek, and find, the activity of God rather in 
 the realm of time and progress than in space and order, 
 yet the words I have quoted retain all their original 
 force and truth. We still find God revealed in the 
 unity of the Cosmos ; only, because the ideas of process 
 and immanence have taken such deep root, we find 
 Him manifested in the serial continuity of evolving 
 life, rather than in the mosaic pattern that made 
 the glowing beauty of the deists' world. 
 
 For those who realise something of the meaning 
 of Divine Immanence, continuity — serial progress — 
 must enter largely into the conception of Unity, if 
 
Serial Continuity 35 
 
 they see unity in the cosmos at all. Immanence in 
 an evolving world inevitably suggests some intimate 
 relation between the Divine Spirit and the Process 
 which gives It freer expression in the world. The 
 question is, how far can this apparent relation itself 
 be relied on as an index of ReaHty ? 
 
 If we are going to consider the great contradictions 
 presented to the whole being of a man as he tries to 
 form a mind-model of Reality — contradictions which 
 may, and I believe do, owe their existence to the 
 conditions under which we have learned to reason 
 at all, as we shall see in the next chapter — ^it is 
 necessary that we first examine the foundation on 
 which our argument is based. This foundation is 
 the doctrine of serial continuity. Our starting point 
 is the belief that men are what they are because of 
 a process of becoming through struggle. We claim 
 that the evolutionary advance has been complete 
 and unbroken. We claim that man is the corollary 
 of life. We claim that the process by which he has 
 come to be is one and the same throughout, and that 
 its ruling characteristic, and its motive, has been 
 throughout the achieval of freedom and control. 
 
 To this it may be, and is, objected that, if develop- 
 ment is response to environment, correlated with 
 other factors, and if the process is uniform, and serial 
 in nature, the environment itself must also be con- 
 tinuous. It is then suggested that continuity here too 
 
 3—2 
 
36 Knowledge of Discontinuity Perceptual; 
 
 must be serial, and that it is impossible really to put 
 spirit, land, and water, in series^. But surely the 
 difficulty lies simply in this method of statement. 
 I have shown in my previous book that the environ- 
 ment must all be one. But I have never stated that 
 it is directly serial, though, as we shall see, this is in 
 a sense true, if we look on the creation as a kenosis 
 or self-limitation of the freedom of God, and on progress 
 in freedom as a process of removal of that Hmitation, 
 in time. In short the word "serial" in this connection 
 implies a time-factor in part of the environment, 
 and this does exist, as we shall see. But apart from 
 this, our object in the present chapter is to vindicate 
 the conception of one continuum, the Great Environ- 
 ment, in which discontinuity, and so series, is the 
 result of imperfect freedom. 
 
 Further, we shall see that the only part of our 
 Environment of which we can have perceptual know- 
 ledge is just that part in which freedom is absent — 
 the material part. Of that which is free we can only 
 have conceptual knowledge; and this doubtless lies 
 at the root of this impossibility of a logical demonstra- 
 tion of the existence of free-will. 
 
 It is true to say that we can only perceive things, 
 or the existence of things, by difference or relation. 
 Perceptual knowledge is gained solely through relation. 
 Only when a thing is outside ourself and we can feel, 
 
 ^ Waggett, Church Quarterly Review, April 1914, p. 124. 
 
of Continuity^ Conceptual 37 
 
 see, hear, or smell it, are we able to perceive its existence. 
 For instance we have no perceptual knowledge of 
 the most solid thing in the world, the ether, compared 
 with which gold and mercury are filmy cobwebs, or 
 fleecy clouds ; a cubic inch of which weighs something 
 hke 17,000,000 tons ; which is everywhere, permeating 
 everything. 
 
 We are utterly unconscious of its presence, simply 
 because we have no means of watching it sHde past 
 other bodies ; because we cannot perceive it in relation 
 to anything else. This incredible truth illustrates the 
 point I wish to make, that we can only perceive through 
 relation. 
 
 Yet we know a great deal about the ether, because 
 we can see the results of strains in it when they begin 
 to set what we call matter swinging. We can measure 
 the size of the swings, and their frequency, and certain 
 electro-magnetic effects, and so, indirectly, obtain a 
 quantitative notion of the properties of the ether 
 itself. 
 
 Further, what we perceive leads us on to form 
 concepts, or rather, we form concepts by working 
 with the material that perception has given us, for 
 which purpose memory, in the last resort, is called 
 into action. For it is only through memory that we 
 can compare and correlate, and these processes are 
 necessarily prior to inductive reasoning. And so, in 
 the case of the ether, we gain, conceptually, knowledge 
 
38 Discontinuity and 
 
 of a continuum of which we could never know even 
 the existence by immediate perception. We move in 
 this instance from the recognition of discontinuity 
 to the conception of continuity. 
 
 Looking at Hfe in the material plane, we see, then, 
 that far the greatest part of our surroundings is a 
 continuum, although we are perceptually unconscious 
 of its existence. And it is only natural that this last 
 should be the case if Bergson is right in his contention, 
 so admirably argued, that matter is the instrument of 
 action, the perceived present in a uniform duration^. 
 This means, briefly, that the creature only perceives 
 that part of its environment of which it can make use. 
 Thus we see that the fact that we perceive discontinuity 
 is no argument against the reahty of a continuum: 
 it simply means that in our present stage we are able 
 to make use of but a very small portion of the Reality 
 which constitutes our environment. 
 
 On the other hand, it may be urged that often, 
 where we perceive a continuum, there is really dis- 
 continuity. For example, water in a glass on the 
 table seems to be at rest — a uniform fluid in static 
 equiUbrium ; yet both uniformity and equilibrium are 
 apparent only. SuflSciently minute particles of gam- 
 boge, for instance, suspended into it, are seen under 
 a powerful microscope to be in a state of unceasing 
 movement, due to their bombardment by the ultra- 
 
 ^ Matter and Memory. 
 
Continuity 39 
 
 microscopic molecules of the water, whose existence 
 is suggested by many other trains of reasoning. Here, 
 undoubtedly we perceive a continuum where conceptual 
 reasoning showed first that there must be discontinuity, 
 and experiment confirmed it. But in fact we are not 
 deaUng with continuity in the same sense; the water 
 is dehmited by definite surfaces; and since it is limited, 
 and exists outside us, and we are able to perceive 
 it in relation to ourselves, it is really through dis- 
 continuity that we recognise its existence. Never- 
 theless certain somewhat analogous facts have led men 
 to investigate the continuity of the ether, and to find 
 some reason for thinking that it too is discontinuous, 
 though the theory of quanta is generally believed to be 
 unsound when pressed to these lengths^. 
 
 Sir Oliver Lodge, in his British Association address 
 
 ^ The theory of quanta suggests that energy is discontinuous, 
 thence, with some probability, that the ether is discontinuous. 
 It is practically an atomic theory of energy. There seems to be no 
 doubt that, when we are dealing with very minute particles such as 
 electrons, the Newtonian system of mechanics does not hold good. 
 "The fact seems to be that the old laws are not, so to speak, fine- 
 grained enough to supply the whole truth with regard to small-scale 
 phenomena." (Jeans, Report on Radiation and the Qtiantum-Theory, 
 p. 3.) The basis of the new view is, that energy is shared by mole- 
 cules among a few degrees of freedom only. But a molecule has many 
 degrees of freedom. Hence it is suggested that energy is atomic and 
 that atoms of energy are supplied to the major degrees of freedom 
 only. The actual reasons which led to the formulation of the 
 quantum-theory are however too complex and technical to be 
 here. 
 
40 Discontinuity and Continuity 
 
 on Continuity, has shown strong reasons for disbehef 
 in such a view. The most prevalent, and probably 
 the correct, behef looks on matter as ultimately based 
 on stresses or knots, in a continuous ether. To use 
 Lodge's own illustration, a knot in a piece of string, 
 though differing from the rest of the string, is none 
 the less itself string. And because these knots are 
 discontinuous, the phenomena associated with matter 
 show similar discontinuities i. 
 
 In fine, matter is discontinuous, and since matter 
 is the only thing we can 'perceive — for we cannot 
 perceive hght or other vibrations in the ether, but 
 only their effect on matter — discontinuity seems to 
 us to be an ultimate factor in all ReaHty ; whereas in 
 the domain of physics, even, the universe is conceived 
 as more hke an infinitely large india-rubber ball with 
 a few scattered particles of less elastic rubber in it. 
 Homogeneity is the rule, heterogeneity the exception. 
 The theory of quanta will almost certainly be found 
 to derive from discontinuities of the second order, 
 that is, depending on the essentially atomistic structure 
 of matter^, and it is anyhow due to the absence of 
 
 * This view is specially characteristic of the British school of 
 physicists : some contineotal workers have been inclined to dispute 
 it (the Relativity School). 
 
 2 "For whatever is regarded as certain or imcertain about the 
 ether, it must be granted as quite certain that it approaches more 
 closely to a continuous medium than to a gas. If it has any grained 
 structure at all the distance between adjacent grains must be 
 enormously less than the 10~' cms, assumed for the corresponding 
 
Continuum must he One 41 
 
 freedom in matter that the phenomena appear. (See 
 note on quanta.) To explain this last statement would 
 need rather a technical examination, and it is only- 
 introduced here for the sake of the interesting analogy 
 it affords with a conclusion we shall reach later. 
 
 The dynamic nature of all physical equihbrium is 
 however clearly estabUshed by such discoveries as 
 the molecular movements of H quids at rest; we are 
 driven to divest our minds of statical conceptions; 
 but on the larger scale, among evolving organisms, 
 the idea is no new one, and the extension of the principle 
 is no hindrance, but rather a gain. 
 
 Thus far we have considered the concept of a 
 spatial continuum, in which matter is a kind of flaw. 
 What has this to do with any continuum we can 
 correlate with theological tenets? 
 
 First, let us remember that perception is neces- 
 sarily and essentially spatial in its nature, because 
 it is the guide of action, and action deals with matter. 
 And so any conceived continuum derived from perceived 
 realities is likely to be spatial also. Yet conception 
 is really temporal in essence, though in so far as it 
 
 distance in the gas." "The whole of the phenomena associated 
 with the quantum-hypothesis could probably be given a consistent 
 physical explanation if we were free to imagine radiation to be 
 atomic in its structure" (Jeans, op. cit. pp. 6, 85). The whole matter 
 is quite unsettled and many different views are held. But what seems 
 certain is that, whatever the fate of the quantum-theory, belief in 
 the continuity of the ether will remain unshaken. 
 
42 Perceptual Knowledge at first of more 
 
 is founded on experience it may express itself in terms 
 of space. But memory, which plays a foremost part 
 in the formation of concepts, is a spatial representation 
 of successive states. We set memories of successive 
 perceptions side by side in our mind, and reason as 
 to the principles by which they may be correlated. 
 Hence, although in thinking of material phenomena 
 we form the concept of a spatial continuum, while 
 in thinking of series we picture the continuum as 
 durational; yet, if we are right in postulating a real 
 continuum at all, it must at the last be one and the 
 same. There cannot be two universal ultimate con- 
 tinua. We must hence divest our minds of the idea 
 that space and ordinary time are anything more than 
 modes in which we regard one unity, according to the 
 idea-complex with which we are engaged at the moment. 
 All we can say is, that whether we think of things 
 in terms that lead us to spatial or temporal concep- 
 tions, we are in any case confronted with a con- 
 tinuum. 
 
 In the domain of physics we find matter known, 
 and its properties studied, long ages before the reaHsa- 
 tion dawned that the perception of such properties as 
 the emission and reflection of light is really due to 
 rhythmical stresses in an all-pervading ether, of 
 which matter itself is but a modification. 
 
 In the domain of biology, we find man improving 
 breeds under domestication, long before he reahsed 
 
practical value than Conceptual 43 
 
 that he was producing a series in just the same way 
 that nature had produced series, or knew that he was 
 employing just the same interaction between the 
 potentiaHties of variation in the animal, and the 
 effective influence of new factors in the One environ- 
 ment that had made the animal what it was, as she 
 did ; long before he knew that there was one environ- 
 ment, or that no development was possible at all 
 except in response to it. But nowadays he sees that 
 different parts of a pre-existing environment act suc- 
 cessively on the evolving organism or the developing 
 embryo ; and he inclines to the view that all environ- 
 ment is one, at any rate as far as the physical side of 
 evolution is concerned. 
 
 In the domain of philosophy both subjective and 
 objective idealism see unity at the back of all the 
 manifold phenomena of perceived Keality. Bergson 
 too, with his idea of matter as the perceived present 
 of duration, while spirit is the progress in pure duration, 
 gives at any rate the idea of a fundamental continuum, 
 in which — and this is important — discontinuities are 
 the result of imperfect freedom, imperfect progress. 
 
 In other words, all lines of thought seem to lead 
 independently to the conception of one continuum in 
 which everything that is, exists. There are pluraHsts, 
 there are duaHsts, there are materiahsts; in theology 
 there have been gnostics ; with all these perceived dis- 
 continuity seems to overshadow conceived continuity. 
 
44 Discontinuity due to 
 
 But we shall probably not be far wrong in regarding 
 their hypotheses as simply one-sided views, stages in 
 the solution of the problems of unity and multi- 
 plicity. Such men are the Daltons of thought, 
 believing in the fundamental atomicity of Beahty. 
 And their work is of abiding value. As the physicist, 
 reasoning about the kinetic theory of gases, postulates 
 particles of perfect elasticity, without dimensions or 
 attractions, in the first stages of his argument, and 
 subsequently corrects these postulates in the hght of 
 experimental facts ; so in all other domains of thought 
 false assumptions have to be made in order to simphfy 
 the issue and bring it within the grasp of the mind. 
 All modes of conceptual thought, then, seem to lead 
 eventually to the notion of a continuum, whether it be 
 the one ether, the one environment, or the one ultimate 
 reahty. Each leads to the making of an idol in its 
 own image, since each idol has to serve the needs 
 of its own worshippers. One is purely spatial, another 
 part spatial, part durational. But throughout the 
 history of human thought the main movement is 
 away from the natural idea, based on perception, that 
 discontinuity is the basal law. Discontinuities are 
 flaws, whether they are found in the ether, or in the 
 freedom of the creature's body or spirit. Even the 
 existence of the world-stuff we call matter, is due to 
 a Hmitation, constraint, or knotting of the ether. 
 Freedom is synonymous with continuity, Hmitation 
 
Limitation of Freedom 45 
 
 with discontinuity. And this seems to be ultimately 
 true, for freedom means the absence of any Hmiting 
 factors, that is, the absence of all breaks or checks 
 that could act as a basis of Hmitation, at any rate 
 as far as space is concerned. Furthermore, the animal 
 achieves greater freedom, in the wide sense of control 
 over its surroundings, through the acquisition of 
 memory — which means, the reaHsation of serial relation. 
 For memory is an essential part of the mind-process 
 which underlies the manufacture of tools. That is 
 to say, the power of the creature to make tools of its 
 surroundings goes hand in hand with the grasp of 
 temporal continuity. Recognition of this enables man 
 to reahse that continuity is the basis of the psyche, 
 and to look on discreteness as the accident of the body, 
 as the thing that limits the freedom of the spirit. 
 Further reasoning leads to the idea of continua, what- 
 ever the hne of thought pursued, and finally to the 
 behef that there can be only one Reality, which must 
 be continuous ; space and time being the reflections 
 of this Reahty, much as different images of a pin 
 between two mirrors, one vertical, the other horizontal, 
 are seen in these different planes. And this idea of 
 unity seems to represent an ultimate truth, for freedom 
 means the absence of any limiting factors; that is, 
 the absence of all breaks or checks that would act 
 as the basis of hmitation. The idea of One Continuous 
 Unity does not banish the realness of discontinuity, 
 
46 The Cosmos Spiritual ; Discontinuity 
 
 but the latter appears as a flaw in an otherwise perfect 
 whole, and experience connects it with the idea of 
 limitation. 
 
 If the one Keahty is spiritual, the experience of 
 God, then the limitation of freedom is a hmitation 
 of God, and the serial nature of progress, as it 
 appears to our minds, must mean for us the gradual 
 perfecting of our knowledge of God as we pass to 
 greater freedom. And greater freedom in the creation 
 means more perfect union with the Creator, and so 
 the progressive removal of His hmitation. 
 
 Arguing from the point of view of the organism, 
 in my previous book I showed reason for postulating 
 One Environment. Is that environment itself Spirit, 
 or an eject of Spirit? That, I take it, is the great 
 problem underlying the question of serial continuity 
 in the progress of man. If his spiritual progress is 
 the result of development to a stage when new 
 factors of the environment can act, when he can 
 see the meaning of freedom, and appreciate its 
 value and its significance, then he has simply moved 
 from individual response to the stimuU resulting 
 from the perception of discontinuity, to personal 
 response to the stimuli of the conception of continuity 
 and unity. Before, he responded to his material 
 surroundings, which are not free ; now he responds 
 to his spiritual surroundings, which are free. If this 
 be true, there is value and meaning in the struggle 
 
dtie to Self-limitation of God 47 
 
 of past generations to cope with their environment, 
 and to obtain greater control over that which limited 
 them. If not, there is no meaning for man in the 
 history of those past endeavours. There is no unity 
 underlying the world as he sees it. The creature 
 was made subject to vanity, by the whim, not the 
 reason, of Him who subjected it. "Whatsoever the 
 man called every creature that was the name thereof " ; 
 they were given him for food, but he has no right to 
 call them little brothers. 
 
 If the cosmos is not Spirit, but an eject of Spirit, 
 then there is not One Environment, but two at least, 
 separate and different; and we must, it seems to me, 
 return to deism, and believe that God made the world, 
 gave men certain spiritual gifts, and stood aside to see 
 how they would behave. I cannot hold any such behef. 
 
 In the second edition of Evolution and the Need of 
 Atonement I have dealt briefly with the idea of Creation 
 as a kenosis, or limitation, of the freedom of the God- 
 head, on the assumption of continuity, of the spiritual 
 nature of all Reahty. It is clear that, if we believe 
 that men have true freedom, however incomplete, 
 God must be limited in relation to them. And true 
 freedom can only be won in struggle with that which 
 is not free, for the gift of freedom would constrain the 
 recipient to accept it ; the gift of the power of winning 
 freedom exercises no such constraint. Therefore there 
 must be limitation in part of the experience of God. 
 
48 The Kenosis- Aspect 
 
 And since He gave the power of winning freedom, 
 He must be self-limited. But as we reasoned concerning 
 the fundamental nature of evolution, we saw that it 
 was all tending towards freedom, finding expression 
 in the greater control of matter. Freedom, as we 
 know it, means the greater control of matter, but it 
 means far more. The spirit of man is able altogether 
 to transcend matter, in thought, grasping something of 
 the idea of a continuum — whether it be the physicist 
 with his knowledge of the ether, or the mystic with his 
 knowledge of eternal life. And a little of this same 
 power we find in ordinary men; for in all rehgions, 
 in every ideal, the conception of true freedom is 
 impHcit, if not realised in practice ; and the conception 
 of absolute freedom contains in it the idea of con- 
 tinuity — of an existence without obstacles, without 
 discontinuities, moving forward smoothly to the desired 
 end. Discontinuity is always correlated with the 
 absence of freedom. 
 
 Now if God, in creation, granted, not freedom, 
 but the power of winning it — and this I believe is 
 the only possibiHty, for freedom could not be given 
 since the gift is in itself a constraining act^ — ^He 
 must have introduced a limitation into that part of 
 His experience which entered into relation with His 
 evolving creation. And this limitation must exist as 
 
 1 Evolution and the Need of Atonement, 2nd ed., oh. vn. jxtsaim; 
 and infra, ch. iv. 
 
of Creation 49 
 
 long as the creature was imperfect. Not longer, be 
 it observed. For though personality is, we beheve, 
 indestructible, yet there is an absolute standard to 
 which the perfect personaKty must conform : the Nature 
 of God. This hes at the bottom of the fundamental 
 imperative of ethics. Only one type of perfect per- 
 sonahty is possible, if the guidance of reason and of 
 rehgion, if the idea of an ultimate spiritual Unity, 
 have any value. Therefore there must be unity of 
 experience between the perfected soul and the Creator, 
 as far as the experience of the former reaches, while 
 yet the persons remain distinct. I cannot dwell on 
 this point here ; we shall return to it in a later chapter, 
 but it may be well to observe in passing, that herein 
 Hes one mode of escape from the dreadful oppression 
 of sameness and inaction which mars for many the 
 conception of Eternal Life. Where there is mutual 
 relationship there is the basis of activity even with uni- 
 formity of experience, and this is, I beheve, one of the 
 truths enshrined in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. 
 
 Let us now return and apply the foregoing to the 
 question of the reaUty of a serial relation between 
 water, land, spirit, as successively active factors in 
 the One Environment. Are we justified in saying 
 that as the creature evolves it drifts on to a threshold 
 "where new conditions, not of sun and air, but of 
 supersensual influences, act on it." 
 
 If the ideas of matter as a discontinuity — which 
 M. 4 
 
60 Progress from Perception 
 
 implies something continuous — of progress as growth 
 towards freedom, and of freedom as existence in a 
 continuum, in any degree mirror the truth, surely 
 we are justified. 
 
 The Umited low-grade organism is only "conscious " 
 of matter — that is, it only reacts to discontinuous 
 stimuli of limited range. Not free itself, it cannot act 
 as if it were free ; cannot, that is, perceive continuity 
 and freedom around it. As long as it is bounded 
 in its horizon by percepts, from the nature of the 
 case it can know only what we call matter. But as 
 freedom dawns and grows the creature becomes able 
 to form concepts of something that is not so hampered, 
 and so to understand something of continuity and 
 freedom. In this, as we have said, it is guided by the 
 realisation of series. And so the ideas of a man 
 reach beyond his material surroundings, and he begins 
 to know the meaning of Spirit, and to see that the 
 path to freedom hes, not in dynamic equiUbrium 
 with the ever recurring stimuli of matter, which are 
 essentially discontinuous, but in relation with Spirit. 
 He begins to develop in response to the spiritual 
 environment, which he cannot perceive by his senses, 
 but in which he yet knows himself to move. And as 
 he progresses the hope that he will not vanish as a 
 mist, but become united, yet not identified, with that 
 in which he has his being, grows ever, through faith, 
 towards certainty. 
 
to Conception 51 
 
 The laws of development are necessarily the same 
 throughout, for the winning of freedom for himself, 
 and the abohtion of the self-hmitation of the Godhead 
 have always been the goal, and growing freedom 
 means emergence from discontinuity into unity. In 
 and through his own growth he reahses in himself 
 the truth that Spirit is more real, and more potent 
 than matter — a fact which the discovery of the power 
 of suggestion and autosuggestion in the domain of 
 therapeutics makes more clear every day^. And so 
 he learns that matter, discontinuity, is phenomenal, 
 temporal; that Spirit alone is eternal and complete. 
 
 One question remains. Is the discontinuity real 
 for God, or only for man? I suppose the answer 
 must depend on the nature of the Eternal Conscious- 
 ness, of which we can have but a dim notion, and that 
 purely conceptual. But it seems that there must 
 be two sides to the consciousness of God, at any rate 
 as long as imperfect creatures exist. This idea is 
 impUcit in the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation — 
 the entrance of God into Time and Matter. In the 
 Eternal, Simultaneous Consciousness of God, in His 
 Transcendent Consciousness that is, one can conceive 
 that He sees already the end; that in His Eternal 
 Present man is free, and His Own self-Umitation has 
 
 ^ Compare for instance, to take only one case, the utterly 
 different health of the two dissociated personalities of Miss Beauchamp 
 and Sally. Moreton Prince, The Dissociation of a Personality. 
 
 4—2 
 
52 Transcendence and Immamence of God 
 
 no real existence. But in His temporal or immanent 
 nature He too is in the process of becoming; He 
 too is limited ; He too knows the pain of discontinuity. 
 Dualism becomes true for God in so far as he is Imma- 
 nent, but for His Transcendent nature there is but one 
 Reality, yet a Reality ever being added to in the mutual 
 relationships of personahty, while ever complete. 
 A fuller consideration of this last matter will be 
 attempted in a later chapter, when we consider the 
 relation between the Immanent and Transcendent 
 aspects of Godhead. It is all far beyond reason, 
 and the spirit can only have visions of it in moments 
 of exaltation, as of a landscape flashing fitfully into 
 sight in the gleam of the lightning. For we are still 
 fettered to perception for the greater part of our 
 knowledge, and perceptually we can only know that 
 which affects our senses by relation or discontinuity. 
 But we can, and do, conceive the idea of a continuum, 
 and this last is but higher knowledge. Both are true 
 knowledge, of the same type, but one we achieve 
 through the senses of our lower animal nature, the 
 other by the recognition of the ultimate meaning of 
 the environment that is all about us. The discon- 
 tinuity is real, but it exists only in relation to us 
 and to the self-limited side of God which, in our 
 imperfection, we are able to apprehend. It is the 
 sign and seal of imperfection, and because of this, 
 it is the sign and seal of God's love for us, since the 
 
Sin 53 
 
 imperfection is an expression of the self-limitation of 
 God, for the sake of the freedom that is to be in us. 
 
 ReaHsing all this, however dimly, by whatsoever 
 road the truth comes home to us, we unite more and 
 more with the Great Unity. Eternal Hfe is the com- 
 pletion of the continuum, not through extinction or 
 absorption of the ego, but in the union of perfect 
 mutual experience. 
 
 And because the whole process of development 
 is one, sin is, as we have claimed^, continuous in origin 
 with the failure of the lower animals to achieve freedom ; 
 with their acceptance of dynamic equihbrium. But 
 in nature it is utterly different, for it is based not on 
 action, on the acceptance of conditions perceptually 
 known and too completely trusted, but on the rejection 
 of the idea of freedom and progress conceived in the 
 soul. It is in effect the disavowal of the sacramental 
 nature of life. Those who say let us eat and drink 
 for to-morrow we die, eat and drink judgment unto 
 themselves. Sin is knowledge rej ected. The child may 
 do wrong and yet not sin. We act on this beUef 
 every day. And the animal may fail, and yet not 
 sin. It is knowledge, not change of outward circum- 
 stances, that makes sin. 
 
 If matter is spirit limited; if freedom is the goal 
 of creation; then we may, we must, hold that the 
 environment is one, and that failure and sin are 
 
 ^ Evolution and the Need of Atonement. 
 
64 Summary 
 
 phylogenetically the same, however different they may 
 be in their own nature. The break comes with the 
 passage from perception to conception. It is in the 
 creature, not in his surroundings, that we must look 
 for the real significance of sin and guilt. 
 
 Let us now sum up the somewhat diffuse argument 
 which we have briefly stated. All Hues of thought 
 suggest, in the long run, a fundamental continuum 
 which cannot be perceived, but only conceived. In 
 this continuum are discontinuities, which constitute 
 the basis of perception. For the physicist there is 
 the discontinuity in the ether, which constitutes 
 matter. For the metaphysician there is apparent 
 multiphcity with one underlying Reahty, only conceived 
 by abstract thought. For the biologist there is one 
 environment, of which successive parts come into 
 play as the organism develops, giving rise to a fictitious 
 mirage of discontinuity. For the theologian there is 
 sin and there is pain in a world that has come to be 
 through the will of God. 
 
 But matter is a Hmitation of the degrees of freedom 
 of the ether, according to the physicist. Apparent 
 duahsm is the result of imperfect apprehension of 
 Reality, according to the idealist. The serial nature 
 of evolutionary progress leads the biologist to believe 
 in the existence of an environment-sum; and he 
 sees that with progress comes greater freedom for 
 the creature. True, he means something different 
 
Summary 55 
 
 from the physicist when he talks of freedom, but 
 nevertheless both mean the absence of constraining 
 factors, and their different dejS.nitions are conditioned 
 by their different points of view. 
 
 Finally, sin is due to the hmited spiritual under- 
 standing of man, according to the theologian, since 
 it is the voluntary acceptance of imperfection, the 
 voluntary refusal to progress, the determination to 
 "take the cash in hand and waive the rest" as too 
 uncertain, too problematic — too unpleasant in the 
 winning. 
 
 In each instance the perceived discontinuity may 
 be said to result from lack of freedom, in the sense of 
 the defect or absence of the property of unconstrained- 
 ness. And in each, the idea of a continuum is the 
 final end reached by the exercise of the highest faculties 
 of conceptual reason. 
 
 In the systems of thought which concern the 
 progress of man, the idea of a durational continuity 
 plays a part; in that which deals with matter only, 
 qua matter, the continuum appears spatial. But 
 spatial conceptions in the long run are found to be 
 based on duration, since memory enters into their 
 formation. In a series, mathematical for instance, 
 each number may be taken as a definite thing, but 
 its properties are chiefly derived from its relation to 
 the other members of the series. So too, in the animal 
 kingdom, each organism derives its real importance 
 
66 Conclusion 
 
 from being viewed, teleologically, as a member of a 
 series. On the convergence of all these trains of thought 
 we may base our belief in the serial connection of 
 all the phenomena of progress — a series which repre- 
 sents growth in freedom. Phenomenal discontinuity 
 we may look on as evidence of lack of freedom, and 
 we must regard all the evidence which points towards 
 a fundamental continuum, of howsoever various 
 nature, as a cogent argument for the real basis of such 
 belief. That the continua differ, may be regarded as 
 the natural consequence of a limited purview inherent 
 in the particular mode of thought. 
 
 If there is one continuum, it must be spirit ; meta- 
 physically this statement needs no elaboration. 
 
 Our answer to the question Can spirit, land, and 
 water be placed in series? is this. They can, in the 
 sense that all matter is a limitation of spirit, which 
 limitation is in process of being removed. We shall 
 see in later chapters how far-reaching in its influence 
 on our thought this answer must be. 
 
 If this line of argument is justified, dualism is 
 phenomenally real, and represents a true Hmitation of 
 Spirit, or God, in relation to the limited freedom of 
 the creature. And unity will only be achieved when 
 the evolving spirit of man has become wholly 
 assimilated to, though never to be absorbed in, the 
 Spirit of Divine love. When that which is perfect 
 is come, that which is in part shall be done away. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 SOME ASPECTS OF UNITY AND MULTIPLICITY 
 IN LIVING MATTER 
 
 In the last chapter we discussed the problem of 
 unity and multiplicity in the environment of man. 
 We saw that as far as perceptual knowledge is con- 
 cerned, multiplicity must be the basal fact, since 
 perception is dependent on matter, and matter is 
 discontinuous. Nevertheless we found that, as soon 
 as self-consciousness appears, with all the powers 
 of memory and conceptual thought that accompany 
 it, the idea of continuity takes a higher and higher 
 place. And continuity is closely linked with unity, 
 though it may be complicated by the existence ol 
 a time-factor, as in a durational series. 
 
 We turn now to the problem of unity and multi- 
 plicity in the organism itself, in order to find, among 
 other things, the clue to the fact above stated that 
 because perception is based on the discontinuity of 
 matter, the problem of unity and multiplicity must 
 arise, as soon as conceptual thought corner into 
 
68 Physiological Division of Labour 
 
 existence. This clue we shall find in the material 
 basis of thought, the brain. 
 
 The tendency of individuals to form groups, or 
 what we may almost call individuals of the second 
 degree, is found throughout the animal kingdom, even 
 amongst the Protozoa, the most primitive of all free- 
 living animals, and the simplest. These consist of a 
 single cell, which is differentiated in the higher members 
 of the group so as to perform the various functions 
 of the body extremely efficiently. Thus at the very 
 outset we find a tendency in the single cell for the 
 parts to group for the purpose of more efficient 
 functioning. We nearly always find a nucleus, a 
 digestive region, and a contractile region ; and generally 
 an excretory region. And doubtless the analysis could 
 be pushed much further were our knowledge sufficient. 
 No doubt there is technically some question as to 
 the justification of applying the term cell to these 
 organisms at all, but since phylogenetically the true 
 cell is descended from a protozoon, though perhaps 
 a subdivided one, for our purpose we may use the 
 term a Uttle loosely without invalidating our argu- 
 ment. 
 
 In many cases such unicellular individuals congre- 
 gate together to form a colony; later they specialise 
 on one function or another ; and so arises that physio- 
 logical division of labour which is carried to such 
 perfection in the body of the higher Vertebrates. 
 
based on the Impulse towards Unity 59 
 
 At first the units of the colony can be separated by 
 mechanical means without suffering much injury, and 
 they are then able to lead an independent life, for 
 each cell is still capable of performing all the vital 
 functions. Among the Protozoa the formation of 
 colonies is thus seen to be a convenience rather than 
 an immediate necessity. 
 
 In the simple Sponges the cell-units will still 
 live quite successfully when they are isolated, at any 
 rate for a time, but they tend to aggregate again, 
 and by gradual stages, probably reproducing the 
 historical development of the colony, they re-form 
 a colony similar to that destroyed. This can only 
 occur, of course, if all the types of cell that existed 
 in the original organism are present. On the other 
 hand if the cells are separated and the particular 
 type that line the passages and chambers of the 
 sponge, — the collar-cells, possessing retractile collars 
 and long, whip-hke processes, — collected together, these 
 too evince the same tendency to group, and they form 
 colonies exactly resembling no known organism, yet 
 thriving together, for a time at least, as an animal 
 bearing a striking likeness to several well-known 
 forms. Here there seems to be in the first case a 
 kind of impulse towards unity in the whole, generated 
 perhaps by physical contact, perhaps by chemical 
 stimuh, that makes the cells creep into their allotted 
 places, where they may best perform their parts, and 
 
60 Regeneration exemplifies 
 
 in the second case the primaeval stimulus that led 
 to the formation of a colony without any differentiation 
 of function seems to reassert itself. 
 
 Higher in the scale we find the same thing at work. 
 At first the whole animal is able to regenerate the 
 particular part that has been lost or injured; there is 
 again a sort of unity in the whole that realises the 
 interrelations of the parts. But as the parts become 
 more and more specialised, this power of regeneration 
 becomes limited to cells of the same type as those 
 which have been destroyed; in the human being 
 nerve-cells only can regenerate nerve-cells, muscle 
 cells only, muscle-cells; and this to a limited degree. 
 There has been so much speciaHsation that adaptability 
 is lost. The latent powers have, so to speak, been 
 dealt out among the tissues at a very early stage of 
 development, and it is only the cells that are formed 
 by the first few divisions which take place after 
 fertilisation, that are able to regenerate the whole. 
 
 But even among human beings, if the fertilised 
 egg, after its first division, has its two daughter-cells 
 accidentally but completely separated, each of these, 
 instead of giving rise to half a child, gives rise to a 
 whole one, and we have a case of what are called 
 similar, or PhiHppine twins, alike in sex, and indeed 
 so like in every way, mentally as well as physically, 
 as to be almost indistinguishable^. 
 
 1 Cf. Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty, pp. 165 seqq. 
 
the same Impulse 61 
 
 Thus throughout the animal kingdom — and indeed 
 the vegetable kingdom too — we find a tendency 
 towards aggregation and interdependence among indi- 
 vidual cells, which tend more and more to lose their 
 power of independent existence — of performing all 
 the functions of a primitive living organism them- 
 selves; though even in man some cells, such as the 
 white blood-corpuscles, are more or less free ; and the 
 first cells of the embryo have always latent in them 
 the powers needed for the production of a complete 
 whole. 
 
 But when we look deeper, still stranger things 
 appear. In the case of the simple sponge we saw 
 that the cells, even when forcibly separated, seem to 
 retain some sort of corporate instinct ; for left together, 
 each cell, or rather each type of cell, migrates to the 
 place in the whole formless heap which is suitable 
 for the performance of its particular function, and so 
 the ground-plan of a new sponge is laid down. We 
 may attribute the motions to physico-chemical causes ; 
 yet if we see in the phenomenon nothing but such 
 causes we are landed in a difficulty when we turn to 
 higher grades of colonial organisms, and survey the 
 ants and termites, and the social bees and wasps. For 
 here we have a colony where the social instinct — ^in 
 the strict sense of the word — is carried to its highest 
 manifestation. When the colony is regarded as a 
 whole it is seen to possess something which one is 
 
62 The Impulse to Unity 
 
 almost inclined to call a common mind^. In these 
 colonies the component cells are aggregated into the 
 groups we term individuals, which are yet themselves 
 only complex units, often incapable of the simplest 
 forms of what we may call, or rather miscall, rational 
 action when they are separated from the hive and 
 called upon to perform any action or to respond to 
 any stimulus, except the one for which they had 
 covenanted in their corporate life. Lord Avebury's 
 experiments, in which he enclosed a bee in a long 
 glass bell-jar lying on its side with the closed end 
 towards a window, and the open one towards the room, 
 illustrate this. The bee in some cases failed to get 
 out at all, in others it only got out after a considerable 
 interval of time. Flies placed in the jar got out at 
 once. It must, however, be remembered that bees 
 exhibit much more marked positive phototaxis than 
 flies ; and this fact in some degree vitiates the experi- 
 ment; though other experiments in trying to induce 
 bees and ants to find their way under abnormal condi- 
 tions strongly confirm the view that colonial species 
 have far less of what we may call intelligence — meaning 
 simply the power of reaction to unaccustomed stimuli — 
 than soHtary-living species 2. Yet the colony as a 
 whole performs marvels of architecture, of legislation, 
 
 ^ Cf. Trotter's Herd-Instinct, and the discussion of it at the 
 end of this chapter. 
 
 * Cf. Lubbock, AntSf Bees, and Wasps, p. 278 et passim. 
 
in Insect Colonies 63 
 
 of farming (as in the cultivation of fungi, and the 
 care of flocks of Aphides), of subjugation and slave- 
 labour; even of rational coping with the unexpected, 
 as when, the Queen Bee being killed, the nurses rear 
 a new queen by enlarging the cell and altering the food 
 of some other grub, which would else have become 
 an ordinary worker, or in the experiment of training 
 an ant to use a section-Ufter presented to it as a hft 
 or elevator for the purpose of crossing the water 
 to an artificial island-nest^. True, as far as we know, 
 where several individuals are concerned in some 
 activity they frequently confer together, stroking each 
 other with their antennae, before they perform any 
 act out of the common run of their daily round, so 
 that physical contact is generally needed for inter- 
 communication ^ ; though sometimes they appear to 
 be able to communicate at a distance by signs, such 
 as posture, movements of the jaws, and the hke; 
 but the important fact remains that they do things, 
 as a colony, that are utterly beyond any individual 
 in the colony. Their corporate instinct is far higher 
 than their individual instinct, and seems often to 
 be rational if we judge merely by results. In other 
 
 * Cf. W. M. Wheeler, Anta (Columbia University Biological 
 Series, vol. ix. ch. xxx.), where a fascinating description of the 
 plastic behaviour of ants wiU be found, including a careful analysis 
 of the "memory" of ants, as shown in their docility. 
 
 2 Cf. Lubbock, Ants, Bees, and Wasps. 
 
64 Dependerice of the Unit 
 
 words, we have here a case of aggregation of units 
 to form an individual whose component parts preserve 
 a considerable measure of spatial independence; an 
 instance differing in degree rather than in kind, on the 
 one hand from the primitive colonies we first con- 
 sidered, and on the other hand from the connected 
 wholly dependent units that go to make up the colony 
 we call a man. In a sense it is the hive or the ant-hill 
 that is the individual — the whole colony with its 
 protective husk — not the ant or the bee. We must 
 not lose sight, however, of the fact that what is gained 
 in a higher degree by the community is lost by the 
 individual unit. No single hive bee is capable of 
 such varied activities as the solitary bee. In the 
 formation of a state, of an individual of the second 
 degree, the unit has lost its power of independent 
 life. And this is always the case. Even among men 
 the subdivision of labour makes each more and more 
 dependent on other, less and less capable of successful 
 solitary existence. First the family, then the tribe, 
 then the nation, then the empire, then perhaps the 
 universal brotherhood^. Mr Norman Angell and his 
 precursor Blioch have shown from a different point 
 of view how much more closely nation and nation 
 are already bound together than most men have any 
 
 1 Trotter {Sociological Review, 1908 and 1909) would put the 
 family as a secondary phenomenon, the original solidarity occurring 
 in the undifferentiated horde {v. infra Note). 
 
on the Colony 65 
 
 idea of. Bergson has expressed the universal tendency 
 of Hving matter thus : " Life . . . manifests a search 
 for individuahty, as if it strove to constitute systems 
 naturally isolated, naturally closed^." Parasitism, and 
 commensahsm or association — two organisms, differing 
 even as widely as plant and animal, yet living together 
 in intimate physical relation; as do the alga and the 
 fungus that together make up the lichen ; the alga that 
 is symbiotic with certain corals; or the moth that 
 fertilises the Yucca-tree, and lays its eggs in the ovary 
 of the tree, to feed on some of the plant-seeds, plant 
 and animal ahke speciaHsing themselves for their 
 common ends — these are but more illustrations of the 
 tendency of living things to form closed systems — to 
 form complex individuals. Indeed throughout the 
 whole realm of matter, inanimate as well as animate, 
 there is this same tendency towards the formation of 
 closed systems. 
 
 All this gives much food for thought to the theo- 
 logian. At first sight it is simply bewildering. The 
 old, rough criteria of individuality by which we are 
 accustomed to guide our thought are swept rudely 
 away, and we seem to be left with the vague idea 
 that we are individuals, and yet cannot deny a measure 
 of the same privilege to each component cell in our 
 bodies, if we are to be consistent; for an amoebocyte^ 
 
 * Creative Evolution, p. 15. 
 2 White blood corpuscle. 
 
 M. 5 
 
66 The Problem of Individuality 
 
 is capable of a considerable measure of independence, 
 even if a nerve cell is not, and the series connecting 
 them is complete. So too we must not deny 
 individuality to the hive of bees, or to the lichen. 
 And if the hive of bees is one individual, what of 
 the community of men? We know something of the 
 psychology of crowds: we know that the crowd has 
 powers, and that it acts as a whole, and that these 
 powers are different from the powers of any of the 
 men who compose it, while its actions are such as 
 commend themselves, often, to no single individual 
 present. We know something of telepathy, and of 
 corporate prayer. We are one and all affected in 
 some measure, consciously or unconsciously, by the 
 pluralistic HegeHanism that would make God out of 
 the corporate unity of finite inteUigences — a system 
 that is, in a sense, the metaphysical statement of the 
 facts of nature we have just outlined. We have 
 heard of the Neuter Brahma, the Essence of Things, 
 energising Itself as Brahma, the Creator, of whom 
 all that exists is a manifestation, perishable as a 
 dream, yet one\ and the fantastic myth acquires a 
 new significance as we realise that all through the 
 material world the many collect together to form 
 the one. We begin to wonder if after all men too 
 are just isolated groups of cells, possessing the sem- 
 blance of independence, yet really only parts of an 
 individual that is in process of becoming, and is itself 
 
Huxley and Garrod Q7 
 
 the dream of the Red King — a King who is not a person, 
 but the impersonal Essence of Things. 
 
