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PRESENT DAY TRACTS
ON THE
^<ttt=^ft|i$iiatt IllttksirpIiUs ifi i^ ^jj^
BY
The Eevs. Noah Porter, D.D., The Late
W. F, Wilkinson, M.A., Prof. W, G. Blaikie, D,D.,
Prof. ^ James Iverach, M.A., and Prof. J.
Radford Thomson, M.A.
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PREFACE.
rpHE Tracts contained in this Yolume are already in the
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their issue ; but it is believed that it will meet the needs
and convenience of many readers and teachers to have
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success which the volume on the ITon-Christian Religions
of the World has already met with encourages the hope
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several of them to expound the true philosophy and refute
the erroneous philosophies that are prevalent. What they
vi Preface.
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viction that it is well fitted to counteract the error that is
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January, 1888.
CONTENTS.
VII.
CHRISTIANITY AND SECULARISM COMPARED IN
THEIR INFLUENCE AND EFFECTS.
Bv THB Rev. Professor BLAIKIE, D.D.
VIII.
/^ AGNOSTICISM: A DOCTRINE OF DESPAIR '' '
By thh Rbv. NOAH PORTER, D.D., LL.D.
XVII.
MODERN MATERIALISM.
By THB LATB Rev. "W. F. WILKINSON, M.A.
XXIX.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERBERT SPENCER EXAMINED.
Bv TUB Rev. Professor JAMES IVERACH, M.A.
XXXIV.
MODERN PESSIMISM.
By the Rev. Professor J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A.
XL.
UTILITARIANISM: AN ILLOGICAL AND IRRELIGIOUS
SYSTEM OF MORALS.
By the Rev. Professor J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A.
XLVII.
AUGUSTE COMTE AND THE "RELIGION OF HUMANITY."
By the Rev. Professor J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A.
XLvin.
THE ETHICS OF EVOLUTION EXAMINED.
Bv the Rev. Pkcfessor JAMES IVERACH, M.A.
CHRISTIANITY AND SECULARISM
COMPARED IN THEIR
INFLUENCE AND EFFECTS.
BY
The Rev. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D, LL.D.
^Professor in the New College^ EdinbuvgJi),
author of
Better Days for Working People," "The Personal Life of David
Livingstone," etc.
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^rgiuucut of the Tract.
Christianity and Secularism are to be tested by their
fruits. Early and recent achievements of Christianity show
the excellence of the fruit-tree. Objections on the ground
of corruption, imperfect fruits, etc., are examined and met.
Secularist objections are then specially dealt with. First,
the attack of Secularism on the principles of Christianity is
stated and examined. Christianity does not teach men to
despise this life, nor to succumb to all injustice and
oppression ; it appeals to men's hopes and fears of future
retribution, but at the same time it calls in and exercises all
that is noble in us. George Eliot's article on Worldliness
ajid Other- Worldliness is examined and criticised. Chris-
tianity does not demand a submission to arbitrary authority,
but requires obedience to the will of God as the expression
of all that is best and most wholesome. Secular obedience
to natural law is shown to involve the same principle as
Christian obedience to revealed law. The principles of
Secularism are then examined, and found wanting. The
place of atheism in secular systems is indicated. From
Dr. Flint's criticism of certain secular principles it is seen
that they are open to great objection. The want of a
fnoral dynamic in secularism is pointed out. It is shown
that secularism borrows certain principles from the Bible,
not the Bible from secularism. The outstanding facts
connected with the efforts of the two systems are next
examined. It is shown that secularism has no great list
of benefactors to the race, while in every department
Christianity abounds in such. It is shown too that efforts
for civil and religious liberty in this country have been
greatly stimulated by religion. The paper concludes with
a story of a waif showing that only a full, free Gospel is
capable of reaching the wanderer and restoring him to his
Father's house.
CHRISTIANITY AND SECULARISM
COMPARED IN THEIR
INFLUENCE AND EFFECTS.
j^^o men crather crapes of fhorns or fip^s of systems
;Si w o o r o tested bv
thistles?" Is not the tree known by their friiiits.
*^ its fruits ? Christianity and Secularism
both claim to be good fruit-trees, in respect of
their civilizing and elevating influence. It ought
not to be very difiicult to decide which is best.
We believe that the decision must be wholly
in favour of Christianity ; but Secularism cries
'' No ! '' and demands a scrutiny.
When Christianity first appeared there was no J/gXat the
need for any scrutiny. Its purifying, elevating, Christianity
and civilizing effects were plain to every one who
had eyes to see. Under the influence of Paganism,
society, in the Eoman world, had become almost
hopelessly corrupt. Eoman poets, historians, and
philosophers bear frightful testimony to the un-
disguised abominations which abounded in Rome
itself, the most refined city in the world. Yice
was not only rampant, but it was utterly shame-
less. On all hands it is admitted that Christianity
Christianity and Secularism.
was like tlie introduction of fresli life-blood into a
wasted body, ready to perisb. It was a new tbing
to see men enduring torture and surrendering their
lives ratber than utter a boUow word. It was a
new tbing to see strong men exposing tbemselves
to peril to protect tbe weak, or sacrificing tbeir
comforts to feed tbe bungry or to clotbe tbe naked.