 This problem of IndividuaHty in the Animal 
 Kingdom is dealt with in a very fascinating manner 
 by Mr JuUan Huxley in a Uttle book which bears these 
 words as its title, and details of almost all the instances 
 above quoted, and many more, are there fully set forth. 
 We owe a debt of gratitude to this writer for his 
 reasoned and careful correlation of facts well known 
 to the Zoologist, but quite unknown to the outside 
 world, and for his truly philosophical interpretation 
 of them ; even though, as we shall see, we are unable 
 to follow him altogether. Some years earher appeared 
 a book, by Miss E. K. Garrod, entitled The Unit of Strife, 
 in which the same Hne of thought is pursued further, 
 rather on social and pohtical lines, though there is a 
 strong rehgious element interwoven with the argument. 
 But this book, suggestive though it is, is again 
 vitiated, though in a less degree, by the same fallacy 
 that underlies the latter part of Mr Huxley's work. 
 
 The main point brought out by both writers is, 
 that physical unity is by no means necessary for the 
 individual. Its component parts may lead lives 
 largely independent of each other, wandering freely 
 and at large, and reacting to the stimuli of the world 
 without any direct reference to the organism as a 
 whole, at any rate in minor affairs. Just as many of 
 the commonest reactions of the human body to external 
 
 &— 2 
 
68 Huxley's Definition 
 
 stimuli are carried out through reflexes, without 
 reference to the coordinating centre or brain of the 
 man, so many of the simple problems of existence 
 are faced by the individual bee or the individual 
 amoebocyte. Still further, as we have seen, this 
 divided unity may exist between creatures so dissimilar 
 as plants and animals. Cooperation seems to be 
 the criterion of individuaUty. Mr Huxley makes out 
 a strong case for his definition, that: 
 
 The individual must have heterogeneous parts, whose 
 function only gains full significance when considered in 
 relation to the whole; it must have some independence 
 of the forces of inorganic nature; and it must work, and 
 work after such a fashion that it, or a new individual 
 formed from part of its substance, continues able to work 
 in the same way. 
 
 As we have seen, such a definition includes a colony 
 or tribe of men. This is one of the reasons that 
 make an examination of this line of thought an 
 absolutely indispensable preliminary to a consideration 
 of the Spiritual Life from an evolutionary stand- 
 point, for we are at once faced with the question: 
 Is our behef in immortahty but a reflection of the 
 vicarious immortahty enjoyed by every colony; by 
 the sponge and the volvox, and by the hive of bees; 
 is it merely a tribal consciousness of continuity? 
 And again, is our behef in a God really of the same 
 nature as the behef of the bee that there is a hive 
 
of Individuality 69 
 
 in which he in very truth lives and moves and has 
 his being? To attribute any conscious thought of 
 this kind to the bee is of course not permissible; 
 but the knowledge which it has unconsciously, may 
 not we have consciously? 
 
 With the biological reasons for concluding that 
 the existence of God gives the only reasonable 
 explanation of certain sides of man's nature I have 
 dealt elsewhere, though from rather a different 
 aspect of the evolutionary problem i, and it is only 
 necessary here to state the conclusion arrived at, 
 namely, that the appearance of spiritual phenomena 
 necessitates the postulation of a Spiritual Environment, 
 and the phenomenon of Personality determines the 
 nature of this Environment as Personal. In other 
 words, the Laws of Evolution point clearly to the 
 existence of God. And more, the nature of human 
 personaHty points towards its own immortahty. So 
 for the present we may dismiss the second question, 
 though we shall have more to say on the subject of 
 immortality later on. Before we can answer the 
 first, a searching examination of the nature of the 
 process of aggregation which we have been considering 
 is obviously needed, and to that we must now proceed. 
 
 First of all, what is the motive force that impels 
 aggregation? It is, as Mr Huxley points out, but 
 a special case of the general law formulated by Bergson, 
 ^ Evolution and the Need of Atonement^ ch. i. 
 
70 Instinct and 
 
 that the organism is always striving to advance in 
 indetermination by the process of compelling more 
 and more matter to become subservient to it, through 
 more and more efficient tool-making^. Matter com- 
 mandeered enlarges the sphere of action of the organism, 
 and, before the rational consciousness is evolved, 
 rendering conscious tool-making possible, one of the 
 means adopted towards this end is the formation of 
 groups of individuals, generally, but not always, in 
 protoplasmic continuity with one another. The other 
 chief means is the far more familiar one of the instinctive 
 or unconscious tool-making of a unit organism — the 
 caddis that makes for itself a house, or the bower- 
 bird that constructs a pleasance of fruit and flowers 
 and a theatre in the midst for the enjoyment of his 
 future mate. And we have seen elsewhere that the 
 conscious tool-making of man is but a manifestation 
 of the same phenomenon. 
 
 Between the unconscious and the conscious process, 
 however, Bergson draws this clear distinction : 
 
 Instinct perfected is a faculty of using and even of 
 constructing organised instruments ; intelligence perfected is 
 the faculty of making and using unorganised instruments 2. 
 1 Naturally, in creatures which derive their sustenance from 
 plants, the impulse towards the formation of colonies will have 
 fuller effect than in carnivorous ones. The food of the latter is 
 comparatively scarce, and no district could supply large colonies 
 of them for any length of time. Carnivorous colonies or herds 
 will be rare, and where they exist they must generally be migratory. 
 ^ Creative Evolution^ p. 147. 
 
Intelligence 71 
 
 Thus the activities of a hive of bees, or the spatial 
 sense that urges the disintegrated sponge to re-form 
 its old structure, are to be contrasted with the chipping 
 of flints by primitive man, done with the reasoned 
 idea that he can thus form a sharp instrument for 
 offence, for defence, or for domestic purposes. With 
 the interpenetration of instinct and intelHgence — for, as 
 Bergson points out, the two are rarely if ever exclusively 
 present — we need not deal here. What we have to 
 reahse is that both the one and the other are the means 
 adopted by the evolving creature for widening and 
 rendering more inclusive the range of its influence 
 over matter; and that the organism tends to move 
 in one or other of two directions, towards pure instinct 
 or pure intelligence, though the two paths are not 
 mutually exclusive, at any rate in the earlier stages, 
 and though the one certainly passes over into the 
 other by gradual transition. 
 
 The corporate instinct that underlies the formation 
 of colonies in bees and the like is clearly an instance 
 of advance in indetermination by the formation of 
 a larger closed system; and it is probably based on 
 pure instinct. And even where there is the absence 
 of organic continuity between the units, there is still 
 physiological division of labour. Each unit has its 
 role, and is organically differentiated for the better 
 performance of its part. 
 
 On the other hand, in so far as the unit is capable 
 
72 Intelligence based on the Possession 
 
 of acting as an independent entity, we may look on 
 it as an individual. The units are tending to lose 
 their individuahty in the formation of a closed system, 
 of larger size and of activities wider than those possible 
 for a single unit, but they may still retain some measure 
 of it. Among the insects we see the highest develop- 
 ment of instinct, and correlated with it we find the 
 tendency to form aggregate individuals raised to its 
 highest manifestation. But the price must be paid. 
 By the very discreteness of the composite the possi- 
 bility of development of the intellect is negatived. 
 
 At first it is not easy to see that this is so. Why, 
 it may be asked, if corporate instinct is possible, and 
 actualised in fact, is corporate intelligence to be ruled 
 out? The answer is, that intelligence is really the 
 recognition of relation, and the power of correlation. 
 Cause and effect, the abstract suggestion of form, 
 the power of inferential reasoning, these belong to 
 intelligence. And these demand a centre of correlation 
 to which all problems may be referred, and which in 
 its turn shall direct the units or organs towards the 
 suitable mode of action^. 
 
 In all the conscious beings we know, beings, that 
 is, whose actions are ruled in any degree by intelHgence, 
 this function is discharged by the central nervous 
 
 1 The relegation to a reflex centre of reactions to stimuli which 
 are constantly repeated, as a secondary process, in no way afifects 
 the main problem. 
 
of a Central Nervous System 73 
 
 system; and, as far as we know, it is in such forms 
 alone — individuals consisting of an aggregate in physical 
 continuity, and regulated by a controlHng mechanism — 
 that even the rudiments of self-consciousness appear. 
 We must not forget, however, as Miss Garrod points out, 
 that in the State certain individuals by nature most 
 suited to the occupation have the province of thought 
 delegated to them by common consent, others the pro- 
 vince of invention, others the province of government. 
 In other words, there is at least a close analogy between 
 this fact, and the fact that in the unit certain cells 
 are set aside for the purposes of regulation and sensa- 
 tion — the nerve-cells. The analogy is a true and 
 valuable one, though it again can be pressed too far, 
 and this, combined with a sUght inexactitude of 
 thought, is largely responsible for the fallacy that 
 invaUdates the two books we have referred to. 
 
 The essential point, which has escaped the notice 
 of Huxley and Garrod is, that if there is to he correlating 
 power, the conscious individual itself must first he as 
 completely correlated as possible, otherwise correlation 
 could have no reahsed meaning for it. If the organism 
 is to be rational, that is, if it is to be conscious of the 
 relation of cause and effect outside itself, it must 
 first be aware of the relation of cause and effect within 
 itself; for it is only after the realisation that such 
 and such a voKtion issues in such and such an action, 
 that the reahsation can come that a certain cause 
 
74 Corporate Consciousness; Instinct; 
 
 will produce a certain effect in the world without. 
 The recognition of relation without must be preceded 
 by the recognition of relation within. Afterwards 
 memory may play its part, but experience must 
 precede memory, and inward experience must precede 
 outward in this matter. We shall proceed immediately 
 to the elaboration of this point, but meanwhile we 
 shall not be far wrong if we say that the discrete 
 composite organism, such as a hive of bees, while it 
 evidently allows the development of instinct to a high 
 pitch, at the same time achieving a considerable 
 measure of indetermination by the mere fact of its 
 colonial nature, and increasing the sphere of its activity 
 by means of the relative independence of its members, 
 yet parts once for all with the possibiHty of progress 
 into the realms of self-consciousness and volition. 
 
 The whole question of corporate consciousness, 
 whether instinctive or rational, is intimately bound 
 up with the question of the relation of mind with 
 matter. Suffice it here to say that, if we accept, 
 as men are being more and more driven to accept, 
 the existence of some embryonic rudiment of conscious- 
 ness in all life, which is always striving towards self- 
 realisation and self-expression; something that is 
 precipitated in matter, yet is not of the nature of 
 matter and appears to be acquiring a measure of 
 independence of it ; something that conditions progress, 
 call it what you will — elan vital, spirit, continued 
 
and Ratioiial Consciousness 76 
 
 responsiveness to environment; there is no reason 
 for insisting that it is so intimately bound, in actual 
 material union, to the material basis on which it works. 
 We may apply this suggestion in all cases of corporate 
 consciousness into which no element of reason enters. 
 It seems strange perhaps that a corporate consciousness 
 should be possible even in the domain of instinct, 
 in cases where there is so much mutual independence, 
 but here we are certain of our fact ; as we are also in 
 the case of the instinct, for it is not mind, that animates 
 a human crowd. Interesting also, in this connection, 
 is the herd-instinct described by Trotter^, which deter- 
 mines the views of classes and nations on such matters 
 as probity, honour, purity, justice, and all behefs 
 and opinions which are not the outcome of special 
 knowledge. The whole question of the struggle 
 between herd-instincts and individual reason is 
 admirably though briefly dealt with in Hart's Psycho- 
 logy of Insanity. 
 
 When however we try to apply the same thought 
 in the case of the intellect, that is, of the result of 
 reasoned application of the idea of relation, the case is 
 different, as we have seen. It is hard to conceive of 
 conditions that could lead to the evolution of intellect 
 where the organism was not aware within itself of the 
 functioning of its own governing system as a some- 
 thing capable of repeated voHtions issuing regularly 
 1 Sociological Review, 1908 and 1909. 
 
76 Impossibility of Corporate Intellect 
 
 and certainly in the desired action. And, as we have 
 said, this appears to be possible only where there 
 is close interdependence of parts by physical con- 
 tinuity, the whole being governed by a central system 
 of coordination. 
 
 So far, then, we have arrived at the idea of corporate 
 instinct, able to translate itself into terms of action — 
 a practical fact — and the idea that corporate intel- 
 lect is impossible. The conclusions of generations of 
 individuals capable of understanding their experience 
 and generalising from it after free discussion of its 
 universality and importance, may, and do, become 
 instinctive; for Nature is an economical Dame, who 
 lets nothing run to waste needlessly. But even in 
 the cases where herd-instinct and race-consciousness 
 seem based on reason, the basis is the reason of indi- 
 viduals, not of race. 
 
 We have noticed elsewhere another aspect of the 
 reason for this^. It is this : that the individuals, not 
 the race, that pass on the vital flame ; it is in the 
 individuals — i.e. the units — that freedom primarily 
 exists ; and it is the individuals that become persons. 
 Race freedom and group freedom, race consciousness 
 and group consciousness can never go far, and that be- 
 cause race personahty and group personaHty are things 
 unthinkable. The attributes of personahty — love, 
 reciprocativeness, volition, purpose, moral judgments 
 
 ^ Evolution and the Need of Atonement, 2nd ed. p. 130. 
 
Antagonism of Communities 77 
 
 — all point to its impossibility, for each depends ulti- 
 mately on the reahsation of relation, and we have 
 seen that this realisation can only be evolved where 
 there is a central nervous system to serve as a basis of 
 correlating activity. 
 
 At the same time it is worthy of notice that this 
 particular argument cannot logically be apphed when 
 once the personality has been evolved. We have seen 
 that instinct seems in some degree to be independent 
 of physical contiguity, and it is conceivable that 
 intelligence, and even personality, once they are present, 
 might also have some similar measure of independence. 
 This is pure speculation, however, for which there is 
 little or no evidence. What cannot be too strongly 
 insisted upon is that they could not appear at all 
 in the first instance without physical continuity 
 throughout the system. 
 
 Another point that requires notice before we begin 
 to draw our conclusions is, that throughout the animal 
 kingdom there is antagonism between individuals : 
 either direct warfare, or the antagonism that results 
 from the struggle for existence ; and this, whether the 
 individual is a unit or a commimity. The formation 
 of communities is only a means towards the more 
 effectual coping with environmental conditions. 
 
 When we turn to man we see the same thing at 
 work. Here too there is the banding together into 
 communities for purposes of subdivision of labour. 
 
78 Tribal Instinct 
 
 of defence, and of offence. Here too communities 
 are antagonistic. Here too we see the same tendency 
 towards the formation of larger and larger communities 
 at work. Here too we see the presence of race con- 
 sciousness and tribal consciousness — the formation of 
 an aggregated individual. Again the consciousness 
 of the group is clearly of the nature of instinct: the 
 psychology of crowds is certainly not reasoned in 
 its manifestations. 
 
 We must, however, ourselves be on our guard 
 about a piece of loose thinking, which is not altogether 
 avoided by the writers we have mentioned, though we 
 have already drawn attention to it. The organised 
 activities of a nation or industry are quite clearly of 
 a totally different kind from those of an animal colony. 
 They are the result of reasoned correlation of cause and 
 effect on the part of intelHgent individuals. True, we 
 have indications of instinctive individuality in crowds 
 as a whole, similar to that in colonial animals. But 
 in regard to this two points are noteworthy; first, 
 that the manifestation of tribal instinct seems to be 
 on the wane ; it is far more marked in primitive tribes 
 than it is in a civilised community (though this is 
 perhaps not true of the special forms considered by 
 Trotter) ; and second, that such individuality as a 
 crowd possesses is of a lower order altogether than 
 that of any unit in it. An angry mob will go to 
 lengths that no man in it would dream of approving. 
 
Development of Ethics 79 
 
 The units are here urged by an instinct that impels 
 them to action that they really disapprove of with 
 the whole of their individual personaUty. 
 
 Another result of the community Hfe of rational, 
 self-conscious beings is the appearance of an ethical 
 standard. Whatever be the ultimate origin and basis of 
 ethics, whatever the real meaning and authority of its 
 sanctions, it is undoubtedly a fact that the immediate 
 origin and the form of growth of its manifestations are 
 to be found in the utilitarian aspect of it in the com- 
 munity^. And here again we find ourselves confronted 
 with something that has originated in the faculty of 
 relation, of recognising and making use of cause and 
 effect, that is characteristic of inteUigence and is there- 
 fore logical. It is because remembered experience 
 has taught that certain things are harmful to the com- 
 munity, as well as because of the knowledge that along 
 this path Ues the road to completer self-realisation, that 
 ethics becomes a factor in evolution. In other words, 
 here again we have something that appears only as 
 a phenomenon attendant on community life, but which 
 is yet by no means the expression of a single corporate 
 mind in the community; for we find that an ethical 
 sense is apparently developed in sohtary animals as 
 soon as they come into contact with human beings^ — 
 
 1 Vide p. 80. 
 
 * Apparently, because it may be that the manifestations are not 
 due to a true ethipal sense at all, but are rather a direct response 
 
80 Community-Law 
 
 witness a dog — and perhaps even when circumstances 
 throw them much into contact with another animal of 
 the same species. This is not at all of the kind or order 
 of the community-consciousness. True, the unit in 
 the hymenopteran community which does not fulfil its 
 allotted part is in some cases ignominiously expelled or 
 stung to death, but we have no evidence whatever for 
 bringing this fact into Hne with the ethical code of even 
 the most primitive community of rational beings, ex- 
 cept in so far as we have the same function performed. 
 There is certainly no moral sense in the unit insects, 
 or in the community as a whole, that the lazy or 
 impotent one is wronging the community; there is 
 present simply the same corporate sense that leads 
 to the extrusion of any cell or group of cells from 
 any colony when that cell or group becomes, for 
 the purposes of the whole, dead ; that is, when it 
 is no longer able to perform its allotted function. 
 The unfortunate tendency of modern pseudo-natural- 
 historical literature is to impute ethical and rational 
 significance to actions that are purely instinctive. 
 If an elementary idea of morals is indicated at all 
 in the animal community it is only among the highest 
 forms which already show signs of real intelHgence, 
 
 to stimulus. A dog who has done something wrong shows it in 
 every line of his body; but it may be merely the memory of past 
 scolding or beating that induces the attitude of penitence (which in 
 the first instance was produced by the punishment) by suggestion 
 and association. 
 
Importance of Central Nervous System 81 
 
 e.g. rooks and beavers. It is stated that rooks and 
 Indian crows at all events hold a parHament to discuss 
 the conduct of the criminal before punishing him. 
 
 Ethics is essentially a thing characteristic of a 
 ferson, for it is based on the recognition of a Good, 
 and a Good is always an End, and an End has only 
 meaning in relation to a person. This is one of the 
 reasons for believing that any purely evolutionary 
 account of the appearance of a moral sense, with no 
 reference to, or ultimate sanction in, an absolute 
 standard, must fall to the ground. The practical 
 standard may be, and is, determined by utihty, and 
 is hence characteristic of community life, and subject 
 to evolution. The ultimate demand of the moral 
 imperative is personal, and is founded on the nature 
 of Reality. The recognition of moral good is one of 
 the deep-seated attributes of personahty; the form 
 which moral good assumes is largely determined by 
 the needs, and progressive complexity of relation, in 
 the community. 
 
 Let us again insist on the fact that reason and 
 personahty can only appear in individuals possessing 
 a central nervous system, with complete, or at least 
 marked, control of the organic parts. In other words, 
 we must insist on the truth of the strangely anomalous 
 yet suggestive statement that indetermination, in the 
 sense of reasoned voluntary action, can only arise where 
 in the organism itself there is as complete a certainty 
 
 M. 6 
 
82 Animal Societies hosed 07i Instinct; 
 
 of determinate interaction of the parts as possible^. 
 Let us now review what we have said, and follow out 
 the two threads that we have found in our sUght 
 survey of the life of communities. 
 
 We must wholly endorse Mr Huxley's conclusions 
 as to individuality in the animal kingdom as distinct 
 from man. Where cells are aggregated together we 
 must assign individuality to the aggregate, while 
 allowing some measure of individuahty to the cells 
 themselves, or to the unitary groups of cells, in the 
 measure in which they retain the potentiality of 
 independent action and existence. We must recognise 
 that among non-self-conscious animals there is a 
 tendency towards closed systems, to which individuality 
 must be assigned, and whose parts have very different 
 degrees of physical continuity. And we must admit 
 too that in these colonial individuals we find pheno- 
 mena closely parallehng the phenomena in colonies of 
 rational beings, which are yet totally different in nature 
 and origin, being due to instinct, and the plasticity 
 of Hving matter, and not to intelligence; just as in 
 individuals of solitary habit, we find artifices parallehng 
 the severest exercise of the power of observation 
 and logical deduction. Bergson deals very fully with 
 the characteristics of instinct and intelligence, and 
 it is unnecessary for us to consider them here. 
 
 In man, too, as we have seen, we discover the 
 
 1 See p. 73. 
 
Human Societies on Reason 83 
 
 tendency to form colonies; but here we must differ 
 from Mr Huxley and Miss Garrod in seeing the 
 sanfie phenomenon — ^if indeed they do consider it 
 to be the same, as they rather imply. Doubtless the 
 same need to win victories over matter by widening 
 the range of activity conditions the formation of 
 colonies. Doubtless also the same requirements of 
 community hfe appear in both cases — ^indeed this must 
 be so. But in the one case the reaction to the forces 
 which determine these things is instinctive, in the other 
 all the evidence goes to show that it is increasingly 
 the result of a dehberative recognition of causes and 
 effects. Men herd together because observation and 
 experience teach them that by so doing they profit 
 in many ways^. There is the purposeful choice made 
 by the individual men as a result of comparison of 
 experiences. And such a development of intellect is 
 only possible, as we have seen, to units possessing a 
 central nervous system. 
 
 Now even when the colony is formed, there is still 
 room for the activities of instinct, if it has not wholly 
 disappeared; and we need not be at all surprised to 
 
 1 Even if we assume, with Trotter and other writers, that primitive 
 men lived together in an imdifferentiated horde (and the zoological 
 evidence seems to me to render this doubtful) our main argument is 
 not impugned; for men continue to herd together because, as soon 
 as they began to reason, they realised that union gave strength. 
 In other words, the modem society is based on reason, not 
 instinct. 
 
 6—2 
 
84 Survival of Instinct 
 
 find a corporate sense, similar to the hive sense of the 
 bees, coming into evidence again ; a sense not merely- 
 similar but of exactly the same nature, purely instinc- 
 tive. If this idea be true we should expect to find 
 it most marked in primitive races, since it can never 
 be of prime importance to the community which 
 is based on reason, and so it will gradually die out, 
 and all its manifestations will lag behind those of the 
 rational whole. And this is exactly what we do find, 
 at least so it seems. True it is, on the other hand, 
 that the movements of nations as a whole, whether 
 in poHtical or economic matters, represent a factor 
 that is by reason uncontrolled and uncontrollable. 
 A nation drifts irresistibly into a pacific, a bellicose, 
 a socialistic, a materiahstic attitude, and the great 
 men of the day are more the creatures than the creators 
 of this attitude. In this no doubt several factors 
 are involved — herd-instinct, which dominates each 
 class, and to some extent the whole nation ; national 
 instinct perhaps; national character certainly; and 
 the reactions between the individual and his social 
 environment. The philosophical outlook of a nation 
 has, again, a more potent influence than most men 
 realise, though the effect of Nietzsche's system on 
 Germany has brought the fact home to many of late. 
 But here again we cannot dissociate philosophy from 
 history and economics. The whole phenomenon is 
 complex, depending on the interplay of all these 
 
in Human Societies 85 
 
 factors^. Perhaps too the law, suggested by Petrie 
 in his Revolutions of Civilisation, that national pros- 
 perity depends on conquest and racial admixture, 
 and that every race ascends to its zenith some five 
 hundred years after such conquest, and then descends 
 again to its nadir, if true, has some bearing on the 
 matter. But, taking the human race as a whole, it 
 is fair to say that instinct, and all phenomena uncon- 
 trolled by reason, are on the wane, and are relegated 
 to a very subordinate role in the economy of the 
 civiHsed world. Such facts as we have just passed 
 in review may be more truly compared to the growth, 
 hfe and downfall of a colony of wasps. They are 
 essentially parallel to a phenomenon I have dealt 
 with elsewhere. The vital impulse in its struggle to 
 bear up matter against the forces of kataboHsm is 
 necessarily plapng a losing game. Decay is inevitable. 
 The body dies, while the vital impulse is passed on 
 through the rudimentary germ of life, or gamete, in 
 reproduction. As the gamete is to the whole body, 
 so is the hibernating queen to the wasps' nest, and so 
 is the national admixture of the conquered race with 
 its conquerors to the resulting nation in its zenith. 
 The phenomena are all examples of the tendency 
 of matter to form closed systems, and of the instabihty 
 of such systems. 
 
 ^ This chapter was written two years before the outbreak of 
 war, and the foregoing passage stands exactly as it was first written. 
 
86 Development of Personality dependent on 
 
 It now becomes of vital importance to us to answer 
 definitely this question: Is the tendency towards 
 the formation of closed systems waxing or waning? 
 
 The coming of intellect, we have argued, coincided 
 with more perfect organisation of a central nervous 
 system. And necessarily so, for only when relation 
 and causality could be ascertained as experimental 
 fact could intelligence find a terminus a quo. The 
 recognition of coordination between the parts of the 
 body must precede the recognition of coordination 
 between the body and some external object, which 
 is the foundation on which the making of tools rests. 
 As the subordination of external matter to the needs 
 and wishes of the conscious organism proceeds, after 
 the inturning of the consciousness on itself, as Bergson 
 calls it, which is equivalent to the realised concept 
 of internal relation, so the concept of external relation 
 becomes fuller, till it eventuates in the logical idea of 
 Ground and Consequence. The determinate nature of 
 the process in the neurones inevitably leads to a 
 determinate or logical conception of life, and the final 
 issue of self-realisation, from the intellectual side, is 
 the appearance of personality. 
 
 True, in certain cases well known to students of 
 abnormal psychology, a failure in the power of co- 
 ordination seems to lead to the formation of several 
 personalities. At first sight this would suggest that 
 personahty was in some degree independent of the 
 
Integrity of Central Nervous System 87 
 
 integrity and completeness of the central nervous 
 system — an idea, however, completely at variance 
 with the phenomena of necrosis, of cerebral lesions, 
 and other degenerative conditions, such as the recently 
 discovered bacterial (spirochaetal) poisoning -which 
 gives rise to general paralysis of the insane. Other 
 indications of the same nature are to be found in 
 the toxic brain disturbances due to the hyperactivity 
 of the thyroid gland in Graves' disease, in the mental 
 changes produced by insufficient secretion by the 
 thyroid or pituitary body in cases of myxoedema, 
 acromegaly and cretinism, and even in the various 
 'phobias accompanying neurasthenia ; and still more 
 strikingly in the moral changes resulting from these 
 failures of secretion — moral obliquities occurring which 
 are sometimes completely removed by the administra- 
 tion of the gland- extracts. But such cases as that 
 of Miss Beauchamp^, in which two major and several 
 subordinate personahties appeared, evincing not only 
 completely different natures, but even completely 
 different physical health (which we have already 
 noted as a fact of great interest in regard to the close 
 dependence of matter on mind and spirit) 2, confirm 
 the impossibility of such a view. The fact is that 
 
 1 Moreton Prince, The Dissociation of a Personality. 
 
 3 Pace Miinsterberg, Psychotherapy, e.g. p. 161. I think, however, 
 that the line we are taking is not really at variance with his con- 
 clusions; although we do not agree with the metaphysical basis of 
 his psychology, which is a blend of Parallelism and Epiphenomenalism. 
 
88 Summary 
 
 each of these "personalities" are but incomplete 
 fragments of one whole ^. The successful synthesis 
 achieved in the case quoted proves this effectually; 
 for the final person was normal and complete, while 
 fragmentary personalities were respectively neuras- 
 thenic, psychasthenic and immature. 
 
 Yet intellect cannot be a sufficient basis for a full 
 personality. It would thus seem that something more 
 than the mere integrity of the brain is needed before the 
 non-logical imperatives of developed ethics, and the 
 ideas of love, and self-abnegation for the sake of love, 
 and above all, the cherishing of ideals, could arise ; 
 for the higher manifestations of these have no relation 
 to a causal series. Either we must regard them as 
 epiphenomena, which is metaphysically not permissible ; 
 or as instances of over-speciahsation, which is negatived 
 by the fact that, though they are often antagonistic 
 to the physical well-being of the man in whom they 
 are manifest, they are yet on the increase in progressive 
 races; or we must seek some other cause for their 
 appearance. And this cause is ready to hand, as 
 we have seen elsewhere, in the underlying principle 
 of evolution — the vital impulse — a thing essentially 
 altruistic, essentially idealistic, acting in response to 
 the Spiritual Environment. 
 
 We have now the clues to two important lines of 
 argument. 
 
 * Cf. Miinsterberg, op. cit. pp. 154, 156. 
 
Summary 89 
 
 In the first place, the fact that the intellect is 
 entirely dependent on the integrity of causal series 
 within and without the organism, suggests the reason 
 for its failure to solve the twofold problem that presents 
 itself whatever aspect of man's hfe we are considering — 
 body, mind, or soul — the problem of unity and multi- 
 pUcity. 
 
 And in the second place we have seen that, where 
 self- consciousness is absent, there is a constant bias 
 towards the formation of closed systems, whether in 
 organic or inorganic matter, while where self-conscious- 
 ness and intellect exist, the bias, though still present, 
 is subordinated, and has to take a second place, for 
 there cannot be an organised intelligent individual 
 without a coordinating system completely determined 
 in its action, which is actualised in man as the central 
 nervous system. Thus, in other words, where intelli- 
 gence is absent there seems to be a tendency towards 
 unity; where it is present, towards plurahty. Yet 
 all the while there is an advance, based on reason, 
 towards union, though not towards unity; for per- 
 sonality cannot be merged or fused. In the unconscious 
 world there is a movement towards unity, in the conscious 
 towards union. Inorganic matter, and non-conscious 
 living matter, ahke tend to aggregate, until the size 
 of the group, whether radium-atom or hive, leads to 
 instability. There seems to be a maximum size, and 
 beyond this the primary groups begin to form groups 
 
90 Summary 
 
 of the second degree. Men also tend to form groups ; 
 
 but these are based largely on the intellectual reahsation 
 
 that union is strength, and on the realisation of each 
 
 man's personality as a separate being. It is because 
 
 men perceive the reality of independent personal 
 
 existence, and the value of cooperation for the purpose 
 
 of subordinating more and more matter to their 
 
 requirements, that they unite, and not because they 
 
 look on the tribe as a higher form of person. Their 
 
 groups are founded on reason, at any rate in the long 
 
 run, and reason is based on physical coordination. 
 
 Therefore the individual man is the really important 
 
 factor. He chooses to combine with others because 
 
 his reason tells him it is the best way of coping with 
 
 many of his difficulties. But he reaUses all along that 
 
 he and his fellows are not fragments of one whole, 
 
 but persons; wholes themselves and self-sufficing. 
 
 A plurality of persons becomes the one certain reality. 
 
 Yet still man is possessed with that difficult, obscure 
 
 quest for unity. He needs one explanation of his life ; 
 
 while the manifold of persons round him seems to 
 
 drive all hope of it away. 
 
 Note. A little more attention must be devoted to Trotter's 
 admirable and suggestive discussion of the part which herd-instinct 
 plays in the evolution of conscious beings. In the first place it is 
 quite clear that this herd-instinct acts as a limitation from without 
 imposed upon the individual, and so far is antagonistic to true 
 freedom. But I think it wiU probably be found that it mediates 
 greater freedom in the long run, even for the individual, through 
 the interpenetration of personalities {vide infra, ch. vi). 
 
Note 0)1 Herdliistinct 91 
 
 Very interesting in its bearing on the wider aspects of the problem 
 is his treatment of the proposition that, in all matters affected 
 by herd -instinct, belief is the primary stage, rationalisation the 
 secondary. This is exactly what one would expect where instinctive 
 action is imposed from without upon a sentient, rational being; 
 but it is in no way an explanation of the ultimate fact that the 
 individual has to form rational concepts. It offers no sort of solu- 
 tion of the great metaphysical and religious problems. Again, his 
 explanation of the sense of need that underlies all religion as the 
 instinct of man that he is part of the herd, which drives him to 
 seek completion and satisfaction in herd-activities, though it may 
 be true as a biological fact, will not do as an ultimate explanation. 
 It must issue either in materialism or nihilism, and is open to aU 
 the objections of these systems. 
 
 Very possibly Trotter is right in placing the undifferentiated horde 
 in a position antecedent in time to the family and the tribe, though 
 we have not adopted this view in the present chapter ; but whether 
 he is right or not, the fact has no deep significance in regard to the 
 whole question of the formation of closed systems in biological 
 evolution. The point is, surely, that the undifferentiated horde 
 proved unsatisfactory as a basis of communal activity. Indeed, 
 it is a little hard to see the justification for treating it as a herd at 
 all. Some VorticeUas live as an "undifferentiated horde"; others 
 have gone further and form branching colonies. Is it more justifiable 
 to treat the "undifferentiated horde" as a unit in the one case 
 than in the other ? Can we say more than that the instinct towards 
 closer aggregation is present in both cases ? 
 
 In fine, in these brilliant articles attention is drawn to a factor 
 in evolution which has hitherto escaped due recognition. But, 
 as always happens at first, too much has been explained by it. 
 A purely biological explanation of life on materialistic lines is fore- 
 doomed to failure. Herd -instinct plays its part in the development 
 of religion, but it does not lie at the bottom of religion, any more 
 than the brain lies at the bottom of mind. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SOME ASPECTS OF THE WINNING OF FREEDOM 
 
 In this book, and in its predecessor, we are, as 
 it were, stringing a rosary together. The beads are of 
 many shapes and patterns, some ugly, some beautiful, 
 yet they are not without an ordered harmony which 
 endues even the ugly ones with beauty and meaning. 
 But we only understand this when the whole is com- 
 pleted, and all the colours and patterns are seen 
 mysteriously blended, and explained in the Cross. 
 The thread that holds all together is the winning of 
 freedom. If the thread is too weak, if there is no 
 freedom won, our beads must fall apart into a tumbled 
 meaningless heap; for us the revelation of the Cross 
 must be lost, and the Cross itself lie unexplained 
 among the rest. 
 
 It is time then that we examine our thread. That 
 it is strong enough, I firmly believe. But it is not 
 easy to see wherein its strength lies. The idea of 
 freedom has been a stumbling-block in the path of 
 many thinkers. Nothing seems so certain ; nothing so 
 incapable of proof ; nothing so vulnerable to the assaults 
 
Freedom and Determinism 93 
 
 of an easy logic; nothing so Antaeus-like, for ever 
 stricken down, for ever arising with fresh strength^. 
 Imbued with the spirit of Sir Andrew Barton it 
 recognises no defeat. 
 
 Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew sayes, 
 A little Ime hurt, but yett not slaine; 
 
 I'll but lye downe and bleede awhile, 
 And then I'll rise and fight againe. 
 
 As our argument went forward ^ we saw, time and 
 again, facts that threw some light on the problem. 
 Moreover, if we are right in our claim that logical 
 reasoning really has its basis in the determinate 
 
 ^ The difficulties of the pure determinist when it comes to the 
 practical issues of life are illustrated by a conversation in Peacock's 
 Nightmare Abbey, which is a "masterpiece of wise absurdity," as 
 a newspaper wrote of Tenniel's illustrations to Alice in Wonderland. 
 
 "'Liberty of action, sir? jihere is no such thing as liberty of 
 action. We are all slaves and puppets of a blind and unpathetic 
 necessity.' 
 
 "'Very true, sir; but liberty of action, between individuals, 
 consists in their being differently influenced, or modified, by the 
 same universal necessity; so that the results are unconsentaneous, 
 and their respective necessitated volitions clash and fly off at a 
 tangent.' 
 
 "'Your logic is good, sir; but you are aware, too, that one indi- 
 vidual may be a medium of adhibiting to another a mode or form 
 of necessity, which may have more or less influence in the production 
 of consentaneity; and, therefore, sir, if you do not comply with 
 my wishes in this instance (you have had your way in everything 
 else) I shall be under the necessity of disinheriting you, though 
 I shall do it with tears in my eyes.' " 
 
 2 In this book and its precursor. 
 
94 Definition of Freedom 
 
 reactions of the brain to stimuli, we find at once a 
 clue to the logical indemonstrability of freedom. It 
 is time now to face the problem itself, or rather, that 
 aspect of it which bears on our method of analysis of 
 certain phenomena of life. 
 
 The definition of freedom that concerns us is this: 
 the 'power of control over environment, becoming conscious 
 or volitional choice between alternatives as the stage of 
 self-consciousness is reached. I do not propose to 
 consider the many forms under which the subject has 
 been discussed, nor even to deal with Bergson's 
 brilliant analysis of it, and I have nothing to add in 
 the way of fresh discoveries. In the introduction to 
 Evolution and the Need of Atonement I said, "No 
 attempt has been made to deal with the philosophical 
 problem of Freewill. The existence of freedom in 
 man has been assumed." To this attitude I propose 
 to adhere. The question that must now be discussed 
 is, rather, our assumption that true freedom cannot 
 be given, but only won\ because in the very gift is 
 an act of constraint. Further, we assume all through 
 that the course which leads to freedom is chosen, 
 voluntarily selected, by the man who is gaining greater 
 heights of manhood. Not the freedom itself is chosen, 
 be it noted, at least in many cases. Generally a man 
 does right, acts finely himself, and influences others 
 to act finely, not because he thinks of the winning of 
 freedom, but because the act appeals to his conscience 
 
Self-determination and Plasticity 95 
 
 as good. He has still much of the blindness, so far 
 as logical reasoning as to means and ends goes, of the 
 lower animals. But none the less he does select 
 the path which leads to freedom, and selects it volun- 
 tarily. Again, obviously and certainly, nine hundred 
 and ninety-nine thousandths of what he does is still 
 the result of what he has done in the past, and what 
 his ancestors for millions of years have done. But 
 there remains always the thousandth part — until the 
 man is perfect, when, as we have already suggested, 
 and shall attempt to prove later, he will be completely 
 determined, with a determination that proceeds from 
 within, not from without. Perfect self-determination 
 is perfect freedom. 
 
 In the self-conscious organism there can be, and 
 is, choice, in what measure two possibihties are open. 
 But what of the unconscious organisms ? Such creatures 
 can profit by experience, as the work of Professor 
 H. S. Jennings shows^. Even the Protozoa can learn 
 by experience to make immediately the suitable 
 response to certain stimuH. But this probably involves 
 no element of true consciousness; it is merely an 
 instance, artificially and experimentally demonstrated, 
 of the characteristic faculty of protoplasm for 
 habituating itself to the suitable response to stimuH — 
 in other words of its adaptabihty or plasticity. As 
 far as we can judge, low down in the animal scale 
 
 ^ The Behaviour of the Lotoer Organisms. Cf. Wheeler, AnU. 
 
96 Is Freedom indirectly a Gift? 
 
 there is no evidence of will at all^; no element of 
 self-consciousness; and therefore no possibiUty of 
 choice, and no responsibility. The animal cannot be 
 held morally responsible for failure to progress, any 
 more than it can be for the inherent adaptability 
 which characterises the protoplasm of which it is 
 composed. But yet successful organisms, or rather 
 successful phyletic stocks, do win freedom vicariously, 
 in the persons of their ultimate descendants ; although 
 in their earUer stages no choice or merit determined 
 their progress along the right path. 
 
 Is not the freedom they have attained rather a 
 gift than an achievement? Can we say that it has 
 been won? Certainly it is not directly a gift, for it 
 is the inevitable consequence of the adaptability of 
 protoplasm under the stimulus of a determined environ- 
 ment. But nevertheless God is responsible for the 
 environment, for the adaptabihty of protoplasm, and 
 for the vital impulse, which together make freedom 
 inevitable in the long run for successful races of 
 organisms; and we have seen that there is no merit 
 in their winning it. Two questions at once present 
 themselves as we reason thus — questions which must 
 be answered. (1) Is not freedom indirectly a gift, 
 if it is won under such conditions? (2) Is not God 
 really responsible for all the pain and suffering of 
 
 1 For the exact sense in which we are using the term vnll, see 
 ch. VI, pp. 179, 180. 
 
Contingency in Evolution 97 
 
 process, which appals us as we contemplate the animal 
 kingdom? And, if so, is He not necessarily un- 
 moral ? 
 
 We may put the first question in the form of an 
 equation. May we not say that Gift of POWER of 
 winning freedom -f NECESSITY for winning freedom = 
 Gift of freedom itself '^ As stated the equation is self- 
 evidently true. If these are all the terms, freedom is 
 really given; and given by a roundabout and cruel 
 process. The long struggle has no meaning, God is 
 evil, not good; cruel, not loving. For our two 
 questions hang together: the second is implicit in 
 the first. The thread is gone. Beads and Cross fall 
 into a meaningless jumble. There remains but the 
 advice of Job's friends, to curse God, five out our 
 brief span, and die. 
 
 But is the equation complete? Certainly it is 
 not. In the first place the necessity for winning 
 freedom does not apply to all organisms: only to 
 those which are to progress. And these are but a 
 few in very many milhons. Most branch off at one 
 stage or another and reach equilibrium positions. 
 There is no necessity for any individual organism, 
 or even any individual group, to attain freedom. 
 It seems to be almost a matter of chance which 
 organisms vary in a suitable direction, and so progress 
 along the road to freedom; even though eventual 
 freedom for some is made inevitable, by the very 
 
 M. 7 
 
98 Contingency in Evolution 
 
 existence of the vital impulse^. The left-hand side 
 of our equation now becomes The Gift of POWER of 
 winning freedom + NECESSITY of SOME organisms 
 winning freedom. This is merely another way of 
 stating what we have said before, that for the organism 
 itself there is some measure of indetermination, for 
 the race, apparently none 2. 
 
 Clearly this introduction of a " chance " element — 
 of something not dehberately foreseen and planned 
 as far as the individual creature is concerned — does 
 remove the idea of a direct gift. The new equation is 
 not an equation at all. And moreover we are brought 
 face to face with a definite limitation of the Godhead, 
 if God created conditions such that He could not know 
 which of His creatures would win to freedom. An 
 element of contingency is introduced, as far as His 
 experience is concerned. Clearly, too, if God created 
 the conditions under which His creatures could win 
 to freedom, any limitation involved, either in that 
 freedom, as we have already pointed out, or inherent 
 in the means by which it is won, is a self-Hmitation. 
 
 But the foregoing argument, though true, is not 
 satisfying. It is incomplete. We have practically, if 
 not verbally, treated the organism rather as a unit 
 than as something instinct with life. Yet if we are 
 
 1 For those who agree with the views expressed by Professor 
 Bateson in his British Association Addresses for 1914, the "chance" 
 element is seen to be indefinitely increased. 
 
 * Evolution and the Need of Atonement, 2nd ed., p. 46. 
 
N'eiv Spirit in the making 99 
 
 right in arguing, as we do througkout, that matter is 
 the expression of a limitation of the Absolute Spirit, 
 the organism, which is spirit in process of becoming, is 
 no mere unit, nor is it coextensive merely with the 
 matter of which it makes immediate use — its body. 
 
 This statement requires amplification. 
 