" How tbese Cbristians love one anotber ! " was
tbe exclamation wbicb sucb sigbts provoked.
" Wbat women tbese Cbristians bave ! " was tbe
remark wben tbe life-long virtue of sucb a woman
as Antbusa, tbe widowed motber of Obrysostom,
passed under review. In later times, alas, Cbris-
tianity was less marked for its purity, and we find
instances of men, wben pressed to become Cbristians,
retorting, "Wbat good would it do us to be Cbris-
tians, wben sucb a one is a cbeat in business, and
sucb anotber a tyrant in bis bouse ? "
Modem In our owu time we bave bad some beautiful
instances.
illustrations of tbe power of Cbristianity to civi-
lize and elevate tbe most barbarous communities.
Fiji. i^Q liave seen some of tbe Fiji and otber islands
transformed from tbe wildest savagery and canni
balism, into orderly, industrious, and intelligent
communities.^ We bave seen brigbt oases springing
up at Kuruman and Lovedale, and otber spots in
tbe Kaffrarian desert. And tbe wbole liistory of
eighteen centuries has sbown more or less tbat tbe
^ See, inter alia^ Miss Gordon Cumming's At Home in Fiji, i 88^.
Christianity ana Secularism.
progressive civilization of the world is found Principles of
under the shadow and shelter of Christianity, civilization.
We fear no challenge when we affirm that in its
purest form Christianity has fostered the ideas and
encouraged the habits out of which all true civili-
zation springs. It has fostered regard for man as
essentially a noble being, having an immortal soul
made in God's image, with boundless capacities of
expansion and improvement ; regard for woman
as the helpmeet and companion of man, not
his drudge, or slave, or concubine ; regard for
marriage as a holy contract, entered into before
God, not to be lightly set aside ; regard for children
as the heritage of the Lord, not burdens and in-
cumbrances, but lent by the Lord to be brought
up for Him ; regard for the family as a divine insti-
tution, intended to be a fountain of holy joys, and
a nursery of all estimable habits and all kindly
affections ; regard for the sick, the infirm, and the
aged, whose sorrows we are ever to pity, and whose
privations we are to make up in some measure from
our more ample stores. The very word Christian,
in its true spirit, has been identified with all these
ideas and habits; in that sense it has a glory all
its own ; and no juster criticism can be passed on
persons outraging truth and rectitude, than that
they are a disgrace to the Christian name.
More than this, we affirm that in the region of Moral
^ influence of
morality, Christianity has fostered a spirit of truth Christianity.
CJuistianity and Secularism.
and fair dealing between man and man; so that
over tlie world Christian traders, for example,
bear on the Avhole a different character from those
who are not Christian. Thus much we may still
say in spite of painful drawbacks. Christian tri-
bunals have a reputation for justice unknown in
Mahometan and other countries, where bribery and
corruption are so prevalent ; more regard is paid to
the rights of the poor ; and the oppression of the
defenceless is counted shameful. In the region o5
political life greater pains are taken to secure
orderly government, to protect life and property,
and to encourage industry and commerce ; greater
pains are taken too (alas, sometimes far too little \)
to maintain peace and friendship with other com-
munities, and, as the result of this, commodities
are more freely exchanged, and the welfare of both
sides is advanced. Moreover, under the shadow
of Christianity, art, science, and literature have
flourished and advanced; indeed, there is hardly
such a thing as enlightened science or literature
in any modem nation not professing Christianity.
Yet the salt ^q rcadilv admit that Christianity is capable of
may lose it^ ' J x.
being corrupted on the one hand, and reduced to
dead formalism on the other ; and that in both of
these cases the salt loses its savour. That this
would happen in the history of the Church, that
there would be most grievous error and declension,
followed by wild violence and bitter persecution,
bavour.
Christianity and Secularism.
argUMicnt
was clearly foretold by Christ and His Apostles.^
But wherever Christianity exists in its true cha-
racter, it always acts beneficially on human society.
It gives its tone to the laws and institutions of the
country ; it educates the people, it liberates the
slave, it cares for the poor, it heals the sick, it
fosters the arts of peace, it mitigates the horrors
of war ; and, not content with improving the con-
dition of those at home, it takes to its heart the
remotest nations of the earth, and plans, labours,
and prays that all its blessings and privileges may
flow out to the whole family of man.
We are not allowed, however, in these days to ^^
say all this unchallenged. Our argument on the cJ^aiienged
elevating influence of Christianity on society has
been questioned both on general and on special
grounds. In this tract our chief business will be
with the special objections of Secularists ; we will
therefore touch but lightly, in the first place, on
some of the more general objections to the argu-
ment arising from the effects of Christianity.
It is objected (a) that Christianity has not even Sctions
been able to keep itself pure, free from the cor-
ruption of foreign or worldly elements ; (b) that it
has failed to absorb and supersede all other religions,
as it would have done had it really been the only
divine religion for man ; (c) that it has often shown
1 Matt. xiii. 25; xxiv. 12 ; Acts xx. 29, 30 ; 2 Thess. ii. 8, j
2 Tim. iii. 2.
Christianity and Secularism.
Corruptibi-
lity of Chris-
tianity
implies
essential
piiiity.
a persecuting spirit, and a reliance on force as the
instrument of its advance ; and {d) that it has failed
conspicuously to extirpate evils of the grossest and
most repulsive kind : it has failed to aholish war
it has failed to root out drunkenness and de-
bauchery, so that in our large cities even now,
towards the end of the nineteenth century, we
find much of the old pagan disorder and sensuality
under the very shadow of the Christian Church.^
In reply to all this we have to remark,
{a) That the liability of Christianity to become
corrupted by worldly elements, so far from proving
that it is of mere human origin, is a proof of the
opposite. As we have said, Christ and His apostles
foretold it. But besides this, let it be observed
that if, like the pagan religions, or like Mahometan-
ism or Mormonism, Christianity had been of man,
it would have been sure to have enough of worldly
elements in its own composition, and half-hearted
adherents would not have required to borrow these
from a foreign source. The Christianity of the
New Testament is too pure for human nature
before it is changed by Christian influence ; and
when men do not yield themselves to it wholly,
they are glad to mix it with more palatable
- I'hese and similar objections to Christianity, as an agent of
civilization and human progress, will be fonnd more or less
formally stated by Buckle, Lecky, Amberloy, Paine, Holyoake,
Lradlaugh, Watts, and other opponents of Christianity.
Christianity and Secularism.
materials in order to adapt it in some degree to
their unrenewed taste. This explains the corrup-
tion of Christianity. But Christianity itself ought
no more to be rejected because it has been
corrupted by worldly admixture, than silver should
be pronounced worthless because it is tarnished by
exposure to the air.
(h) Again, the failure of Christianity to absorb Nature of
... . . T . provision foi
other religions is no argument against its divme gji'^.^*^."'^-.
origin when the nature of the provision for
spreading it is considered. It was never in-
tended to be made known directly or at once to
all; it was first to be communicated to a selected
few, and these were charged with the duty of
making it known to others. This is uniformly the
method enjoined in the Christian books. It depends
for efficiency on the faithfulness of those to whom
the charge is given first. But in a vast number of
cases, the recipients of the Gospel have been
careless of this duty, and hence the limited diflPusion
of Christianity. Is that to be pleaded against its
divine origin ? Many parents neglect their duty
to their children, but for all that, we all hold
that the family institute is a blessed arrangement.
The best system in the world is helpless if it
be not worked by an efiicient executive. Surely
it would be the very essence of unfairness to
confound the system with its officers, and condemn
10
Christianity and Secularisjn.
Charge of
intolerance
met.
the one for the manifest and inexcusable negligence
of the other.
(c) In lilie manner the charge of intolerance and
persecution does not tell against Christianity itself,
but against its mistaken and faithless administrators.
It is not pretended by our opponents that the
Christian books enjoin intolerance and persecution.
No word can be quoted from the lips of our Lord
or His apostles that gives the faintest countenance
to such a policy. Such words as the following
point in the opposite direction: **Be ya wise as
serpents, and harmless as doves." " All they that
take the sword shall perish with the sword." " My
kingdom is not of this world, else would My
servants fight." It is indeed lamentable to think
how much intolerance and persecution have pre-
vailed in some branches of the Christian Church.
But in so far as these weapons have been used,
violence has been done to the true spirit of Christ.
It is no real objection to our argument that
Christianity propagated by force has not been a
blessing to the world; for force kills love, and
Christianity without love is like a body without
the soul.
{d) It is a more serious objection that Christianity,
even where it has been most successful, has failed
to root out gross corruption such as drunkenness,
greed, cruelty, and war. But here it is indis-
pensable to bear in mind how Christianity works.
Failure of
Christianity
to eradicate
great evils.
Christianity and Secularism. 11
It is not like the light or the air, influencing all
men alike. It becomes a great transforming and
renewing power only in the case of those who
receive Christ into their hearts. Our Lord Him-
self taught emphatically that in order to fruit-
fulness there must he such a union with Him as
that of the branch to the vine. JSTo phrase occurs
more frequently in the writings of St. Paul than
"in Christ." Christians, therefore, so called, are
really of two kinds, those who have Christ in their
hearts, and those who make only a profession of
following Him. It is the first only who can be
expected to manifest the real spirit of Christianity.