 There is in the living creature an activity or 
 principle which, by interaction with its environment, 
 is bound to progress, or be extinguished; and which 
 may lead on to free spirit. So we have argued. What 
 that principle is we must at present leave undefined, 
 saying merely that it is an expression of the creative 
 activity of God. It is not spirit, but spirit in the 
 making. It is something which, when in conjunction 
 with matter, is always striving to gain freedom. It 
 is not conscious, in the earlier stages, but is always 
 striving in a direction that leads eventually to conscious- 
 ness. It fails, and, let us say for the present, suffers. 
 Whether an unconscious organism can be said to suffer 
 without a misuse of the word, indeed without a contra- 
 diction in terms, we will leave on one side for the 
 moment. We cannot look on the arena of evolution 
 without associating the strife with suffering, though 
 possibly we may be unjustifiably projecting our own 
 consciousness into our mental picture of the process. 
 
 Occasionally the organism succeeds. But still it 
 suffers, and inflicts suffering. Either way there is 
 the struggle, with, apparently, its attendant pain. 
 
 7—2 
 
100 New Spirit in the making 
 
 And moreover there is no choice in any true sense, 
 as far as the individual organism is concerned. 
 
 But we are not really looking at pre-existent spirit 
 striving to express itself or to become free, and eventually 
 succeeding. Such a view would logically lead to pure 
 pantheism — through an unexplained, inexpHcable self- 
 limitation of God, progressively removed through 
 struggle. The spirit, when it is developed, is not part 
 of the spirit of God. Rather there are milhons of 
 new spirits in the making. Pluralism, not pantheism, 
 is the result; though, as we shall see, the plurahsm 
 is eventually resolved in union. God creates a 
 principle which issues as self-realised spirit; and His 
 self- limitation supphes the environment which renders 
 such self-realisation possible. Created spirit has, not 
 freedom itself, but the power of winning it; and the 
 self-realisation is linked to, and progresses step by 
 step with, the gain of freedom. 
 
 Now if God is perfect (and the moral problem 
 of pain belongs to our second question, not our 
 first) His creative activity can only result in the 
 genesis of spirits which are not antagonistic to Him; 
 a Perfect Spirit can only create cognate spirits, not 
 antagonistic, for the last would involve a self- 
 contradiction. And thus we see that a Good Spirit 
 can only create spirits that are good, if It is omnipotent. 
 Further, created spirits can only achieve goodness 
 through free choice. There must be the possibiHty of 
 
Freedom for man w^ans Contingency for God 101 
 
 not-goodness open to them, for the goodness of a finite 
 being impUes and involves a possible antithesis. 
 Goodness is not a mere passive attribute, but an 
 activity; and when it is in the making there must 
 always be the possibility of refusal. Goodness is 
 dependent on freedom; and freedom that is growing 
 towards perfectness must suffer no determination 
 except self-determination, and the environmental 
 determination which makes its exercise and progress 
 possible. There can be no gift of freedom ready- 
 made. The original gift that leads to the gaining of 
 freedom is due to the activity of God, and is inherent 
 in His personal nature — necessarily a corollary of it. 
 But for any resultant individual there is no necessity 
 or compulsion towards freedom. In this our first 
 equation was wrong. In this the element of contin- 
 gency is involved. But that some should win freedom 
 is necessary, as we have seen, from the very nature 
 of the vital impulse. And this consorts with the fact 
 that the will of a transcendent God cannot fail. 
 
 On the other hand the element of contingency 
 involved in the fact that some organisms must win 
 freedom, but only a small minority of the total number, 
 is an expression of a Umitation of God which can 
 only be self-hmitation. And this points to the reahty 
 of the freedom that is gained by the creature. 
 
 We thus see that the gift of God, which is the gift 
 of the power of winning freedom, is not a gift of 
 
102 Contifigency must he real for God 
 
 freedom, because it has in it an element of contingency. 
 And this contingency is real for God, not merely 
 for the creature. Before the creature achieves self- 
 consciousness there is the contingency of variation^ 
 real for the experience of God only, since the creature 
 is unconscious, — ^if this is indeed contingent at all, 
 as seems probable from the potential indetermination 
 inherent in the vital impulse; after consciousness is 
 reached there is still contingency, due to the power of 
 free choice that has been won. Such considerations 
 remove the whole thing once and for all from the 
 category of a gift; and this because the creature is 
 not a imit but a living being, with all that is entailed. 
 We have not yet attempted to discuss the difficult 
 problem involved in the fact that the unconscious 
 organism cannot choose. And this is really the crux 
 of the moral question, though it is convenient to deal 
 with it here. Clearly it does not affect the argument 
 we have just set forth; for the element of contingency 
 is there (in relation to the individual), whether there 
 be conscious choice or the mere working out of a sum 
 in permutations. Here, too, we must remember that 
 we are dealing with living creatures. The problem is 
 not simply that of a bag of many-coloured marbles, 
 where, if the number is sufficient and the operation 
 repeated often enough, picking out the marbles in 
 pairs is bound to result in a certain pair of colours 
 coming out together. There is something in the vital 
 
Omnipotence and Pain 103 
 
 impulse that tends towards the production of the 
 suitable variation. All conceivable types are not evolved. 
 Unsuitable ones are often vetoed in some way, and 
 never come into being. There is no conscious choice 
 or selection, but there is selection. The fact that the 
 creature is hving does operate efficiently, if partially, 
 in determining its evolution. You may say, "then 
 freedom is in some degree determined for it, and so is 
 a gift." But this is not a true statement of the case. 
 The impulse towards freedom is there — a gift — but it is 
 not always successful in driving the organism forwards. 
 The impulse towards equiHbrium often outweighs it. 
 And so here again we find the element of contingency 
 creeping in. And, as always, the origin of it lies in 
 the determinism of matter — the material environment 
 of the creature, and the matter of which its body is 
 composed. The problem is not essentially different 
 from that of the conscious organism. 
 
 Let us now turn to our second question — the moral 
 problem of a universe in which there is pain. This 
 we may divide into two parts. Freedom is being 
 won throughout, but there is only merit in the winning 
 when there is conscious choice. And for the lower 
 organisms, if choice exists, we have at any rate no 
 knowledge of it; and so we must argue as if there 
 were none, if our discussion is to leave no weak spot 
 for an opponent to attack. 
 
 Therefore we must consider the moral aspect both 
 
104 Self-limitation of God the only 
 
 in relation to unconscious and conscious organisms. 
 The difference between the two clearly lies in the fact 
 that the first can in no way be held responsible for 
 what it does, while the second can. 
 
 The first obviously presents the greater difficulty. 
 How can a good God voluntarily select a method, by 
 which His creatures can win freedom, which entails 
 so much failure, so much pain? 
 
 But possibly we are not justified in using the 
 words "voluntarily select." Let us examine this 
 point first. 
 
 Certainly God is responsible in a sense for the 
 environment which leads to freedom, but only in a 
 sense. It is the introduction of Hmitation into a 
 part of His Experience ; and this kenosis is a necessary 
 consequence of the fact that freedom must be won. 
 Now limitation is pain to a person who is conscious 
 of it; it brings a sense of powerlessness, and so of 
 incompleteness, which in itself is suffering. Add to 
 this the pain of seeing things go wrong, and it is clear 
 that God must suffer. 
 
 But suppose we say that freedom can only be 
 won by struggle, if, as we have argued, it must be 
 won, not given. Is this true? Could it not simply 
 grow? No; surely not. All through this book and 
 its predecessor we assume, and rightly assume, I 
 believe, that freedom can only be won by struggle; 
 and struggle with that which is not free. The winning 
 
possible basis of Mans Freedom 105 
 
 of freedom means gain of control — the achieval of 
 self-determination out of the press of external factors 
 which would constrain the plastic, growing spirit. 
 
 Freedom cannot be won from freedom. Man 
 cannot obtain freedom directly out of the freedom of 
 God. To hold this would be to say that the freer 
 a man becomes the more does he limit God. The 
 growth would be towards antagonism between man 
 and God, man snatching away God's freedom. Of 
 course one might argue that when man becomes 
 perfect, he would become like God in will, and so would 
 restore His freedom ; but I cannot see that any element 
 of God's Transcendence would be left, since Tran- 
 scendence is an absolute thing, from which nothing 
 can be removed by an external agency without 
 destroying it utterly. The limitation of God would 
 be a limitation from without, not from within, in the 
 end. True, the initial step bf creation would really 
 be a potential self-limitation of the Godhead. But it 
 would also be a gift of freedom, given gradually and 
 not all at once ; for each advance would involve the 
 direct cession of more of God's freedom. God would 
 be giving His freedom to His creatures. However we 
 regard it, such a view leads us into a hopeless tangle 
 of absurdities. 
 
 On the hypothesis that we have advocated we 
 encounter no such difficulty. Undoubtedly the Crea- 
 tion is a kenosis. God does limit Himself, give up 
 
106 Freedom cannot he given 
 
 some of His freedom, in creating matter; but that 
 freedom is not given to His creatures. It simply 
 ceases to be, by the operation of His Will. They 
 have to wrest the power of control from warfare 
 with the determined matter and forces amid which 
 they exist. When they are perfected. His self-limita- 
 tion automatically ceases^. 
 
 If, then, freedom must be won, not given, and if 
 it can only be won by struggle with that which is 
 not free, we are apparently led to the conclusion 
 that God cannot choose the method of His creation — 
 that while Transcendent He is not Omnipotent. And 
 surely in a sense this is true. God cannot contradict 
 Himself. Freedom must be freedom, and must in 
 freedom be achieved, through strife with that which 
 is not free. God cannot control the nature of perfect 
 spirit ; which is His own nature. He cannot make 
 other perfect spirits, because the two ideas involve 
 a contradiction. It is as impossible that He should 
 be Perfect and make perfect spirits as it is that He 
 should be both Good and Evil. The idea of absolute 
 goodness in a person excludes the coexistence of evil 
 in that person. So too the idea of freedom excludes 
 the idea of making freedom in others, for the idea of 
 being made is incompatible with the idea of being 
 free. A carpenter who wishes to make a rabbit- 
 hutch is limited in his plans by the fact that it is to 
 
 * Vide infra, ch. vi, pp. 139 seqq. 
 
The Problem of Animal Suffering 107 
 
 contain rabbits; an engineer who wishes to design 
 a marine engine is limited by the fact that it has to 
 drive a ship. He may make a planing-machine if 
 he chooses; but once he decides on a marine engine 
 his methods are Umited. So too — I speak it reverently 
 — I cannot but hold that when God had decided (in 
 human phraseology) to make man a free spirit, He was 
 hmited by the fact that man had got to be free. We 
 must not overlook the fact that the Umitation is 
 self-imposed: God chose to make man. 
 
 Lastly, we must return to the moral problem, though 
 it is much narrowed by our previous arguments. Can 
 God be good if He inflicts such oceans of suffering on 
 the unconscious organism, which, ex hypothesis is not 
 self-conscious, and so has no true soul, for which 
 reason there seems no room for compensation? 
 
 We can give no complete answer to this question. 
 
 But I would point out (1) that the word "inflicts" 
 begs the question ; we have seen that struggle, and so 
 suffering, is imphcit in the creation of beings who are 
 free; (2) that we know next to nothing of the nature 
 of the consciousness of the lower animals, and so it 
 is rather rash to say they have not in them a germ 
 of that same Hfe which in man becomes eternal 
 spirit ; and if they have, can we say there is no room 
 for compensation? and (3) if the organism is wholly 
 un-selfconscious, the suffering is for God only. 
 
 Though no categorical answer can be given it will 
 
108 The Problem of 
 
 be well to conclude this chapter by a brief discussion 
 of these three points. 
 
 (1) If we were right in arguing that God is not 
 free to choose the method of creation of perfect spirits, 
 but is Hmited by the very fact that His creation 
 must eventually be perfect, the moral question of 
 His Goodness is not really involved at all. Because 
 He is a Person He must be Active, as we shall see in 
 the next chapter ; and this activity must be creative. 
 The question rather involves His Omnipotence than 
 His Goodness. And we have seen that a false view 
 of the meaning of Omnipotence is involved when 
 we say "could He not have created otherwise?" 
 For as far as our understanding goes any other method 
 of creation would have involved the absence of freedom 
 in His creatures, or else a self-contradiction. The 
 problems are the same as those involved in two 
 questions genuinely asked by two children aged four 
 and three respectively: "Could God make a stone so 
 heavy that He could not Hft it?" "If God is Good 
 why did He make nettles sting?" The answer to the 
 first is of course "No" ; for the terms of the question 
 involve a contradiction. The answer to the second 
 involves just the problem of the free reaction between 
 the vital impulse and the environment which we have 
 discussed at length. 
 
 (2) We do not know that the lower animals are 
 simply annihilated when they die. True, the vital 
 
Animal Suffering 109 
 
 impulse seems to have lost its progressiveness in the 
 creatures which have attained equilibrium; but no 
 moral barrier such as sin separates them from perfec- 
 tion. What bars their further progress is over- 
 adaptation, equilibrium; and with this sin is 
 continuous in origin, yet totally different in nature, 
 as we have seen. It is easy enough — perhaps too 
 easy — to imagine some metempsychosis, some form of 
 transmigration, that would meet the need, so far as 
 our little knowledge extends. 
 
 Easy, but futile. For we have literally no know- 
 ledge of the meaning and nature of the vital impulse 
 in relation to the individual ' unconscious organism. 
 The little we know is from observation of its effects 
 in race progress. And besides, we do not even know 
 that the problem of pain in the individual exists at 
 all in the lower creatures, if we project into the word 
 individual the personal significance which it has in 
 common speech. Thus we neither know whether there 
 is a germ of eternal hfe in the lowest creatures, nor 
 whether we can even isolate them at all as separate 
 beings. Possibly it would be truer to look on the 
 whole of such creatures as are in the direct line of 
 progress as cells of one vast growing organism, while 
 those on side-tracks are analogous to a protective 
 horny epidermis; useful, necessary, but destined to 
 die and be sloughed off. Where we have no knowledge 
 it is useless to discuss. 
 
110 Suffering and Consciousness 
 
 (3) If the lower creatures are wholly unconscious 
 it is clear they cannot suffer, in any true sense of the 
 word. Pain, we know, is a method of indicating the 
 presence of danger, and the reactions to it are largely 
 automatic even in man — in short, are reflexes. The 
 sense or feeling we call pain is an additional appeal 
 to the consciousness of the personal being. It by 
 no means follows that because in response to certain 
 stimuU reflexes occur in lower animals which in our- 
 selves we associate with the feehng of pain, that the 
 animal also feels pain. Unless it has the elements of 
 true consciousness, obviously it cannot. If it has not, 
 the only true consciousness that can be painfully 
 affected is God's consciousness; and that of man if 
 he perceives the reflexes of the creature. The suffering 
 of the unconscious world must be the suffering of God, 
 since it is part of His experience. And so by this 
 road we are brought back to the mystery of Creative 
 Love, which is willing to suffer for the sake of that 
 which is to come. The higher animals do appear to 
 suffer, though we cannot be certain of it; but they 
 probably have some rudiment of consciousness. 
 Certainly they do not suffer as men suffer. Even 
 among men we find individuals and races who can 
 bear without more than discomfort things which 
 would make other men writhe with agony. And this 
 is especially true, I believe, of the more primitive 
 races. 
 
The Suffering of Man 111 
 
 To sum up : if there is suffering in the unconscious 
 organisms it must be God who sufiers. For other 
 creatures who have not sinned, there is no real reason 
 for denying the possibiHty of the removal of the 
 barrier to their progress in some other existence; 
 though this remains pure speculation. And the moral 
 problem of the whole is really non-existent if they 
 are not self-conscious, since it is God who Himself 
 suffers, and since He is not free to choose the method 
 of creation. If freedom is to be the goal, struggle 
 and suffering would seem inevitable, not because God 
 is not Omnipotent, but because even Omnipotence 
 cannot contradict Itself, and contain within It at 
 the same time two irreconcileable opposites. 
 
 Finally, the moral problem of suffering in the 
 conscious being presents no real difficulty; and we 
 have already considered it at some length^. It is 
 involved in the struggle of the soul, fraught with 
 purpose and understanding. Eternal Ufe lies before 
 man; and he understands in some measure the 
 meaning of the toil and pain amid and through 
 which he achieves the measure of the stature of the 
 fulness of Christ. 
 
 * ^volution and the Need of Atonement, 2nd ed. pp. 168 seqq. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 IMMANENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE; TWO 
 ASPECTS OF THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF GOD 
 
 Thus far the main result of our study has been 
 to set forth antinomies, and to state, and partially 
 solve, isolated problems. It is time to try to find 
 the reahty that underlies all these complex issues, 
 so that each may fall into place. 
 
 We have seen that, whenever hfe is regarded 
 from the standpoint of the intellect alone, it becomes 
 a riddle without an answer. Two opposites emerge, 
 and the proof of each seems irrefutable. Strangest 
 of all, the spirit tacitly accepts both and rests happy. 
 Only the voyaging mind, as it encounters the opposing 
 tides of thought that beat upon the Scylla and 
 Charybdis of fact, so immutable and passionless, so 
 seemingly eternal, enters a whirlpool which threatens 
 to drag it, reeHng and spinning, into the deep silent 
 blackness of scepticism or agnosticism, there to be 
 stifled. 
 
Antinomies of TJwught 113 
 
 On the one hand 
 
 The spacious firmament on high, 
 With all the blue ethereal sky, 
 And spangled Heavens, a shining frame, 
 Their great Original proclaim^. 
 
 God appears as Transcendent, Complete Being, 
 and the unity of His creation has unequivocal witness 
 in the unity that is craved by every human soul. 
 It is idle to see in this craving merely the mirrored 
 image of the strife of nature towards the formation 
 of closed systems; such a suggestion merely places 
 the issue a stage further back. 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, God is an Immanent 
 Spirit, indwelling the whole cosmos, suffering with 
 His creation, striving with it, reaching towards freedom 
 and self-reahsation with it, Hmited by it. 
 
 Again, the intellect striving after the unity which, 
 existent in the mind of each man, alone makes thought 
 possible, is brought face to face with the multipUcity 
 of phenomenal existence at the very outset. 
 
 And yet again, while natural science is founded 
 on belief in causal relations — the inevitableness of 
 events — on the other hand the commonest experiences 
 of every day give the lie to her axioms in the case of 
 men. Men are limited, they are constrained to react 
 to the stimuli of their environment, but they are 
 free too, with a measure of real freedom. They are 
 
 ^ Addison. 
 M. 8 
 
114 Origin of the Antinomies 
 
 slaves to convention, to good or evil habit, but they 
 have woven the chains themselves, and they can 
 break them. Nay, those very badges of slavery, 
 the automatisms and reflexes of life, may be the 
 means to freedom setting the mind free for higher 
 effort. From the bottom, right up to man, life has 
 a meaning only when we see in it a striving for freedom. 
 
 Then there is that discontinuity that marks all 
 experience, and at the same time an ultimate continuum 
 towards which all modes of thought seem to move. 
 Here we have the problem of unity and multiphcity 
 with the element of time pervading it. 
 
 Finally there is the isolation of the individual 
 correlated with the constant tendency to form a 
 closed system, be it animal colony or nation, phylum 
 or church ; another aspect of the same problem. 
 
 It is, I think, possible to look on all these as 
 manifestations of one and the same fact, a fact that 
 is the one fundamentally true thing in the world — 
 the striving of the soul towards union with God through 
 the winning of freedom. To make this clear we must 
 set out at some length what we believe to be the 
 attributes of God, and what His relation to mankind. 
 
 The great difficulty that has faced all attempt at 
 a metaphysical explanation is that monism leads to 
 complete unity, while a pluraHstic system is faced 
 with the problem of supplying a reasonable theory 
 of linkages. The individual tends to become a 
 
Diffictdties of Monism and Pluralism 115 
 
 "windowless " entity : without any jpoint d'appui with 
 other individuals. To criticise the generally accepted 
 versions of Monism and Plurahsm in their multitudinous 
 variety would be beside the mark, yet it is worthy 
 of notice once again that monists like Mr Taylor, 
 for instance, so far feel the difficulties of pure monism 
 as to introduce such conceptions as that of a " System- 
 atic Ideahsm" in which "the whole is for its members 
 as well as the members for the whole" : " a Systematic 
 ReaHty in which the unity and multipUcity of the 
 system are aUke real, and equally real"; a system 
 in which "the experience of the whole affects every 
 member as well as the experience of every member 
 affecting the whole^." According to McTaggart again 
 the Absolute is a Spiritual College, where union is 
 resident in the members and becomes conscious only 
 in them. And, at the opposite pole, James is driven 
 to the conclusion that 
 
 We are indeed internal parts of God, and not external 
 creations on any possible reading of the panpsychic system. 
 Yet because God is not the Absolute, but is Himself a part 
 when the system is conceived pluraUstically, His functions 
 can be taken as not wholly dissimilar to those of the 
 smaller parts — as similar to our functions consequently^. 
 
 Now the conclusions of James and the Monists 
 alike comprise much that is aHen to the Christian 
 
 ^ Elements of Metaphysics, p. 97. A fuller treatment of all this 
 is to be found in Prof. Ward's Pluralism and Theism. 
 ^ Phiralistic Universe, p. 318. 
 
 »— 2 
 
116 Difficvlties of Monism and Pluralism 
 
 theology. On the one hand, the idea of an externally 
 limited God, not omnipotent, or omniscient, is untenable 
 by the Christian, or at least is very far removed from 
 his basal conceptions of the Universe; and on the 
 other hand the idea of men as merely part of the 
 experience of a possibly impersonal God is equally 
 far removed, even if we accept the olive branch of 
 Systematic Idealism. Our task is then to search for 
 a conception that will bear the critical assault of the 
 metaphysician; that will fit in with the suggestions 
 we derive both from our rehgious life and belief, 
 and our intuitive knowledge that God is good and 
 transcendent^ ; and that will fall into line with the 
 biological theory of progress already discussed^, and 
 with the elaboration of that theory, in its application 
 to our personal rehgious Hfe, which is the object of 
 the present book. Evidently it is impossible in small 
 compass to do more than hint at the hues of a possible 
 solution, diffidently, yet in full trust that the truth 
 will not be darkened at our hands, but rather receive, 
 it may be, a little more illumination. 
 
 1 The suggestive treatment of the problem of pain and evil 
 from the point of view of the impotence of perfect love in Mr Rolfs 
 The World's Redemption, true and beautiful though much of it is, 
 is vitiated by a strangely materialistic, almost gnostic idea of primal 
 chaos from which order is slowly emerging. The Doctrine of the 
 Kenosis enshrines all the most valuable truths in regard to the 
 problem of evil, and the powerlessness of God against sin, without, 
 I believe, involving such a questionable basis. 
 
 * Evolution and the Need of Atonement. 
 
Immanence and Transcendence 117 
 
 From the earliest dawn of conscious social life, 
 when the first pale tints that heralded the coming 
 of man's glorious day began to appear, enlightening 
 more and more the dark, mysterious world, men 
 realised a double need of God. Whether by many 
 Gods or One, the cravings for a Great Explanation 
 and for an IndwelHng Presence must aUke be satisfied. 
 The world must be explained, for it was there, full of 
 living creatures ; and the personal needs and longings 
 and strivings and questionings of men must somehow 
 find deeper satisfaction than could be obtained from 
 intercourse with other beings on the same plane. 
 
 In most primitive polytheistic religions we find 
 some attempt to meet the double need of the human 
 soul in the many lesser gods and the one Great Spirit. 
 With the coming of Monotheism crystallisation sets 
 in, and the correlated doctrines of Transcendence 
 and Immanence are definitely enunciated. According 
 as rehgion passes through a rational — a deistic — or a 
 mystic phase, one or other aspect of the Godhead 
 predominates in thought, but neither is ever wholly 
 absent. It is desirable that we consider very briefly 
 the content of these two ideas in modern theology. 
 To do more than this is needless for our purpose, 
 as there are many books wholly or partly devoted 
 to these matters^. 
 
 ^ In niingworth's Divine Immanence and Divine Transcendence 
 the subject is very simply and attractively set out. 
 
118 Immanmice and 
 
 The Transcendent Aspect of God is essentially 
 the Causal and Creative Aspect. It represents the 
 result of man's groping after an understanding of 
 infinite power and purpose. God must be omnipotent, 
 omniscient, active. Active obviously, since He creates ; 
 omnipotent because He creates as He wills and what 
 He wills. "Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did 
 He in heaven, and in earth, and in the sea, and in all 
 deep places." Omniscient, because the order of the 
 universe implies the working of a Master Mind, and 
 not the blundering attempts of an experimenter. 
 
 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; 
 and in thy book were all my members written; which 
 day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none 
 of them. 
 
 But there is far more than this. A motive for 
 creation has to be sought, and motivation is only 
 compatible with personaUty. Thus the Transcendent 
 God is presented as a Personal Being; and as under- 
 standing and abstract thought develope, man reahses 
 that to a Personal Transcendent God belong the 
 essential attributes he knows in himself, feehng and 
 love. But to correspond with the possession of 
 Omnipotence and Omniscience these too must be 
 transferred from the finite to the infinite. Whether 
 they can be so transferred without suffering complete 
 change he cannot understand, nor does he generally 
 care to reason about things too high for him. 
 
TratisceiidfMce 119 
 
 Nevertheless this difficulty is, in fact, partly at any 
 rate, and in the beginning, responsible for the readiness 
 with which he turns to the Immanent aspect of the 
 Godhead. Such a Being as he has conceived seems far 
 away and unapproachable. At first immediate needs 
 may be met with lesser gods, but these soon pass^. 
 Their function is imphcitly, though not expHcitly — 
 for men have little courage to be honest where the 
 deepest things of life are concerned — vested in the 
 Immanent aspect of God. 
 
 The Transcendent God cannot change; yet all 
 around is process, and process is change. The world 
 exists only in God, as well as through Him ; it is part 
 of His experience. And so the idea dawns that He 
 indwells; that He is in the heart of man and in all 
 the manifold wonder of nature. As is always the 
 case, this higher, truer thought, is infiltrated with 
 such truth as was held in solution in the cruder 
 conceptions which brought the minor pantheon of 
 earth and air, fire and water spirits, and tribal 
 gods, into being. In these lay the embryonic rudi- 
 ment of the great truth of divine Immanence, which 
 day by day was to be fashioned into more Godhke 
 semblance. 
 
 1 No inversion of the evolutionary order of religious beliefs is 
 here implied. Our point is simply, that in the polytheistic stage 
 the divine attributes of immanence and transcendence are implicitly 
 recognised, though not fully in the same individual deity. 
 
120 Immanence and Transcendence 
 
 In human thought there is a kind of viscosity. 
 As it moves forward it drags with it something of 
 the surroundings amid which it moves. And so in 
 every stage of rehgion we find material belonging to 
 a lower stage. Thought' has moved on ; the germ of 
 truth has grown and put forth leaves. But accretions 
 have accompanied the movement and the growth 
 instead of all being left behind. Some of the old 
 fluid of speculation is dragged on; particles of earth 
 adhere to the first spreading leaves. 
 
 With fuller understanding of the meaning of 
 process, both from the metaphysical standpoint, and 
 from the standpoint of evolutionary science, comes 
 fuller recognition of the importance of this conception 
 of immanence, for Deism cannot long hold the field. 
 Overshadowed for a time by its brilliant, yet strangely 
 different, developments in Pantheism and Positivism, 
 the doctrine grows steadily, and seems now to be 
 coming to its own. 
 
 We are beginning to see that secular change impHes 
 a changing experience for God; that a change which 
 is growth impUes growth in the experience of God 
 also ; that growing experience impUes previous Hmita- 
 tion, and its progressive removal. 
 
 For a time there is danger in these ideas. I think 
 it is G. K. Chesterton who speaks somewhere of new 
 ideas going to man's unaccustomed head and intoxi- 
 cating him as surely as new wine. 
 
The Need of a Persorml God 121 
 
 But the doctrine of Transcendence cannot long 
 be lost sight of, and with this as corrective the pheno- 
 mena of spiritual hfe quickly resume their right 
 proportions. The limitation impUed in change and 
 growth is seen as self-limitation. Sub specie aeternitatis 
 Immanence is seen to be indissolubly linked with 
 Transcendence in the kenosis-aspect of creation ; and 
 both alike become Personal once more. Love, the 
 deepest, highest, broadest attribute of personaUty, is 
 seen as the impelling vis viva, becoming externally 
 effectual in creation. Behind the Activity of God 
 is His Love. And His Love is, because He Is, not 
 because He becomes. At the long last we return to 
 the earliest conception of creative power, that there 
 is a Transcendent God. 
 
 We must now analyse at considerable length such 
 of the consequences of man's belief — a necessary and 
 justified beUef — in the dual aspect of God as Immanent 
 and Transcendent, as are germane to our thesis. 
 
 We offer no apology for assuming the personal 
 nature of the Godhead, of which we shall attempt 
 none but implicit or incidental proofs. The only 
 theory which satisfies the test of experience is this. 
 All other leaves life an enigma, and our personal 
 experience, as developing, progressing beings, a mirage. 
 The key to human evolution is lost; and our ex- 
 planation of it is but the projection of our own 
 illusions into something which has no existence apart 
 
122 Divine Activity^ and 
 
 from them^. The evolution of the soul becomes 
 an unthinkable exception to the law that develop- 
 ment is the response to some suitable stimulus, and 
 has adaptation as its end. In bodily evolution there 
 is this teleological function of adaptation; in such 
 spiritual evolution there would be effect without 
 cause, progress without aim. 
 
 The onus prohandi Hes on the other side. The 
 personal nature of God is the only explanation of 
 man's personaUty, and man's experience, and we shall 
 assume the truth of it. 
 
 Let us begin our analysis with the point of view of 
 St John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the 
 Word was with God, and the Word was God." Here 
 we have expressed the conception of God as the 
 Transcendent Being, and (from the subsequent verses) 
 as a Person. He is the Transcendent Absolute, of 
 Whose experience everything that was was a part. It 
 matters little what the nature of this experience was. 
 The idea we must keep clearly before our mind is, that 
 in Eternity and Simultaneity He Was 2; and nothing 
 
 1 Cf. G. Galloway, Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, p. 285 : 
 "Thus, if the non-personal nature of God be maintained, not only 
 does the evolution of the human self become an enigma, but the 
 historic development of the religious consciousness can only mean 
 the fictitious projection into the sphere of real being of purely 
 subjective needs and desires." 
 
 * Strictly, we should rather say He is, since no question of time 
 enters in. 
 
the Relativity of Values 123 
 
 else was, except as part of His Experience. It is outside 
 the scope of our present discussion to consider deeply 
 the implications of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity 
 in this connection. Our point is rather, that in Eternity 
 He was the Transcendent Absolute, while yet a Personal 
 Being. We can form little idea of the nature of that 
 experience, simply because it is of the category of the 
 infinite, and transcends time and space. But philo- 
 sophers and mathematicians tell us that there are 
 different grades and values in infinity, as well as in 
 the finite. Therefore the experience of God may be 
 said to consist of an infinite number of infinite experi- 
 ences, without involving us in any logical difficulty. 
 Hence there is no inherent difficulty in introducing 
 the idea of relativity, of more and less, into the 
 experience of God. This I believe is of great impor- 
 tance, for it introduces the element of activity into 
 the Absolute Experience. It is true that mathema- 
 ticians deal only with the numerical relations of 
 infinities. But the chief characteristic of numbers is 
 their relation to one another ; they are commensurable. 
 If the experience of the Personal God is a unity, it 
 would seem that its parts must be commensurable, 
 having one ultimate standard of reference, if we may 
 judge from our own inward reahsation that we, 
 as persons, are always valuing our experiences, in a 
 way that we could not if they were incommensurable, 
 and without a common norm. 
 
124 Activity as a 
 
 On this view, Divine Activity would seem to be 
 representable as the result of the recognition (a personal 
 attribute) of the relativity of values. 
 
 In order to appreciate this point more fully, we 
 must consider what is the exact connotation of the 
 term activity. And in doing this we must again 
 frankly acknowledge that we are attributing personality 
 to the infinite God. We may be wrong in attributing 
 personality as such, but metaphysicians are fairly 
 well agreed that we must believe that the Absolute is 
 at least personal; that it includes personaUty as a 
 part of its experience, even if it is not merely personal. 
 
 The only idea of activity which we possess is as 
 a manifestation of personaUty. It is true that we 
 often speak of the activity of chemical action, but 
 here we are using the word in a metaphorical sense. 
 We say an element or a compound is active, when it 
 produces very marked changes under certain given 
 conditions. But in saying this, we are really com- 
 paring it with the results produced by the intelHgent 
 work of a sentient person^. A man is, to our minds, 
 active when he produces a considerable change in 
 his surroundings in a short time, thus enlarging his 
 experience — when, for instance, he changes a log 
 
 1 Cf. Galloway, Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, pp. 222, 
 223: "The growth of experience is based on the activity which 
 exists between its real elements." " If there could be such a thing 
 as a self purely passive, the development of experience in it would 
 be impossible." 
 
Manifestation of Personality 125 
 
 into fire-wood, or climbs a high tree. In other words, 
 the original connotation of the word activity for the 
 human mind Hes in the action of a person, not a thing. 
 Indeed among primitive races, anything that is active, 
 or that seems to manifest the existence of activity 
 in the form of design, is at once endowed with person- 
 ahty; and so it comes about that a savage will pray 
 to a volcano. Later, although more knowledge leads 
 to the recognition of the absurdity of such pro- 
 miscuous attributions of personality, the phraseology 
 to which it gave rise is retained. 
 
 But in speaking of the activity of the Absolute we 
 must undoubtedly give the word its old implication. 
 Activity, as represented in the human personality, is 
 the power and will to produce change. It is in a sense 
 creative, in that activity, though it may be primarily 
 destructive, is yet destructive in view of an ultimate 
 constructive end. A man may cut down a tree and 
 saw and hack it into small fragments, but he does it 
 in order to build a house or a boat, or to make a fire. 
 Other forms of activity may have as their object 
 simply the gratification and intensification of the 
 sense of power, or the gaining of greater power, as in 
 the case of a man who trains for a game or for a race. 
 But in the long run activity is always directed towards 
 an end, and is so creative. 
 
 If we now apply this idea to the recognition of 
 relativity of values in the experience of the Personal 
 
126 Activity of Love is 
 
 Absolute we at once find a clue to His creative 
 activity. 
 
 Thus, for instance, it seems to us reasonable to put 
 love as a higher, more all-embracing aspect of per- 
 sonality than reason. Both are essential attributes, 
 but in human personality at least the first appears to 
 us "higher" than the second. 
 
 Again unity in its simple unadulterated form 
 implies isolation, impenetrability, as well as com- 
 pleteness, and seems therefore on a lower plane than 
 Love, since it can at any moment rest satisfied, static, 
 while love craves relation. One of the chief aspects of 
 human, limited personality is its fellowship, and if we 
 examine our conception of fellowship we find that it 
 involves essentially a growing union, which ideally 
 should be complete, though never resulting in unity or 
 identification. The conception of union thus affords 
 more scope for the personality than that of unity, 
 since it includes dynamic relation. The metaphysical 
 need of the mind for unity may be simply the ex- 
 pression of the ideal of complete union which is the 
 only satisfaction of the craving for perfect love. And 
 if we analyse this idea of union it surely seems to 
 connote the translation of external into internal re- 
 lation — an idea full of the conception of growth, as 
 well as of interpenetration. This is exactly mirrored 
 in the Christian belief in a Transcendent God, the great 
 Eternal, in Whom activity of union is conceived in 
 
directed towards Union 127 
 
 the Trinity of Love; while the activity of growth is 
 represented in the Immanent God, Whose experience 
 is ever becoming fuller by the incorporation of the love 
 of His creatures, and whose activity of growth is en- 
 shrined in Creation. (To this very important point we 
 shall return in the next chapter.) And more and more 
 we are coming to see that we may not set bounds, in 
 our thought, to such activity. God is eternally the 
 Creator. What right have we to claim that we are 
 His sole creation? 
 
 At first we are apt to regard anything infinite as 
 being merely without beginning and without end — 
 a dead emotionless continuum. But by the intro- 
 duction of the idea of degrees of infinity, and so of 
 relativity, we at once lose this terrible oppression of 
 sameness. Love may quite well be of more import 
 than reason or unity, even in the infinite. And if 
 this be so, it is easy to see that the possible activity 
 which is implied in the idea of degrees of infinitude, 
 may, and will, lead to a need of creation, in order that 
 there may be something external to reciprocate that 
 love. Indeed it would seem to point us to a belief 
 in an eternal impulse towards Creation in God, since 
 fellowship, or union, always craves expansion as well 
 as intensification^. And, as we have said, a vague 
 
 ^ The spectre of impenetrability must, however, be first exorcised 
 if we are to find any satisfactory basis for the understanding of this 
 process of creation. 
 
128 Union as the Aim of Creation 
 
 conception of the thought outlined above has much 
 to do with our intuitive belief in a God Who is not 
 merely One, but is more than One — Three Persons 
 composing a perfect union, not merely a perfect unity. 
 
 But it is idle to make definite statements as to the 
 modes of being and of action of an Infinite Person, 
 since personality as we know it is finite, and we can 
 only argue inductively from our own experience. All 
 that we are trying to grasp in our present argument 
 is a rational explanation of the fact that the Infinite 
 Person can be and is active and creative ; and we find 
 a irav crrSi in the idea that in infinity, as well as in 
 finitude, there are degrees ; and that, hence, we are 
 justified in arguing that the Infinite Person, by con- 
 centration of His Being on those factors of Personality 
 that are of more import, may be active and creative. 
 
 Now suppose, as we have suggested, that this 
 creative activity is directed towards those ends which 
 are demanded by love and reciprocal relation. If an 
 expanding union is a true requirement of Infinite 
 Personality, as it is of finite, the creative activity will 
 have as its end the making of beings who also have 
 the attributes of personality, and their final union 
 with the Infinite Personality ; no mere absorption, 
 but an existence whose basis and object are still 
 activity and love. 
 
 (1) But here we are at once met with a difficulty. 
 Love and personality imply freedom. A personality 
 
Three Diffimdties 129 
 
 constrained from without, and a compulsory love, are 
 contradictions in terms. A personality may be con- 
 strained, but only by the limitations involved in its 
 own finitude. Consequently we see that the beings 
 that are created, even though they be finite, must 
 yet possess freedom, if they are to fulfil the function 
 for which they were created, namely the fulfilling of 
 the experience of God by the reciprocal influence of 
 other beings. And this means that they must limit 
 the freedom of God. 
 
 (2) Another difficulty is the metaphysical one we 
 have already referred to, that at once we introduce 
 a pluralistic system, for our argument cannot be 
 twisted into a bare pantheism. 
 
 (3) Yet another thing which appears to be a 
 difficulty, but which we shall find is, on the contrary, 
 a valuable and suggestive help, is that, with finite 
 personalities — indeed with the introduction of finitude 
 at all, by the idea of creation — we introduce a new 
 factor, Time, into the Timeless. With these three 
 points we must deal in order, though they inter- 
 penetrate. 
 
 (1) In regard to the first, the question of person- 
 ality and of consequent freedom (the discussion of 
 which must be mainly a recapitulation), we see at 
 once that partial freedom in the creature means 
 limitation in the Godhead. In other words, the 
 existence of Personality in the Godhead necessitates 
 
 M. 9 
 
130 Pain inevitable, because Freedom 
 
 creation, in order that its need of expansion and 
 reciprocal communication may be fulfilled, and this 
 creation must be what St Paul calls a kenosis — an 
 emptying by self -limitation, A gift of freedom, ready- 
 made, so to speak, would not be possible, for the 
 creature would be constrained by the gift itself. In 
 other words, it would seem to our limited apprehension 
 that in order to create beings that are free, God must 
 first create the conditions under which freedom can 
 be won, and then leave the winning of freedom to 
 find its own fulfilment. We are altogether unable to 
 say that only one method of satisfying these conditions 
 is possible. All we can say is that, by whatever means 
 freedom is won, the winning of it must entail struggle 
 and pain; for it must be, throughout, a gradual 
 conquest of that which is not free. At every moment 
 and at every stage there must be something that, for 
 lack of another word, we must call choice. But in 
 using this word we must remember that to give it 
 any volitional implication until self-consciousness is 
 reached is wholly unjustifiable. Rather, we must 
 imagine that there is a divine unrest in the material 
 basis of freedom, which ever urges it onwards towards 
 new developments; and that the stress of circum- 
 stances kills out those variations which do not make 
 for progress. This idea we have already discussed at 
 length, so it is unnecessary to do so here. 
 
 Our object at present is rather to emphasise the 
 
is based on Determination 131 
 
 fact that, since freedom is to be won, there must at 
 every stage be the possibility of wrong methods, 
 wrong applications of such freedom as the organism 
 already possesses; and that such wrong applications 
 must lead to suffering and eventual racial extinction. 
 Life must be a struggle. Creatures that are ahead of 
 their fellows must trample them underfoot. Eat or be 
 eaten must be the law of progress ; for even in material 
 things the new must be built on the foundation of 
 the old. The process must be economic; and so the 
 creature which spends all its energies in converting 
 inanimate matter of simple chemical structure into 
 animate matter of complex structure, must, for the 
 sake of economy, be preyed upon by the higher 
 creature, who has thus more energy to devote to the 
 subordination of matter in other ways. Oxen eat grass 
 all day long; men eat the flesh of oxen, and a very 
 short time spent in eating sufl&ces them, giving time 
 for other and higher activities. Pain and suffering 
 must be the condition of progress, in one form or 
 another: for greater freedom must always be gained 
 by the most economical method, that is to say,, by 
 making use of the freedom already won by others. 
 As we have said, it is idle to conjecture whether or 
 not any other method than the subordination of 
 matter would have led to the evolution of freedom. 
 Doubtless it is possible that the Almighty and Omni- 
 potent God could have made another part of His 
 
 9—2 
 
132 Freedom can only originate 
 
 experience the basis of the process, or, in other words, 
 that the expression of His self-limitation might have 
 been perceived by His creatures as something other 
 than what we call matter. But what is clear is that, 
 whatever the basis of our experience, there must be 
 utilisation of past effort if there is to be progress, and 
 there must be continuity; and thus there must be 
 objective pain — pain, that is, inflicted by one creature 
 on another in the utilisation of the experience of that 
 other. Moreover, when self-consciousness is reached, 
 there must be also subjective pain — the pain involved 
 in the repression of immediate desires, of goods that 
 are apparent, for the sake of acquiring a higher good, 
 which does not appeal with the same clamorous in- 
 tensity. For example the promiscuous satisfaction of 
 sexual desires — desires based on the most potent of 
 the evolutionary factors that affect the individual — 
 must always appeal more directly to the man who 
 is just emerging into civilisation than the realisa- 
 tion that communal progress and solidarity will in 
 the end mediate greater advance, even greater hap- 
 piness. 
 