Now, the force of the Christian current in any
community can only be in proportion to the number
and earnestness of such persons. Unhappily,
hitherto, no great community has ever consisted
permanently and wholly of such elements.
Christianity, therefore, has never yet been seen systems to
in this world in its full strength. It has always \l^l^^^
had an antagonist, and its nett results have been
only in the proportion in which its own power
has prevailed over antagonistic forces. If, in spite
of this antagonism, the influence of Christianity
on society has on the whole been wholesome and
beneficent, the testimony thus arising to its heavenly
origin is all the more striking. If a goodly croj) of
wheat has been reaped even where the enemy has
been busy sowing tares, the excellence of the
essential
tendencies.
J 2 Christianity and Secularism.
wheat and of the husbandry which produced it is
the more fully shown. It is ever to be borne in
mind that in many respects Christianity is not
acceptable to the human mind as it exists
unchanged ; that while on the whole it commends
itself as a divine provision for man's need, it
encounters much dislike and opposition from man's
waywardness and wilfulness, and to a correspond-
ing extent its influence is neutralized. But, as
Butler's Butler remarks in his Analogy, the merits of
argument. ^ oj ^
systems are often to be judged by their essential
tendencies, rather than by their actual achievements.
It is objected to Butler's doctrine of the govern-
ment of the world being founded on virtue, that
virtue does not always overcome vice. True, says
Butler; but virtue even in this world tends to
prevail, and hence you may infer that the
government of the world rests on virtue.
Essential go Christianity even in Christian countries
tendencies of ''
chiistianity. ]^r^g j^q^ wholly overcomo drunkenness, greed,
dishonesty, ambition and other sins, but it tends
to overcome them. Can this be doubted ? Take
Its precepts, its most characteristic percepts " Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul ; and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
Its motives, tliysolf." Take its most characteristic motives
^' Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price ;
therefore glorify God in your bodies and in your
spirits, wliich are God's." " Walk worthy of the
Christianity and Secularism. 13
vocation wherewitli ye are called." '^ Grieve not
the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed
unto the day of redemption." Take its most
characteristic models "Let this mind be in you, its models,
which was also in Christ Jesus." "Such an
high priest became us, who is holy, harmless,
undefiled, and separate from sinners." "Be not
slothful, but followers of them who through faith
and patience inherit the promises." Take its most
characteristic rewards "Blessed are the pure in itsiwarda
heart, for they shall see God." " Father, I will
that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with
me." " We know that when He shall appear,
we shall be like Him." Take its grand con- its fmaie.
summationy the glorious result of all its efforts and
achievements " Christ also loved the church, and
gave Himself for it, that He might . . . present
it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot
or wrinkle or any such thing." Who will dare to
say that the essential tendency of such a system is
not contrary to all vice and moral disorder; and
that if Christianity does not succeed in this world
in eradicating all sin, it is not because its tendency
is defective, but because the antagonism it en-
counters both in the hearts of its own servants and
in the world where it wages its warfare impedes
and thwarts its beneficial intention ?
But still, in opposition to all these explanations, it ^ons'l'nd
is sometimes urged, that if Christianity were really ob[icfed'to
14
Christianity and Secularism.
divine, it stould not need all these apologies and
explanations ; it would have such a force about it
as to preserve its own true character in spite of all
contrary influences, to secure administrators of the
proper spirit, to bear down opposition and antagon-
ism of every kind, and to prevail far more decidedly
over the devil and all his works. To have to speak
of it apologetically, as has now been done, is to
defend its goodness at the expense of its strength ;
as you sometimes say of a feeble brother, that he
has good intentions but cannot carry them into
eifect.
Is this a just objection ? We affirm that it is
contrary to all analogy. All truth is of Divine
origin, but how slowly does truth prevail over
^ Eighteousness is of Divine origin ; but
0?)Jection
coutrary to
analogy.
Truth.
Righteous-
ness.
Frecdons.
error
what a warfare it has to wage, and how slowly
it wins the day over injustice and selfishness!
Freedom is of Divine origin ; but what a painful,
difficult, and tedious process has it been to vindicate
its claims ! It is not God's way to bear down all
opposition to the good and the true, as a swoUen
river sweeps everything before it. Men are dealt
with as reasonable and responsible beings ; they
are placed under probation in this matter; their
power of choice is recognized ; and they are per-
mitted to offer that opposition to the claims of the
Gospel which proves such a hindrance to its progress
and rapid triumph. Secularism, with all its loud
Christianity and^, Secularism. 15
claims, must confess that it finds it no easy thing
to conquer the forces that are opposed to it.
The real question is not which system sweeps The question
-'is one of
away everything that opposes the true progress of fitn^^ss.
mankind, hut which system is most effectual in
grappling with these hindrances. Absolute triumph
is not to be looked for, at least at the present stage ;
the question is, where are the forces that do most
and that promise best ? In a dark and disordered
world, where is the power that does most to make
the dark light, the crooked straight, and the rough
placos plain ? Who that fairly surveys the history
of the world can fail to admit that Christianity is
that power?