 Another matter must be taken into account, if 
 our previous reasoning has been sound. In chapter in 
 we saw that before true freedom could be initiated — 
 the freedom based on choice — there must be the 
 realisation of the existence of cause and effect — there 
 must be the knowledge that a certain change in the 
 
in a Determinate Environment 133 
 
 relationship of a group of objects will have a certain 
 result, and that the will to produce this result will 
 cause changes in the sentient being which will tend to 
 bring about the desired effect. To take an example, 
 palaeolithic man must know that by flaking off chips 
 from a flint he can make a weapon which, hurled at 
 an animal, will pierce it and cause its movements to 
 cease. But further, he must know that a certain 
 wish of his own will set his arm into such motion that 
 a stone he holds will inevitably strike another stone in 
 such a way that a chip will be split off in a certain 
 direction from the percussion centre ; that this action 
 can be so repeated, with slight but certain variations, 
 that the final product will be sharp in just those places 
 where sharpness is desired ; and finally, that a different 
 volition will so react on his body that the weapon will 
 move in such a manner as to do the desired work on 
 the creature he wishes to affect. He must be reason- 
 ably certain that his volition will set a definite causal 
 series in action, both within and without himself. 
 Only so can he achieve the control which is the basis 
 of freedom. Freedom is built on the foundation of 
 the determinate nature of the reactions between force 
 and matter. 
 
 It would seem, then, that a freedom which is won 
 must be won through the mediation of that which 
 has no element of freedom in it. 
 
 But what of the freedom of God? 
 
134 Absolute Freedom is based 
 
 We have seen that His freedom is completely 
 bound up with His activity. If He is a person He 
 must be active; if He is active He must be free; if 
 He is free it follows that He must know. If we believe 
 He is Transcendent He must have a perfect Personality, 
 if His PersonaHty is perfect He must be perfectly 
 free, Omnipotent and Omniscient. Yet the creation 
 must be looked on as a kenosis — a self-limitation. 
 Thus it would seem that as far as His creation is 
 concerned, God is not perfectly free, and is there- 
 fore not omnipotent nor, probably, omniscient^, for 
 contingency enters into His Immanent experience, 
 owing to the partial freedom of His creation. In His 
 Immanent aspect He is limited, of His own free wiU, 
 by His creatures. And we shall see that other lines of 
 thought lead us to the same conclusion. He is limited 
 because of His own Love, which brought men into 
 being. 
 
 But we can go deeper than this. In His Tran- 
 scendent Nature God is completely self-determined. 
 Because He is Perfect He can do nothing that is 
 irreconcileable with that perfection. Because He is 
 Love He can only act lovingly. Because His knowledge 
 and power are infinite they can only result in action 
 
 ^ Grod is, of course, omniscient in the sense that He knows of 
 every happening, when once it has happened ; but it seems most likely 
 that He is not omniscient as regards the future, because of the 
 existence of actual freedom other than His own. See, however, 
 p. 61. 
 
on Absolute Self-determination 135 
 
 which is inflexible, immutable. Because He is what 
 He is there can be no shadow that is cast by turning. 
 Therefore, if He wills to create, He can only create 
 beings that shall eventually become perfect, like Him- 
 self — beings that, since they are absolutely free, must 
 be absolutely determined. But this determination is 
 very different from the implacable necessity of nature, 
 for it is determination from within, not from without 
 — ^5e?/-determination. How then is this self-deter- 
 mination to be won — for won it must be, not given, 
 otherwise it would in some measure be determined 
 from without ? 
 
 Only by the struggle that will bring all power 
 within its grasp — only by the struggle that will 
 bring all determination under the sway of the per- 
 sonal will. That which is without must be brought 
 within. The will must become a reservoir wherein 
 all the forces of the inevitable are stored, before it 
 can become a welling fountain of indetermination or 
 freedom — the freedom that is complete self-determina- 
 tion. Therefore creation must be a Hmitation of the 
 Godhead. It must be the creation of conditions of 
 strife and pain for the creature, if the creature is 
 to be finally perfect. 
 
 And wh9,t of this final perfection? It must be 
 always in one sense inferior to that of God, for HE 
 IS from eternity as well as to eternity, whereas the 
 creature has a terminus a quo, even when it too enters 
 
136 Absorption into God impossible 
 
 into the realm of the simultaneous^ ; " Before Abraham 
 was, I AM" — not I was, for there is no past or 
 present or to come in the simultaneous. Therefore 
 there can be no absorption of the perfected per- 
 sonalities of the creatures into the Perfect Personality 
 of the Creator, for His Experience includes a fuller 
 reality than theirs. They are o/jloioi, but not fully 
 o/jLoovaioi with Him. 
 
 The problem of evil in its more primitive form, 
 when evil has no ethical signification, loses its force 
 when we realise that it is an essential factor in the 
 teleological process of the development of freedom. 
 And in the higher stages, when self-consciousness 
 is reached, and evil becomes an ethical reality, it 
 loses at once its inevitableness. For here we have 
 conscious choice replacing the unconscious response to 
 stimuli. Consciousness acquires a more and more 
 predominating influence as man progresses. And the 
 conscious choice of the lower of two possible courses, 
 when there is any degree of recognition of teleology in 
 that particular matter, is not in any way a necessary 
 consequence of the existence of the lower course of 
 action. Sin only exists, that is, moral evil only exists, 
 when it is possible for the man to make the right 
 decision. Hence sin is not a necessary product of 
 evolution. As we have seen ^ it introduces an entirely 
 new factor. The problem of pain and the problem of 
 
 1 Vide infra, ch. vi. ^ Evolution and the Need of Atonement. 
 
Pain inevitable; Sin not 137 
 
 moral evil, though in a sense continuous with one 
 another, in that both are necessarily possibilities under 
 the only conditions in which freedom can be won, are 
 yet discontinuous, in that the first is inevitable, the 
 second not. For in the second we have the new 
 factor of volition. Volition itself is continuous with 
 non-volitional freedom, as we have seen, but yet it 
 introduces an entirely new factor into the process of 
 development when once it has appeared, in however 
 rudimentary a degree. 
 
 Here again, much insight may be derived from the 
 reahsation of creative activity as a kenosis. If we 
 adopt the idea that the creation of what we call matter 
 is really the result of a discontinuity introduced into 
 the experience of the Godhead by voluntary self- 
 limitation, we find at once a clue to the understanding 
 of the whole problem. For it is the voluntary ac- 
 ceptance of pain and struggle into the experience of 
 the Godhead, that such a kenosis involves. And the 
 end and object of this acceptance is the emergence of 
 beings who shall eventually leave the Godhead yet 
 fuller in experience. For when the wills and activities 
 of such beings are united — not unified, be it observed 
 — with the Will and Activity of God, the kenosis 
 becomes not merely a plerosis but a pleroma of the 
 Godhead. His experience ceases to be limited, since 
 the wills and activities of these beings are wholly 
 aligned with His own; while it is richer in content 
 
138 Pain part of Experience of God; Sin not 
 
 owing to the reciprocal fulfilment of love, yet does not 
 increase^. 
 
 What then of the discordant aspects of the ex- 
 perience of the finite being — what of sin? 
 
 Sin, as we have seen, is the misdirection of per- 
 sonality, — only possible when the person is imperfect. 
 In this sense then, it is impossible for it to be part of 
 the experience of the Perfect Person. God cannot sin. 
 It is clear that, since freedom is an attribute even of 
 the imperfect person, there may be a clash of wills 
 between the Perfect and the imperfect, of which sin 
 is the expression. The existence of freedom in other 
 personalities is part of Reahty, but the possible direc- 
 tion, or misdirection, of that activity is not a part of 
 Reahty until it is actuahsed. In other words, sin is 
 a misdirection of the wiU in time, which adds to Reality 
 only when the issue in conduct is consummated^. Thus 
 the effects of sin must become a part of the experience 
 of God, but not sin, the misdirection or declination of 
 the will, itself. God must suffer the consequences of 
 man's sin, but sin itself has no part in Him, since by 
 the creation of other free persons a plurality of wills 
 
 1 Vide infra, p. 147. 
 
 2 " Conduct " is here used in a very broad sense, to include all 
 actual sin, including sins of thought. The point is that actual sin 
 affects Reality, and so affects the experience of God: the poten- 
 tiality of sin does not, since nothing is added to Reality, till the sin 
 is actualised. For a discussion of Original Sin, and the biological 
 meaning of sin, see Evolution and the Need of Atonement. 
 
The Aim of Creative Activity 139 
 
 has come to be. We must however remember that all 
 this can only have relation to the limited aspect of 
 God : His Immanent aspect. All the while He remains 
 Transcendent, the same, above all the toil and strife. 
 
 (2) This furnishes us in some sort with a possible 
 solution of the old problem of the One and the Many — 
 Monism and PluraHsm. For we find presented to us 
 the idea of an Infinite God Who is essentially active 
 and creative. The full satisfaction of that activity can 
 only be found where all the attributes of personahty 
 are ahke involved — love among the rest. Hence the 
 Eternal voluntarily limits Himself in one portion of 
 His experience, both as regards His omnipotence and 
 His simultaneity — as regards His omnipotence in order 
 that His creation should be free to love; as regards 
 His simultaneity, because the creature must, as we 
 have seen, become, not be; grow, not be made; and 
 growth is a time-process. In this sense too, as far as 
 the temporal limitation introduced into a part of the 
 experience of God is concerned, God Himself may be 
 said to be becoming, since His love is finding wider 
 fields of activity through the reciprocal love of His 
 creatures. And, as we have suggested, and shall dis- 
 cuss at length in the next chapter, the eventual solution 
 of the pluralism that exists in time, is to be sought in 
 the union of the wills, and the experience, of men with 
 God's. This does not lead us back to monism, for there 
 is more than one experient; yet neither does it lead 
 
140 The Aim of 
 
 to pluralism in the ordinary acceptation of the term, 
 for Reality holds the same content for the experience of 
 God and of His perfected creatures^. Reality is one 
 material of experience, shared aUke by God and His 
 perfected creatures. The experience of all becomes 
 unified, yet the experients remain individual. The 
 experience of the creature is a microcosm, picturing 
 in little, yet with absolute fideUty, the experience of 
 the Creator ; for the experience of each is personality, 
 in its fullest connotation. Many persons, with one 
 Reality, the Reality which is for personality ; God with 
 the same experience, yet with a greater infinitude, in 
 that His experience is I AM, while the experience of 
 His creatures includes I AM, but only in Him. That 
 HE IS is the ultimate cause of the fact that for me 
 I AM. God knows Himself; I know myself in Him. 
 In other words, if we believe, as I wish to suggest, 
 that the Personality of God is the basis of ultimate 
 Reality, the appearance of other personalities is implicit 
 in the activity which is one of the chief characteristics 
 of a Person — an activity ever directed towards making 
 fuller the content of experience, which is, for that 
 person, Reality. Thus, if we conceive of a Tran- 
 scendent, Eternal Person, in whose experience ultimate, 
 or transcendent, Reality alone consists, we must at the 
 same time conceive of the activity of that Person as 
 directed towards the creation of other persons whose 
 
 ^ Vide infra, pp. 177 seqq. 
 
Creative Activity 141 
 
 experience, which is Reality for them, is really part of 
 His experience. In other words, as we have seen, if 
 they must come to birth through struggle and pain, 
 that struggle and pain must be part of His experience, 
 and so their creation must be a kenosis. Yet although 
 their experience is part of the Absolute Reality, by 
 their existence they add to that Reality in degree, if 
 not in kind, since they make fresh demands on the 
 reciprocative aspect of the Ultimate Personality. 
 Their experience is their own, yet it is also part of 
 the Absolute Experience of the Transcendent Being. 
 These other personalities add to God's experience, add, 
 that is, to Reality, but only by their existence and 
 action, since they are free, and in so far as He is 
 Immanent. When these wills become wholly aligned 
 with the Will of God, sin has passed away, discord 
 vanishes. We have a plurality of persons possessing a 
 wholly concordant experience. When they pass from 
 time to simultaneity, they are as God, an I AM. Yet 
 because they were once in time their experience of 
 Reality can never be altogether the same in fulness of 
 content as God's. They must differ from Him in this, 
 and so there can never be absorption. The plurality 
 of persons is eternal, yet there is only one Reality, 
 which is still the experience of God, with which their 
 experience and wills are wholly aligned, and with 
 part of which they are coincident. To this, which 
 is fundamental, and which yet involves a serious 
 
142 The Time-problem 
 
 metaphysical difficulty, we shall return in the next 
 chapter. 
 
 (3) All this however involves the translation of the 
 finite into the infinite, for we cannot conceive of 
 a perfect union of wills between an Eternal God and 
 a temporal spirit. In other words we have here to 
 introduce the time conception, both in regard to the 
 self-limitation of God and the translation of personal 
 existence from time into eternity. 
 
 Let us deal with these two aspects of the time- 
 problem in order. In the first place we see that, as 
 far as any individual creation is concerned — granting 
 the possibility, or even the probability, of the creation 
 of other universes besides our own — the self-limitation 
 of God is finite. In other words, it only affects one 
 portion of His total experience. We cannot conceive 
 that matter, which is, we have suggested, the result of 
 the elimination of freedom from a certain portion of 
 the experience of God, represents His whole experience. 
 In the infinite expanse of His experience He is still 
 transcendent; only in a certain finite and bounded 
 fraction of it is He limited. It is as though in a vast 
 homogeneous expanse without external boundaries we 
 mapped out a small area. In so doing we at once 
 introduce the idea of space — we can speak of it as an 
 area simply because we have set bounds to it; and 
 therefore points within that area have position relative 
 to each other and to the whole. 
 
Immanence and Duration 143 
 
 But we can go further than this. Bergson has 
 shown that clock-time is really the spatial realisation 
 of succession. In other words pure duration, when 
 considered in regard to something that is bounded, 
 becomes temporal in the ordinary acceptation of the 
 term. The perception of time as succession is only 
 possible in virtue of the existence of pure duration in 
 the percipient. Pure duration is the interpenetration 
 of states. 
 
 It would seem, then, that duration is only possible 
 in that which is becoming^. Now it is quite clear 
 that, since man has freedom, and since God has 
 created the power of freedom in man by self-Umita- 
 tion, the interrelations between man and God must be 
 durational in aspect as long as there is any process at 
 work. That is, as soon as we introduce change into 
 our concept of any being, we have necessarily to 
 introduce the concept of pure duration, and we leave 
 at once the idea of the eternal or simultaneous. Change 
 connotes interrelated states, and interrelated states 
 involve duration. Therefore any conception of God 
 as experiencing change in relationship to other beings 
 removes Him from eternity, though not necessarily 
 from infinity. Is duration then a limitation? I think 
 we must admit this ; for with duration the IS becomes 
 but the non-existent line of demarcation between the 
 was and the will be. We can no longer say that the 
 
 J Cf. Von Hiigel, Eteriica Life, p. 383. 
 
144 Coexistence of Transcendence and Immanence 
 
 immanent God is, any more than we can say that man 
 ts, at any given moment, however infinitesimal. This 
 need only be a difficulty however to those who accept 
 the doctrine of Immanence without its correlative, the 
 doctrine of Transcendence. 
 
 But does not the acceptance of those two doctrines 
 involve a contradiction? Can God become and yet he 
 at the same time? Can He be active, and yet the 
 Eternal One, the I AM, at one and the same moment ? 
 
 Let us think of the human person. I know that I 
 am, and yet I am not what I was a moment ago, and 
 even while I think of what I am, I have changed ; my 
 present becomes my past and determines yet more my 
 future. Yet with all this I know that I am : it is the 
 same I that is undergoing change. Though my ex- 
 perience is constantly changing, making me more than 
 I was ; yet it is myself that is changing and growing. 
 A new self is not born every second, to die again at 
 once. My personality represents a continuum, which 
 is myself. In other words I myself am an immanent 
 changing spirit, influencing, and being influenced by, 
 the matter and spirit which make up my environment 
 — my body, my house, my town, my world, my co- 
 existent spirits — but I transcend all this changing flux ; 
 I am, as well as I become. That is to say there is 
 something of me that is not subject to this law of 
 change. What is this? Surely it is the foundation 
 on which rests the fact that / am, and that / am free ; 
 
involves Persisteiice throitgh Change 145 
 
 which freedom means for me, a limited being, my 
 power to change of my own will. That for me is the 
 eternal unchanging fact. I can change, I can create, 
 I can increase. It is this which difierentiates me from 
 the inorganic matter amid which I move ; and also, in 
 a way, from other creatm-es which are free in some 
 measure, but not self-conscious: creatures which are 
 purely immanent. 
 
 Now if we apply this same thought to the being 
 and person of God, we find here that God is complete 
 power, to change, to increase, to create — in a word to 
 act. But He is Transcendent because He can, at will, 
 persist through change. 
 
 The matter is not, however, so easy as this. In 
 dealing with the problem of the activity of God we are 
 face to face with the whole question of the relation 
 between eternity and time. And because we are in 
 time we cannot hope to grasp the meaning of activity 
 for a transcendent, simultaneous being. Yet we must 
 attempt some fuller consideration of this, the hardest 
 problem man has to meet. Although reason cannot 
 grapple with it, since it is outside the range of dis- 
 continuity and so outside the perceptual basis from 
 which reason starts; yet because of the growing 
 freedom we possess, which freedom represents the 
 presence of something eternal in us, we can conceive 
 something of the continuum which is eternal life. 
 
 Let us first set down our premisses. 
 
 M. 10 
 
146 Two Types 
 
 Duration is the interpenetration of states, as we 
 have seen; the passing of the was into the will he. 
 It is dynamic, and is of the essence of change, since 
 the will he is different from, and when there is progress, 
 fuller than, the was. Eternity is simultaneous. There 
 is no was and no will he. There are no states; and 
 therefore there is no duration. If this were all, eternity 
 would be a dead continuum. But we have the further 
 conception of eternal life, which connotes activity. 
 Now activity is of two types. 
 
 There is first the durational form — the only one of 
 which we have objective experience, since it alone can 
 exist in relation to limited experience; or, to put it 
 more simply, since it can exist only where there is a 
 discontinuous environment, such as our material one, 
 which limits freedom. This form of activity intro- 
 duces change or becoming into the experience of the 
 personal being, by reaction. 
 
 The second is the simultaneous form — the only 
 form we can predicate of a Transcendent God, or 
 indeed, of any simultaneous personality, and so, of 
 any perfected Spirit. In it there is no element of 
 change or becoming, for the ego is unbounded and 
 perfect. It is an internal activity; so to speak 
 a reciprocativeness or mutuality within the Person of 
 the Godhead. And further, it is a mutual activity 
 between the Godhead and other perfected spirits, if 
 such there be — a personal relationship that cannot be 
 
of Activity 147 
 
 increased, since it is the communion of perfectness, 
 yet into which other persons can enter without in- 
 creasing it. The communion of perfectness is the 
 eternal contradiction, as far as the finite mind is con- 
 cerned, since it can be added to without increasing. 
 And because we are finite we cannot conceive or pre- 
 dicate its nature ; while it is spiritually apprehensible 
 to us as the peace of God — an idea that is full of life 
 and activity — ^in which there is no deadness. The 
 reason that we can apprehend it in some measure is 
 because we have in us eternal life : because the king- 
 dom of heaven is within us, in what measure we have 
 achieved freedom. 
 
 But there is another aspect of God's activity, 
 dependent on this simultaneous aspect. The mutual 
 relationship not merely can but must be added to, 
 from its own nature as pure activity. And because 
 new perfection can only come out of imperfection, new 
 freedom out of non-freedom, there must be relation 
 between God, Who is perfect, and that which is not 
 perfect. This relation is expressed in the activity of 
 creation. Now the existence of imperfect beings is, 
 as we have seen, a limitation of God. As the beings 
 become freer and more perfect, so is the limitation of 
 God in relation to them progressively removed. Thus 
 in His communion with them God is becoming; be- 
 cause there is process at work duration enters into 
 His Experience. 
 
 10—2 
 
148 Gods Immanence in His Relation 
 
 Of the two questions that arise out of this: Is 
 His Experience fuller at the end of process ? and, 
 What is the meaning for the creature of passage 
 from duration to simultaneity, from time to eternity? 
 we have already answered the first in part. His 
 Transcendent Experience is not fuller, since it was 
 always perfect, complete, and unbounded. Yet in 
 a sense His whole Experience is fuller, — or rather 
 different : for the new experience is the result of removal 
 of freedom, since it includes the Immanent aspect of 
 limitation or incompleteness. Because incompleteness 
 is not a portion of completeness, but its antithesis. 
 His Experience includes a dissonance, which is pain. 
 And so far it ceases to be perfect. Therefore, in rela- 
 tion to that which is perfect, God is unchanged and 
 unchanging, while in relation to His creatures He 
 changes and increases, for all personal experience is 
 mutual in essence. We cannot however conceive i.hat 
 His relation to that which is already perfect is changed : 
 the two ideas are contradictory and self-destructive. 
 Therefore the dissonance can have no effect on Him in 
 so far as He is Transcendent ; and moreover we cannot 
 think of Him as being any way less transcendent, 
 for the idea of transcendence is absolute, not rela- 
 tive. 
 
 Thus we reach an unexpectedly definite idea ; that 
 Transcendence is the relation of God to that which is 
 perfect, eternal, and simultaneous, and so to Himself ; 
 
to that which is Changhig 149 
 
 while Immanence is His relation to that which is im- 
 perfect or becoming, a7id so is durational. From this 
 it is a short step to the answer to our second question. 
 As limitation is removed from the experience of God, 
 so He, as Immanent Spirit, re-enters the domain of the 
 absolute or eternal. Eternal life is thus conceived as 
 the absence of limitation. Thus it would seem, for the 
 creature too, that as it becomes freer, so it passes 
 gradually, from contingency and duration, into simul- 
 taneity. 
 
 But can we conceive of a gradual passage from 
 duration to simultaneity; are not the two mutually 
 exclusive? Clearly this is so. Nothing can be absolute 
 and relative at the same time. But the difficulty here 
 stated is more apparent than real, if we believe that 
 personality, with all its attributes, is an absolute 
 thing. I am ; that is to say my ego is in an absolute 
 sense. But yet I am becoming. There is a measure 
 of absoluteness or transcendence in me, because I am 
 a person, and personality is an eternal reality, timeless 
 and unlimited. But there is a measure of immanence 
 in me also, coexistent with it. I am not free in most 
 of my contact with that which is outside me. This is 
 no more than to say that there are things outside me 
 which are not part of my experience. And therefore 
 there is relation and discontinuity in that experience ; 
 time and space enter into it. But as I become freer, 
 more undetermined from without, more self-determined 
 
150 Marty like God, is both 
 
 from within, pari passu I move from immanence to 
 transcendence, becoming more complete. 
 
 What is true of God is, thus, true of me also : God 
 and I are both transcendent, I speak it reverently : God 
 and I are both immanent and limited. And as my 
 freedom grows and I pass more and more to tran- 
 scendence, so the self-limitation of God is progressively 
 removed. Eventually, no doubt, this involves the 
 cessation of the particular mode of limitation we 
 call matter. I pass from duration to simultaneity 
 as, by struggle, I achieve more freedom. And my 
 struggle removes, not merely limitation from my own 
 experience; but from the experience of God also. 
 I thus serve God in a more real and vital sense than is 
 generally understood. What a vast dignity the under- 
 standing of this confers on man! He is not merely 
 God's servant, in the common acceptation of the 
 word, but God needs his work; God depends on him. 
 "I have said Ye are Gods" is not a phrase: "In the 
 image of God created He him" is not a phrase; they 
 are both bald statements of a vital fact. We are 
 transcendent and immanent, as God is Transcendent 
 and Immanent. 
 
 But we must not forget the other side of this truth. 
 We are transcendent and immanent, as God is Tran- 
 scendent and Immanent, but we are also transcendent 
 and immanent because God is Transcendent and Im- 
 manent. Because God is Transcendent He is Active, 
 
Transcendent and Immanent 151 
 
 because He is Active He becomes Immanent, and 
 because He has willed to become Immanent we are 
 transcendent. His Immanence is a self-limitation, is 
 born of perfect power, perfect volition, perfect love. 
 Our immanence is dependent on limitation by things 
 outside ourselves. Our eternal life is without end, 
 but it is not unconditioned in the beginning. God is ; 
 He is without beginning and without end. We are; 
 but there was, not a time, but a part of the Absolute 
 experience, when we were not; though there can 
 never again be a time when we are not. 
 
 This idea clearly requires a little more thought, for 
 it is evident at a glance that we are using the words 
 immanent and transcendent each in two somewhat 
 different senses. 
 
 In regard to immanence, if we examine the idea we 
 j&nd that two of its essential implications are those of 
 duration and change, as far as the indwelling spirit is 
 concerned. But in the Immanence of God there is 
 the further conception of 5e?/-limitation, in that of 
 men of external limitation. In the same way the idea 
 of God's Transcendence is absolute; man's transcen- 
 dence must always fall short of this in that there is 
 a terminus a qiio. But for our purpose, the con- 
 sideration of the passage from time to eternity, the 
 essential points are the same in both cases : so that we 
 are fully justified in using the terms as we have done, 
 and our argument is perfectly valid, so long as we 
 
162 The Dawn of Eternal Life 
 
 remember that there is a region in which the parallel, 
 or rather the equality, no longer holds. 
 
 Finally, our discussion becomes full of meaning 
 when we look at the living world as a whole. For 
 transcendence is essentially correlated with the recog- 
 nition of the ego, that is to say, with self-consciousness. 
 In the creatures that have no element of this, there is 
 no transcendence. They are purely immanent, and 
 their life is in time; durational, not eternal. The 
 dawn of self-consciousness is the dawn of eternal life, 
 the fruition of the age-long struggle of the vital impulse 
 against determinate conditions : at once its glory and 
 its explanation. We cannot enter into the meaning of 
 it all for the unconscious organism. We know too 
 little to discuss it^. Only, we can be certain that it is 
 just and right. Whether there be truth in the simple 
 doctrine of transmigration we know not. Nevertheless, 
 we must remember that it cannot be a transmigration 
 of souls, for there is no soul where there is no self-reali- 
 sation ; and it is hard to see that such a doctrine, with 
 this limitation, would amount to more than the 
 passing on of the vital impulse, for which provision 
 is already made. The body- matter is non-sentient; 
 merely a relay system for recording, and reacting to, 
 stimuli, to speak in the language of electricity: only 
 the vital impulse has life. 
 
 It is a grave mistake, too much fostered by pseudo- 
 1 Cf. p. 179. 
 
Summary 153 
 
 naturalists who deal with the vital reactions of animal 
 on the analogy of the meaning of such reactions to 
 our conscious selves, to attribute a meaning-for-the- 
 animal to each evidence of vital activity. We know 
 nothing of that which is not self-conscious. All we can 
 predicate of it is, that it is part of the experience of 
 the self-consciousness of those who come in contact 
 with it ; and so, that all of it is a part of the experience 
 of God. 
 
 We must now recapitulate the main ideas which 
 our survey of the implications of immanence and 
 transcendence has brought out. The net is large, 
 and we have spread it wide, but we may hope that 
 the haul will teach us at least something of the deep 
 waters in which it was cast. 
 
 We saw first how these two conceptions naturally 
 and inevitably arose as man began to realise the 
 double truth of Creation and Process; and how they 
 are quite unaffected by the discovery that creation is 
 itself actually process, since behind it must lie some- 
 thing capable of motivation. And we suggested that 
 in the double truth that underlies these two modes of 
 divine Being was to be sought the solution of the other 
 antinomies we have discussed. To the exposition of 
 this solution the next chapter will be devoted, but 
 here and there in the present chapter suggestions 
 towards it have been made, as the logical development 
 of our discussion seemed to demand them. 
 
154 Swmmary 
 
 From the idea of relativity of values in infinites 
 we tried to reach some idea of the meaning of activity 
 in an Infinite Being ; and we found that further light 
 was cast by the realisation that activity is essentially 
 an attribute of personality. The idea of unity was seen 
 to be incompatible with love, since unity is complete, 
 static, and impenetrable. Thus, through love, we 
 were led on to creative activity and so to immanence. 
 
 The requirements of Eternal Love again led us 
 on to the need of freedom in the creation; and so, 
 through self-limitation or kenosis, back to immanence. 
 
 We saw that freedom must necessarily be based 
 on determination of some sort ; ^perfect freedom on self- 
 determination ; the growth of freedom on the gradual 
 passage of external to internal determination, issuing 
 eventually in complete self-determination, as it is 
 perfected. 
 
 A discussion of the results of imperfect freedom — 
 sin and pain — ^in their relation to the experience of God 
 necessarily followed ; and the final solution was sought 
 in union between creature and Creator. In this we 
 found an indication of the answer to the old puzzle 
 of the One and the Many, through unification of many 
 experiences. A full discussion of this was reserved 
 for the next chapter, but again we found that suggestive 
 ideas might be derived from the Immanent and Tran- 
 scendent modes of Divine Existence. But since the 
 conception involves passage from the finite to the 
 
Summary 155 
 
 infinite some consideration of the time-problems was 
 demanded, for immanence is essentially temporal, or 
 at least durational, while transcendence is of the 
 realm of the simultaneous. Necessarily we returned 
 to the question of the Activity of God ; and we found 
 that it is of two kinds, simultaneous and durational, 
 transcendent and immanent. The transcendent form 
 is clearly primal; but we have not yet attempted 
 any direct answer to the question: Why, if Tran- 
 scendent Activity is internal in action should it ever 
 be externalised in creation and so become Immanent? 
 But nevertheless we reached the definite conclusion 
 that in all ways Divine Transcendence is the relation 
 of God to that which is perfect, eternal, and simul- 
 taneous; while Divine Immanence is His relation to 
 that which is imperfect or becoming, and so is dura- 
 tional. As we shall see this does not in any way 
 imply that human beings can have no relation to the 
 Transcendent God. This difficulty found a partial 
 answer as we considered the passage of finite beings 
 into the realm of simultaneity, which is eternal life. 
 For we found in man something transcendent, per- 
 sisting through change, as well as the changing self 
 of a developing being. What that transcendent 
 something is we have not yet even tried to formulate ; 
 only we see that freedom is closely related to it as an 
 attribute. Whatever changes, my freedom, however 
 small be its range and scope is an absolute thing. 
 
166 Swmmary 
 
 But we reacli one definite conclusion, that man, 
 as well as God, is both immanent and transcendent. 
 The problem is the same; only the degree differs. 
 And surely this is the strongest possible confirmation 
 of the thesis we have briefly enunciated, and have 
 still to amplify, that the object of creation, and the 
 end of process and change, is union with God, the 
 Creator. For men are seen as gods in little, and per- 
 fected manhood appears to differ from Godhead only 
 in this, that men are created, while God is Uncreated ; 
 men become as God, while God IS from everlasting 
 to everlasting. There is no Promethean impiety in 
 such a belief ; we do not seek to wrest the crown from 
 an unwilling Jove, but rather we seek to reign in God 
 and with God, in perfect union, according to His 
 Eternal Will. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ETERNAL LIFE 
 
 Let lis now briefly recapitulate the chief ideas which 
 we have so far derived from our study as a whole. In 
 our first chapter we found that, whether life was 
 regarded from the view-point of Religion, of Philo- 
 sophy, or of Science, we eventually found a pair of 
 correlated opposites or antinomies, one or other of 
 which was firmly upheld by thinkers in that domain, 
 but, until lately, rarely or never both. In the case of 
 Religion, which is based more largely on intuition 
 than are the wholly logical sciences, the two anti- 
 thetical aspects have been held more or less at the 
 same time, but as soon as philosophical reasoning 
 began to be applied, religion more and more tended 
 towards deism or pantheism. We used the following 
 terms to indicate roughly the antitheses inherent in 
 the main methods of thought — immanence and tran- 
 scendence; monism and pluralism; freedom and 
 determination. It was then suggested that the anti- 
 theses might have their basis in the incomplete survey 
 
158 Recapitulation 
 
 of Reality possible to reason, on a logical basis; and 
 that their relation might really be correlative and not 
 opposite. 
 
 In chapter ii we considered the conceptions of con- 
 tinuity and discontinuity, and found that the discon- 
 tinuity we see everywhere around us is the necessary 
 result of a knowledge based on perceptual experience. 
 Only discontinuity can be perceived. But all lines of 
 thought urge us conceptually to the idea of unity. 
 The effect of this is, to confirm our belief that serial 
 continuity is a real thing and not an appearance only ; 
 and it leads us on to the belief that escape from dis- 
 continuity when the spirit is perfected, by becoming 
 free from external limitation, will mean the completion 
 of a unity, in which yet the personality of each being 
 will remain eternally distinct. 
 
 In the third chapter we discussed the nature of the 
 individual from the point of view of colonial existence. 
 Here we found reason to believe that the true test of 
 an individuality that could lead on to personality — 
 in other words, the test of individuality on the main 
 line of progress — was the possession of a central nervous 
 system. The basis of such an idea was the need for 
 complete realisation of causality, which could only 
 proceed from complete determination in the organism. 
 
 In the fourth chapter we considered at some length 
 the validity of the argument of an imaginary critic, 
 that a gift of the power of winning freedom was 
 
Recapitulation 159 
 
 equivalent to a gift of freedom itself, and this argu- 
 ment we rejected on the ground that it took no cog- 
 nisance of the contingency involved in the method of 
 the gift. 
 
 In the last chapter the thesis of the third was 
 expanded to show that the need of complete deter- 
 mination was inherent in the idea of self-determina- 
 tion: that volition must be certain of its fulfilment. 
 The tendency to the formation of closed systems 
 is thus seen to be an effort to produce more com- 
 plete internal determination; and it only finds its 
 full meaning when there is a self-determining will 
 animating the whole. Thus a partial truth is reached 
 in the statement that, where intelligence is absent, 
 there is a tendency towards unity, or closed systems; 
 where it is present the tendency is towards plurality, 
 since the personal being is a definite and separate 
 entity. This, however, must not be pressed to such 
 a length as will land us again in the conception of 
 Leibnitzian monads. We have found no justification 
 for the assumption that personalities are impenetrable. 
 
 Pressing our argument as to the origin of the anti- 
 nomies with which every form of thought is confronted 
 to its legitimate conclusion, we are confronted with 
 a very unexpected solution. If we are right in be- 
 lieving that they are ultimately due to the existence 
 of external limitation, to the absence of that complete 
 self-determination which alone gives meaning to the 
 
160 The Basis of Freedom must he 
 
 idea of freedom, we have finally to consider in what 
 this limitation consists. 
 
 Freedom only has meaning in relation to person- 
 ality, at any rate for the human mind. When we 
 think of a thing as absolutely unconstrained, we do 
 not think of it as inert, but rather as a centre of action. 
 
 An unconstrained particle will remain at rest, 
 unless at one time it was constrained by the action of 
 some force, in which case it will move for ever. If it 
 remains at rest, it is constrained to do so by its nature, 
 and so is not free. If it were free we could only think 
 of it as a perpetual source of energy, in which case it 
 would be constrained to the manifestation of energy by 
 its own nature ; and this is freedom in quite a different 
 sense, really. Our minds are in fact quite unable 
 to grasp the possibility of real unconstrainedness in 
 any particle, material or non-material^; for the only 
 meaning that unconstrainedness can have for us is the 
 freedom of self-determination, the freedom of the true 
 alternative — of a power of choice between rest and any 
 activity, or between one activity and another, utterly 
 undetermined by any outside influence. For the free- 
 dom of sheer indetermination is zero; indeed in such 
 an idea there is a contradiction of terms. In other 
 words, for our minds it is only possible to conceive 
 
 ^ By non-material particle is meant a particle of energy, if such 
 really exist, as the electron-theory and quantum-theory seem to 
 suggest at present. 
 
sought in Personality 161 
 
 freedom in relation to volition, which is an attribute of 
 personality. 
 
 Again, we are ultimately driven back to personality 
 for the explanation of limitation, from the same 
 necessity of the process of thought which drives us to 
 seek a First Principle. As we have seen, the mind 
 cannot rest in the idea of an impersonal First Principle, 
 if it honestly and openly takes cognisance of the facts 
 of human personality. Activity and volition are thus 
 foimd to be necessary concomitants of a First Principle. 
 In the long run, then, limitation must be the limitation 
 of the personal activity of the Deity. And any limita- 
 tion appears to us as the absence of complete freedom, 
 which in the last resort is related by our mind to per- 
 sonality. This point is so important that we may be 
 allowed to repeat our argument. 
 
 A particle which is only free to move in one 
 plane, that is, in two dimensions of space, we say 
 is limited. It has only two degrees of freedom. But 
 even if the particle is "free," we only mean that it 
 is free to move in any direction. It is not free to 
 initiate motion. Even if it is a source of energy, as 
 a particle of radium, and if we still further endow it 
 with the power of perpetually producing energy of all 
 kinds without suffering loss, and so of perpetually 
 initiating motion of all types, it is still not free unless 
 it can stop and go on at will. We are thus driven 
 back to self-determination or volitional freedom. 
 
 M. 11 
 
162 The Ideas of Self-limitation and 
 
 Anything less than complete self-determination intro- 
 duces the notion of limited personality; absence of 
 self-determination, absence of personality, is absence 
 of all true freedom. 
 
 Our antinomies, then, one and all involve the idea 
 of limited personality, at the last. Immanence is 
 a limited aspect of the Godhead — self-limited, it is 
 true, but still limited. Plurality of persons not in 
 perfect communion with the Transcendent Unity of 
 God is a limitation of God's Activity. Determination 
 in the material world hmits the freedom of living 
 beings; and, from the conditions of the kenosis, 
 directly, as well as indirectly, limits the freedom of 
 God. The three are seen to be simply different 
 aspects of the same truth. 
 
 In what, then, does this limitation consist? What 
 are the implications of a limitation, which, as we have 
 seen, is being progressively removed, in regard to 
 personality? Essentially, the great phenomenon in- 
 troduced is change. And change involves duration, 
 since duration is the interpenetration of states, 
 according to M. Bergson. In other words, we find 
 that the introduction of a time-factor is the great 
 characteristic of the experience of limited personality. 
 Only in the Eternal and Simultaneous is there perfect 
 freedom. Increasing freedom indicates the passage 
 from the temporal to the eternal. And this, as we 
 have seen, is the true meaning of Eternal Life. It is 
 
Immanence involve Duration 163 
 
 life in which all limitations are swallowed up in the 
 activities of perfect union. Communion is its keynote. 
 And the meaning of communion is activity without 
 change. As to the meaning of such activity we 
 cannot reason, since reasoning is based upon limitation, 
 from the very nature of its physical basis and origin. 
 But those of us to whom is vouchsafed an earthly love 
 as perfect as such love may be ; whose love seems as 
 a deep haven unaffected by the storms of paltry ill- 
 temper and vexations, however insistently they may 
 rage without in the shallower waters of our being ; can 
 have some intuition of the meaning of Eternal Activity. 
 And the saints who have entered into the peace of 
 God have perhaps yet clearer understanding. It is 
 enough for our present purpose to record the fact that 
 all our thinking has brought us to this simple view, 
 that the difficulties of thought depend on the time- 
 factor which plays so vital a part in the existence 
 of a developing soul. 
 
 In the last chapter we endeavoured to obtain some 
 conception of the nature of the Activity of God. We 
 saw that in as much as He is Personal, He must be 
 active, with an activity based on internal self-deter- 
 mination ; while He is also creative, with an activity 
 based on volition externally directed. The first is 
 transcendent activity, the second immanent. For in 
 this last, His Will can only be directed towards per- 
 fection; perfect freedom can only be won by, not 
 
 11—2 
 
164 Reality of Dualism in Time 
 
 given to, His creatures; and therefore in relation to 
 them He becomes self-limited. Self-limitation at once 
 brings Him into the realm of duration, since it intro- 
 duces change into His relations with an ever-changing 
 creation, and thus involves the interpenetration of 
 states. God leaves the realm of the Eternal and 
 Simultaneous, as far as His Immanent aspect is con- 
 cerned, in the kenosis that is inherent in creative 
 activity. And He can only re-enter it when His creation 
 is perfected in the achieving of perfect freedom by His 
 creatures. Yet this cannot mean their absorption into 
 Him. Since He IS (we cannot say He Was, without 
 introducing time into the simultaneous) when they were 
 not, their experience can never be coextensive or 
 completely identical with His, because they are born 
 of His will functioning as creative activity. And for 
 man Eternal Life means the passage from duration to 
 simultaneity, with which proceeds, step by step, the 
 repassing of His self-imposed Immanence into His 
 Transcendence. Thus it is clear that dualism is real, 
 as well for God as for man. But it is equally clear that 
 it is of time — durational, not eternal. And because we 
 are in time, and because Causality and the doctrine 
 of Ground and Consequence are essentially temporal 
 conceptions, involving succession, any purely rational 
 system of thought is bound to bring us face to 
 face with the antinomies of philosophy and science. 
 The difficulties are insuperable by pure reason, and 
 
The Activity of God 165 
 
 according to the premisses we select we shall tend more 
 and more towards one or other solution: monism or 
 pluralism; freedom or determination — of which none 
 is wholly true. The very existence of a parallel 
 pair of correlated opposites in theological thought 
 indicates the fundamental nature of the contradictions 
 of experience. 
 
 But a consideration of the nature of personal 
 activity, applied to Infinite Personality, indicates the 
 solution, even though the matter is not apprehensible 
 by pure reason. Because God is Transcendent, unity 
 is the foundation of all ; but because He is Personal He 
 must be Active. Activity may be internal or external. 
 Because He is Love it must be external, as well as 
 internal, for love functions ever actively, ever demands 
 a wider sphere. Therefore He is Creative, and if 
 Creative, then Immanent. Yet Infinite Experience 
 cannot be added to, for it is complete and full. 
 ifKrip(oai^ completes again the TrXtjpiOfia. Fulfilling 
 re-establishes fulfilment eternally. 
 
 It may be asked, why, if there is no addition 
 possible to the experience of the transcendent God 
 should His activity function externally at all; and, 
 conversely, why, since we know of an evolving world, 
 the effect of such functioning, should we postulate 
 transcendence ? Why should we not be content with 
 the notion of an immanent God ? Naturally, we 
 cannot fully answer questions like these, which deal 
 
166 The Activity of God 
 
 with simultaneity, of which only mystics have any 
 experience, even if we allow to them such high honour. 
 
 Nevertheless, taking the second first, we see that 
 we are landed straightway in pantheism, or at best, 
 in the unsatisfactory Bergsonian conception of God 
 as "unceasing life, action and freedom," having 
 "nothing of the already made^." And because such 
 ideas do not satisfy the highest religious consciousness ; 
 because they do not fall into line at all with the 
 evolution of rehgion, we may reject them as incomplete. 
 
 We are thus, as has been shown over and over again 
 by very many thinkers, thrown back on a conception 
 of God that is more than this, though, I hope we have 
 made it clear that it must include this. Thus we 
 turn once more to transcendence as an attribute of 
 God ; a fortiori, as the fundamental attribute. And 
 since we know the evidences of His activity; further, 
 as simultaneity is obviously a more inclusive, complete, 
 and final, thing than duration, we are bound to seek 
 the meaning of what we experience and know in the 
 nature of Transcendent Personality. External activity 
 must be involved in its nature. If however we 
 leave unity on one side, as a statical conception 
 incommensurate with the idea of Personality (an active 
 thing), and take instead the dynamic conception of 
 union, some light begins to dawn. Union connotes 
 reciprocal activity, and is compatible with love, 
 1 Creative EvdiUion, p. 262. 
 