Passing from these general views, let us now special
examine the special objections which modern secu- secularism.*
larism advances to the position that Christianity,
more than any other force, tends to ameliorate and
elevate human society, and let us weigh the claim
which it makes on behalf of itself to much greater
efficiency in this respect.
The tone of secularism on this subiect is loud its confident
** appeal to
and confident. It is here we find the attraction that *^e working
man.
is constantly presented in tracts, articles, speeches,
and controversies, in order to draw into its ranks
those who feel most keenly the defective arrange-
ments of society at the present day. Societ}' is
out of i<^int, it says, and the poorer class are
16
Christianity and Secularism.
suffering grievously from its condition. No wonder !
Hitherto society has been moulded by Christianity,
and Christianity teaches men to despise the present
life, to count all its advantages as evil, and to
accept as blessings all the ills and sorrows of time,
not trying to lessen them, but waiting for a life to
come where all will be put right.^ Secularism, on
the other hand, bestows all its attention on the
present life, and strives with all its might to rectify
the disorders which are so numerous and so glaring.
Having come to see very clearly that all these dis-
orders are due to one cause, violation of the laws
of nature, physical, moral, and social, it pro-
claims with unbounded confidence that for every
such evil there is just one remedy, but a remedy
all-sufficient, viz., to find out and follow the laws
of nature. It is the great aim of secularism to do
The one
Secularist
leniedy for
all disorder.
* " Christianity aims solely at preparing men for a future
life, and it does this by teaching them to despise the advan-
tages and the pleasures of the present life. It teaches men, aa
they say, not to look at the things which are seen, not to set
their afiFections on things below ; and declares that those who
love the world and the things of the world do not love God and
cannot be saved. It represents riches, plenty, cheerfulness, and
the good things and pleasures of the present life, as dangerous,
as enemies to the soul. It pronounces woes on those who arc
rich and full, and those who laugh, and represents a jest and an.
idle word as exposing a man to damnation. Afflictions, want,
pain, reproach, persecution, etc., that the men of the world
regard as calamities, it represents as blessings, not joyous for
the present, but calculated to yield the peaceable fruits of right-
eousness afterwards." Secular Tracts, No. 1.
Christianity and Secular ism. 17
tkis, and the more tliat it can induce men, especially
tlie toiling multitude, to abandon the guidance of
Christianity, and accept that which it offers in its
stead, the speedier will be the advent of a well-
ordered world, where peace and plenty, happiness
and prosperity will reign among the children of
men. Secularism has its millennium, and that
will come when men have learned to give universal
obedience to the laws of nature.^
In its attack on Christianity, as bearing on the p^ntf S"the
elevation of society, secularism does two things : Sck?'^*^
I. It denies that the principles of Christianity are
adapted to social improvement, and maintains that
they tend to social disorganization and ruin,
while the principles of secularism are perfectly
adapted to the good of man. II. It denies that
the facts usually pointed to as showing the good
results of Christianity, bear out that conclusion,
any good of that kind that Christianity has
appeared to accomplish being due not to itself,
but to secular principles which it has unconsciously
accepted.
^ Secularists "believe all nature to be governed by fixed lawa,
in conformity to which our well-being depends. To teach men
to understand and obey these laws is therefore the great aim of
all their efibrts, both in educating the young and addressing
adults. It is hardly necessary to add, that their objects and
jirinciples are directly opposed to those of Christianity."
Secular Tracts^ No. 1.
objected to.
18 Christianity and Secularism.
Principles. I. ^PRINCIPLES.
Alleged The alleged principles of Christianity wlicli
grinciples of , . , . . . ^
hristianity secularism condemns as oi pernicious mnuence
are mainly these: (1.) Christianity despises this
life, counts poverty a virtue and wealth a sin,
rebukes the spirit that thinks of to-morrow, and
thus cuts at the very root of all social improve-
ment and comfort.^ (2.) It encourages men to
succumb to injustice, to take no steps for the
protection of their property or their persons ; when
one smites them on the one cheek they are to turn
to him the other also, and when one would rob
them of their coat, they are to let him have their
cloak likewise.^ (3.) The great motive which
Christianity urges for doing right is the fear of
hell on the one hand, and the hope of a future
reward on the other; a motive which appeals to
nothing higher than selfishness, and which even if
^ *' Christians in this island must take no thought for the
morrow. Economy and a desire for the future of this world
must be entirely ignored. It would be a crime to establish
post-of3&ce savings banks, inasmuch as laying up treasures on
earth is strictly forbidden." Christianity, its Nature and In-
Jluence on Civilization. By Charles Watts.
2 "If an enemy is cruel enough to invade this Christian
island, the inhabitants dare not interfere because Christ told
them to resist not evil. " " Christians clearly and emphatically
teach submission to physical evil, tjranuyj and oppression."