Tra7iscendent Union 167 
 
 while unity is not. Union implies not exactly ex- 
 ternality, but activity not solely directed on the self. 
 True, union also implies increase, when we are dealing 
 with finites. And, as we have said, it is not possible 
 to conceive of increase in that which is transcendent, 
 since it implies interpenetration of states, and so 
 duration. The final question is therefore resolved 
 into this simple form; can there be union without 
 increase in that which is infinite ? And surely the 
 answer is Yes, if we remember that we are dealing 
 with Transcendent Personality. Union is the entering 
 of other personalities into His Experience, as far as 
 is possible for beings that once were not. Love is 
 just this — the sharing of experience. If Reality is 
 then the Experience of God, as idealists maintain, it 
 is not increased by the existence of others who share 
 it, so long as all the personalities interpenetrate com- 
 pletely, without losing their self-identity, since they are 
 united with Him in perfect love, which is the sharing 
 of His Experience, which is itself unbounded activity, 
 infinite, complete, transcendent. Like Job, we utter 
 things that we understand not, things too wonderful 
 for us, which we know not. But yet we have the 
 Christian knowledge; we know Him Who said "The 
 glory which thou hast given me I have given unto 
 them; that they may be one, even as we are one." 
 Three Persons in union in one Godhead, perfect, 
 complete, and many others being added thereto to 
 
168 Matter and Freedom 
 
 share that identical, unincreasable perfection: it is 
 incomprehensible to reason, but it is apprehensible 
 and apprehended through the spiritual sense of man, 
 and acclaimed as true. 
 
 Two chief and very suggestive ideas have thus 
 emerged from our whole study of the problems of 
 religion from the standpoint of evolution; and they 
 hold good, I venture to think, whatever the future 
 may hold in store in the way of fresh Hght on the 
 method or mechanism of the evolutionary process. 
 
 The first is, that all our difficulties in understanding 
 the ultimate problems of life have their origin in the 
 same thing, the absence or imperfectness of freedom. 
 In this we have found the common source of our 
 antinomies. 
 
 The second is, that the eventual solution is to be 
 sought in union, rather than in unity. The satis- 
 faction of the higher demands of personality is found 
 in the region of reciprocal activities, which may be 
 embraced under the collective name of Love; and 
 reciprocal activities are only possible as between many 
 persons. Unity is there, in complete oneness of aims 
 and experience; plurality is there in many person- 
 alities capable of individual activities in the domain of 
 universal love. 
 
 We have also reached this apparently anomalous 
 idea that matter is due to the self-limitation of God, 
 and is in fact an expression of that self-limitation; 
 
Matter and Freedom 169 
 
 yet it is in the end removed by man winning freedom 
 for himself. Though at first sight such a conception 
 may seem paradoxical, yet the more we examine it 
 the more suggestive it becomes. For example, we may 
 be inclined to look on it as a transference of God's 
 freedom to man. Nothing, of course, could be more 
 absurdly untrue. Such an idea is based on a kind of 
 quantitative conception of freedom; whereas freedom 
 is a quality, and, as such, is incapable of measurement 
 or subdivision. When we talk of progressive removal 
 of limitation, or the possession of partial freedom, we 
 are in no sense implying that a being can have gradu- 
 ated intensities of freedom. Rather, we mean that in 
 certain parts of experience he is limited, in other parts 
 free ; and the removal of limitation implies increase of 
 the extensity or range of his freedom, not a greater 
 intensity of some part of it. Freedom is an absolute 
 thing, which is, or is not, present in relation to some 
 particular set of conditions. And this applies to the 
 self-limitation of God. 
 
 Thus there is no transference of God's freedom to 
 man; rather the self -limitation of God vanishes 
 as the limitation of man vanishes. Eventually there 
 will be complete freedom, with many participating 
 in it. 
 
 Thus the creative movement is directed towards a 
 plurality of persons in complete union, and completely 
 free. There can be no question of sharing the freedom 
 
170 Matter and Freedom 
 
 of God, since freedom is an absolute quality, and not 
 a quantity. 
 
 And again, the idea of matter as a portion of the 
 ultimate Keality — the material of God's Experience — in 
 which He has, impelled by Creative Love, sacrificed or 
 abnegated His freedom, is at first puzzling. For this 
 matter becomes, in the long run, the material of man's 
 experience ; or rather, of that part of it in which he is 
 conscious of limitation. And for the animals it is the 
 whole material of experience. 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, we must look upon, and 
 have always looked upon, the act of Creation as an 
 expression of the activity of God. All that is new 
 in our suggestion is, that this activity is not merely 
 energising in its effect, but rather that it functions 
 first as a self-limitation, or cession of the power of 
 energising, in regard to one portion of the Divine 
 Experience, while it creates and energises something 
 that we term the vital impulse^, and, by so doing, 
 makes the final removal of the Divine Limitation 
 certain, through the achieval of freedom by the beings 
 that are to come into existence. 
 
 There remains however one great metaphysical 
 diflB^culty, which presents itself in two somewhat 
 different aspects. (1) Can there be one experience 
 
 1 This is equally true whether the impulse itself be created, or 
 only the situation of affairs which makes its appearance possible, 
 indeed inevitable. 
 
Four Problems 171 
 
 shared by many experients ? Are we justified in the 
 conception, which we have been led, or seduced, into 
 forming, of a union of human souls with God in the 
 sharing of a common experience ? And, if not, have 
 we not once more drifted on to the quicksand of pan- 
 theism ? must not the end be absorption, rather than 
 union ? (2) Can there be a common experience 
 shared by God and perfected man, since on the one 
 hand it was through God that men came to be, and 
 there was a part of God's experience when men were 
 not ; and on the other hand man's experience includes 
 the memory of struggle and sin ? Is memory nothing, 
 or at any rate, not a part of true experience ? 
 
 Into the attempt to solve these problems two other 
 matters must enter. We must try to form some idea 
 of what the abiding principle in man is — that principle 
 which makes us know that we persist through all our 
 changing experience — that elusive something which 
 forms the link between the was and the will he, 
 wholly inapprehensible to the intellect, for reasons we 
 have already stated. And we must try briefly to 
 formulate our ideas of the personal relationship of an 
 evolving being to the Godhead in its Transcendent and 
 Immanent aspects. All these things are closely linked 
 together, and by beginning with the last we shall be 
 led along a fairly well-marked path back to the first. 
 
 That which is immanent of me, that part of me 
 which is limited and becoming, that part which will 
 
172 The Transcendent Aspect 
 
 one day cease in fulfilment, is related to the Immanent 
 Aspect of God. As our study proceeded, this fact 
 came out more and more clearly. But besides this 
 there is in me something that persists through change 
 — the unchanging thing that is myself; that is not 
 merely the non-existent line that divides the was from 
 the will he of my experience, but the basal self-hood 
 that enables me to claim that experience as my own. 
 And this is the part of me which has achieved freedom 
 and in doing so has become timeless; which, by the 
 inturning of the consciousness on itself, has become 
 self-conscious, and so free, with the freedom of volun- 
 tary choice — of the true alternative. 
 
 There is a part of me which is in duration, which 
 ever changes from the was to the will 6e, whose jyresent 
 is only the indication of this change. But more and 
 more of me achieves, passes into true freedom, and so 
 passes into the simultaneous. For perfect freedom is 
 immune from matter and its laws, since matter is the 
 expression of a limitation; and being immune from 
 matter, and from all that is becoming (which also is 
 clearly limited), it is no longer in duration. The 
 immanent part of me is really Dr Thorpe's Ghost in 
 the Corpse, and for it "the sacramental word is 
 growth^." But Dr Thorpe's own estimate of "that 
 queerest of Phenomena, Somebody Else'^ — "he almost 
 always presents himself to me now as a growing, 
 ^ De Morgan, Joseph Vance, p. 376. 
 
of Human Personality 173 
 
 decreasing, or stationary Ghost," "often with little or 
 no control over his Corpse " — though purely immanental 
 in expression, yet contains the germ of this same 
 essential something which is not in Time at all, through 
 which I am enabled to recognise that the Ghost is 
 somebody else's Ghost, and not my Ghost. Each 
 Ghost has his own identity, which enables us to re- 
 cognise him, even though we see him growing or 
 decreasing. I cannot forbear to quote further 
 Dr Thorpe's tender, humorous lament over his younger 
 son, not for its relevance, but for the clearness of 
 insight it shows, and for the vague hope it suggests 
 to those who are troubled by some baby soul in 
 a grown-up body — hope very vague, very unsub- 
 stantial, yet rooted in trust of Eternal Love which 
 may still find out a way. 
 
 He's little Joey still, and I can see it as plain as possible. 
 His corpse has overrun him, and the poor Baby Ghost 
 has never a chance. His intellectual powers and his 
 carcase have grown. But his self — no! It's little Joey 
 still — that preposterous kiddy-widdy. 
 
 Anyhow, if there is a chance, little Joey has got to 
 win his own freedom somehow, somewhen, somewhere ; 
 and we must leave it at that, and come back to our 
 analysis. 
 
 The part of me which simply is, which has a real 
 present, and not an imaginary, shifting line dividing 
 past from future, is simultaneous. Its existence is 
 
174 Contrast between Human 
 
 for ever now. And because of this I know that 
 I am. 
 
 If then there is a simultaneous or transcendent 
 part of my personality, surely it is related already to 
 the Transcendent God — related to, but not truly united 
 with, Him, since there cannot be true union between 
 that which is complete or perfect and that which is 
 incomplete or imperfect. My changing, growing being 
 is related to the Immanent God; my persistent, real 
 self is related to the Transcendent God. And as my 
 immanence vanishes, gradually being absorbed into my 
 transcendence, so God's Immanence in relation to me 
 is reabsorbed into His Transcendence; and relation 
 between myself and Him is merged in union. Till 
 there is completeness there can be no union, for my 
 transcendence is not as God's ; since His was or rather 
 is, when mine was not. His Transcendence is complete 
 in spite of His Immanence, though in a different 
 sphere ; my transcendence is incomplete because of my 
 immanence. It is almost impossible to put these 
 things into words, because language is based on in- 
 complete communion between persons, and has its 
 basis in material limitation; but I trust I have 
 conveyed some idea of a distinction that is perfectly 
 clear in my own mind. 
 
 The is of me, my ego, is, then, just this part of me 
 which has passed from time into simultaneity. There 
 was a part of God's experience when it was not, but 
 
and Divine Transcendence 175 
 
 never again, perhaps, can it cease to be, even though 
 it may never achieve completeness and union. Yet 
 perhaps, on the other hand, the reverse process, the 
 diminution even of the free ego, is possible — less and 
 less of me transcendent, more and more of me im- 
 manent. This may be part of the meaning of the 
 bondage of sin ; the ego becoming smaller and smaller, 
 less and less free, as well as the immanent self — ceasing 
 to grow. And the process might lead to extinction, 
 if a man came to live solely in sensation. Either of 
 these seems logically possible — a spirit eternally in- 
 complete, or a spirit that suffers annihilation through 
 losing its transcendent ego. On the whole the second 
 seems the more probable, but we cannot decide by 
 reason. 
 
 Let us next turn for a moment to the animals. 
 Have they an is ? Are they in a measure tran- 
 scendent too ? 
 
 Only, surely, if they are self-conscious; and of 
 this, as we have often said, we have little knowledge. 
 But if transcendence is, as we have argued, the self- 
 knowledge of that part of a beingwhich is not susceptible 
 of change, and if this constitutes the is, the ego, clearly 
 there is no is, for the non-self-conscious animal. For it 
 there is only change. Its persistence is but the per- 
 sistence of matter energised by the vital impulse. It 
 is different wholly from the persistence of me, a person. 
 As we have said already, it is decidedly a question 
 
176 Relations between Man and God 
 
 whether for them the whole matter is not summed 
 up in the passing on of the vital impulse. 
 
 I, then, in virtue of my transcendency, can, and 
 do, have relations with the Transcendent God. I can 
 pray to Him, I can gain from Him the power to win 
 more freedom, to make more of me transcendent^. 
 For my aim is self-completion, the removal of myself 
 from time to eternity, from immanence to tran- 
 scendence. 
 
 With the Immanent God^ I am in constant relation, 
 in Time, because my spirit is still in bondage, and He 
 too is in bondage for my sake. As my nature has 
 two aspects, so each of them is in relation with the 
 two aspects of the Godhead, which He has suffered for 
 my sake. 
 
 These are but suggestive thoughts. The poverty of 
 our language, and the limitations of our reason, both 
 alike finding their origin far back in the discontinuity 
 of matter, make it impossible to set forth these mys- 
 teries adequately, or even such part of them as we can 
 grasp by intuition. 
 
 In result the suggestions amount to this, that we, 
 as persons, are fragments, offshoots, consequences — 
 whatever you like to call it: the essential point is 
 
 1 Vide infra, ch. vn. 
 
 2 We must always remember that we are not speaking of two 
 Gods, but Of two aspects of one mysterious Trinity. 
 
Memory 177 
 
 that we are no longer merely vehicles — of that vital 
 impulse through which freedom has come to be ; 
 fragments in which freedom has become in a measure 
 absolute, not relative. In other words, we have the 
 power of voluntary choice, of the true alternative. 
 And so far we are not in time at all, but in eternity. 
 
 We have now indicated the answer to the last two 
 of the four problems we enunciated a few pages back 
 (p. 171). We have seen what the abiding principle in 
 man, the principle that persists through change, is; 
 and we have briefly indicated the personal relationship 
 between developing man and the two Aspects of the 
 Godhead. 
 
 We must next turn to our other two problems; 
 and, beginning with memory, face the metaphysical 
 difficulties involved in the conception we have been 
 led to form, of a union in which are many experients 
 who share One Experience. Can all experience become 
 ultimately one ? 
 
 Bergson divides memory into habit and pure 
 memory, the latter being coextensive with conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 There are, we have said, two memories which are 
 profoundly distinct: the one, fixed in the organism, is 
 nothing else but the complete set of intelligently constructed 
 mechanisms which ensure the appropriate reply to the 
 various possible demands. This memory enables us to 
 adapt ourselves to the present situation; through it the 
 
 M. 12 
 
178 Immanental Philosophy of Berg son 
 
 actions to wHcli we are subject prolong themselves into 
 reactions that are sometimes accomplished, sometimes 
 merely nascent, but always more or less appropriate. 
 Habit rather than memory, it acts our past experience, 
 but does not call up its image. The other is the true 
 memory. Coextensive with consciousness, it retains and 
 ranges alongside of each other all our states in the order 
 in which they occur, leaving to each fact its place and 
 consequently marking its date, truly moving in the fast 
 [italics mine] and not, like the first, in an ever renewed 
 present^. 
 
 Into the relations of these two memories, so admirably 
 worked out by him, we need not enter, as they do not 
 concern our present discussion. Suffice it to say that 
 pure memory is the affirmation of the life and reality 
 of the spirit, just as perception is the affirmation of 
 the reality of matter. 
 
 Matter itself is, for Bergson, due to our body, 
 which is the ever-moving actual present of action, 
 pressing forward and cutting across the universal 
 "becoming"; and is thus presented to us as spatial. 
 Our perceived Reality is, in fact, movement, and is 
 hence durational. 
 
 It is essential that we should grasp the fact that 
 the philosophy of Bergson is purely immanental, in 
 duration; for it is concerned solely with movement, 
 growth, and becoming. We shall therefore look in 
 vain for help in the solution of problems relating to 
 1 Matter and Memory, Eng. Trs., p. 195. 
 
Volition and Irritability 179 
 
 transcendence. It is but another form of what Von 
 Hugel calls frelimiiiary pantheism, which is so valuable 
 a help in forming a true conception of the richness of 
 the Whole^. There is in Bergson's philosophy nothing 
 that can lead to the uninspiring deadness of an ultimate 
 pantheism. 
 
 We need not go into the whole question of un- 
 conscious psychical states; that kind of unconscious 
 consciousness which plays so large a part in Bergson's 
 system. We have already in some sort assumed their 
 existence, in dealing with the vital impulse; though 
 Hofiding would give choice and will as the character- 
 istic of all life, making spontaneity "only quantita- 
 tively different from irritability 2" — volition is, for him, 
 consciousness of activity in a being whose state is not 
 purely receptive 3. However, he uses the word "will" 
 not in "the narrower sense, as the power of choosing 
 between different possibilities," which, he rightly says, 
 "is only the product of mental development, not an 
 original factor"; but "in the wider sense, as all 
 activity determined by feeling and cognition^." And 
 this definition comes very much nearer to the 
 Bergsonian conception, differing from it however in 
 the introduction of the words cognition and feeling. 
 Whether we are justified in attributing these to the 
 
 1 Von Hugel, Eternal Life, p. 388. 
 
 ^ Hoflfding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 309. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 313. 4 Ibid. p. 100. 
 
 12-2 
 
180 Pure Memory is in the Past 
 
 lower organisms which simply show the irritability 
 that is characteristic of all life (even though it sinks 
 to a minimum in certain parasites, such as Sacculina, 
 as Johnstone points out)^ is another question. I am 
 strongly disposed to doubt if we are. But it matters 
 little to our main argument where we draw a line 
 which must of necessity be artificial. We are using 
 the term will in the " narrower sense," to denote the 
 freedom of the true alternative; and we claim that, 
 whatever be the exact condition of the lower organisms ; 
 whatever the justification for speaking of unconscious 
 psychical states ; all that concerns us is that there can 
 be no real choice without self-consciousness. We may, 
 if we please, go practically all the way with Bergson 
 without troubling our theory, for Bergson's system is 
 purely immanental, and we are concerned not with 
 immanence alone, but with transcendence as well; 
 ultimately, with transcendence alone. 
 
 The great question for us at present is. What 
 remains of memory in the transcendental state ? 
 
 According to Bergson, Memory only becomes 
 conscious when it is brought into contact with the 
 sensori-motor elements of present action^. Pure 
 memory is in the past^. All being, or, more exactly, 
 
 1 Philosophy of Biology, p. 291. An even more amazing instance 
 of parasitic degeneration than Sacculina is to be found in Thompsonia, 
 a form recently described by F. Potts in Proc. Canib. Phil. Soc. 
 vol. xvn. part vi. 
 
 2 Matter and Memory, p. 197. ^ Ibid. pp. 170-171. 
 
von Hiigel 181 
 
 all spirit, is existence in pure duration; simultaneity 
 is but a spatial concept^ ; indeed it is the intersection 
 of time and space 2. With such a view we cannot 
 agree, if it is pressed into the realm of transcendence. 
 What the Eternal Now connotes we do not. know, but 
 it is certainly not spatial. It is rather the absence of 
 duration, than its intersection with space. It is the 
 timeless activity of perfect freedom 3. Von Hiigel 
 illustrates its meaning in some degree by examples of 
 the experience of spiritual souls of to-day and yester- 
 day*. One of many suggestive passages may be 
 quoted from this writer. 
 
 Eternal life, in the fullest thinkable sense, involves 
 three things — the plenitude of all goods and of all energizings 
 that abide; the entire self-consciousness of the Being 
 Which constitutes, and which is expressed by, all these 
 goods and energizings; and the pure activity, the non- 
 successiveness, and simultaneity, of this Being in all It 
 
 1 Time and Freewill^ p. 95. 2 75 j^ p hq 
 
 3 We may note in passing Von Hiigel's admirable criticism of 
 the Bergsonian conception of duration. "But indeed Bergson 
 himself gives us two indications that we cannot take Duration as 
 the sheer Change and Becoming which he usually declares it to be. 
 For Duration ever consists with him in the interpenetration of its 
 various parts. Take away all these parts (however obscurely 
 discriminated and intimately interpenetrative) and the Succession 
 of Duration has become as homogeneous as the Simultaneity of 
 Space — which is precisely what the entire system does not want. 
 Yet parts are ever parts of a whole, and sheer Becoming has no 
 room for wholes, and hence none for parts," etc. Eternal Life, 
 p. 293. * Eternal Life, pp. 371-378. 
 
182 No Memory 
 
 has, all It is. Eternal Life, in this sense, precludes not 
 only space, not only clock-time — that artificial chain of 
 mutually exclusive, ever equal moments — but even duration, 
 time as actually experienced by man, with its overlapping, 
 interpenetrating successive stages. But Eternal Life pre- 
 cludes space and time because of the very intensity of 
 its life. The Simultaneity is here the fullest expression of 
 the Supreme Eichness, the unspeakable Concreteness, 
 the overwhelming Aliveness of God ; and is at the opposite 
 pole from all empty unity, all mere being — any or all 
 abstractions whatsoever^. 
 
 But, if Bergson's analysis of pure memory be 
 correct, as I believe, pure memory is in the past, not 
 in the now. It only flashes into activity with the need 
 of action in response to some external stimulus. It is 
 therefore connected with incomplete freedom, incom- 
 plete self-consciousness ; for it is directed towards the 
 appropriate action of a being partly determined from 
 without. Therefore memory cannot exist in the simul- 
 taneous — in Eternal Life, that is to say— for it only 
 comes into play in the relation between soul and body. 
 
 No doubt what I am, in my transcendent self even, 
 is based on the past, and go related to memory; but 
 memory itself can have no existence when I am all 
 transcendent. God cannot remember, because all 
 His transcendent experience IS. Only in so far as 
 He is immanent, in duration, can He remember. 
 
 So, though in part it is through memory that we 
 1 Eternal Life, p. 383. 
 
/ in Eternal Life 183 
 
 rise to transcendence, yet in so far as we are tran- 
 scendent we have no memory. 
 
 Does, or will, then, our past cease to exist for us? 
 Shall we retain no memories of earthly loves, earthly 
 friendships, earthly happiness, earthly sorrows ? Must 
 these all vanish, and leave not a wrack behind ? Or are 
 they so to speak spread out — it is impossible to avoid 
 a form of words that is spatial — like a great panorama 
 in the nowl 
 
 Surely all imperfection is swallowed up; but it is 
 swallowed up in perfection — ^all imperfect states be- 
 come merged in perfection. Earthly love becomes the 
 perfection of love. But the personality remains ; and 
 that came to be what it is through the partial loves 
 and friendships and sorrows and struggles of earthly 
 life. Personalities do not become identical because they 
 are made perfect. What we shall be then, is simply 
 the perfection of what we are now becoming^. There is 
 
 1 Surely this is what is meant by the Resurrection Body. " God 
 giveth it a body." Not a tangible piece of matter: that involves 
 limitation; but a self-identity which is the expression of the 
 completion of process. Doubtless there must he limitation, until 
 the spirit is made perfect. And if the spirit has to approach 
 nearer and nearer to perfection in other lives than this: if it is 
 not at once perfected when the mortal coil is shuffled oflF: some 
 sort of limitation, which may be a body of some kind, must still 
 hamper its freedom. But spirit perfected is absolutely free — free 
 to limit itself in any way, and so free to assume a body, or 
 5eZ/- limitation. This surely is the meaning of the Resurrection 
 Body of Christ, and His appearances after He rose. He was 
 perfectly free, and so could manifest Himself in any Body He chose. 
 
184 No Memory in Eternal Life 
 
 diversity in the Great Union, not identity. More than 
 this we cannot say. All we know is that the was is lost 
 in the is ; but the is is what it is because of the was. 
 
 All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good 
 shall exist; 
 
 Not its semblance but itself. 
 
 The only difference, surely, must be between the 
 
 broken arc and the perfect round. Is not this a part 
 
 of the meaning of that "hard saying" which often 
 
 distresses us "In the resurrection they neither marry 
 
 nor are given in marriage, but are as angels in heaven^." 
 
 Earthly relationships are fulfilled, being removed from 
 
 externality into pure mutuality. Their work is done, 
 
 and it remains. They are completed. And into the 
 
 meaning of this completeness we cannot enter. Only 
 
 we know that it will be far greater and fuller and more 
 
 utterly right than anything we can conceive of now. 
 
 Simultaneity has nothing of the eternal choir-practice 
 
 about it. God is not our Ruler, or our tyrannical 
 
 And all this is fully consonant with the statement in the Athanasian 
 Creed, that He is One Christ; One, not by conversion of the God- 
 head into Flesh; but by taking the manhood into God; One 
 altogether; not by confusion of substance, but by unity of Person. 
 Indeed such a conception seems to invest the dogma with fresh 
 meaning for modern minds. I am indebted to Canon Storr for 
 bringing to my notice a most suggestive and inspiring paper by the 
 Rev. Wilfrid Richmond, published in pamphlet form (by Messrs 
 Longmans, Green and Co.) in which this line of thought is admirably 
 developed, with reference both to the appearance of Christ after His 
 Resurrection, and the Pauline doctrine. 
 1 Matt. xxii. 30. 
 
The Fatherhood of God 185 
 
 Pedagogue, but our Father. We are not His trembling 
 slaves, but His fellow-beings, sharing the mystery of 
 Perfect Love. All we can be certain of is that TrXrjpwai^; 
 must vanish in irXrjpwfia ; process in completion ; and 
 with process time, duration, the past, must pass away. 
 Memory, whose function was the direction of activity 
 out of past experience, cannot exist in Eternal Life, 
 for its place is taken by something far higher. Activity 
 is now completely spontaneous. It does not need to 
 draw on the past for inspiration and guidance. 
 
 Yet we must not forget the other side. God is 
 before I am, and this must always have an effectual 
 influence. We must be conscious, even in the Eternal 
 Now, that on one side there is a blank wall bounding 
 our experience. We cannot express what this will 
 mean to us ; but we must surely somehow be conscious 
 that it is because of God's Transcendence that our 
 transcendence exists. No form of words can be 
 used that will not introduce spatial or temporal sig- 
 nification into our description of this difference, and 
 even our knowledge of it. We cannot do more than 
 use the parallel which Christ used. God is our Father. 
 The child recognises, in a way, that his father is 
 responsible for his coming to be, that fatherhood is 
 Causal, yet he does not feel this as a limitation of his 
 own being and activities now that he actually is. 
 
 Finally, we turn to our first, our metaphysical, 
 problem. We see that memory must be eliminated 
 
186 Experience of Transcendent Reality 
 
 from our conception of Eternal Life. But can we 
 justify the suggestion we have put forward, and 
 indeed been driven to, that the essential character 
 of transcendent existence is union; the sharing of 
 a common Experience? 
 
 According to Bergson the Reality we perceive is 
 movement, and so is durational. What then can we 
 conceive of the nature of a Reality that is transcendent 
 and' simultaneous ? As we have seen already, it can 
 only be conceived as activity again ; as mutual relation- 
 ship between persons; as activity in which there is 
 no duration. Such activity is inconceivable to us 
 rationally, for reasons which we have already set out 
 at length. Yet each one of us sometimes opens the door 
 of the Timeless a little crack, Hke Anodos in Phantasies^, 
 and for a moment passes through. But we return, 
 and, like him, can give no account of our experience. 
 
 In spiritual ecstacy, in deep love, in concentrated 
 thought, we sometimes open that door. Perhaps too 
 we do so in syncope, and in the time of long uncon- 
 sciousness that attends certain injuries to the brain, 
 when the soul remains chained to a material body 
 which has become dislocated and incapable of per- 
 forming its normal functions as a centre of responsive 
 action. I, for one, do not feel the oppression of the 
 "fearful sadduceeisms " that troubled Wendell Holmes 
 in connection with these phenomena. 
 1 George MacDonald. 
 
Persiste7ice of the Ego 187 
 
 But there are experiences for each in which Time 
 ceases to be, though it goes on for the material world 
 in which he lives, as he finds when he "comes back" 
 — and it is just this implacable march of time in all 
 around which, half understood, or not at all, suggests 
 the sadduceeisms. We fail to realise that duration 
 must continue for all that is immanent of us and of 
 our fellows. 
 
 Transcendence we may call, then, for want of better 
 words, activity without duration. The experience 
 of such activity is clearly different from all other 
 experience; but it is this experience which makes 
 up Transcendent Reality. Nevertheless can such ex- 
 perience be one, yet shared by many experients, as 
 our demand for unity suggests, even in the Eternal 
 and Timeless? On the one hand we have seen that it 
 will be unvitiated by memory ; but on the other hand 
 we must remember that the experients are different 
 persons, whose nature is founded on their experience in 
 Time. I have been moulded into nie, and not into 
 somebody else. The meness of me is determined by 
 the fact that my history is specific and peculiar. It is 
 not the same as the history which lies behind the 
 youness of you. I am passing, and have passed, into 
 transcendence by a different road from you ; and 
 since personality is determined in its transcendent 
 aspect by the method through which it has realised 
 itself (by achieving freedom in its immanent aspect), 
 
188 Persistence of the Ego 
 
 no two personalities can be the same even when they 
 are perfected. For the interpenetration of the im- 
 manent aspects of A and B is incomplete, and so their 
 experience, in time, must always differ by their own 
 self-hood, at least. And in transcendence A becomes 
 the perfection of A, B the perfection of B. Perfect- 
 ness is not one, but many. Just as the numerical 
 measure of infinites is not identical, so all perfectness 
 is not identical. Pantheism and nihilism become 
 impossible, if we keep this fact steadily in view. For 
 A has become A in a manner that differs from that 
 by which B has become B. Their self -identities have 
 been formed by different processes, and so must be 
 eternally different. 
 
 Now Reality for me is simply my experience, though 
 I know that there are other and different experiences, 
 and so, that true Reality, even in Time, must be fuller 
 than, and different from, my conception of it. But 
 in the timeless. Reality must also consist of the sum- 
 total of experiences. This can only differ among the 
 different experients by the experience each of his own 
 self-identity. In other words, at first sight it would 
 appear that A's experience will be that of all others 
 plus his own internalised; and B's that of all others, 
 including A's externalised, plus his own internalised. 
 
 But in this we are losing sight of the completeness 
 of union. We cannot talk of external and internal ex- 
 perience where there is perfect union. My experience 
 
Penetrability and Union 189 
 
 is the experience of all others. The only point of 
 difference is that / am there to experience it; and it 
 is just in this that the distinction from unity lies. 
 
 We may express it in this way, that I can put 
 myself completely in another's place, yet know that 
 I am not that other, but myself all the time. 
 
 We get some inkling of the meaning of this in 
 earthly love, which does in some measure teach two 
 people to look on life with each other's eyes. They 
 grow more and more alike; their community of ex- 
 perience is ever widening, although here memory 
 makes complete community impossible even in the 
 smallest fragment of that experience. Remove 
 memory, remove all that is durational, and their 
 experience might be one in these and all other frag- 
 ments, while yet they knew themselves to be two. 
 
 The great point, then, for us to remember is this ; 
 that there is nothing external in Transcendent Union. 
 We cannot speak of our experience of other persons 
 as being external to our experience of ourselves. There 
 is no "otherness" to be experienced. Reality is, rather, 
 mutuality raised, so to speak, to its highest power. 
 A loves B perfectly, B loves A perfectly; yet A can 
 put himself in B's place with complete understanding, 
 and B can equally put himself in A's place. Yet all 
 the while A knows himself to be A, and B to be B, 
 and B has the same self-knowledge. The whole 
 matter is beyond om* intellect, yet it is one and the 
 
190 The Tiiple Point 
 
 same with the truth, revealed by Christ, and accepted 
 by Christians, of a Trinity in Unity which is at the 
 same time a Unity in Trinity; Three distinct Persons 
 Who are yet One God. 
 
 It is here then, that our view differs in toto from 
 the Leibnitzian conception of monads. The system of 
 Leibnitz is essentially dynamic, and so is in touch, in 
 a sense, with the formula of Bergson, but it differs 
 from this in the conception of impenetrability. 
 
 And the conclusions to which we have been 
 driven by our reasoning suggest even more strongly 
 the existence of penetrability. Even for immanent 
 beings there is constant interpenetration, through the 
 additions made to environment by each evolving 
 organism. And transcendence we have viewed as 
 the completion of interpenetration, coincident with 
 the completion of self-identity. 
 
 In the doctrine of an immanence that is passing 
 into transcendence, with all that this implies, we find 
 the meeting place of metaphysical, scientific, and 
 theological thought. It is, to speak in the language 
 of the physicist, the "triple point" at which three 
 curves become coincident. Only, there is this differ- 
 ence, that the triple point of physical substances is 
 the intersection of three curves ; our triple point is that 
 in which the curves meet, and find a common origin 
 and explanation. It is the point at which each is 
 completed, and remains for ever at once explained by 
 
Conclusion 191 
 
 and explaining the others. We dare not venture to 
 claim that we have plotted our curves completely, or 
 that we have in very fact reached their meeting place. 
 At most we can but claim that we have found the 
 coordinates of a few points on each, with such honesty 
 and accuracy as we are able, and that the curves 
 plotted through these points seem to indicate that there 
 is a point common to all of them. And the location 
 of this point has been our aim. 
 
 Dropping all metaphor, let us say, humbly, and 
 with readiest admission of the imperfection of our 
 presentation, with fullest acceptance of the fact that 
 the task is far too high for us, and that we may have 
 unconsciously made some grave error that vitiates 
 one or more parts of our work — admitting all this, 
 let us say that we cannot help believing that all the 
 difficulties of thought have origin in one thing, the 
 absence of complete freedom, and that freedom will 
 find its final consummation in union, not in unity. 
 
 The conception of Immanence may lead us into 
 preliminary pantheism, but the conception of Tran- 
 scendence leads us out again into the purer light and 
 brighter radiance of Eternal Life, and we believe 
 again the oldest and yet the newest creed, that there 
 is a Father in Whom is no shadow that is cast by 
 turning, with Whom we shall at last dwell in union. 
 
 "Our Master himself has joyfully taken upon him 
 the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all for 
 
192 General Summary 
 
 ever" sings the Eastern Poet-seer^. Yes He is bound 
 with us all, but not for ever ; only until the day dawns, 
 and the shadows flee away; only until that which is 
 perfect is come. 
 
 Having now formulated our conception of the evolu- 
 tionary basis of spiritual life, our task is to apply it. 
 This we shall attempt to do by considering the relation 
 of what has gone before to the great facts of the 
 Christian life — Faith, Revelation and Providence, 
 Prayer, the Sacraments, and the Church. To this the 
 remaining four chapters will be devoted. 
 
 Summary of Argument. 
 
 Part of the argument of the foregoing chapters, 
 and especially of the last two, may be very briefly 
 summarised thus: 
 
 Man is largely immanent in his nature ; that is to 
 say, he is in duration, and exists at the meeting point 
 of the was and the will be of his experience ; as indeed 
 do all living creatures. 
 
 But man is also conscious of his self-identity. 
 
 This involves something that is not in duration, 
 but persists. 
 
 This something is his self, his transcendental ego, 
 a thing which persists and is outside duration ; which 
 is simultaneous, or transcendent. 
 
 Thus man is both immanent and transcendent, as 
 also God is in His relation to His creation. 
 1 Rabindranath Tagore, Oitanjali, p. 9. 
 
General Summary 193 
 
 But man is moving more and more towards freedom ; 
 and freedom is essentially transcendent and simul- 
 taneous. As more of man becomes transcendent, so 
 the limitation of God in relation to him is progressively- 
 removed; and God becomes more transcendent in 
 His relation to His creation. 
 
 But man, since he is a creature, winning tran- 
 scendence out of immanence, is determined in his 
 personal nature by his experiences. Of this he is 
 conscious; he knows that he is both making himself, 
 and being made by his environment. 
 
 The personalities of men, even when they become 
 transcendent and perfect, will therefore not be identical. 
 A will still be A, though he is the perfection of A-ness, 
 and B will still be B, though he is the perfection of 
 B-ness. In other words, self -identity will persist in 
 the simultaneous; that is to say, in eternal life 
 there can be no fusion of persons, and spirits will be 
 recognisable and differentiable each for other. In the 
 same way, and for the same reason, the perfected 
 man-spirit can never be absorbed in the perfect God- 
 spirit. Yet the penetrability of imperfect spirits 
 suggests that perfected spirits will possess complete 
 interpenetration. This means that A will be able 
 to enter fully into B's experience, and B into A's. 
 
 Yet A will know that he is not B, and that B knows 
 that A is not B, and B will have the like knowledge. 
 
 On the other hand, because A and B mutually 
 
 M. 13 
 
194 General Summary 
 
 interpenetrate, we cannot say that B is external to 
 A, or A to B. The only difference between their 
 experience is that each has knowledge of his own 
 self-identity as an experient different from the other, 
 while he can yet stand at the view-point of the other 
 and realise what is his — the other's — experience as a 
 self-identity. We can only gain a glimmering of under- 
 standing of what this means, and cannot express it in 
 words at all, since we are mainly in time and finite, 
 and can form no adequate conception of that which 
 is simultaneous and infinite. But in some degree it is 
 apprehensible, even to the spirit which is only in part 
 transcendent. It involves at any rate activity and 
 love, in forms of which we can conceive no idea. 
 
 The sum- total of Reality will thus be the same for 
 all, since each can view the whole both from the stand- 
 point of his own self-identity, and also from that of 
 every other. He realises the existence of "otherness," 
 but can penetrate the barrier which " otherness " sets 
 up under durational conditions. This, it is suggested, 
 is the (rationally) incomprehensible paradox of simul- 
 taneous existence; the rock on which so many philo- 
 sophies have found shipwreck, because its existence 
 was not recognised. 
 
 In some such way as this the problem of the One 
 and the Many may ultimately be solved, or rather, 
 be found to be unreal. 
 
PAET II 
 
 APPLICATION 
 
 13—2 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 PRAYER 
 
 Starting from the premisses of biological evolution, 
 we have found an explanation of the phenomena of 
 spiritual life and growth wholly compatible with those 
 reached by theologians and philosophers. The theo- 
 logian explains the yearnings of men after higher 
 things as manifestations of the double process of the 
 Creator reaching downward to draw His creatures to 
 Himself, and the creatures reaching upward toward 
 Him Whom their souls recognise as the perfection of 
 Life. Ultimately, he relies for his evidence on the 
 demonstrable reality of the latter, and an in- 
 demonstrable certainty of the former, process — 
 indemonstrable, as far as mere intellectual conception 
 is concerned, but demonstrable by historical evidences 
 which for him are only capable of this interpretation. 
 
 The philosopher finds no reality apart from ex- 
 perience, and so for him the ultimate Reality must be 
 the experience of a mind or minds. He finds an 
 all-inclusive Absolute, which he frequently endows 
 
198 Prayer only possible 
 
 with the attribute of personality in addition to pure 
 Being. 
 
 And arguing from the biological canon that evo- 
 lution is response to environment, we too were driven 
 to the conclusion that the Environment is spiritual, 
 and is further a Spiritual Being in Whom we live and 
 move and have our being. 
 
 We have discussed the reasons for ajQ&rming a 
 pluralistic universe in Time, as well as an Absolute, 
 transcending and including all, in the Timeless sphere ; 
 and we have tried to show that the antinomies of the 
 pluralistic and monistic systems may be reconciled in 
 this dual aspect of the Activity of God. In Time 
 God is limited, of His own volition, by the partial 
 freedom of His creatures. As their freedom becomes 
 more perfect, so the limitation of His freedom is 
 removed, by the unification of the will of men with 
 His Will ; and thus eventually we reach the conception 
 of an Absolute which is wholly God, since His Will 
 becomes Perfect and Transcendent, while yet It includes 
 a plurality of persons; independent in virtue of their 
 self-hood yet completely united in Love. 
 
 Turning now again to the temporal aspect of the 
 Universe, we have yet to seek a rational basis for the 
 universal belief in the validity of prayer, and to show 
 that it forms an harmonious part of the process by 
 which man's freedom is perfected. 
 
 It is clear that prayer is not possible for the creature 
 
for a Self-conscious Being 199 
 
 until it has reached a stage when recognition of the 
 relation between tool-making and ends, and not merely 
 the relation between tools and ends, has dawned; 
 the stage when it realises itself as a tool-maker. In 
 other words, until self-consciousness is achieved, with 
 all that it involves, there can be no voluntary effort 
 to aid the process of development. Before this, the 
 activity of the creature is directed towards immediate 
 ends. The prawn darts backward into shelter by 
 a violent flexion of the abdomen, in order to escape 
 danger. The spider crab plants weeds and barnacles 
 on its back in order to fall in with the infinitely various 
 uniformity of the rock-pool. Here the absolute deter- 
 mination of matter produces cause and effect. The 
 nervous system reacts inevitably. The "tools" are 
 there, ready to hand ; the need of them is there. The 
 stimulus is there, and the material basis of the nerve- 
 cord reacts with unfailing certainty. Stored up (if we 
 may use the phrase, for want of a better) in the ac- 
 cumulated experience of the life that is struggling 
 towards freedom, is the knowledge that tools will 
 compass ends. The rest is inevitable; for the brain, 
 or nerve-cord, being the material basis through which 
 experience projects itself for the purpose of action, 
 must always react definitely to a definite concatenation 
 of stimuli. In the higher stages, when greater freedom 
 has been reached, there comes to the individual recog- 
 nition that ends can be achieved by means. Gradually, 
 
200 Ends and Means 
 
 immediacy is replaced by mediacy. The savage, 
 discovering that a re-curved stick which he has found 
 by chance can be used successfully to catch fish, 
 proceeds to make a similar fish-hook, and improves on 
 the natural instrument, both in make and material. 
 Even to-day among primitive tribes one can see all the 
 stages of this realisation in progress. The end and the 
 means are here recognised, but there is a third stage — 
 the making of the tool. Thus, as we have seen^, the 
 dawn of reflective thought is gradual ; but once there 
 is understanding of the relation between means and 
 ends, once there is the grasp of mediate processes, it 
 comes inevitably. The creature begins to interpret all 
 experience in this light, and so achieves self-conscious- 
 ness. He develops his powers by the exercise of will, 
 and so progresses rapidly. All this has already been 
 dealt with at length, and it need not detain us 
 further. 
 
 The important point to grasp is, that though there 
 may be, and indeed is, some degree of freedom in the 
 lower creatures, yet only where there is self-conscious- 
 ness can we speak of choice and will in connection 
 with this freedom^. The choice between two immediate 
 responses to an external stimulus is not volitional. 
 In point of fact there is strictly no true choice at all. 
 The accumulated experience — which has always been 
 
 ^ Evolution and the Need of Atonement. 
 2 Soo note on Hoffding, ch. vi, p. 179. 
 
The Vital Impulse and Matter 201 
 
 urging towards freedom — is the determining factor if 
 the stimuli are of equal potency. 
 
 Our argument on this point may be briefly re- 
 capitulated. We have seen that the cause of progress 
 in evolution is the vital impulse — that divine unrest 
 which drives the creature forwards to the acquirement 
 of greater freedom, through the determinate interplay 
 of environment and matter animated by the vital 
 impulse; matter being thus interpreted as at once the 
 vehicle of that which possesses the power of freedom, 
 and as the factor which limits freedom. 
 
 Further we have seen that freedom, or indepen- 
 dence of external causation, is directly dependent on 
 the action of the law of causality, regarded in its 
 biological aspect; for we were led, by inductive 
 reasoning, from the biological canon that evolution is 
 adaptation — the suitable response to environment — to 
 the conclusion that freedom must be the suitable 
 response to the Environment-sum in the Cosmos. 
 Thus the freedom-factor of the environment, acting 
 causally on the determinate matter which has in itself 
 the power of progressive adaptation, or the vital im- 
 pulse, leads inevitably^ to the production of freedom, — 
 inevitably, because the basis or substance on which it 
 acts is matter, and is therefore determined. The 
 material basis ensures that the nature of the direct 
 response to the environment must be determinate and 
 
 * Inevitably for the race — not for the individual. 
 