Ihid.
Christianity and Secularism, 19
it were more effectual than it is, cannot develop ^^fp^ie^of
anything of a high and noble order, cannot make Ejected tof
men brave, generous, and truly good.^ (4.) Chris-
tianity compels men to receive truth on mere
authority ; they are to believe just what they are
told, neither more nor less ; in this way reason is
superseded, all free thought and inquiry is repressed,
and the soul becomes a mere machine, with a
slow, hard, grinding movement, instead of a living
being, soaring gracefully in the regions of light,
welcoming every truth which is disclosed to it, and
shaping its life in harmony with all that is good
and true.^
* "If yoii feel no motive to common morality but from fear
of a criminal bar in heaven, you are decidedly a man for tlie
police on earth to keep their eye upon, since it is matter of
world-old experience that fear of distant consequences is a very
uisufficient barrier against the rash of immediate desire. Fear
of consequences is only one form of egoism which will hardly
stand against a dozen other forms of egoism bearing down upon
it. ' ' Westminster" Revieio.
2 " What stimulant did Christ give to think freely when He
said, * I am the way, and the truth, and the life ; no man
Cometh unto the Father but by Me. . . If a man abide not
in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men
gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned V
la there any incentive to impartial investigation in the gloomy
words, ' He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but
he that believeth not shall be damned V Once establish among
mankind the erroneous notion that truth is confined to one par-
ticular channel, and that those who do not go in that direction
are to be cast forth as a withered branch, and then the impossi-
bility of vm fettered thought will be immediately appax-ent, "-^
^ OF ^rHE '^l
UNI VERSIT
20
Christianity and Secularism.
Christianity
said to
despise the
present life.
Srrmon on
the Mount.
Trie
interpreta-
tion of the
sijimon.
(1.) The objection to Christianity as teaching
men to despise the present life, and as representing
poverty a virtue and wealth a sin, is founded on
well-known sayings of Christ in the Sermon on the
Mount and elsewhere. " Blessed are ye poor, for
yours is the kingdom of heaven. Woe unto you that
are rich, for ye have received your consolation."
" How hardly shall they that have riches enter into
the kingdom of heaven ... It is easier for a camel
to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich
man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." It is,
however, maintained by secularists that these views
were confined to the Founder of Christianity, and
that they have been repudiated by the great body
of His followers. The truth is, that Christians
generally have interpreted Christ's words in a
relative sense, not as condemning absolutely all
regard for property, or all concern for the morrow,
but as condemning that idolatrous and mischievous
use of property which puts it in the place of God,
giving it the first place in the heart, and that
cankering anxiety for the morrow which makes no
account of His fatherly care and love. That this
Free ThoufjU and Modern Progress. By Cliailes Watts. ** The
Bible is no authority to Secularists. The will of God, as the
clergy call it. in their eyes is mere arbitrary, capricious, dog-
matical assumption ; sometimes indeed wise precept, but oftener
a cloak for knavery and a pretext for dogmatism." G. J,
Ilolyoake, Principles of Secularism.
Chrhtxanity and Secularism. 21
is the true view to be taken of Christ's words is
proved by many considerations ; it is in barmony
witb tlie wise, sensible, unexaggerating tone of His
teaching generally; it is in harmony with Old
Testament teaching, which Christ came not to
destroy but to fulfil, especially that of Moses and
Solomon, by whom every encouragement was given
to the people to practise thrift and industry, and to
exercise a becoming forethought ; it is in harmony
with other parts of Christ's teaching and other
actions of His life; for, on the one hand. He
did not require rich men like Zaccheus and
Nicodemus to part with their wealth, nor did He
charge the woman with the alabaster box with
cheating the poor. On the other hand, in His
parable of the talents, and in other parables. He
recognized the duty of industry and the benefit of
thrift.
The condemnation passed on Christ is really a con- o^r Lord'o
^ ' use of
demnation for the use of a mode of expression well orientalisms
understood in the East, which, to give emphasis to a
point, substitutes the absolute for the comparative.
Who could imagine that Christ meant to enjoin it
as a duty absolutely to hate our father and mother
and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea,
and our own life also, if we would be His dis-
ciples ? ^ To interpret this passage thus would be
to make Christ guilty of extreme and unaccountable
^ Luke xiv. 26.
22 Christianity and Secularism.
damnation self-coiitradictioii. The true shade of idea is given
0? avarir j^y Himself in Matt. x. 37, " He that loveth father
or mother more than Me.'' Is He then to be
condemned for warning men by a strong Oriental
idiom against the worship of money? Has that
passion been so harmless, has it caused so little of
the disorder and miseries of the world as to deserve
to be passed lightly by? Have the sorrows and
sufferings of the poor been so little due to the
greed and ambition of the rich ? Have the de-
vourers of widows' houses, and those who have
withheld from their labourers their hire, been so
rare or unknown in the world's history that no
emphatic blast of the trumpet behoved to be given
against them ? "Who will venture to say so ?