The Transition from Immediate 
 
 inevitable ; the vital impulse or anabolic principle en- 
 sures that in the race as a whole there must be progress, 
 and progress towards freedom or control. In the 
 individuals of the lower phyla the response to actual 
 stimuli of all kinds, whether of hunger, of desire, or 
 of fear, is immediate; governed almost wholly by 
 determinate reactions in the neurones. In the races 
 alone indetermination is obvious, and there only in 
 the phenomenon of progressive adaptation. Yet, 
 as we have seen, it is the individuals which pass 
 on the vital impulse: in whom the vital impulse 
 dwells. But in the more specialised races of these 
 lower phyla we find the response of the individuals 
 still immediate, but yet showing a kind of choice. 
 At first this looks like individual choice. But a closer 
 examination shows that different individual caddises, 
 for instance, do not really show personal taste in the 
 decoration of their tubes, but rather use the objects 
 that come to hand indiscriminately. Only, when 
 a start has been made with some chance particle, 
 others harmonious with it are selected under the impulse 
 of the protective mimicry characteristic of the creature. 
 The race has chosen variegated particles from the 
 stream-bed as its tools for response to the stimulus of 
 self-protection, but all the members respond to the 
 stimulus in the same kind of way. 
 
 Tool-making is the race's mode of compassing the 
 race's end, although the freedom is contained in, and 
 
to Mediate Response 203 
 
 transmitted by, the individual. Indeed it is generally 
 true to say that immediate response is essentially of 
 the race and not of the individual. And this is to be 
 expected. The little freedom that has been won, the 
 little control over matter, is so trivial that the only 
 hope of survival lies in solidarity of action. 
 
 Higher up we get a gradual transition from im- 
 mediate to mediate response. Freedom is greater ; the 
 need of solidarity is not so urgent, and so it becomes 
 possible for freedom to become manifest in the in- 
 dividual; to rise from latency to activity. We thus 
 get obvious choice, even if choice of a limited kind, in 
 the mode of response to given stimuli. Of two dogs 
 desiring to get a walking-stick through a gap, one may 
 turn its head sideways, the other lay the stick down 
 close to the hole, get through itself, and then pull 
 the stick through. In this first case we get an act 
 verging on mediacy, for thought is needed before the 
 action is performed — the use of the muscles to turn 
 the head (an organic "tool"); and in the second case 
 an action definitely mediate — the use of the ground, an 
 inorganic tool. 
 
 But mediacy involves reflection, and reflection 
 involves self-consciousness and the recognition of the 
 I, and of means of subserving the desires of the I. The 
 case we have taken illustrates this at a very low grade. 
 The savage and the fish-hook illustrates it in a higher 
 grade. And from this the transition to true self- 
 
204 Immediate and 
 
 consciousness and the use of many mediate experiences 
 to achieve a desired end is obvious and simple. Non- 
 self has passed into self; the individual has become 
 a person. Thus we see that mediate action, involving 
 the recognition of self -hood, is volitional. The creature 
 has achieved some measure of choice. The savage — 
 perhaps the dog — recognises a certain desire in himself, 
 and realises himself and the end he desires as related 
 by a chain of potential phenomena; decides which 
 potential phenomena shall be realised as the causal 
 chain connecting his desire to its end ; and so, through 
 the mediacy of tool-making, achieves his aim. It may 
 still be objected that we have presented no evidence 
 of choice. To this objection it may be answered 
 (1) that the series from the unconscious use of tools 
 of the lower creatures to the conscious manufacture of 
 complex tools by man is complete, as has already 
 been shown ; and that, therefore, if we admit freedom 
 and volition in man we cannot eliminate all measure 
 of freedom from the lower races, even though we do, 
 and can justly, eliminate volition in many cases, since, 
 as we have seen, true volition is due to the inturning of 
 the consciousness on itself, producing self-consciousness. 
 Therefore the problem we have really to face is the 
 problem of freedom of will in man, which we have 
 already agreed to assume. (2) That although free- 
 dom does not involve choice, in the correct connotation 
 of that word, yet it does involve the possibility of 
 
Mediate Action 205 
 
 a dichotomy of development. Side lines of evolution 
 are possible, and, as we know, the possibility is ac- 
 tualised. Thus the freedom of the lower organisms 
 does lead to divergent modes of reaction in the lower 
 races, of which the inexorable logic of environmental 
 conditions selects the most suitable. And since 
 progress is the aim of vital evolution, and self-con- 
 sciousness gives the greatest possibility of progress 
 when a certain stage is reached; and since, further, 
 self-consciousness inevitably involves volition; the 
 freedom that has been, and is being, achieved is 
 manifested in conscious, instead of unconscious, in 
 mediate, instead of immediate, reaction, — in other 
 words in conscious choice or free-will. 
 
 Thus, mediate reaction involves reflection, and 
 reflection involves the recognition of causality. The 
 further consideration of the I leads to wonder as to 
 the chain of causation that resulted in the I ; — this is 
 one of the roads by which the mind passes to the 
 postulation of higher orders of spirits. The idea of 
 infinite regress being alien to the human mind, which 
 demands unity in the cosmos, man reaches at length 
 the idea of one great all-comprehending Being, Who is 
 God. Side by side with this development of thought 
 we find the growth of personal religion; and men 
 arrive at length at the conclusion that their business 
 is to be good; that is, to be like God, as far as their 
 limitations permit. With this comes the sense of the 
 
206 Is the Efficacy of Prayer due to 
 
 tragedy of life, "the good that I would I do not, but 
 the evil that I would not, that I do. wretched 
 man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of 
 this death ? " And man finds his answer in experience 
 — No man. Sometimes he feels himself strong enough 
 to cope with his lower nature: to keep before himself 
 the final aim, and find it of more worth than immediate 
 satisfaction. But this is not always so. Naturally, 
 he turns to higher powers, if higher powers there be, 
 and finds help and strength. As a certain fact he 
 discovers that prayer is of avail : that it does help 
 him. 
 
 He may easily drift into a semi-gnostic belief that 
 matter itself is evil, for he has no knowledge of the 
 miracle by which freedom is won from that which is 
 not free. He does not see that freedom cannot be 
 created even by God, except with the limitation that 
 it was created without its own choice, and so far is 
 not free. He does not realise that true freedom can 
 only be self-won. But this is beside the mark in our 
 present discussion, though the realisation of it casts 
 light as we have seen in previous chapters, on many 
 of the problems to which the existence of evil and 
 pain gives rise. 
 
 The important point for us now is that he turns to 
 a higher power whom he believes to exist, and finds in 
 some way the help he needs. 
 
 Later, as he reflects, he seeks to know whether 
 
Self-stimulatiwi, or to External Aid? 207 
 
 this help is really derived from outside, or whether 
 it is not rather true to say that the intense self- 
 direction of the will towards right, which is involved 
 in the act of prayer, does not give rise to the desired 
 strength. 
 
 This is the question to which we must now en- 
 deavour to give some answer. 
 
 Clearly, if we answer it wholly in the negative we 
 shall incur the right contempt of students of psy- 
 chology; while if we answer it even partly in the 
 negative, giving some place to the action of an outside 
 agent, we shall become involved in grave difficulties, 
 at least so at first sight it would seem, when we 
 consider the effect of such an admission on our basal 
 doctrine of true freedom, developing without inter- 
 ference from outside. On the other hand, if we agree 
 that the questioner is right, half the importance of 
 personal religion goes, since much of the communion of 
 man, as he is at present, with a Personal God, is done 
 away. Let us then examine the question carefully. 
 And first we must admit fully, freely, and to the utmost 
 limit of possibiHty, that result of self-concentration in 
 prayer on the highest ideal a man has, does give 
 strength in itself, and often at any rate, all the strength 
 that is needed. 
 
 Concentrated effort always tends to produce the 
 desired result. A shipwrecked man who desires to 
 fence in and clear a bit of ground, succeeds by the 
 
208 In either case its Validity is from God 
 
 strenuous purposeful use of tools, even though he has 
 first to design and make them. A man who desires 
 to conquer some sin succeeds by the strenuous, pur- 
 poseful use of his will acting on his own body, through 
 his own nerves. In the first case the man employs 
 extraneous matter to make his tools, in the second 
 he employs the matter which is his own physical basis. 
 In both cases his freedom is used to compel matter to 
 subserve his own ends. But in admitting this, we 
 are by no means arguing for the determinist, or for 
 the atheist, whatever form his atheism may take. 
 For we have seen that the whole process of evolution is 
 progressive, and, further, is progressive because of the 
 inherent indetermination of life. Moreover, we have 
 seen that the only reasonable explanation of mental 
 and spiritual evolution is, that it is the suitable response 
 to the environment; and the only environment to 
 which we can conceive as capable of producing such 
 a response is a Spiritual, Personal Environment. Meta- 
 physics points to a transcendent something, which is at 
 least Mind, and probably is more; theology demands 
 something more than an emotionless Absolute — a Per- 
 sonal Being. Hence, even for this power of self-advance 
 we are eventually driven back on the conception of a 
 God Who is over all and through all, and so in us all. 
 Prayer thus derives its validity eventually from God, 
 even if it is no more than the concentration of the 
 self on an ideal. But is it only this? 
 
Hdp would not limit Marts Freedom 209 
 
 First let us admit for a moment that, besides this 
 internal efficacy of prayer, there is external help, and 
 see how the idea fits in with our doctrine of freedom ; 
 and then we may consider what evidence there is for 
 the reality of this external aid, if we find no inherent 
 contradiction between it and what we have already 
 found our reason to commend as true. 
 
 All through we have argued that freedom, in order 
 to be perfect, must be entirely unconstrained at all 
 periods and in all phases. For this reason we claim 
 that, to our finite minds, no other means seems possible 
 for the perfection of freedom but the granting, not 
 of freedom itself, but of its potentiality. Would not 
 a Divine intervention. Divine aid, in answer to prayer, 
 be a constraint on real freedom? 
 
 No ! For we have seen that prayer is only possible 
 to the creature who has achieved self-consciousness 
 and volition. 
 
 This means that the demand for help from a higher 
 power is in itself an expression of the freewill or choice 
 of the individual. The mind of him who prays is 
 firmly set towards a particular purpose, which, we will 
 say for the present, represents his highest ideal, in so 
 far as it is involved in the point in question. He 
 finds the freedom he possesses himself not enough to 
 ensure his ability to act up to that ideal. But he 
 uses the freedom he has to demand more efficient 
 freedom not from God, but rather through Him. 
 
 M. 14 
 
210 Voluntary Use of Spiritual Environment 
 
 Clearly, as far as his action is concerned, he is not 
 limiting himself, but rather is striving to increase by 
 voluntary effort that individual freedom which is the 
 crown of the whole evolutionary process. 
 
 Turning now to the other side, the action of God in 
 response to this prayer, we have to consider whether 
 the gift of greater power to resist temptation, if it 
 existed, would be contrary to our basal principle that 
 the freedom of the creature must be won, not given, 
 and must suffer no external intervention. 
 
 And here again we must answer, No ! For how is 
 it granted? Not really as a gift from outside. That 
 form of statement prejudges the issue. The man, by 
 the action of his own volition and freewill, utilises 
 what he knows, or believes to exist, in order to further 
 his desires. In all reverence, and in the sense in 
 which we have constantly used the term, we may say 
 that he makes a tool of God. In furthering his material 
 progress he has made tools of the material part of his 
 environment; in order to further his spiritual progress 
 he now makes tools of the spiritual part of his environ- 
 ment. Both matter and spirit are fragments of ReaUty 
 outside his own self, and he uses both to further the 
 development of that self. In the long run, and without 
 entering into any of the detailed metaphysical problems 
 involved, we may say that the Reality which he ap- 
 prehends as matter and as spirit is all part of the 
 material of the experience of God — the expression of 
 
Prayer for Mistaken Ends 211 
 
 His activity; only in the one case he is making use 
 of a certain limited aspect of God's activity — matter — 
 for the furtherance of his ends; in the other he is 
 making use of the higher, freer, more inclusive aspect 
 of it. 
 
 But both are equally truly parts of a Reality that 
 is shared by God and man. So then we see that the 
 assumption that man can receive external help in 
 striving after what he knows to be highest entails no 
 contradiction of our main thesis that freedom must be 
 unconditioned by external influences. 
 
 In the foregoing discussion we have assumed that 
 man's prayer is for help in attaining his highest ideals. 
 It is possible to pray for help towards mistaken ends, 
 even towards evil ends. It would seem at first that, 
 on our own showing, God is equally bound to grant 
 such prayers. Can God choose whether He shall help 
 or hinder, according as man asks for what is really 
 good or bad, without limiting man's freedom? 
 
 Obviously, in the first place, man will gain power 
 by the self-concentration demanded by prayer, entirely, 
 or at any rate largely, irrespective of the nature of the 
 object of that prayer. Thus the self -suggestive power 
 of prayer may possibly, though not probably, be fully 
 as great as when the prayer itself is directed towards 
 good ends, although it is clear that such prayer will 
 lead to the decrease, not the increase of real freedom. 
 (Possibly, though not probably, because it will not, as 
 
 14—2 
 
212 God cannot Answer such Prayers 
 
 a rule, involve the exercise of the highest, freest, 
 part of man's being ; his lower self will generally have 
 its say in the matter.) Thus the effect of such prayer 
 is, consciously or unconsciously, opposed to the will of 
 God as manifested in the progress of living things. 
 If then God answered such prayer with external aid, 
 He would be contradicting Himself. God cannot 
 answer such prayers. 
 
 But does not this conclusion involve the difficulty 
 that God chooses what prayers He will answer, and 
 what He will not? And does not this choice on God's 
 part fetter man's freedom? Evidently, if we admit 
 the above mode of stating the problem, the answer 
 must be yes\ and so there is clearly a flaw in our 
 reasoning, either as regards the possibility of external 
 aid in answer to prayer, or in our last statement that 
 God chooses whether He will answer. The fallacy 
 lies in the second statement. God does not choose. 
 He cannot answer prayer that has not the true good 
 of the man for its aim, for to do so would be to limit 
 \lfiQ man's freedom, and so would involve a self-con- 
 tradiction in the Will and Being of God. Prayer 
 whose end, if fulfilled, is freedom or good, God can 
 answer; prayer whose end, if fulfilled, would be 
 limitation, or evil, God cannot answer, since He cannot 
 contradict Himself. 
 
 Next arises the question whether prayer is ever 
 answered — whether external help is ever given. 
 
The Question of External Aid 213 
 
 The answer to this question is far more difficult. 
 Evidently, it must always be hard to distinguish the 
 internal aid which prayer gives : (derived, as we have 
 seen, ultimately from God) — a mediate answer — from 
 external or immediate aid. 
 
 From the purely intellectual standpoint I do not 
 see that it is possible to give a dogmatic affirmative. 
 We know too little of men's powers and man's limita- 
 tions, and we know the superhuman power that 
 concentrated purpose gives. 
 
 All we can say is, that the belief in the direct 
 answer to prayer, at any rate in regard to spiritual 
 matters (we have yet to deal with prayer for material 
 gifts and blessings), is not in any way opposed to the 
 evolutionary conception of freedom and purpose in 
 the creation; rather, that it is wholly in accord with 
 the conception, and falls naturally into line with man's 
 efforts to call in the environmental factors in turn to 
 aid his progress. 
 
 We have also the historical fact of the evidence of 
 countless men and women who know in themselves 
 that they have received direct aid, but who yet may 
 easily be mistaken, from their lack of knowledge of 
 psychological analysis. 
 
 Finally we have the direct evidence of Revelation, 
 if we accept such evidence. Christ's behef in the 
 matter is quite definitely stated ; many of the passages 
 in which He refers to the efficacy of prayer in bringing 
 
214 The Question of External Aid 
 
 the direct aid of the Father, are unquestioned, critically, 
 even though the clearest of them, those in S. John, 
 may be of doubtful accuracy. Whether we accept or 
 reject this evidence must clearly depend on (1) the 
 view we take of the Person and mission of Christ, 
 (2) the weight that we attach to the fact that Christ's 
 words about prayer were coloured by the minds of 
 those who heard and reported them, and to whom 
 certain expressions might seem accurate paraphrases of, 
 or having exactly the same connotation as, the phrases 
 used by Christ, while in the light of our fuller know- 
 ledge, the two phrases might be far from equivalent. 
 
 The only answer that we can make to the question 
 whether God does. Himself, and in very fact, answer 
 prayer, is that the intellect cannot give a positive 
 dictum^; but that the evidence of intuition and of 
 revelation, if we accept such evidence, is on the whole 
 in favour of the belief, while it is entirely consonant 
 with — more, is reasonable and to be expected from — 
 the line of thought we have been driven to follow in 
 regard to evolution. 
 
 Lastly we have to deal with the question of prayer 
 
 1 Indeed this must be the case, if the will of man is to be left 
 free; conclusive evidence supplied from an external source, rmist 
 limit man's freedom, for it compels man to a certain conclusion 
 which will influence his action; moreover metaphysically we are 
 faced with a contradiction in terms in the assumption, since a 
 partial experience can never give to a changing mind permanent 
 and complete imderstanding of an ultimate fact. 
 
Prayer for Material Benefits 215 
 
 for material gifts — a question that has troubled the 
 minds of many generations, and which has never found 
 a solution that wholly satisfies the intellect. Again we 
 cannot hope to offer a final answer to the difficulties 
 of the question. To believe that we could would be 
 unjustifiable presumption, even if it did not involve 
 the fallacy just referred to, that partial experience, 
 which is growing and changing, can give an answer 
 that is of the nature of absolute or unconditioned 
 truth, and which will, so, stand for ever as the final 
 expression of a fact. We can only hope for a partial 
 understanding since our experience is partial; our 
 business is to revise our mode of regarding realities so 
 that it keeps pace with the widening of our experience. 
 
 As before, we will divide our discussion into two 
 parts — the question whether the granting of prayer for 
 material blessings is reconcileable with our argument, 
 and the question whether it is ever actualised in 
 experience. 
 
 We have already seen that the control of matter 
 by mind is fully intelligible from the standpoint of 
 the evolutionary theory we have adopted. We have 
 seen too that this control is, for finite intelligences, 
 mediated by intellectual methods and by the causal 
 use of matter as tools. But further, we saw that the 
 more intimately connected is that matter with the 
 personal experience of the individual, the greater is 
 the power of control. The facts of healing by hypnotic 
 
216 The Control of 
 
 suggestion, and of faith-healing, illustrate this. Hence 
 it became clear that the more wide- embracing the 
 experience, the more efficient the control over matter, 
 and the greater its range. Thus the control of God 
 over matter would seem to be complete, since His 
 experience is the whole of Reality — always remembering 
 that He can do nothing that limits man's freedom, or 
 is in opposition to the mode of His own creative 
 activity. For matter is one expression of His self- 
 limitation, which can be done away the moment the 
 need for it is gone, as man achieves freedom. 
 
 Thus nature- miracles wrought by man would seem 
 to be, not antecedently impossible, but yet only 
 possible when man's experience in regard to that part 
 of his environment is sufficiently complete. On the 
 other hand, nature- miracles wrought by God would 
 seem to be entirely possible, so long as the miracle does 
 not constrain man's freedom, nor yet interfere with the 
 phenomenal continuity which is the essential factor in 
 the evolution of life. 
 
 Now, assuming these premisses, our problem 
 narrows itself to this question : can God answer man's 
 prayer for material help and blessings, in circumstances 
 in which the experience of man is insufficient to supply 
 the necessary control of matter, unaided ? For it is 
 clear that, remembering our previous division of the 
 effects of prayer, where man's experience is adequate, 
 as probably for instance in certain cases of faith- 
 
Matter by Spirit 217 
 
 healing by prayer (which are allied to, if not identical 
 with, the power of healing by self-suggestion), the 
 concentration of the mind in prayer may, and probably 
 in these and other instances does, lead to the desired 
 result. 
 
 In attempting to answer this question we must be 
 very carefully guarded in our statements, for our 
 knowledge and experience are very limited, and we 
 cannot predicate with certainty things depending on 
 the nature of the complete experience of God. 
 
 And first, it is clear that God could answer such 
 prayer only when the desires expressed by man, with 
 his experience of only a fragment of Reality, are con- 
 sonant with the plan of God for man, seen in the light 
 of God's knowledge of Reality as a whole. In other 
 words, the desires of man must be in line with his 
 spiritual development, and this is a thing which man 
 cannot know with certainty. Therefore, clearly, his 
 prayer for material aid must often remain unanswered, 
 in accordance with the principle we enunciated a few 
 pages back. But assuming that the prayer is fully in 
 accord with man's highest interest, what then? In 
 such a case I cannot see that any valid distinction can 
 be drawn between the gift of increased freedom by 
 control of matter external to the individual, and the 
 gift of increased freedom by control of matter com- 
 prising the immediate experience or physical body of 
 the individual. And this latter we have already seen 
 
218 Every Answer to Prayer 
 
 reason to accept, for the prayer for spiritual blessings 
 almost certainly involves change in the matter of the 
 neurones — in the matter, that is, most intimately 
 related to man's consciousness; and we can draw no 
 distinction, except in degree, between such matter and 
 matter less intimately related^. 
 
 But, it may be objected that an answer to prayer 
 involving matter more external to man than his own 
 nervous system must affect others besides the man him- 
 self, and so introduce a change into their environment. 
 
 In considering this objection we must bear in mind 
 the fact that there is no scientiiftc impossibility in an 
 analysis of the chemical and physical changes in the 
 nervous system induced by processes of thought and 
 will. We already have some evidence for changes of 
 vaso-dilatation in the brain, and changes in the granules 
 of the nerve-cells, induced by thought; and a more 
 complete knowledge of the effect of thought on the 
 nervous system is only a question of more refined 
 methods of analysis, which may conceivably be achieved 
 at any time. Thus every form of thought and volition 
 affects matter external to other percipient individuals ; 
 and, potentially at least, involves a change in the Reality 
 external to them in such a way as to affect the fragment 
 of Reality which is included in their experience. 
 
 Here also, then, we find a difference in degree, not 
 in kind. We cannot draw a line between response to 
 
 * See Additional Note at end of book. 
 
directly affects Matter 219 
 
 prayer that affects the mind and spirit of the indivi- 
 dual, and response that affects matter, either part of 
 himself or outside himself. For anything that gives 
 him greater freedom changes the experience of other 
 percipient individuals in contact with him. So also, 
 the internal stimulus given by prayer must also affect 
 other individuals besides the man who prays. The 
 reform of a drunkard, for instance, however achieved, 
 very greatly affects the lives of all the members of his 
 own household, as well as his fellow- topers ; in a less 
 degree it affects the licensed victualler, the brewery 
 and distillery concerned, and, less and less markedly, 
 and in ever- widening circles, the pockets of the widows, 
 orphans and other citizens who finance the mechanism 
 whose functions he misused. In other words we have 
 come back to our original contention^ that the progress 
 of the individual often changes the actual environment 
 of others, and always introduces a new factor into 
 their potential or total environment. Thus it becomes 
 obvious that the two questions we have asked in regard 
 to the possibility of prayer for material aid being 
 answered, fall into exactly the same category, and 
 require the same reasoning, as the parallel questions 
 in regard to spiritual gifts. All that we said on that 
 subject is equally applicable to the present one. There 
 is no difference in kind between the granting of spiritual 
 and of material aid. 
 
 1 Evolution and the Need of Atonement, ch. i. 
 
220 The Control of Matter 
 
 It is true that there are additional matters to be 
 considered in regard to the actualisation of material 
 aid from an external source — which we may practically 
 term miracle. There is always the difficulty of dis- 
 tinguishing between the effects of self-concentration in 
 prayer and external aid; and this difficulty becomes 
 all the greater when one remembers that the basal 
 question as to whether mind can influence external 
 matter at all has been long in dispute among scientists, 
 and when one considers the proneness of man to re- 
 gard an isolated coincidence of volition and realisation 
 as a miraculous answer to prayer, while the thousands 
 of cases where the coincidence does not occur, pass 
 unnoticed. As we have shown, the primary difficulty 
 disappears in large measure when we remember that 
 thought and desire themselves produce a material 
 change in the nervous system, and often in the body 
 itself, and when we further remember (as was pointed 
 out in chapter iii) that material contact or physical con- 
 tinuity is probably not necessary for concerted action 
 in hive colonies and the like, or in the case of the almost 
 indisputable records of telepathic communication ; even 
 though there is in such cases continuity in a sense, 
 through the medium of air and ether. The control of 
 mind over the matter that is its actual physical basis 
 is an undoubted fact, in a limited degree; and there 
 is no a priori scientific argument against the extension 
 of this control, while metaphysical reasoning is in 
 
hy Spirit 221 
 
 favour of it. Indeed here too, as everywhere, we find 
 continuity, although we must confess that so far the 
 minds of men have achieved comparatively little 
 direct control over matter. This is natural enough, 
 however, since the indirect control evidenced by tool- 
 making has reached such a pitch of perfection as to 
 render the other not so vitally necessary; and, more- 
 over, the whole process we call evolution is founded 
 on control of matter gained before consciousness is 
 reached, and it naturally continues largely along these 
 lines afterwards. We have, however, a good deal of 
 evidence for more direct control through prayer, 
 though it must be accepted with reserve. The miracles 
 of Our Lord, of the Apostles, and in modern times the 
 miracles of Lourdes^, and those reported of Pastor Hsi 
 (which must however be received with some reser- 
 vation) as well as those of ordinary psychiatry, do 
 constitute a body of evidence of some worth. But our 
 object has been to show that the idea of the control 
 of matter by spirit is not opposed to the evidence of 
 evolutionary progress; indeed, that it on the whole 
 receives confirmation and support from this; rather 
 than to uphold it as proven. As we have seen, the 
 material basis through which the intellect works, 
 makes logic the only possible means of reasoning, 
 
 1 See, for instance, the analysis of the Lourdes miracles in the 
 British Medical Journal for June 18, 1910, which is devoted to this 
 subject. 
 
222 Conclusions 
 
 and thus the material or katabolic law of Causality 
 determines the rational mental processes. But we do 
 not know that the intuition has this same intimate 
 relation with the ordinary processes of apperception. 
 Indeed, as Bergson has shown, it seems likely that 
 intuition, which is not directly conditioned by reaction 
 to external stimuli, is independent of logical processes. 
 Thus it may possibly be independent of material 
 changes in the brain, falling, in any case, rather into 
 the same category as the race-consciousness or herd- 
 instinct, and the vital impulse itself; dependent on 
 matter for its power of manifestation, at any rate in 
 the realm of our experience, but not linked with it 
 in intimate union. "For who among men knoweth 
 the things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which 
 is in him ? Even so the things of God none knoweth, 
 save the Spirit of God^." The idealist will be quite 
 ready to grant the possibility of consciousness whose 
 contact with reality is not circumscribed by what we 
 call matter. 
 
 So far then we have come to certain definite con- 
 clusions : 
 
 (1) That direct answer to prayer is not irre- 
 concileable with the process of man's self-realisation, 
 in the acquisition of freedom ; but rather, that analogy 
 would lead us to believe it true, since all man's freedom 
 has been won in the utilisation of his environment, 
 
 1 1 Cor. ii. 11. 
 
Conclusions 223 
 
 and his spiritual progress no less than his material 
 depends on his utilising his environment. This amounts 
 to saying that he utilises God in achieving the ends for 
 which, after all, God "meant" him. For we saw that 
 he could only "utilise" the power of God when his 
 will coincided with God's Will, and his partial experience 
 was identical with God's experience of that fragment 
 of ReaUty in which his being moved. So far from 
 constraining God's Will, it frees It from some of the 
 self-limitation imposed by the Creation (and by the 
 Atonement), through identification of man's will with 
 God's. 
 
 (2) That material gifts in response to prayer 
 differ only in degree from spiritual gifts. They clearly 
 belong to a higher stage of freedom, in the sense that 
 mediate control of matter by mind, not immediate, is 
 involved. So they must be rarer, and only achievable 
 by those who have climbed higher up the Jacob's 
 ladder set up between the creature and the Creator. 
 But there is no antecedent improbability, even, in 
 such response to prayer, but quite opposite. 
 
 (3) We are not concerned with proving or dis- 
 proving specific instances of answered prayer. All we 
 are concerned with is, whether our belief that man's 
 freedom must be won by struggle, and by utilisation 
 of the environment, which is, after all, but a higher 
 grade of adaptation, strengthens or weakens the hand 
 of those who claim that experience teaches that prayer 
 
224 Conclusions 
 
 is answered. And we find strength, not weakness, in 
 their contention. We cannot expect to find proof 
 acceptable to all, for we are dealing with progress by- 
 gradation, and there are always those who solve the 
 riddle of the butterfly by concentrating their attention 
 on the egg ; who seek to find the explanation of mind 
 in the matter from which mind emerges. The common- 
 sense man measures heaven by earth; the idealist 
 measures earth by heaven. The angel measured the 
 New Jerusalem with a rod brought from heaven: we 
 too often seek to measure it with a foot-rule, or with 
 the tentacle of a jelly-fish, according as our education 
 has been based on Physics or Biology. All we can do 
 is try to show the man of common sense that the very 
 idea of such measuring implies a heaven — something 
 beyond the mere compass of a wooden rod. 
 
 (4) The other objection of common sense, that 
 prayer helps a man by the concentration of purpose 
 it involves, received our hearty assent. But the con- 
 clusion to which it led us, when we examined its real 
 significance, was far different to that at which the 
 materialist would have us arrive, for we found the only 
 meaning of it in the will of God. 
 
 Note. A brief reference to the question of prayer for the dead 
 in relation to our general line of argument may not be out of place. 
 Evidently, the justification for such prayers must rest on the belief 
 that when man dies he does not pass at once and wholly from 
 immanence to transcendence. If the soul enters into perfect union 
 
Note on Prayer for the Dead 225 
 
 with God when it leaves the body, there is no room for prayer, only 
 for communion. If there are still ages before it in which it gradually 
 grows into closer union with the Father, we may still surely pray 
 for it, though under the fullest reservation, for the understanding of 
 its conditions is absent. But, if this be so, the dead can pray for us 
 with far more knowledge than we for them. Unless man passes 
 straight from human imperfection into transcendent perfectness, 
 the communion of saints must surely become fuller and richer in 
 content by the prayers of each for other, even though some have 
 passed behind the thin, dark veil. 
 
 15 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SACRAMENTS 
 
 All through our argument one fact has come more 
 and more strongly into prominence, namely, the in- 
 strumental function of matter. And if we are right in 
 looking on matter as one form of expression of the 
 divine self-limitation in creation, it becomes, of necessity, 
 the instrument of the Will of God in time and space. 
 It becomes the means by which His Will is made 
 effectual in the creation of freedom gained not given. 
 It becomes the outward and visible sign of an inward 
 and spiritual grace. It becomes sacramental in nature ; 
 for surely there is nothing that more perfectly fulfils 
 the conditions implied in the word. We have seen 
 matter as a means to an end, that is, as an instrument ; 
 we have seen the gaining of spiritual freedom through 
 this instrument. It is true that the freedom must be 
 won. There is no gift of freedom; the gift is rather 
 a provision of something that, used aright, gives the 
 power of advance towards perfection. We find that 
 in this regard we must adopt a modification of the 
 Receptionist doctrine, when we speak of the Sacrament 
 
The Sacrament of Environment 227 
 
 of Matter, or better, of the Sacrament of Environment. 
 A modification, because the Receptionist holds that 
 a sacrament is only efi&cacious when the man believes 
 that he receives it ; without belief there is no reception 
 of the gift. But we have seen in our argument that 
 the gift of the vital impulse entails responsibility; 
 that it canrMt be without effect. If the man, or the 
 lower organism, consciously or unconsciously, makes 
 wrong use of the gift, he pays the penalty. He must 
 either increase or decrease his freedom; there is no 
 standing still. He must always react to his environ- 
 ment, be it matter or spirit, and the nature of this 
 reaction determines his future course. In regard to 
 the Sacrament of Environment the Pauline doctrine 
 applies to the full ; he who does not perceive the nature 
 of the gift receives judgment, even condemnation, 
 unto himself. 
 
 We must bear this in mind as we turn to a con- 
 sideration of what we term the Christian sacraments. 
 Here we may most profitably direct our attention to 
 the greatest of the Christian sacraments — the Lord's 
 Supper. After viewing this from the standpoint of 
 our thesis, in order to see whether we can gain any 
 light, even though it must be very partial, we will 
 briefly consider one other sacrament, Baptism. Again 
 we must lay stress, in regard to all the matters which 
 come under our consideration in this essay, as we 
 did in regard to the Atonement, on the fact that 
 
 16—2 
 
228 Views on 
 
 we have definitely and of set purpose adopted one 
 standpoint, that of Evolution. Therefore whatever 
 conclusion we arrive at, even though it be true, must 
 be partial. We are only looking at one facet of the 
 crystal. But, ex pede Herculem. More, as Wendell 
 Holmes says, ex ungue minimi digiti pedis Herculem 
 ejusque patrem, m^trem, avos et proavos, nepotes et pro- 
 nepotes ^. If our reasoning is valid, the conclusion we 
 come to must represent one complete aspect of the truth, 
 even if we only argue from a small basis, so long as our 
 starting point is valid, though it will not represent 
 the whole truth. Provided our premisses and our 
 logic are good we must arrive at an approximately 
 accurate estimate of the stature of Hercules, at least, 
 even though we have no evidence here to limn his 
 features; for our Hercules is perfectly proportioned, 
 and we can be sure of our synthesis in what measure 
 it is involved in our premisses. Much is outside our 
 purview, but there must be no clash between what 
 we find to be true, within our limited range, and what 
 is really true. If metaphysical, scientific, or theo- 
 logical descriptions of the same phenomenon differ 
 fundamentally from each other, one or other must be 
 wrong. 
 
 First then, what is it that theologians say in regard 
 to the Lord's Supper? And here we are met at the very 
 outset with the disquieting fact that they say several 
 ^ Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, v. 
 
the Holy Communion 229 
 
 mutually incompatible things. All agree that some 
 special holiness attaches to the ritual instituted by- 
 Christ Himself, and most that there is special grace 
 granted thereby. But there agreement ends. Some 
 regard it purely as a memorial, efficacious only in the 
 same way as prayer. Yet, rather illogically (for they 
 reason that any other interpretation than the memorial- 
 istic one is irrational and unsupported by scripture or 
 common sense) they attribute a special grace to it, 
 from a connection, really unreasoned, in their minds 
 that links it with the Last Supper as a living fact and 
 not a mere memorial. They build, however, mainly 
 on "This do in remembrance of me." 
 
 Others believe that to him who receives in faith, 
 Christ does give a measure of Himself. They lay stress 
 on His words about His Body and Blood, which the 
 first regard as purely metaphor ; yet they do not take 
 them literally. For them it is as though Christ had 
 said, "those who do this in faith, in remembrance of 
 Me, I will make partakers of My Body and Blood, in 
 a spiritual manner." 
 
 Others believe that the consecration is something 
 analogous to the signing of a cheque. In some way 
 the elements suffer an alteration which gives them 
 a value they had not before ; not by substantial change, 
 but by an act of approval made by God, which renders 
 them valid. The signed cheque is still paper, but it is 
 something more. These men lose sight, more or less. 
 
230 Views on the Holy Communion 
 
 of the Memorial, and accept the Real Presence of the 
 Body and Blood of Christ, though in a form that 
 represents an addition rather than a change. 
 
 Lastly there are those who, accepting the Eeal 
 Presence in its fullest sense, believe that the substance 
 of the elements is changed into the sacred Food. The 
 accidents of form and weight and colour and taste 
 remain unchanged, but the bread and wine are bread 
 and wine no longer, but Christ. They evade or pass 
 over the old metaphysical difficulty involved in sub- 
 stantial without accidental change, which they argue, 
 is a matter of words, not realities. For them the 
 changed elements are to be worshipped as the Saviour 
 Himself. Yet they do not forget the Memorial side of 
 the Mass; the Roman Catholic doctrine of Sin makes 
 the Mass itself a showing again of the Lord's death, 
 efficacious for the wiping away of actual sin; the 
 originalis justitia having been restored in the Death on 
 the Cross, which also gave to the Mass its validity in 
 wiping away the actual sins of men. Thus the system 
 of the Roman Catholics, apart from the importation of 
 bygone sacrificial meanings, is seen to be complete — 
 far more so than the others ; and, if the metaphysical 
 difficulties of transubstantiation are rejected or ex- 
 plained away, far more logical. To some completeness 
 is a help and comfort, to others it is a building that 
 precludes growth, walling them in; just as to some 
 the flint skeleton of a radiolarian is seen as the means 
 
Congruity of Aid through the Eucharist 231 
 
 of its success and survival, to others it seems the 
 reason why the creature has remained stationary for 
 millions of years; one points to evident protective 
 design in the carapace of the lobster, the other to the 
 hopeless failure of the armour of the glyptodonts. And 
 both have to admit that it is man's skeleton that 
 gives him power to be what he is. Form is needed. 
 Who shall decide when form is our servant, and when 
 we are its slaves? 
 
 First then we must admit great diversity of view 
 and belief, and admitting this, we are set the more 
 free for our consideration of the sacramental problems, 
 for we have not to face a universal consensus of opinion. 
 We have not the temerarious task of discussing that 
 of the truth of which everyone is convinced. 
 
 Now we see at once that what we said of prayer 
 applies here also in some measure. To this we shall 
 return. At present we may say that there is no 
 difi&culty in believing that God can give grace in 
 response to the wish of man, even though we cling 
 tenaciously to our belief in evolution, with all that 
 it entails. 
 
 Moreover the form in which the grace is granted is 
 wholly consonant with what we know of the laws of 
 progress. Answer to prayer is given always through 
 material channels ; not merely in the sense that matter 
 is the only medium of communication between spirit and 
 spirit, though that is, at any rate in many instances, 
 
232 Congruity of Aid 
 
 the fact; but in the sense that the environment is 
 both material and spiritual, and progress depends on 
 the utilisation of all the affecting environment, and 
 not only of the spiritual part. Where we are dealing 
 with the categories of space and time; while men are 
 in the material body that is ; these categories enter into 
 the environment. The spiritual environment of the 
 material world is God expressing Himself in time and 
 space, while He yet transcends them. The answer to 
 prayer, then, must recognise time and space and material 
 phenomena as their substratum, while involving also 
 something beyond. All through there must be not 
 merely parallelism, not merely uniformity, but unity. 
 
 Hence we found no difficulty, from the point of 
 view of freedom, in accepting the possibility of grace 
 given from without; and in realising that it must be 
 given through material channels. 
 
 We have now to consider, granting the possibility 
 of direct aid from God, what are the implications of 
 the material form involved in the sacramental idea; 
 and afterwards to apply our results in order to see to 
 what conclusion they lead us in the matter of Holy 
 Communion; whether they offer any intellectual aids 
 to belief founded on experience, and also, whether they 
 tend towards any particular form of doctrine. We 
 must further see whether, and in what mode, we can 
 distinguish between the sacramental gift and the 
 ordinary gift of God in prayer. 
 
through the Eucharist 233 
 
 Now, as we have already said, there is, in the very- 
 idea of evolution, something sacramental. Matter is 
 the vehicle of spirit. More, spirit comes to be true 
 spirit, free and volitional, through its relation with 
 matter. The whole of life is God's gift of Him- 
 self. 
 
 Thus it is obviously congruous, at least, that the 
 special grace of God should be given in association 
 with matter, if only as an emphatic demonstration of 
 the fact that matter is the mode by which God's Will 
 is fulfilled. Matter is not evil, nor yet good, but it is 
 a means of grace none the less; indeed it is the only 
 means of grace of which we have any perceptual 
 knowledge. As the spiritual significance of matter 
 becomes, through the ages, more clear to evolving 
 mankind, so the spiritual significance of the matter 
 which Christ chose for the imparting of Himself be- 
 comes more clear to the Christian whose life is growing. 
 
 The matter which Christ chose for the imparting of 
 Hiynself. Assuming, with the theologians, that such 
 a gift is given, what meaning do we attach to this 
 phrase ? 
 
 First, I think, we see that it implies no limiting of 
 man's freedom. It is a gift to those who have accepted 
 Christ. It confers an intimate relation between im- 
 perfect man, who is yet made at one with God, and 
 the perfect God Who expresses Himself imder the 
 limitations of manhood, of space and time, in order to 
 
234 Communion through the Eucharist 
 
 supply the basis of union, making things which were 
 incommensurable, commensurable by His adoption of 
 the categories of man's being. Christ expresses Himself 
 as the Last Term of the Human Series ; that is, of the 
 Human Series become divine in spite of the limitation 
 of its conditions. It is the Memorial of the great Act 
 by which the possibility of union with God was con- 
 summated; by which that union was removed from 
 the domain of the impossible to that of the possible. 
 But it is more. It is the constant renewal of union, 
 rendered necessary by the daily sins of men. 
 
 This aspect requires closer consideration. 
 
 We have seen^ that the Incarnation, the Life and 
 Death of Christ formed a second kenosis, in which 
 God Himself accepted all the conditions of human 
 limitation, even unto death— a death rendered igno- 
 minious by the blindness and evil- will of men ; though 
 this form of death was perhaps not needed for the 
 purpose of atonement. We have seen that, in some 
 mysterious way, the acceptance of a temporary 
 extinction of the eternal side of perfected manhood in 
 Him Who was also Eternal in Simultaneity constituted 
 a fresh start, analogous to the first creation, while 
 it again limited His Godhead in time and space. 
 Limited again, because the second kenosis was the 
 voluntary acceptance of the consequence of the mis- 
 direction of will in man. The Creation left living 
 
 * Evolution and the Need of Atonement, 2nd ed., ch. vn. 
 
Institutionalism in Religion 235 
 
 matter free to evolve towards freedom ; the Atonement 
 set man free again — free from the chains and clogs 
 bis sin had bound him with, by the mysterious adop- 
 tion of those limitations into the Time Aspect of God. 
 Thus we saw that another Atonement was impossible, 
 as well as unnecessary. God cannot do more than 
 take on Himself the limitations imposed by sin. The 
 Risen Lord has transcended Humanity, leaving behind 
 its limitations ; but by the Incarnation and Atonement 
 He has made even fallen humanity once more com- 
 mensurable with Godhead. And, because men sin, 
 they need a constant reminder, a constant spiritual 
 renewal, of this union of Godhead and manhood in 
 space and time. 
 
 We may now leave this side of the matter for a 
 time, in order to consider the general question of 
 sacraments more fully. We shall then return to the 
 Lord's Supper, and finally try to fit our conclusions 
 into their proper place in our whole system of thought. 
 
 Von Hiigel^ rightly emphasises the fact that the 
 tendency of Religion has always been to express itself 
 as a Cultus, whether it be Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, 
 Mohammedan, or even Animistic, in form. Cultus — 
 institutionalism — by its persistence through all chang- 
 ing creeds and systems, proclaims its own indis- 
 pensableness to human nature. And the power of its 
 appeal undoubtedly lies in the emphasis it places on 
 
 1 Eternal Life, p. 325. 
 
236 Reasons for Institutionalism 
 
 the vital importance of solidarity. With this we shall 
 have to deal in the last chapter. It is enough for us 
 at present to recognise the universality and importance 
 of institutionalism in religion, and, without discussing 
 the deeper meanings of solidarity, to notice on what 
 this craving of the human soul for cultus is based. 
 Von Hiigel gives three reasons for its existence. 
 