What true friend of the labouring multitude can fail
to be grateful to Christ for having raised His voice
so loudly against that greed of gold which has so
often proved a double curse a curse to those from
whose sinews the gold has been wrung, and a curse
to those whom it has bloated and pampered ? If
He showed in strong terms that the blessings of the
kingdom usually lie much nearer the path of the
poor than that of the rich, is He to be discredited
for that reason, especially among those who eat
their bread, in the sweat of their face ?
Christianity (2.) It IS ou the samo misinterpretation of the
alleged to be ^ ^ . , . . .
indifferent spirit of Christ's words that the obiection is
TO temporal ^ "
wiongs. founded, that Christianity requires men to succumb
Christianity and ISecularism. 23
to all the evils of life, to be Tiniformly meek,
patient, and longsuffering, ^never resisting evil,
and never denouncing wrong. Here again it is
alleged that Christians have usually repudiated
this injunction, and especially that Paul, instead
of resembling Christ in this respect, was a contrast
to him. " The Christianity of Paul," it is said, raui and
" was widely different from that of his ' Divine
Master.' The character of Christ was submissive
and servile; Paul's was defiant and pugnacious.
We could no more conceive Christ fighting with
wild beasts at Ephesus, than we could suppose
Paul submitting without protest or resistance to
those insults and indignities which are alleged to
have been heaped upon Christ."^ The writer of
these words, with a mind darkened by prejudice,
may not have been able to conceive of Paul mani-
festing the meek spirit of his Master ; but no such
difficulty will embarrass those who read his
words, "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves,
but rather give place unto wrath. . . . Therefore
if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst,
give him drink ; for in so doing thou shalt heap
coals of fire upon his head " (Rom. xii, 19, 20).
As to the alleged servility of Christ's spirit, it f^l^f^^f. ^^
will occur to most men that there was little indeed ^^Siu^
of that shown when again and again He resisted
the devil in the wilderness ; or when He made
^ Watts, Christianitij, its relation to Civilization, p. C.
24 Christianity and Secularism.
His whip of small cords, and drove tLe traders
from tlie temple ; or wlien before the multitude
and His disciples, He rebuked the hypocrisy of
the scribes and pharisees, and in words of scathing
reprobation denounced the men that devoured
widows' houses and for a pretence made long
prayers. It is strange how little the witnesses
against Christ agree among themselves in our day,
any- more than they did in His. At the very time
when the secularist is accusing Christ of submission
ScuKm ^^^ servility, Kenan proclaims that He had carried
eacfoS. t^6 denunciation of His opponents to such a height
as to make the country too hot for Him, so that
He actually welcomed the cross as a deliverance
from complications that could not longer be borne !
Combination ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ describo the holy instinct that
and meek! taught Christ whcu to Submit and when to
Sst denounce, but the records of His life show that
He Himself knew well the proper time for each,
and that He was equally at home as the lion and
the lamb whether He was called to denounce the
tyranny of the rulers, or to stand as a sheep dumb
And in before its shearers. The same spirit of combined
courage and meekness was shown by Stephen,
when he arraigned so boldly the impiety of the
nation, and then surrendered his life so touchingly
with prayer for his murderers. Who shall say
that in any essential respect Paul was different ?
The combination of qualities is rare and heavenly,
Stephen.
Chrmtianity and Secularism. 25
not likely to be comprehended by those who on chri.-t.nniiy
, . combines
principle fix their gaze only on the things of earth. J^^p^ j^g
But this we may safely say, and history will bear
us out, that the best and bravest of those who have
stood up against the oppressor and defied his
force and fury, have derived no small share of their
courage from the words and the example of Him
who said to His disciples " Fear not them that
kill the body ; " while, at the same time, the best
and meekest of the martyrs, manifesting the sub-
limity of patience in dismal dungeons and at the
fiery stake, have been no less indebted to the
influence and example of Him " who, when He was
reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered He
threatened not, but committed himself to Him who
judgeth righteously."
(3.) But again it is represented that the great AUegeri
motive furnished by Christianity for doing right is chn^aanity
the fear of hell on the one hand, and the hope of p^J* ^^^ ""^^
a reward in heaven on the other. It is said that
Christianity teaches us to regulate our whole
conduct by a regard to our interests in the world
to come. We are not to sin, because if we do we
shall suffer for it in hell. We are to do the will
of God, whatever it may be, in this life, because
if we do we shall get a prize for doing it in heaven.
Christianity, in short, is nothing but an appeal to
'our fears on the one hand, and our greed on the
other; it is a system of threats and bribes; its
26
Christianity and Secularism.
Twofold
answer.
motives in themselves are mean and ignoble, and in
their influence they can have but little good effect.