 (1) "The need of common worship, or com- 
 munion^." Evidently the roots of this lie deep in the 
 ultimate fact that personality demands personal re- 
 lationships which tend more and more towards union. 
 
 (2) "The essential, persistent contribution fur- 
 nished by sense-stimulations and non-mental causes 
 and objects to our entire knowledge and our most 
 elementary self-consciousness^." This is the basis 
 of sacramentalism ; that mystical vision which sees 
 spiritual meaning in common things. 
 
 (3) "The need for Religion as a whole (although 
 itself a distinct, and in its way complete, experience, 
 life, and organisation) ever to keep aware of, to accept 
 or combat, and to assimilate or reject, the various 
 chief forms and conclusions presented by the other 
 complexes and organisations of human life. 
 
 " Religion, indeed, is not directly either Ethics or 
 Philosophy, Economics or Art; yet at the peril of 
 emptiness or sterility, it has to move out into, and to 
 
 1 EterTuil Life, p. 326. 
 * Ibid. p. 328. 
 
Meaning of the Miraculous 237 
 
 learn from, to criticise, and to teach, all these other 
 apprehensions and activities^." 
 
 This again really resolves itself into an acceptance 
 of the universal and spiritual significance of all pheno- 
 mena, and thus, like the others, finds its ultimate 
 sanction in the spiritual interpretation of nature. 
 
 All through our work we have seen that it is 
 a fatal mistake to restrict the meaning of spiritual 
 activity within the narrow limits of the conventional 
 significance of the word, or to look on miracles as 
 purely supernatural phenomena. Spiritual and physical 
 activity are one and the same. The only difference 
 between the two lies in the partial absence of activity, 
 that is, in the lack of freedom, in some phenomena of 
 the latter. And the only meaning we can give to the 
 word miracle is the manifestation of an efficient activity 
 of spirit in regions where it is unexpected by some 
 individual man. Thus the villainous Case, in Steven- 
 son's Beach of Falesa, is able to work evident miracles 
 by means of luminous paint and aeolian-harps, but 
 as soon as Wiltshire shows the chiefs that he knows 
 all about it, and ofEers to do the same if he can get 
 hold of a few banjo-strings, the thing ceases for them 
 to be a miracle at all. Ignorance of the possibility 
 of some form of spiritual activity (in its widest sense) 
 in those he wishes to impress has been the whole 
 stock in trade of the miracle-monger from time 
 1 Eternal Life, p. 330. 
 
238 Essentials of 
 
 immemorial. The working of miracles simply depends 
 on the possession of superior knowledge and the power 
 to make use of it — ^in short, the possession of superior 
 freedom. Without irreverence we may say that this 
 statement applies equally, each in its degree, to the 
 miracles of Christ and to those of the medicine-man 
 of some savage tribe. Indeed this must be the case, 
 if all activity is spiritual in nature. 
 
 Thus it would seem that any true sacrament, 
 with its miraculous gift, must emphasise the linkage 
 between the perfect freedom of God, and the limitation 
 out of which man is striving towards that same freedom. 
 It must, as the reahsation and consummation of 
 freedom is slowly and painfully achieved, lay more and 
 more stress on the spiritual side, less and less on the 
 material. It must point to the sanctity of the com- 
 monest things of life, while at the same time it pro- 
 claims that their meaning must be sought in freedom 
 and spirit, not in matter and limitation. It must 
 include in some sense an element of miracle. A sacra- 
 ment belongs essentially to that temporary and 
 temporal aspect of life we have called immanent. 
 As this changes, so the sacrament must change, laying 
 less and less stress on the material, more and more 
 on the spiritual side of its meaning. Life must progress 
 towards perfection, and, as it moves, all the things 
 which represent its points of contact with that which 
 is eternal must move too. The appeal of sacrament 
 
a Sacrament 
 
 must pass from totemism, through sacrifice, through 
 the spiritual vision of matter as a means to a spiritual 
 end, to complete realisation of that end in full com- 
 munion with God. As faith is movement from hope 
 to certainty^, and will cease when its long journey is 
 done, so is the gift that comes in a sacrament; and so 
 too is the growing understanding of that gift. Faith 
 and sacraments are two of the moving contacts through 
 which the spirit flows, along material channels, or 
 wires, to energise man more fully. When manhood 
 is directly connected with the source of life, contacts 
 and wires will be done away. 
 
 There is no faith, no memory, no sacrament, in 
 the Eternal Present of Transcendence. But mean- 
 time, sacrament emphasises the unity of process 
 whereby man is striving towards union with God. 
 It emphasises the continuity of that part of the 
 material of God's experience in which He is self-limited 
 and Immanent, with the Whole in which He is still 
 Transcendent. In short it emphasises the dominance 
 and power of spirit and freedom over matter and 
 limitation — the great Eternal Miracle of Creation. 
 
 There is a passage in Hort's The Way, the Truth, 
 and the Life, which is singularly suggestive in this 
 respect. 
 
 The Eucharist is on one side the "perfection" of the 
 sustenance of Ufe in personal communion, on the other 
 * Vide ch. ix. 
 
240 Hort 
 
 a use of the products of the earth as instruments of com- 
 munion, implying the necessity of taking the whole nature into 
 communion if it is to be real, the symbols of creation and 
 of the Lord's body in one. 
 
 The life of the disciples with Christ was exchanged 
 for a life in Christ; they abode as branches in the Vine 
 of which His Father is the Husbandman. The Bread of 
 the Last Supper took for them the place of the Body 
 through which they had first learnt to converse with the 
 living Lord. The Wine of the Last Supper took for them 
 the place of the Blood in which His Life had dwelt.' In 
 that feast of blessing and thanksgiving, that joyful participa- 
 tion of accepted sacrifice, no life was found too earthly 
 to be offered on the altar of the Cross, or to become a means 
 of human fellowship and Divine Communion. 
 
 The Oblation 'preserved the connexion of life. The 
 fictitious and constructive offering up of a phantom body 
 and phantom blood is a degradation of the Holy Communion 
 to the unreal mimicry of a sacrifice, which if real would 
 now be heathenish. 
 
 It is the nemesis of destroying the relation between 
 earthly elements and heavenly life^. 
 
 All these suggestions and others which we shall have 
 occasion to make later on, imply that any sacrament is 
 at least a symbol, though it may be more than a symbol. 
 
 And the importance of this implication becomes 
 clear if we remember that the very fact that one 
 thing can symbolise another, implies some common 
 relation, some groundwork of commensurateness. To 
 
 1 Op. cit. pp. 213, 214 (italics mine). 
 
Nettleship on Symbolism 241 
 
 this R. L. Nettleship drew attention in a brilliant and 
 suggestive fragment, from which the following passage 
 in relation to the Holy Eucharist may be quoted^. 
 
 Roughly speaking, there are two prevalent views; 
 one, that eating the bread and drinking the wine are 
 "signs" or "symbols" of certain "spiritual" acts; the 
 other, that the bread and wine are in some way "spiritual" 
 substances, the body and blood of Christ, in which the 
 communicant in the act of eating and drinking participates. 
 Neither view seems to represent the deepest truth. 
 
 In the first place, we must ask what is a sign or 
 symbol. To say that A is a symbol of B imphes, of 
 course, that A is something different from B, but (and this 
 is often forgotten) it also impUes that it is in some 
 respect the same as B. The most remote, far-fetched 
 symbol in the world must have something in common 
 with that which it symboHses ; i.e. the person to whom 
 it has the symboUc meaning must have some (however 
 little it may be) of the same feeling or experience when 
 he experiences the symbol, as he has when he experiences 
 that which it symbohses. In other words, there are 
 such things as symbols just because the most different 
 things in the world have something in common. 
 
 From this elementary fact sprung all the controversies 
 and compUcations about symbols. One party says, "It 
 is only a symbol, it is not the real thing"; and they are 
 partly right, for in order to be a symbol a thing must be 
 partly different from something else, and this something 
 
 1 Philosophical Lectures arid Remains of Richard Lewis Nettleship, 
 voL I, pp. 23 seqq. 
 
 M. 16 
 
242 NetUeship on the 
 
 else which is symbolised must be more than the symbol. 
 The other party says "It is the real thing, this which you 
 call mere symbol"; and they too are partly right, for 
 in order to be a symbol at all, a thing must be partly 
 the same as that which it symbolises. 
 
 After a careful analysis of the processes and con- 
 sequences of eating bread, traced through their ever- 
 widening circles even as far as spiritual activities, he 
 goes on : 
 
 But the truth is (however absurd it may sound at first) 
 that there is no one thing "bread," beginning to be "bread" 
 at a certain other point. The properties (i.e. forces or 
 agencies) which make "bread" as it is in the loaf, become 
 quite different when "bread" is in a stomach, and quite 
 different again when it is blood and muscle and nerve, 
 and quite different again when it is feehng and thought 
 and emotion of various kinds. And there is absolute 
 continuity in all these changes, though the agency at any 
 given moment is quite different from what it is at any 
 other given moment. 
 
 Now it is what we may call this continuity of agency 
 
 which makes symbolism possible It (so to say) points 
 
 beyond what it is in any given phase, to the infinite other 
 phases into which it is capable of entering, and into which 
 it eventually does enter, just as conversely the agencies 
 of those other phases point back to (because they are 
 really continuous with) the elementary agency of bread. 
 It is they prospectively, they are it retrospectively. 
 
 The feeling (true and justifiable in itself) that every 
 act has "a spiritual meaning," "an eternal significance," 
 
Holy Commumon 243 
 
 "infinite consequences," and the like, unable to maintain 
 itself at its height, helps itself by saying, "this bit of 
 bread is being transformed into divine flesh"; and in 
 saying this, it thinks, not of the real wonder (that bread 
 is really an agency in the whole agency of human life, 
 and so in the life of the world and God), but of a sort 
 of nondescript process by which "bread" (in the average 
 sense) is somehow converted into "flesh" (not indeed in 
 the average sense, but still in some similar sense). 
 
 Then comes the angry "man of science" and proves 
 triumphantly that bread is bread and nothing else, while 
 the "man of religion" goes racking his brains to find a 
 way by which the "physical" laws of bread may be 
 superseded, and yet the bread may still be bread. 
 
 The cure for a wrong or spurious "mysticism" is to 
 realise "the facts" ; but "the facts" must not be taken to 
 mean (as they generally are) either certain particular 
 facts (of chemistry, for instance, or physiology), or certain 
 particular aspects of facts to which I happen to be accus- 
 tomed. The fact is the whole fact, neither more nor less. 
 True mysticism is the consciousness that everything which 
 we experience, every "fact," is an element, and only an 
 element, in "the fact"; i.e. that, in being what it is, 
 it is significant or symbolic of more^. 
 
 Whether or no one agrees in detail with Nettle- 
 ship's method of applying this suggestive truth of 
 the meaning of symbolism, one cannot but feel that 
 here is a contribution to the understanding of sacra- 
 mental meanings, not to be dismissed lightly. 
 
 1 Op. cit pp. 26, 31, 32. 
 
 16—2 
 
244 Irige on Sacraments 
 
 It is not necessary for our purposes to trace the 
 origin of sacramentalism back to its primitive mani- 
 festations in hospitality offered to the god by the 
 tribe as a whole (this point is of course important from 
 its bearing on solidarity of relationship between men 
 and God), through totemism and sacrifice, to its 
 higher manifestations in various religions, so closely 
 paralleling the Christian rites^ ; or to trace the detailed 
 connection between sacrament and sacrifice. This is 
 admirably done in Inge's essay in Contentio YeritatiSy 
 to which reference should be made, as well as to the 
 numerous cases fully set out in Frazer's The Golden 
 Bough. Inge traces the gradual transmutation of 
 placatory sacrifice through piacular sacrifice and 
 covenant sacrifice into " the sacrament of an atonement, 
 in which the priest, the victim, the deity, and the 
 worshippers are all made one^ "Herein," he says, 
 *'lies the perfect realisation of the idea of sacrifice^." 
 He points out the universal need and craving of men 
 that is satisfied only in sacramental communion, and 
 even goes so far as to say: 
 
 The symbolic uses of washing and eating are the most 
 natural, the simplest, and the most widely diffused of 
 all such ceremonies. So natural are they that we may 
 say with some confidence that if Christ had not instituted 
 Baptism and the Eucharist the Church would have had 
 
 ^ Even to reservation for the sick. 
 2 Op. cit. p. 275. 
 
Inge on Sacraments 245 
 
 to invent them. A Christianity without sacraments could 
 never have converted Europe^. 
 
 His (Jesus') action (in instituting sacraments, while 
 at the same time breaking with the national cultus so 
 jealously guarded by the priests) proves (1) that a sacra- 
 mental system is necessary to true religion, (2) that there 
 are developments of the sacramental system which are 
 irreconcileable with it 2. 
 
 The writer briefly traces the early history of 
 sacramentalism in the Christian Church, gives strong 
 reasons for distrusting the sacrificial meaning imported 
 into the ofi&ce of priesthood by the Roman doctrine 
 of the Mass, especially as held since the Council of 
 Trent, and ends with a most sane and reverent, and at 
 the same time philosophically tenable, exposition of 
 the position of a Receptionist who sees in all life a 
 sacrament, and yet is sensible of the need for special 
 sacraments; who feels that the essence of Eucharist 
 is Communion, not sacrifice (except personal sacrifice) ; 
 and who realises, more fully than Nettleship, the 
 truth that the Real Presence is involved in the symbols 
 of bread and wine, because of the oneness of all 
 experience, even while he repudiates the mythical 
 element involved in the doctrine of Transubstantiation. 
 The Lord's Supper is not a solution of the problem 
 of the outward and the inward, but a symbol of the 
 solution. 
 
 1 Op, cit. p. 279. « Ibid. p. 286. 
 
246 The Sacramental Nature of Matter 
 
 If it were fully intelligible, it would not be a true symbol 
 of what is beyond our intelligence. When we see God 
 face to face we shall no longer need even the highest 
 symbols^. But here on earth we do need them^. 
 
 It is needless to give a detailed analysis or criticism 
 of this most admirable essay — an essay which should 
 be read by everyone, whatever the shade of belief he 
 inclines to in the matter, because of its clearness, 
 insight and suggestiveness. 
 
 It seemed desirable to refer to these essays, three 
 among a countless number, because they lay stress 
 on certain matters which we have again and again 
 found as vital factors in the story of man's evolution. 
 Continuity; the spiritual nature of matter; the 
 symbolic meaning of that which is limited, determinate, 
 through the self -limitation of Eternal Spirit; the 
 immanental nature of sacraments; the need for a 
 realisation of communion and solidarity between man 
 and man, between man and God; in fine the sacra- 
 mental nature of all the conditions of life— these, 
 which are each and all mirrored in any sacrament, 
 give irrefutable witness to the need of some form of 
 sacramental doctrine. 
 
 Let us now turn our thoughts and more directly 
 to the consideration of the two great sacraments of 
 the Christian Church, Holy Communion and Baptism. 
 
 We must ask, in regard to each, granting that 
 1 Vide supra, p. 239. * Inge, op. cit. p. 308. 
 
is emphasised in the Eucharist 247 
 
 special grace can be given through sacraments, whether 
 such a gift would not interfere with man's freedom. 
 
 Suppose that God does in very truth give Himself 
 to man in the symbols of bread and wine. Man's 
 body is matter, and help could not, one would say, 
 be given to the immanent side of man's nature except 
 in an immanent form. In other words we would 
 suggest that in this sacrament the aid, if such there 
 be, is given to the immanent spirit of man, struggling 
 in matter, even though the appeal of communion is 
 felt most in that aspect of the spirit which is tran- 
 scendent. In the Atonement, we saw, God had to 
 enter fully into the limitations of time and matter, 
 to help man on his material, limited side, when he 
 had barred himself out from perfection. For incom- 
 mensurables had to be made commensurable. God 
 had to express Himself under the limitations of man- 
 hood before He could redeem man, since man's tran- 
 scendence was for ever limited by his immanence, to 
 which he was perpetually doomed, until the barrier 
 was removed that kept him from complete self-realisa- 
 tion, through the Atoning Death of Christ. So here 
 again, it seems natural that man's immanent being 
 should receive help from God, if that were possible 
 without impugning his freedom ; and thus that matter, 
 always sacramental, should have its sacramental 
 nature emphasised in some specially solemn manner: 
 that help should come, in fact in a material envelope. 
 
248 A modified form of 
 
 Indeed, it seems natural that by instituting and 
 sanctioning some ceremony of this kind, Christ should 
 proclaim an agelong Memorial of the fact that He is 
 the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, 
 immanent in time and matter both, in the Incarnation 
 — that He should seal a truth intuitively grasped by 
 every spiritual mind since the beginning with His 
 Royal signet, as a decree that must hold good as long 
 as Time shall last. It is natural, we would say, that 
 His Sacrament should be continuous with the old 
 sacrificial and sacramental forms, which showed so 
 clearly man's inherent clearness of spiritual vision. 
 And it is natural also, that it should derive fresh 
 meaning and power from the Atonement, with which 
 it is, in fact, so closely linked. It is natural, finally, 
 that there should be given from God a direct gift of 
 Himself, a sharing of His Perfect Self-hood with His 
 imperfect creatures; that He should give Himself 
 to men, since He had already given Himself /or them. 
 But clearly, if man is to remain free, the gift must 
 carry with it no constraint, no imperious demand for 
 its own acceptance. Like the Atonement it must be 
 placed before man, to be taken or left. If we were 
 right in our conclusions with regard to the Atonement 
 and to Prayer, such a gift would not in the least affect 
 the completeness of man's self-determination. His 
 freedom would remain absolutely unconstrained in 
 regard to this, since he chooses whether or no he will 
 
Receptionist Doctrine indicated 249 
 
 accept the gift, just as he chooses whether or no he 
 will pray, or will make his own the benefits of atoning 
 Love. 
 
 Nevertheless responsibility must attend the offer 
 of power to use his freedom more effectually by 
 accepting the gift. A fresh factor of the spiritual 
 environment is made potentially operative for him, 
 and if he refuses to avail himself of it, the responsi- 
 bility is his. 
 
 In connection with this we may remember that every 
 sentient being receives matter with all its possibilities, 
 whatever his own attitude. He is in a material world 
 whose meaning and end is spiritual, whether he likes 
 it or no ; he is not free from the responsibility of gifts 
 won by past generations. If he does not perceive and 
 use his freedom, he suffers for it. He is not immune 
 from the responsibility of being free. And it does not 
 appear that any limitation of his freedom is involved 
 in offering him special means of attaining completer 
 freedom. His responsibility is in a sense greater; 
 he does eat and drink judgment to himself, if he does 
 not perceive the Lord's Body; but then he eats and 
 drinks judgment to himself of precisely the same kind, 
 in its own degree, if he fails to see the spiritual signi- 
 ficance of his daily life. 
 
 In fine, man must suffer one compulsion, the 
 compulsion to choose whether he will exercise his 
 freedom or no. But this in no way limits that freedom 
 
250 Reasonableness of Eucharistic Doctrine 
 
 when it is achieved, for there is a true alterna- 
 tive. 
 
 Our examination has, then, so far as it is possible 
 for us to come to any conclusion in view of its limited 
 scope, brought us to a kind of mean position ; Recep- 
 tionist, in that we find that the sacramental gift only 
 becomes efiicacious in those who choose to make it 
 so ; more than Receptionist in that we see the possibility 
 and congruity of a real gift of Christ Himself offered 
 to all, though rejected by some. A congruous gift, 
 because all matter is sacramental, and there is need 
 that the whole being should enter into Communion 
 with God. Congruous too, because immanent man 
 can only be united with Immanent Godhead, Who 
 became Incarnate, in order that through His complete 
 submission to the limitations of spirit, immanent in 
 matter, and barred out from perfect communion with 
 the Transcendent Father by sin, union might at last 
 perfectly fulfil itself. Congruous, finally, because it 
 explained, and put in its true perspective, a craving 
 that from earliest days had sought satisfaction in 
 primitive sacrificial and sacramental rites. 
 
 Possible, because the Immanent God longs to hasten 
 the 7r\rjp(o/iia which impelled Transcendent Love to 
 suffer the pangs of creation. Possible, because the 
 love of God has made it so, through the Incarnation 
 of His Son. Possible, because man's destiny is such 
 that it can do no dishonour to the Saviour of the 
 
Conclusions 251 
 
 World to impart Himself to those who shall one day- 
 be united with Him in closer communion than men 
 can conceive. 
 
 It is not our purpose to try to reach a more definite 
 conclusion than this. We can only decide what form 
 of doctrine fits in with the system we have been 
 driven to construct by our evolutionary thesis ; beyond 
 this we have no intention of going, and no right to go. 
 
 Nevertheless our examination has brought some 
 fairly definite ideas. 
 
 (1) Sacraments are the natural expression of man's 
 recognition of the spiritual nature of all life. 
 
 (2) They emphasise the immanental relationship 
 of manhood and Godhead involved in the first kenosis, 
 Creation. 
 
 (3) The Christian sacrament of Holy Communion 
 is a perpetual memorial of the second kenosis, when 
 atoning Love took upon Itself the form and limita- 
 tions of a servant, for the purpose of rendering possible, 
 and consummating, under the then conditions, union 
 between God and man. 
 
 (4) There may well be a special gift of Christ 
 Himself in the elements, for those who will receive it. 
 Such a gift in no way Hmits man's freedom; it 
 is of the same type as the gift of Christ in the Atone- 
 ment; it is a gift which brings more of the Spiritual 
 Environment within the range of eflGicient factors that 
 can affect man ; and so it is yet another manifestation 
 
252 ' Conclusions 
 
 of God's Love, reaching down to draw man to Him- 
 self. 
 
 (5) There must be a spiritual gift of some kind 
 in every sacrament that is perpetually celebrated by 
 man, since every symbol implies a measure of com- 
 munity between itself and the thing symbolised. 
 Taken in connection with the preceding, this is parti- 
 cularly important and suggestive. 
 
 (6) The validity of the spiritual aspect in any 
 true sacrament, such as we believe the Holy Com- 
 munion to be, must increase and yet must change, as 
 long as man remains immanent. It must become more 
 and more spiritual, more and more real, as man 
 approaches fuller union with God. Less and less 
 stress must be laid on the material side of physical 
 sustenance, less and less on the aspect of aid to the 
 struggling spirit, more and more on the spiritual side 
 of communion. Symbolism must pass more and more 
 into reality; until at length, when all limitations are 
 done away, the sacrament, the symbol, ceases in full 
 realisation. In Transcendent Union there can be no 
 sacraments. 
 
 (7) The appeal of the sacrament, and the aid it 
 brings, are chiefly an appeal and an aid to the im- 
 manent nature of man, through the Immanent Aspect 
 of the Godhead ; though the realisation of communion 
 is for his transcendent side^. In this it differs from 
 
 ^ It is, in fact, impossible to draw a definite line between that 
 
Baptism 253 
 
 prayer, in which man's transcendent spirit plays a 
 part. Communion is not sacrament at all for the part 
 of man in which transcendence is realised; for that 
 part it is Reality, true union, proclaimed publicly. 
 Only for his immanent part is it a symbol and a 
 help; a lift on the road for the tired body which is 
 marching on to the City of God, where all visions find 
 their originals. 
 
 Turning now to Baptism, we must confess that 
 our method, applied honestly, leads us tg no such 
 sure ground. Baptism does lay stress on the impor- 
 tance of solidarity, — therefore it plays a necessary 
 part in the formation of the organism we call the 
 Church. With this matter we shall deal in the last 
 chapter, and it is unnecessary to do more than refer 
 to it here. On all the three grounds which von Hiigel 
 gives for the need of institutionalism in religion, 
 Baptism is most desirable, as bringing the individual 
 into relation with the Church, by a public act which, 
 if carried on to its logical result in permanent and true 
 membership, does give a strong sense of corporateness, 
 and may conceivably aid the individual in ways of 
 which we know little or nothing, owing to the powers 
 
 which is immanent of man and that which is transcendent. The 
 one passes over into the other. But for the sake of argument the 
 two must be kept separate. And, indeed, they are two totally 
 different things: it is only the dividing line that is unreal, as we 
 have constantly found to be the case in our examination of evolu- 
 tion. 
 
254 Baptism 
 
 of a corporate body. Both the certainty of the first 
 and the possibiUty of the second render Infant Baptism 
 desirable. And, again, it is, in a sense, sacramental, 
 since it lays special stress on, and draws attention to, 
 the sacramental aspect of all life by means of a definite, 
 symbolic rite. 
 
 But we clearly cannot apply the results we arrived 
 at in the case of the Eucharist. It is not linked in 
 the same way with the Atonement ; and it cannot, at 
 least so it appears, mediate a direct gift of God. For 
 consider Infant Baptism. The child does not choose 
 to be baptised ; it has not the faintest idea of what is 
 going on ; it merely suffers a certain amount of physical 
 discomfort for no apparent reason. Any special gift 
 would therefore be a definite constraint on its freedom, 
 since it cannot and does not choose whether or no it 
 will accept it. The idea that Original Sin is washed 
 away in Baptism seems to be a survival from the days 
 when sacraments and sacrifice were closely linked 
 with magic. It falls into line with the expectation 
 that a God will answer by fire. The baptism of John 
 was a symbol of the cleansing of the individual, through 
 a change of his mind (note the emphasis laid on the 
 personal will in the word jjierdvoia); the Christian 
 baptism is formal admission into the Body of Christ; 
 it is of the community rather than of the individual ; 
 it is not a lustration but a public profession. In the 
 case of an adult it may well be attended with special 
 
Baptism 255 
 
 grace, as may any sacrament, from its symbolical 
 nature. But there seems no reason to associate 
 Baptism in itself with any special gift ; while such an 
 idea, applied to the baptism of infants, undoubtedly 
 leads us into the grave difficulty that such a gift would 
 impugn true freedom. Infant Baptism may well place 
 the child in a spiritual environment which makes for 
 spiritual progress. This is perhaps one of its great 
 values. But our reasoning is distinctly adverse to the 
 idea of an implantation of some special Divine Seed in 
 the child, as a direct gift from God. Just as St Paul 
 uses no single phrase that justifies the conception of 
 a sacrificial office in Christian priesthood, so, I think, 
 he never gives a hint of any gift in Baptism, except gifts 
 of the Holy Ghost which attend those who voluntarily, 
 and through personal conviction, enrol themselves as 
 members of the Church of Christ. 
 
 We must remember that we are looking at the 
 matter from one definite point of view, and must not 
 dogmatise about conclusions reached from the examin- 
 ation of totally different aspects of it. But this we 
 may say, that anything which seems to be irrecon- 
 cileable with the doctrine of freedom, which we have 
 found so fertile, must be regarded with grave sus- 
 picion. 
 
 It would seem then that Baptism viewed from our 
 standpoint, has nothing of the same validity and 
 significance as the Holy Communion. It is valuable 
 
266 Baptism 
 
 as laying stress on the sacramental aspect of life ; it is 
 valuable as emphasising the importance of corporateness 
 and of institutional religion ; but it has not of necessity 
 and in itself, apart from the will of man, more efficacy 
 than any other rite. 
 
 While it may be a special vehicle of the energising 
 activity of the Holy Ghost in certain cases, it does not 
 appear to be always and necessarily so; and indeed, 
 as far as we can judge from the limited nature of our 
 method, such a necessity would appear to involve a 
 check on man's freedom in the case of Infant Baptism. 
 
 We must therefore leave the matter an open 
 question — open, because our survey is partial. But 
 we must in honesty record that the gift of a special 
 grace necessarily given in Baptism does not seem to 
 be compatible with the unsullied freedom which we 
 believe God has given to man. 
 
 Our general survey of the meaning of sacraments 
 has led us to an appreciation of the importance of all 
 rites of this kind, and of the deep meaning of the need 
 of such symbolism which is universally present among 
 men, as well as to a belief that in the Eucharist a very 
 special gift of Christ Himself is offered to man. The 
 Fathers were strongly impressed with the sacramental 
 nature of all life, and this lay at the bottom of their 
 enumeration of great numbers of sacraments. 
 
 If our conclusions have been set down somewhat 
 dogmatically, it is not with the will or intention to 
 
Apologia 257 
 
 wound the feelings of those who disagree with us, but 
 only for the sake of clearness and brevity in making 
 an honest statement of the results to which we have 
 been impelled by our study. And surely, if there be 
 anyone who feels that to attempt analysis of the most 
 sacred mysteries of religion is sacrilegious, we may 
 truly say to him, and with him, as we rise from our 
 little efforts to plumb the deeps of life as it were with 
 the foot-rule which is our earthly standard, 
 
 Thou Hvest in a world of signs and types, 
 The presentations of most holy truths, 
 Living and strong, which now encompass thee^. 
 
 and even while we ask pardon for any offence we may 
 unwittingly have given, ask for the same liberty he 
 himself claims to state his views. 
 
 1 J. H. Newman, The Dream of Oerontius. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 FAITH, PROVIDENCE, AND REVELATION 
 
 There are two well-known definitions of faith: 
 "the belief in what you know is not true," and "the 
 assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things 
 not seen." The first definition is a mockery, the second 
 goes near to the root of the matter. Yet if the first 
 is stated negatively instead of positively, it forms a 
 valuable supplement to the other. Faith has in it 
 the idea of beheving what you do not know to be true, 
 if by knowledge we mean susceptibility of logical 
 demonstration. And this is necessarily the case, if, 
 as we have seen reason to believe, causal series, which 
 constitute the foundation of logic, are essentially 
 durational: based on discontinuity, which is the 
 groundwork of perception. Faith is, largely at any 
 rate, independent of perceptual experience, though 
 its result may be to affect perception, since it affects 
 man's personality, which is greatly dependent on 
 perception. It is the assurance and proving of things 
 not seen, nor heard, nor touched, nor smelt — an 
 assurance independent of sensation. 
 
Faith as movement 259 
 
 But in the second definition there is a hint of some 
 thing more. The conjunction of the words assurance 
 and hope suggests movement and progress. And I 
 believe that it is necessary to any true conception of 
 faith that we should get a firm grasp of its essentially 
 dynamic nature. Surely faith does imply movement 
 — the movement from hope towards certainty ? Hope 
 is keen, eager, exciting, unrestful; full of the possi- 
 bility of disappointment; anxiously expectant. Cer- 
 tainty is full of the sense of arrival and completion. 
 It is restful, though not inert. It tends to action, 
 because it is full of confidence; without action it 
 would be valueless. Hope has no intellectual basis. 
 It is altogether unrelated to any causal series, and 
 causality is the essential groundwork of intellect; 
 for intellect is the power of reasoning, and is thus 
 based on the inevitability of logic. In actual fact 
 pure hope hardly exists ; what we call hope is usually 
 an extension of expectation beyond the limits of 
 rational deduction; but there is some element of 
 reason behind it. A child has a secret hankering to 
 possess a toy train; it is always thinking about it, 
 and has great hopes that it will get a lovely model 
 railway, with a reversing engine and switches and 
 signals and brake-rails, on its birthday, and that the 
 engine will be a new kind that doesn't want winding 
 up constantly. The hope is partly based on the fact 
 that it does get presents on its birthday; but largely 
 
 17—2 
 
260 Faith is Movement 
 
 on an implicit belief in the inexhaustibility of its 
 parents' powers and purse. Hope is no doubt purest 
 in the least intelligent, least developed, races; but 
 there is always a rudiment of something else in it, 
 and that something else is, as we shall see, faith. Of 
 the relation between faith and intellect we shall have 
 something to say later. 
 
 Certainty is on the other hand essentially intel- 
 lectual, at any rate in the affairs of common life. It 
 is based on the law of causality, and consists in a mental 
 picture of a whole chain of events causally connected. 
 It leads to action because the result of action is foreseen. 
 
 Pure hope is thus receptive; it only becomes a 
 motive of action when it is mixed with some elementary 
 notion of the first stages of a causal series. And so, 
 as we have said, what we ordinarily term hope involves 
 the projection of causality beyond its legitimate bounds. 
 
 This projection involves the principle of faith. 
 
 Let us analyse the matter somewhat more closely. 
 Suppose that the parents of our child have always 
 encouraged its interest in mechanical things, and 
 especially in railways, model and real. The child 
 has more reason for expecting that its birthday present 
 will take this form. It drops hints, more or less 
 explicit, that the one thing needed to make life blissful 
 and complete is a model railway. Thus, knowing that 
 its parents try to do what it wants, when they can, it 
 has additional reason to believe that a few days will 
 
from Hope towards Certainty 261 
 
 see the dawn of the millennium. And the parental 
 "We'll see" is hailed as partial confirmation of the 
 impending satisfaction of its ardent desire. If, by 
 chance, its parents have said that one day they must 
 see about getting a railway, when it is old enough and 
 has learned not to break things, the belief becomes 
 stronger still. And if it has, acting on the half- 
 promise, refrained from breaking anything for a whole 
 week, belief grows more and more towards certainty. 
 Thus we see that intellect — the grasp of causal relation- 
 ships — and action both take a part in transforming the 
 hope and bringing it nearer and nearer to certainty. 
 There is movement, and further, this movement is 
 progressive. 
 
 The movement is from hope towards certainty. 
 It is a change of attitude, based on intellect, and 
 issuing in action. Each action, itself the result of 
 reasoning, tends in the same direction, and seems to 
 justify the projection of the mind beyond the strict 
 logic of facts; and so stimulates to further action. 
 The whole process is progressive and dynamic. This 
 progressive projection is faith. Faith is always a 
 moving from hope towards certainty; it is always 
 based on intellect, but always is thrown forward 
 beyond it. When the movement ceases faith ceases, 
 for faith is the movement itself. 
 
 Now movement is simply a change in the conditions 
 of that which moves, either in space or time, or both. 
 
262 Illustrations 
 
 Moreover this particular kind of movement is pro- 
 gressive, and progress implies determination from 
 within, not from without. It is utterly unlike the 
 movement of a bullet that flies through the air. What 
 then is it which moves? Clearly the spirit. And in 
 every case, even the simple one we have taken as an 
 illustration, the movement of the spirit tends towards 
 the fuller understanding of the attitude and spirit of 
 the person in whom faith is placed. The result of 
 the child's actions is to make it understand more 
 clearly what its parents' intentions are. 
 
 Let us now take one or two more simple examples 
 from which we may hope to gain further light on the 
 matter. A man who embarks on a ship to go, let us 
 say, to India, does not merely hope to get there. He 
 believes that the probabilities are in favour of his 
 arriving, or he would not embark. He will be out 
 of sight of land for days at a time, and he may not 
 have the foggiest notion of the science of navigation, 
 but he believes that the officers know their job. He 
 believes that the ship is strong enough to stand any 
 storms he is Ukely to encounter, because he believes 
 that the men who made her knew what they were doing. 
 Of course, if she has made the run often before, he has 
 additional cause for security, but let us suppose, for 
 simplicity, that it is her maiden voyage. Now if we 
 analyse his attitude we shall find it is always based in 
 the long run on faith in a person. To have faith in a 
 
Faith involves two perso^is 263 
 
 boat is a mere metaphor. You do not believe in the 
 boat, you believe first in the men who designed her, 
 and made her, and next in the men who guide her and 
 keep her moving. 
 
 This is important, for if it is true we see that faith 
 is always directed towards something that is living 
 and intelligent and active; in other words, towards 
 a person. 
 
 Moreover, faith is only possible /or a person, since 
 faith is a form of movement of the spirit. Thus we 
 find that faith always involves two personalities, the 
 personality who believes, and the personality towards 
 whom this belief is directed. 
 
 Further, the oftener our traveller has made the 
 journey — notice, not only this journey, but any other 
 — the less there is of the element of hope, and the more 
 of the element of certainty, in his attitude. 
 
 The fussy traveller is always the tyro, or else, is 
 deficient in the faculty of drawing conclusions from 
 his experience ; and both classes, in their very fussiness, 
 show lack of faith in the persons to whom they have 
 entrusted themselves. But even in the most trustful 
 first voyager there is far more of the hope that implies 
 doubt than there is in the citizen of the world who 
 has voyaged widely, and has perhaps experienced the 
 dangers of travel, and the dominant power of the 
 characters of those who have had to bring those 
 entrusted to them through an emergency. 
 
264 Faith is directed towards a Person 
 
 Or let us take another illustration from common 
 life — the game of golf. On the first day the beginner 
 can hit the ball quite a long way ; as day follows day 
 he gets more uncertain. He cuts divots from the turf 
 several inches from his ball, and jars every muscle of his 
 body ; then he draws up too much and nearly wrenches 
 his arms out of their sockets with a swing that sends the 
 club whistling through the unresisting air. If he does 
 by chance hit the ball he cuts it, till finally it becomes 
 an irregular polyhedron with reentrant angles, showing 
 gaps which reveal the mystery of its interior. In 
 despair he goes to the Professional for help. At once 
 he is told that his right arm, which aches with the 
 vigour of his onslaught on the ball, should do little 
 or no work; his helpless left must take charge. The 
 guiding finger pointing along the shaft of the club is 
 firmly removed; his right hand overlaps his left, to 
 the hopeless hampering of both. And the result is, 
 he feels further off than ever from hitting the ball. 
 Then the ball is taken away and he has to swing 
 foolishly over the turf, trying to obey directions in 
 which he can see no point, except that they take 
 away the little control a few tightened muscles seemed 
 to give. Yet after a lesson or two, when the ball is 
 put back, he finds he can hit it truly, and far. Here 
 again, he had no proof, no certainty, that he would 
 gain by these strange and unsettling doctrines of the 
 Professional. But he trusted him as a person of 
 
and issues in Action 265 
 
 experience, and then, when he began himself to hit 
 the ball, he trusted him still more. There was more 
 certainty and less hope in his belief that he would be 
 able to play properly some time. And so, with the added 
 understanding of his experience, he obeys his instructor 
 more intelligently, and makes rapid progress. Success 
 goads him to fresh effort and further success. 
 
 And this is characteristic of faith ; that it impels 
 always towards action. If faith is based on a person, 
 its proof is action ; action that manifests the accept- 
 ance of the person's capacity and right to act as guide. 
 And moreover, the action is progressive ; unless there 
 is progress, faith stagnates and dies. Faith is move- 
 ment, and the movement of anything that lives and 
 increases is progress. 
 
 The reason why faith leads to action is clear; it is be- 
 cause we are persons ; it is because we are free, because 
 we realise in ourselves the power of self-determination. 
 
 Eventually, in our last case, faith becomes certainty ; 
 the ideal golfer knows that he will hit the ball, and 
 that it will go where he wishes. And so his faith 
 ceases, being merged in certainty. But action does 
 not cease; he continues to play golf. Here our 
 illustration rather breaks down, for in this case abso- 
 lute certainty would make it not worth while to play. 
 He goes on because he is not certain in every case, 
 but in nine cases out of ten, and he wants to make the 
 certainty apply in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. 
 
266 Characteristics of Faith 
 
 But it serves its purpose, to show that cessation of 
 faith when certainty is reached is not the death of 
 anything, but the perfection of self-determined activity. 
 
 There is, besides, a cessation of faith which is 
 stagnation, and connotes death and decay; but this 
 is the cessation of uncompleted faith, which brings 
 inertia. Here action ceases, and death comes. 
 
 Faith then is the movement of the spirit from hope 
 towards certainty; it is dependent on intellect, in so 
 far as intellect is the recognition of causality, but goes 
 beyond it; it is always rooted in a person; it issues 
 in action and is progressive. Its final end is self- 
 determination; the certainty that action will have a 
 definite issue. 
 
 Let us now apply this to faith in its religious 
 connotation. Spiritual faith is the belief in God, and 
 in His goodwill towards us. It is the movement of 
 the spirit in relation to the realisation of communion 
 with God. It will cease when communion is fully 
 realised, for it will then become certainty. It has 
 all the characteristics of the simple cases with which 
 we have dealt. It is even based on intellect; on the 
 realisation of the law of causality in the world. 
 
 This point requires a little further consideration, 
 for it suggests that the laws of causality as we know 
 them are eternally and absolutely true; a matter 
 open to considerable doubt. 
 
 The knowledge of the human spirit is twofold, 
 
Intuition, Hope, Faith, and Certainty 267 
 
 intuitional and intellectual. Faith may and does have 
 as its motive power the pre-analytical knowledge we 
 call intuition; but, though probably intuition lies at 
 the bottom of progressive spiritual knowledge, the 
 movement that indicates the gaining of more know- 
 ledge is faith. In so far as there is progressive 
 movement, it is due to increasing experience; to in- 
 crease of intellectual or rational knowledge. Intuition 
 is the projection of the soul beyond knowledge, faith 
 is the movement of the whole personality in the 
 direction of the certainty that lies in front. Thus 
 faith involves both the intuition which indicates the 
 path along which the spirit must travel, and the move- 
 ment of the spirit along that path which is faith itself. 
 Faith could not exist without the intuition, but it is 
 not the intuition. Hope again is not the intuition. 
 It too depends upon this, but has no element of know- 
 ledge. Intuition is a form of knowledge, though it is 
 not logical in structure. Hope is not knowledge, but 
 rather the doubting of intuition. 
 
 Thus, then, I would suggest the following classi- 
 fication of these vague and interdependent states; 
 Intuition, hope, faith, certainty. Intuition is that 
 knowledge pertaining to the soul which is independent 
 of causal series. Hope involves doubt of the sufficiency 
 of this knowledge, which is evidenced in the demand 
 of the mind for intellectual satisfaction. Faith is the 
 movement of the soul along the line indicated by 
 
268 Intuition, Hope, Faith, and Certainty 
 
 intuition — a movement, due to progressive experience, 
 which conj&rms the indications of intuition, and 
 tends more and more to give a logical basis to them. 
 When certainty is reached, faith ceases, for now logical 
 proof has arrived at the same conclusion as intuition. 
 In other words faith ceases when intellect and intuition 
 have "arrived." This can only be when freedom from 
 external limitation is achieved; and, thus, when 
 material restrictions cease to exist for the perfected 
 spirit. Consequently, in so far as causal series are 
 dependent on external limitation, they will cease to 
 affect the activity of the spirit in which faith has 
 ceased through fulfilment, and which is consequently 
 self-determined and transcendent. 
 
 Our consideration of faith has led us once again to 
 a dynamic conception. Nor was anything else to be 
 expected. All through we have found that life is 
 progress, in any being that is becoming ; and even in 
 that which is perfect life is activity. For any personal 
 being activity is the chief essential; if the being is 
 imperfect this activity will be determined in a great 
 measure from without, if perfect the activity will be 
 self-determined from within. And progress is increas- 
 ing self-determination. 
 
 Better to sit at the waters' birth 
 
 Than a sea of waves to win; 
 To live in the love that floweth forth 
 
 Than the love that cometh in. 
 
Faith is directed toivards a Personcd God 269 
 
 Be thy heart a well of love, my child, 
 
 Flowing, and free, and sure; 
 For a cistern of love, though undefiled, 
 Keeps not the spirit pure^. 
 This is the essential truth of life — not a reservoir 
 but a spring, not a passive acquiescence but unending 
 activity. Stagnation presages decay, as we have 
 found over and over again. Only for a short time is 
 
 it possible to 
 
 take a sullen acquiescence 
 For gentle Love's transforming presence^. 
 ****** 
 
 The terminus a quo of faith is hope; the terminus 
 ad quem is certainty ; the line of movement is indicated 
 by intuition. Just in so far as the intuition is clouded, 
 the terminus ad quem vague and uncertain, so far faith 
 falls short of the steady progress which should be its 
 character. Where, for instance, the end has lost its 
 personal appeal to the soul, seeming to be a formless 
 Whole, impassible and sightless, like a colossal sphinx, 
 as for the Agnostic, or a perpetual, pulsing centre of 
 activity, as for the Vedantist, or passionless peace, 
 as for the Buddhist, so far must faith fail to be a 
 purposeful movement — so far it is not a true faith. 
 
 There may be faith that is directed to a false end, 
 but sooner or later it comes to a dead stop. Just in 
 so far as there is truth in its end, so far it will show 
 
 * George MacDonald, Phantasies. 
 
 2 A. C. Benson, Le Cahier Jaune. Miserrimus. 
 
270 Faith involves Belief in 
 
 life — the power of movement and progress; even as 
 an organism may evolve for some time along a blind 
 alley, progressing up to a certain point in virtue of the 
 vital impulse which animates it, but sooner or later 
 finding its progress barred by a blank wall, and dying 
 out. In exactly the same way faith may progress 
 for a time along a blind path towards a false end; 
 but it must suffer extinction at the last. 
 
 Faith, then, is founded upon belief in a personal 
 God, and the recognition of order in the Cosmos. 
 
 It is therefore natural to expect the existence of 
 belief in Providence and belief in Revelation. 
 
 Our next task is to examine and question these 
 beliefs, as far as they affect the limited purview of our 
 thesis. We may formulate our question thus: have 
 these beliefs any foundation, if increasing self-deter- 
 mination or freedom is really the object, method and 
 basis of the order and progress we see in the world? 
 
 First, let us notice that the movement is not from 
 chaos to order. If, as we have contended, the material 
 universe is the expression of the self-limitation of 
 God in part of His Experience, it certainly shows no 
 evidence of chaos. Rather, there is order without 
 freedom. Order is characteristic of the universe; 
 and for limited beings, this order represents perfectly 
 determination from without. Nay, more; it surely 
 represents the same for God. He is self -limited in 
 that part of His Experience, and therefore He is 
 
a Divine Purpose and Plan 271 
 
 determined in it — not strictly from without, since it 
 is part of His Experience, and has come to be by the 
 action of His Will, yet the material world is in a sense 
 outside His activity, since He is thereby limited. 
 For if the object is the achieval of man's freedom by 
 struggle with that which is not free, God cannot 
 change the material world without contradicting Him- 
 self by changing His Will towards man^. In other 
 words, as we have so often said, the Creation was a 
 kenosis; and matter, though part of the experience 
 of God, is yet the result of limitation of part of that 
 experience by the removal of freedom. 
 
 On the other hand, chaos does enter with the clash 
 of wills — that is, with the coming of sin. Sin is the 
 introduction of disorder into an orderly cosmos, by 
 interference with the steady march of the progressing 
 spirit amid the ordered forces of the world which made 
 that progress possible and certain. 
 
 In the world at large then, there is order; but 
 among men there is something that partakes of the 
 nature of chaos, since all men sin. 
 
 Clearly, in our analysis of the ideas of Providence 
 and Kevelation, we shall have to consider both of these 
 in relation to the order of the world, and to the disorder 
 introduced by the sin of men. 
 
 Analysing, then, the conception of Providence we 
 find certain definite lines of thought involved. 
 
 ^ See, however, the Additional Note on Prayer for Material Benefits. 
 
272 The conception of Providence 
 
 (1) It is the sense that the general trend of life 
 is in accordance with a plan of God. This is implicit 
 in the whole of our argument as to the progress of 
 the Creation towards freedom ; it is the essence of the 
 doctrine of Creation and Kenosis. Evidently we can 
 and must accept its truth, 
 
 (2) It is the belief that God is over all — a Brooding 
 Spirit. This is a corollary of the first, and amounts to 
 a vague idea of the doctrine of Transcendence, with 
 all that it involves in relation to simultaneity and 
 activity. Again there is nothing that can clash 
 with an evolutionary conception of the world's pro- 
 gress. 
 
 (3) It is the idea that everything that happens to 
 those who love God is in detailed accordance with His 
 Will. This goes much further than the first two, 
 which suggest only a general outline drawn by God 
 and filled in in detail by His creatures. And it is often 
 extended to cover everything that happens, especially 
 everything that happens in an impressive manner, 
 as a hurricane or an earthquake, as well as things that 
 are due in a great measure to man's stupidity (as 
 a great outbreak of cholera) or his sinfulness (as the 
 destruction of non-immunised native races by gin 
 and syphihs). 
 
 (4) It is the idea that God interferes constantly 
 in the conduct of the world, to bring about certain 
 ends. This is really implicit in the last; and it is 
 
The conception of Providence 273 
 
 clearly hard to reconcile it with the notions of order 
 and self-gained freedom. 
 
 (5) It is the belief that God cares for men, loves 
 them, wills that they should be made perfect, free; 
 and that He hates pain and sorrow, and that therefore 
 He must interfere in the course of the world. This 
 clearly involves a non sequitur; and the difficulty is 
 solved by the conception of the passibility of God. If 
 God suffers with His creatures, the horror of suffering 
 without help is gone. If God suffers it is because 
 He must; it is because He cannot interfere for man's 
 own sake. The suffering of God is the last proof of 
 His love. A parent would not forbid the doctor to 
 set a broken leg or the surgeon to use his knife if his 
 child needed such treatment ; rather he would acquiesce 
 in the immediate extra sufiering for the sake of future 
 well-being. The earthly father lets his child suffer 
 if necessary, though he could prevent it if he would; 
 the Heavenly Father lets His children suffer, and 
 cannot prevent it, because He can only do what is best. 
 He cannot prevent the suffering from out of which 
 freedom is won. He can suffer too, and we can begin 
 to understand the meaning of such suffering as we 
 watch the agony of an injured child, or the purgative 
 remorse of one who has sinned. Without going into 
 the problem of pain again at this point, it is sufficient 
 for our present purpose to note that the realisation 
 that God suffers removes the "must " from the idea of 
 M. 18 
 
274 The conception of Revelation 
 
 interference because He cares. Because He cares it 
 does not follow that He must interfere; the question 
 should rather be "because He cares may He not 
 interfere in some cases?" 
 
 This brief analysis of the chief ideas imderlying the 
 conception of Providence shows us that there are two 
 main points to be considered. The first is the general 
 belief that there is purpose in the world, and that this 
 purpose is the Will of God, Who is the Omnipotent 
 Creator, for the perfecting of man. This belief is 
 involved in the whole idea of Evolution, as we have 
 seen, and we must admit its truth at once. The second 
 is involved in the question whether everything that 
 happens in the world, except sin, is in accordance with 
 His Will; whether, in fact, He over-rules and inter- 
 feres in matters of detail. Can we say of everything, 
 it is God's Will? Can we say " God will take care that 
 this or that comes right," and " Whatever happens 
 has some wise purpose in it " ? Having stated these 
 questions, let us leave them for a moment to make 
 a similar analysis of the idea of Revelation, with which 
 they are clearly linked in the closest connection. 
 
 (1) We may notice first that the animistic origin 
 of primitive religion makes revelation seem natural to 
 men. To the primitive mind, which sees in the waving 
 of a tree the action of an indwelling tree-spirit, in the 
 sliding of a rock as the ice thaws beneath it the com- 
 .munication of a tornaq, in the breaking waves the 
 
The conception of Revelation 275 
 
 moving chariot of a sea-god, the direct communication 
 of God with men through material means is obvious 
 and necessary. Thus religion becomes permeated from 
 the first by the idea of direct revelation through material 
 channels. 
 
 (2) Far-sighted men, prophets and priests, who 
 are on a higher spiritual plane than their fellows, are 
 in closer communion with God than the common run, 
 and the obvious truth of their dicta suggests a special 
 revelation from without. They too, because of the 
 animistic thread that runs through the religious belief 
 of a people, will project hallucinations and self-sugges- 
 tions outside themselves, and see in them the finger 
 of God pointing. Among the highest of these the 
 external manifestations will be replaced by a still, 
 small Voice; but they will be none the less sure that 
 it is the Voice of God. 
 
 Thus we see that the idea of direct revelation is 
 natural, and to be expected. 
 
 (3) From the standpoint of our evolutionary 
 description of life, God's whole plan is towards the 
 mediate revelation of Himself to man, which is to end 
 in perfect communion and understanding. Creation, 
 self -limitation, is God's part ; advancing understanding, 
 increasing contact with the whole Environment, which 
 is God, is man's part. Can more than this be justly 
 read into the word Revelation? 
 
 (4) Clearly the revelation of Christ is in a different 
 
 18—2 
 
276 The conception of Revelation 
 
 category. This was a second kenosis; the mani- 
 festation of the Ideal of Manhood, and the removal of 
 the barrier raised up by sin; the means of re-em- 
 phasising and restoring order where sin had introduced 
 chaos. Certainly the coming of Christ was a revelation 
 in the fullest sense. 
 
 We thus conclude that there is certainly a pro- 
 gressive revelation inherent in the relation of men to 
 God. This revelation is the fuller understanding of the 
 meaning of life. It is given to saints and prophets to 
 proclaim higher truths than the race has yet arrived 
 at, and to hear them sometimes acclaimed, sometimes 
 rejected, according as the will of the nation is set on 
 righteousness or on material gain; according as the 
 lesser minds can bear them already, or are not fit. 
 Is there more? Is there evidence of outward and 
 visible signs foreshowing inward spiritual grace, beyond 
 man's ken — a revelation of God proceeding from 
 without, not from within? 
 
 It is clear that to both these questions we must 
 apply the principle, which emerged from our discussion 
 of Prayer, and of the Sacraments, namely that, where 
 no self-contradiction is involved, the direct action of 
 God, by revelation or guidance, is possible and natural. 
 That is to say, God cannot act in any way that limits 
 man's freedom without nullifying His own action in 
 giving man power to win that freedom ; but any form 
 of revelation or help that is consistent with the entire 
 
Providence and Evolution 277 
 
 freedom of man's will (except in regard to its relation 
 with the ordered universe around him), is not only 
 conceivable, but is necessary. If God can help man to 
 win more freedom without in any way limiting him, He 
 must so help him, since it is His Will that men should 
 become free. 
 
 The whole conception of Providence is really 
 summed up in St Paul's phrase "fellow workers with 
 God." The winning of freedom begins, as we have 
 seen, in utilisation of the material environment; in 
 gaining mastery over it, making a tool of it. With 
 self-consciousness comes the power of fashioning tools 
 for a specific purpose — a power that implies memory 
 and reflection as well as mere control. Spiritual 
 evolution proceeds in the same way; it is growth in 
 freedom through response to a spiritual environment. 
 In a sense man makes a tool of his spiritual surroundings, 
 utilising them to further his own freedom. He uses 
 his knowledge in the spiritual sphere as truly as he 
 uses it in the temporal. In material things he learns 
 enough knowledge to use everything that he can see 
 and feel, as well as the ether, of which he has no 
 sensory evidence. His deductions from what he knows 
 empirically of the properties of light and radiant heat 
 lead him to prophesy the possibility of transmission 
 of electrical waves through a medium of the presence 
 of which he has no consciousness, and he is able 
 eventually to make and use these waves for purposes 
 
278 Providence and Evolution 
 
 of communication. So too, it is surely possible and 
 likely, that as he gets more knowledge of his spiritual 
 environment he will be able to make use of it — in 
 other words, to claim the co-operation of God with his 
 efforts to achieve freedom. When he knows enough 
 of the nature of God, he knows how to ask for and use 
 His help. He is free to see which way the path of 
 freedom lies, and by his own free choice he can gain 
 strength and aid in traversing it. When a man knows 
 the geological structure of a place he knows that if 
 he digs deep enough he will reach water, and he does 
 reach it. So, when man knows enough of the purpose 
 of God and understands how to gain help in fulfilling 
 it, he will gain help. The help is no limitation of his 
 freedom, but rather its evidence. 
 
 A newborn child takes nourishment from its mother. 
 Later it takes from her food for its mind, in the 
 acquisition of words, and the application of them for 
 the purpose of summarising simple causal relations. 
 Later still it begins to learn from her spiritual truths. 
 The source, the environment which supplies all these 
 is one and the same, the mother; but its various 
 aspects only become effective as the child grows able 
 to receive benefit from them. So too we have the serial 
 relation in the manifestations of the One Environment^. 
 
 Hence we see that the ideas, both of direct Revela- 
 tion and Providence, offer no diflB.culty in the case of 
 1 Cf. ch. n. 
 
True, and questionable, Ideas of Providence 279 
 
 the personal relation of man to God, if the man is far 
 enough advanced to ask. Of course his new knowledge 
 or power will affect others, but this is always the case ; 
 it is the mode in which the action of the living organism 
 adds to the environment-sum^. 
 
 But even this, though it takes us to the root of the 
 matter, does not satisfy our minds completely. Does 
 the providence of God bring good out of evil? 
 
 Certainly unnecessary suffering must be alien to 
 God ; but it is doubtful if unnecessary suffering exists, 
 except as a consequence of sin. Most suffering is, as 
 we have seen elsewhere, an incident of the method of 
 progress, due to the fact that progress in freedom can 
 only be won in struggle with that which is not free. 
 Good certainly does often come out of evil, in the 
 sense of strengthening of character by pain and sorrow. 
 Many lessons of life are learned in the hardest school. 
 And here we have a triumph of the Will of God in man's 
 achievement of spiritual gain. In this sense the 
 suffering was providential; but we must notice that 
 it only becomes so through man's own effort. It is 
 not God's will that we should suffer, for suffering's 
 sake, but it is His will that we should gain by suffering. 
 So too, in the case of the general sense of guidance 
 through life, good coming out of apparent evil, which 
 is the certain experience of every Christian who 
 strives, however feebly and intermittently, to live 
 
 * Vide Evolution and the Need of Atonement, ch. i et passim. 
 
280 TriiCy and questionable, Ideas of Providence 
 
 with Christ. It is his inward realisation of the meaning 
 of God's desire for mankind that makes him learn 
 from every experience, and know the gain that has 
 come as he passed through deep waters. True, in 
 very many cases, special incidents appear to have been 
 foreordained for good, even where there was no efiort 
 on the part of any concerned. It is difficult to be cer- 
 tain that the question of answer to some prayer does 
 not come in here ; with this we dealt in the last chapter. 
 But eliminating the cases where this seems a possible 
 factor, as well as all the cases which really fall into 
 the previous class, there certainly appear to be cases 
 of providential guidance. These can again be reduced 
 by the elimination of those dependent on little-under- 
 stood phenomena in the domain of psychology, as 
 when a man sacrifices his passage on a ship owing 
 to a dream or vision, and the ship is wrecked on that 
 voyage. Such a case would naturally be looked on 
 as a warning from God ; but the fact that it only comes 
 to one or two out of hundreds makes the explanation 
 doubtful; and when we read the literature of the 
 Psychical Research Society, or such books as Myers' 
 Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death and 
 Phantasms of the Living, we begin to realise what a 
 vast region of knowledge about the faculties of the 
 human mind and spirit is unexplored. 
 
 When all these are eliminated, I imagine that the 
 proportion of cases left where there seems to be direct 
 
Providence and Catastroj^he 281 
 
 providential guidance, in the sense in which we are 
 using the words now, to the cases where no such 
 guidance occurs, would be found to fit in pretty well 
 with the law of probability, and might be put down 
 to coincidence. One cannot, of course, say definitely 
 that this is so; but if our argument has been just it 
 would seem likely to be the case; and the conviction 
 that such providential guidance in the lives of others 
 is a matter of coincidence is deeply rooted in the mind 
 of the ordinary man. Even if he has experienced it 
 himself, he yet is inclined to pooh-pooh, or at least 
 to explain away, the experience of others! 
 
 So too, we cannot look on great natural phenomena, 
 or terrible disasters and earthquakes or hurricane, 
 plague or shipwreck, as a manifestation of God's wrath, 
 or as an expression of His activity. They are incidents 
 of a world ruled by determined laws which act 
 rigorously and inevitably. They are not in accordance 
 with His Will, or opposed to it, in themselves. They 
 are evidence of the reality of determinism in matter; 
 of the self -limitation of God in creation. They were 
 inevitable, predestined, certain, from the foundation 
 of the world. They were in God's fore-knowledge, 
 but they are only expressions of His Will in so far as 
 they are incidents of the method by which the creature 
 is to win through, groaning and travailing, to the 
 adoption; to wit, the redemption of its body. 
 
 If we are right, the effective action of Providence 
 
282 True, and questionable, Ideas of Revelation 
 
 is then true and real for the man who is trying to 
 serve God. The water is there, and when he digs 
 deep enough he must find it. But Providence in no 
 sense limits man's freedom, or helps him further than 
 he wills to go. As faith moves more and more towards 
 certainty, so does man's power of using the Spiritual 
 Keality that is all around him, grow ; and so, his power 
 to be helped. Help comes through progress in under- 
 standing. 
 
 Turning again to Revelation, we may apply the 
 same criteria. We have seen that the revelation 
 given in Christ is different from all others, and this 
 we may leave aside. If, in other cases, by Revelation 
 we mean the sudden gift of a higher understanding 
 of God than was justified by the then stage of the man, 
 the least we can say is that the matter is very dubious. 
 When we examine the recorded cases of Revelation 
 we find, I think, that it always comes through or to 
 men of higher spiritual development than their fellows ; 
 and, consequently, to the average man of any age the 
 revelation appears to be a direct communication from 
 God. Indeed, owing to the natural belief embedded 
 in the race that gods do speak to men, the origin of 
 which we traced in animism, the seer himself believes 
 that God has spoken. And in a sense it is true. But 
 it is true, not because God interferes with the normal 
 activities of the world, but because the seer has learned 
 to listen for His Voice and to anticipate what He wills. 
 
Summary 283 
 
 and so goes on from strength to strength he never 
 expected, finding wells in the vale he thought was dry. 
 To sum up, we have seen reason to believe that the 
 basis of the ideas of Providence and Revelation — 
 both true ideas, and full of deep meaning — is to be 
 sought, not in the intermittent action of an external 
 God, but in the progressive movement of the human 
 personality from the hope of communion with a 
 Great God to the certainty and knowledge of com- 
 munion with a God Who is Transcendent yet also 
 Immanent; Whose purposes are loving, and Who is 
 Himself Love. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY 
 
 Matter consists of closed systems which form 
 practically isolated groups; or rather, as Bergson 
 puts it, matter tends to form isolated groups or closed 
 systems, but this tendency is never fully realised. 
 The atom is a nearly closed system of electrons, the 
 molecule is a nearly closed system of atoms, the mole- 
 cules form a nearly closed system we call the planet 
 earth, the planets form a nearly closed solar system, 
 innumerable nearly closed solar systems form the 
 universe. For many purposes we can deal with each 
 or any of these as completely closed systems, or 
 truly isolated realities, and matter may be defined as 
 that which is susceptible of such treatment^. 
 
 But we have seen, following further in the steps 
 of Bergson and Julian Huxley and Trotter, that 
 there is much the same tendency manifest in living 
 creatures also. There seems to be a blind impulse 
 in living matter towards a colonial life. This may 
 be evidenced merely by the aggregation of morpho- 
 
 ^ CI BergsoD, Creative Evolution, pp. 8 seqq. 
 
Economic value of solidarity 285 
 
 logically similar individuals; or we may get colonies 
 with physiological division of labour, one individual 
 looking after the catering, another after defence, 
 another after reproduction, another after the telegraph 
 system, another after the hydrostatic machinery for 
 modifying buoyancy, another after the nursery, and 
 so on. Again the system may vary between complete 
 mutual contact and dependence, where groups of 
 individual cells form tissues and organs, as in the 
 human body, and a very large measure of independence, 
 as in the hymenopteran and neuropteran colonies. 
 The immediate cause of this is clearly economic. 
 Efficiency is the keynote of specialisation. But we 
 cannot rest satisfied with this explanation; it is 
 good enough for the purpose of the zoologist, but 
 not for that of the metaphysician. 
 
 We find a similar impulse towards the formation 
 of closed systems in man; the family, the tribe, the 
 nation are all manifestations of the same phenomenon. 
 Here too the basis is economic; the object being the 
 complete subjugation and utilisation of matter, and 
 the forces that govern it. All through there seems 
 to be a tendency towards unity, and you cannot 
 isolate the individual cell, the individual man, or the 
 individual nation and still find its full meaning there ; 
 you cannot destroy the relation of the part to the whole 
 without losing the clue to a full understanding of the 
 fimctions of the part. 
 
286 The Solidarity of Men 
 
 But there is a difference between the animal colony 
 and the human tribe. Unity in the first is the result 
 of a blind impulse — the same vital impulse whose 
 movement is always towards the subordination of 
 matter in order that freedom may be superimposed 
 upon determination. In the second another thing, 
 reasoning based on experience, is operative also. The 
 first is driven by a blind urging towards unity, the 
 second by a reasoned demand for union as well. In 
 the first the individuality of an aggregate is the essential 
 aim; in the second, a complete plurality of personal 
 beings who have chosen union as the best and only 
 means of gaining control over matter. In the first 
 there is merging of individualities in one larger indi- 
 vidual ; in the second there is no merging of personali- 
 ties. The nation as a whole cannot be said to be 
 personal, except in a metaphorical sense. Doubtless 
 the blind impulse to union survives even among men, 
 and is operative; but it grows less. Herd instinct 
 and tribal consciousness may probably be its last 
 manifestation. And no doubt also there is a kind of 
 pendulum movement. Instinct as well as reason lies 
 at the bottom of the aggregation of families into tribes. 
 At a later stage the over- emphasis of individual inde- 
 pendence, of the reasoning power of the person, may 
 bring anarchic tendencies. The pendulum over-swings. 
 But these abnormal manifestations are necessarily 
 self-destructive, for the need of union is more potent 
 
Solidarity and Personality 287 
 
 than the self-assertion of any person, however com- 
 manding. And the final end is the realisation that 
 union is essential to well-being. This is the " position 
 of rest." 
 
 Thus all through we see that solidarity is necessary 
 for the better subjugation of material surroundings, 
 which is intimately correlated with increasing freedom. 
 But in the human colony there is more. The realisa- 
 tion of personal communion is recognised as an end 
 in itself. Man continues to be a gregarious animal 
 chiefly because he is a person, and reciprocity, com- 
 munion, is essential to the person. 
 
 All through, the vital impulse works with one pur- 
 pose, increasing freedom,. but all through it works in 
 relation to two things, the individual and the race. 
 At first the race is everything, or almost everything. 
 The great need is solidarity — the retention and trans- 
 mission of freedom won for the race. Only when self- 
 consciousness dawns is the true value of individuality 
 made clear in the coming of personality. 
 
 The earlier impulse towards solidarity is not 
 valueless; it represents the striving of the vital 
 impulse to gain freedom by including under its sway 
 as much of determinate matter as possible; at once 
 it evidences, and renders possible, determination from 
 within, instead of from without. It thus lays the 
 foundation of self-determination, which, when it 
 becomes conscious, is personality. 
 
288 Solidarity has its ultimate eocplanation 
 
 Personality only becomes possible because of tbe 
 previous activity of the vital impulse working for the 
 solidarity of the race. 
 
 With personality comes the higher stage. Thus 
 far there has been no indication of an ultimate meaning 
 in the strife of the vital impulse. Freedom seemed the 
 only end. And freedom is a very unsatisfying, even 
 meaningless thing, taken by itself. Freedom — self- 
 determination — derives meaning only from personality, 
 whose end is mutual experience — union. Union is 
 a higher thing than mere self-determination, since it 
 entails the satisfaction of every side of personality. 
 
 Thus in the purposeful formation of societies there 
 is the same economic need which determined physio- 
 logical division of labour, but there is more. There 
 is the satisfaction of the imperious demands of personal 
 being in communion and fellowship — the mutual 
 sharing of experience. 
 
 This phenomenon, this marvel of the personality, 
 this strange demand of the being of one upon the 
 being of another, is a fundamental fact which we 
 cannot brush aside. It is manifested in many ways, 
 under many guises. One aspect of it is included in 
 the phrase "the interpenetration of personalities." 
 Perhaps indeed this phrase will include all the aspects 
 of the relationship of personal beings to one another, 
 when they are made perfect. It covers something 
 elusive, beyond, or rather above, reason; something 
 
in the needs of Personality 289 
 
 intangible; illogical even; yet within the experience 
 of every human soul in some measure. Only lately, 
 perhaps, has the truth which it enshrines been formally 
 recognised. Before it was the sacred, treasured ex- 
 perience of many, rarely spoken of, jealously guarded. 
 The poets of love touched the fringe sometimes, 
 though the dominant note of sex drowned the fainter 
 harmonics. The mystics knew something of it. 
 Among the Society of Friends it found safe harbourage, 
 if not full honour. But its kingdom was not of this 
 world, and there were few who saw glimpses of the 
 royal purple beneath the common mantle of earth. 
 
 Neither in the nation, nor in any purely human 
 group, has this need its full fruition. Mutual relation 
 issues, for the nation, in a definite and peculiar 
 national character, but the movement of a nation 
 towards sohdarity is avowedly economic in origin, at 
 any rate mainly. So too with the family. 
 
 In the Church alone — I use the word in its fullest 
 and broadest meaning — the whole meaning is seen, 
 and finds expression. Solidarity, the corporate sense, 
 is higher and tru^r here than anywhere else, because 
 personal union has acquired an ultimate meaning. 
 And surely this meaning is the gain of perfect 
 self-determination for the purpose of perfect com- 
 munion. The idea of the Christian Church involves 
 this, the innermost, deepest truth of the Creation, of 
 the Atonement, of the plan of God from the beginning. 
 M. 19 
 
290 The Church foreshadows the 
 
 It emphasises the importance of each personal spirit, 
 thus rejecting the idea of an ultimate unity by- 
 absorption into the World Spirit, because personality 
 is eternal; and at the same time it clings fast to the 
 other implication of personality, ultimate communion. 
 It sees the meaning of solidarity in the completion 
 of personal communion through personal relation to 
 God. In the light of these two truths the significance 
 of the great world-process becomes clear. All the 
 struggle, the pain, the gain of freedom little by little; 
 the blind gropings and internecine strife of tribes and 
 nations; the yearnings and guesses of the soul in 
 travail; the destiny of those who have passed from 
 human knowledge ; all these are flooded with a glorious 
 radiance. The riddle without an answer is under- 
 standed of the people. Things which puzzled the 
 wise are revealed to babes. Unity and multiplicity 
 are no longer contradictory appearances, but indi- 
 cations of the current that slowly and steadily is 
 bringing an evolving world into Union with God, 
 Who is Transcendent, yet becomes Immanent, in 
 order that we men, through immanence, may enter 
 into transcendent Union with Him, beyond time. 
 
 Faith is movement towards certainty; and that 
 certainty is achieved only in union with God and with 
 each other in Eternal Communion — a united plurality, 
 not a unity. The Church on earth is the partial 
 realisation of this union, ever progressing. It is a 
 
final end of solidarity 291 
 
 colony in which the final meaning of colonial life is 
 in some degree understood ; though the understanding 
 is far less than it could be, and ought to be, because 
 of internal dissension. For the Church, Prayer and 
 Sacraments fall into line with the efforts of the savage 
 to make an arrowhead; Providence and Revelation 
 become parts of one and the same great Process in 
 which the Immanent Aspect of God is being reabsorbed 
 into Transcendence, as men pass into the Eternal 
 and Simultaneous with Him. The Church, even on 
 earth, is the partial realisation of union with God, in 
 and through Christ. The Body of Christ is no mere 
 metaphor of the Church's nature ; rather it is a state- 
 ment of the sacramental meaning of all the long travail 
 of a world where the finite is passing to the infinite. 
 The solidarity of the Church is of vital importance, if 
 the gift of God in Christ Jesus is to have its fulfilment. 
 
 Let us then, in conclusion, sum up our ideas of the 
 significance of the Church in the light of our general 
 argument. 
 
 It is a commonplace of idealistic philosophy that 
 the explanation of the phenomenon of matter must 
 be sought in the phenomenon of mind, and not vice 
 versa. And this principle may be justly extended to 
 cover various other related phenomena that seem to 
 demand a teleological explanation. For instance, it 
 is reasonable to look for the meaning of the universal 
 tendency towards solidarity, not in the realm of matter, 
 
 19—2 
 
292 Recapitulation 
 
 but in the realm of spirit, since we find that it exists 
 not only in inanimate matter, but in living organisms ; 
 and that it rises to fullest manifestation in man. 
 Indeed we have tacitly assumed throughout that the 
 ultimate meaning can only be found in the realm of 
 spiritual things. 
 
 We shall not be wrong, I believe, if we seek the 
 key to all solidarity in the existence of the Church 
 — using the term in a very broad sense, to be defined 
 immediately. 
 
 We have already dealt with the importance of soli- 
 darity from the point of view of the economics of the 
 organism. We have seen how necessary it is. But we 
 have not yet linked it up with the views of immanence 
 and transcendence that we have formulated. 
 
 We found that the formation of closed systems 
 in the living organism is closely related to the achieve- 
 ment of freedom through solidarity. As much matter 
 as possible must be brought under the control of spirit. 
 This cannot be done wholly by increase in size of the 
 living organism, for the vital impulse cannot bear up 
 more than a certain quantity of matter against the 
 determinate katabolic forces which govern it, and 
 moreover the conditions under which life has established 
 itself involve the interaction of external matter with 
 the matter of which the organism is itself composed. 
 No doubt, also, there is some cause, innate in the nature 
 of matter, which renders the formation of large isolated 
 
Recapitulation 293 
 
 systems impossible. The atom which has more than 
 a certain number of electrons whirling in it becomes 
 unstable and tends to break up into two simpler systems. 
 Hence we always find a tendency to form groups of 
 the second and third and fourth degrees. Atoms 
 group into molecules, men into societies. Now men 
 form societies in order to gain completer control over 
 the conditions of their life; for the purpose of more 
 efficient activity. They evince in some degree the 
 interdependence of personalities, which eventually 
 manifests itself, as we have seen, as interpenetration. 
 Atmosphere, aura, magnetic power — all these sym- 
 bolic phrases, pressed though they often are to absurd 
 and fantastic lengths, express in a certain measure 
 the truth that persons are not shut out from one 
 another by impenetrable barriers. 
 
 The gain of solidarity is obvious, as a means 
 of ensuring survival in the evolutionary struggle; 
 but when we find the existence of spiritual solidarity 
 we are bound to pause and inquire whether our older 
 idea, that solidarity is essential to physical survival, 
 represents the whole truth. Just as a full examination 
 of evolution led us to the conclusion that the end was 
 eventual adaptation to a spiritual environment, and 
 not merely a physical one; so here, the existence of 
 spiritual solidarity, which fits in so admirably with 
 this, and with the metaphysical results we arrived at 
 in the first part of this book, compels us to admit 
 
294 Spiritiml solidarity finds 
 
 that the ultimate explanation of this general pheno- 
 menon must be sought in the sphere of spirit. Spiritual 
 communion between man and man lays permanent 
 emphasis on the sacramental nature of material 
 existence. It supplies the key to the instinct and 
 reason which alike draw men together in close bonds 
 of fellowship. 
 
 A Church is simply the outward expression of man's 
 acceptance of the spiritual nature of the ties which 
 bind mankind together, and link men with the Powers 
 of Heaven. It proclaims the eternal self-hood of 
 man; but it also proclaims that no man lives to, and 
 for, himself. It is man's public denial that he is an 
 isolated being. It is his public attestation of a creed 
 which affirms the existence and creative activity of 
 God, and man's dependence on Him, and intercourse 
 with Him. 
 
 This surely is the significance of every Church, 
 each in its own degree, whether its outward mani- 
 festation be a gathering of men together to indulge 
 in corybantic dances and unmelodious outbursts of 
 organised noise, to wait in silence and prayer for the 
 moving of the Holy Spirit, or to receive the sacramental 
 blessing of Eucharistic Communion. And we may 
 further see the phenomenon on which we have so 
 often had occasion to lay stress; churches that are 
 , on side-lines, unprogressive, and churches that are 
 on the main line of advance. 
 
expression in the Church 295 
 
 As yet we have little understanding of the power 
 and meaning of a Church. Those who do realise it 
 are apt to confine its sphere and activities within 
 very narrow limits, surrounding it with a shell that 
 renders free growth impossible. Others again resent 
 the bondage of conformity to such a rigidly-confined 
 organism, and fail to realise the value of an ideal 
 which aims at universal solidarity. 
 
 The Holy Church Universal is as yet an unrealised 
 dream. Yet it is full of meaning. It has an urgent 
 appeal for those who realise what underlies it. And 
 that meaning is only to be foimd in the Christian 
 Revelation; for only in the Christian Revelation is 
 the sacramental nature of matter made plain through 
 the Incarnation of the Son. A Universal Church 
 would be, in very fact, the Body of Christ on 
 earth — Christ the Head, mankind the Body — the 
 organism through which His Will becomes effective 
 in matter; till at length patience has her perfect 
 work, and the Transcendence of God, reasserted, and 
 without limitation, through the transcendence of man, 
 becomes all in all once more. And then? Surely 
 still the Church will be His Body in another sense, 
 even in the Transcendent Now of Eternity, since it 
 will be co-ordinated with Him in every expression of 
 His Activity. 
 
 « * 4: « * * 
 
 Our task is ended. To those who feel that to 
 
296 Conclusion 
 
 carry over the scientific doctrine of evolution into 
 the realm of spiritual life is alike unjustifiable and 
 needless, it will seem without meaning, or at least 
 inept. We would ask all such, and they are many, 
 to remember that there are others who have a different 
 outlook on life; whose deepest instincts demand 
 evidence of continuity in the development of the soul ; 
 who are so unhappily constituted that they must 
 needs question even the things that belong to their 
 peace. For their sakes any and every endeavour to 
 search the mysteries of God by the little light of 
 human knowledge and experience is worth while. 
 Only those who have stumbled through the dark 
 forest of doubt can know the comfort that even 
 a little gleam of light brings. 
 
 Quale, per incertam lunam, sub luce mahgna 
 Est iter in silvis, ubi coelum condidit umbra 
 Jupiter, et rebus nox abstulit, atra, colorem^. 
 
 It is to those who ask for evidence of Divine order 
 and purpose in the commonest happenings of every- 
 day life, that these two books are offered. 
 
 Very ignorantly, and very blindly, have we striven 
 to understand something of the unsearchable riches 
 of God's love. Yet if we have gained but a little 
 insight into the meaning of past efforts, as life 
 struggled along the first steps of its long journey; 
 
 1 Virgil, Aeneid, \i 
 
Conclusion 297 
 
 if we have found any additional justification for an 
 intellectual belief that the way is not endless, but does 
 really lead to the Beautiful City of which some vision 
 has been revealed to us, our labour will not have been 
 without fruit. 
 
 If in any degree the painful quest we have pursued 
 can turn our thoughts, so that the dreary oppression 
 of what has been in man's history takes light and life 
 from the part it plays in what shall be, we shall have 
 learned aright the lesson of evolution. 
 
 No longer 
 
 Now, when far bells are ringing "Come, again, 
 
 Come back, past years! Why will ye pass in vain?^'* 
 
 But 
 
 That we may lift from out the dust 
 A voice as unto him that hears, 
 A cry above the conquer'd years 
 
 To one that with us works, and trust, 
 
 With faith that comes of self-control. 
 The truths that never can be proved 
 Until we close with all we loved. 
 
 And all we flow from, soul in soul^. 
 
 Sin and Atonement, Faith and Providence, Prayer, 
 Sacraments, the Church, all fall into harmonious 
 relation with the process of evolution, when we look 
 at this in the light of the End ; for the process is itself 
 
 1 W. Morris, The Eartfdy Paradise. April. 
 
 2 TennysoD, In Memoriam, cxxx. 
 
298 Conclusion 
 
 instinct with spiritual meaning, and can only be inter- 
 preted in the light of a Spiritual End. That which is 
 becoming must eventually pass into union with that 
 which eternally IS. 
 
 When most of the puzzles of life are examined in 
 relation to the limited freedom of a life which is 
 immanent, and to the timeless activity of Transcen- 
 dence, in which the spirits of men are in perfect union 
 with God, their explanation is made clearer, or at 
 least less hopelessly incomprehensible. 
 
 However feebly we have striven to follow our 
 Ariadne-thread through the difficult maze, the thread 
 itself is a sure guide. The winning of freedom ; the 
 self-limitation of the Godhead, Immanent in His 
 Creation ; the eternal nature of Personality ; the com- 
 pletion of activity in the communion of Eternal Life ; 
 these are the strands of which the thread is spun. 
 If we have traced its course aright it leads at last to 
 the Throne of God. It guides us through the age- 
 long strife of the animal kingdom; through the 
 achieval of self-consciousness; through the dark 
 misery of sin; through faith; through aspiration and 
 prayer; through revelation and atonement; through 
 time and space; to realms where time and space 
 cease alike to be, and there is no more death, but 
 only life in an activity that is love without beginning 
 or end. In presence of such Reality the problems of 
 the many and the one lose their meaning, for they 
 
Condusion 299 
 
 appear in their true guise as problems of Time, not 
 of Eternity. 
 
 Men, after all, in their highest imaginings can but 
 hope to be spinners of thought. But if there be any 
 truth in our belief in an ultimate idealism, linked, 
 in the realm of duration, with a kind of dualism 
 that is phenomenally real, the strands we spin will 
 form a rope strong enough to draw all the world, 
 when they are at last twisted together. These two 
 books represent an attempt to form a thread out of 
 a few such strands. Strong enough to support any 
 great strain it cannot be, for it is but one thread, and 
 not a rope. But yet I dare to hope that, though 
 
 I cannot ease the burden of your fears, 
 Or make quick-coming death a httle thing. 
 Or bring again the pleasure of past years, 
 Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears^. 
 
 Yet there may be found herein something that may 
 help a few towards a faith and hope that have become 
 very real to myself in following out, during some ten 
 years, the line of thought I have tried to write down, 
 however faultily. 
 
 For faults, for obscurities, for inaccuracies of 
 thought, I ask the pardon of my fellow-students. 
 If they will but take such fragments as seem to them 
 helpful, and forget the rest, small harm will come, and 
 perhaps a little good. 
 
 1 William Morris, The Earthly Paradise. 
 
300 Additional Note 
 
 Additional Note on Prayer for Material 
 Benefits. 
 
 One side of the whole problem of prayer for material 
 benefits has not been reviewed, and it is perhaps 
 impossible to sketch, even in broad outline, a satis- 
 factory solution of the difficulties it presents. Never- 
 theless a brief analysis which places the issues clearly 
 before the reader may not be unprofitable. 
 
 Our statement that the matter of the body is 
 influenced and modified directly by mind, and so by 
 prayer, and that this influence may mediate, indirectly, 
 a change in matter outside the body, is simple and, I 
 think, incontrovertible. And the conclusion that no 
 distinction can be made between answers to prayer 
 involving mind, and answers involving matter, perse, 
 follows logically. But one may still doubt whether 
 a line should not be drawn between matter animated 
 by spirit — matter which constitutes the immediate ex- 
 perience of a mind, as the body does — and matter pure 
 and simple, not animated by spirit, and constituting 
 a mediate experience only. A strong and sensible 
 objection to the rather sweeping statement that no 
 line can be drawn between answer to prayer in the 
 
Additional Note 301 
 
 spiritual and in the material spheres may be raised, and 
 argued, if the line is drawn, not between spirit, and 
 matter per se, but between matter animated by the 
 vital impulse and matter that is not so animated. 
 For in living matter the laws of katabolic determination 
 are in a measure suspended, or superseded, by the 
 anabolic impulse of life. If matter is the expression 
 of God's self-limitation, absolutely determined in its 
 action and relations, would not any interference in 
 this sphere, even if an ordinary causal chain of pheno- 
 mena were the actual means used, imply a change in 
 the Will of God which originally brought about the 
 self-limitation? Are not all cases in which such 
 interference appears to have taken place susceptible of 
 some other explanation? With the last point we are 
 not concerned. Our object is to discuss in the abstract 
 whether prayer could be answered in this way, without 
 any limitation of the freedom of man or any self- 
 contradiction in the Will of God, and not to prove or 
 disprove specific instances. 
 
 The arguments on the other side may be stated 
 somewhat in the following form. 
 
 Matter is the expression of God's self -limitation. 
 Without irreverence we may say that it is the material 
 Body of the Immanent God, and constitutes part of 
 His immediate experience. It is not external to His 
 Will, but is rather Its expression. Man can un- 
 doubtedly "make a tool" of God — make use, that 
 
302 Additional Note 
 
 is, of the Spiritual Environment, to further his own 
 freedom. The Will of God is set towards the freedom 
 of man — God is reaching down to help man win more 
 freedom, and as soon as man is able to see where help 
 lies, and to demand it, it is given lovingly and joyfully. 
 This involves no limitation of man's freedom, as we 
 have seen. It would seem, then, not wholly irrational 
 to believe that man could ask for, and expect, help 
 through matter outside his own body — as, to take an 
 extreme instance, by praying for rain. For this 
 matter, though it is not part of his own immediate 
 experience, is yet part of the immediate experience of 
 God — that is, of a Person. 
 
 It may be argued, also, that an answer to such a 
 prayer would not involve any change in the Will of God 
 towards man — for that has always been towards the 
 granting of freedom — but only a change in the method 
 of action of that Will, through the temporary and 
 partial supersession of God's self-limitation. 
 
 We must, of course, remember that this could only 
 occur if the action really tended to man's highest 
 good; and whether this could ever be so is quite 
 another question — ^in any case it would appear to be 
 extremely rare. But granting this to be the fact, in 
 some imaginary instance, man's freedom would clearly 
 be unaffected, and the Will of God towards man would 
 be unaltered, and so no self-contradiction would be 
 involved in this aspect of the problem. Would, then. 
 
Additional Note 303 
 
 a change introduced in katabolic matter — a new 
 impulse in some region, acting temporarily and for a 
 specific purpose — involve a change in the plan of Grod ? 
 I am inclined to think that it would not, since it seems 
 to me the plan of God must be founded ultimately 
 in His Will, and not in His method; but I state this 
 opinion with considerable diffidence. 
 
 Having thus formulated the alternatives I leave 
 them to the reader. I cannot claim to have a very 
 definite opinion on the matter. Scientific training 
 inclines the mind towards the former alternative, 
 while, I think, the logical application of our general 
 argument tends, if anything, towards the latter. But 
 this opinion is stated very tentatively, for a long period 
 of thought must be the only justification for a definite 
 suggestion, even if it were possible to arrive at any 
 conclusion at all; and this time I have not been able 
 to give, since the problem has only recently come before 
 my mind in its present form. 
 
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