To illustrate their want of power the saying of one
of the worst criminals in England, who ended his
life on the gallows (Dick Turpin), is sometimes
quoted, that he believed both in God and the devil,
and did not care a straw for either. He had not
even the faith of the devils, who believe and
tremble.
The answer to this representation is twofold :
First, that the appeal which Christianity does
make to the fears and hopes of men in regard
to their future welfare is thoroughly right; and
second, that it is a miserable misrepresentation
to say that this appeal constitutes the sole or the
chief means by which it seeks to persuade them
to a holy course of life.
To say that you are not in any way to rouse the
fears and the hopes of men in regard to the future
would be simply absurd. Christianity appeals to
our whole nature, and surely both hope and fear
are integral parts of that nature. For what
purpose are our fears and hopes given us if they
are not to move us when our welfare, and it may
be our eternal welfare, is concerned ? In the state
of mind in which men are when the first appeals
of Christianity are made to them, their hopes and
fears in. reference to the future life as contrasted'
with the present, are almost the only channels
Place due to
hopes and
fears.
At the
beginning of
spiritual
lildtory
Christianity and Secularism. 27
tlirougli wHcli they may be arrested, and shaken
out of their sleepy indifference to all spiritual
tilings. It is only a beginning that is made
through such hopes and fears ; but great preachers
do not scruple to make this beginning. When
John the Baptist saw the Sadducees come to his
baptism he said, "0 generation of vipers, who
hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come ?"
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus urged men
to cut off their right hand when it caused them
to offend, rather than allow their whole body to be
cast into hell.
But what critic, desiring to convey a fair im- ^f^H
pression of the motives appealed to in the Sermon ^^^"^
on the Mount, would ever say that they were
connected with the lower part of our nature?
" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God;" is not the appeal here to something
infinitely higher than dread of pain or greed of
possession ? Or let us consider the first words
of the Lord's prayer : " Our Father, which art in
heaven ; " is that an appeal to selfishness ? Or
was it a low selfish feeling, to be gratified hero-
after, that our Lord addressed, when, bidding His
followers consider the ravens and the lilies, He
called them to filial trust in the love of the Father
who cared for them ? No gospel precept is more
assailed by secularists than this, "Seek first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and ail
^8 Christianity and Secularism.
liiese things shall be added unto you." Does that
mean that we are to be careless of all that tends to
our material good in tbis life, and that if we are,
we shall be rewarded with abundance of it in the
future ? Has it not an infinitely loftier meaning ?
That the attainment of righteousness, goodness,
every holy principle and habit, is far more valuable
than of earthly property ; and that if the first place
in our hearts be given to these, we need never
dread, either here or hereafter, that we shall be
left empty of other things.
Christ's Men are not long in the company of Christ
enlarges and bef oro their uaturc is expanded and purified, and
elevates the .... sr ^
^^''^^- desires arise in their hearts that no amount of
earthly good, here or hereafter, could ever satisfy.
The idea of a heaven of sensual pleasure is the
grovelling imagination of the Mahometan. Ilardly
less carnal is the conception of a heaven consisting
of an unlimited supply of what are called "the
good things " of this life. How infinitely beyond
such vulgir lines have all the men and women
risen who have become eminent in the Churcb for
the purity of their devotion, the consistency of
their character, or the warmth of their untiring
philanthropy !
oeorgeEhot Somo ycais ago an article appeared in the
ness and Westminster Bsvieiu entitled " WorldKness and
other-
woridiiness Qther-WorldHness," now known to have been
written by Miss Marian Evans, the distinguished
Christianity and Secularism. 29
George Eliot of literature."^ It is a somewhat trencli- George EUot
o on worldli-
ant and even bitter criticism of the poet Young, "^^^^^
the author of Night-Thoughts, both as a poet and ^^i^^
a religious man. What rouses her feeling against
Young is the sharp antithesis he is charged mth
drawing between this world and the next, and the
belief he seems to hold very strongly, that the groat
foundation of morality in this life is the doctrine of
retribution in that which is to come. No doubt Young's
Night
Young exposes himself in some degree to criti- Thoughts,
cism, but the critic runs to the opposite extreme.
George Eliot affirms strongly that in point of fact
men are very little influenced by the fear of a
distant retribution. Where there is a fierce passion
at work, the distant future will be little thought of,
will be no restraint on the passion ; and as to
acts of goodness, if there be not a love of goodness
in the heart, the mere hope of reward will not
produce such acts. Or if it should, they would be
mere selfish acts, performed from a selfish motive,
and therefore not acts of goodness at all. Inherent h^^'iSSe.
regard to what is right and true, and genuine
sympathy with our fellow-men, are, in this writer's
view, far more efficient motives to goodness than
regard to our own interests in a coming life. She
goes so far as to say that " it is conceivable that
^ Since this Tract was first publislied, the authorship of the
article lias Leon avowed, both in George EHot's Life, and in a
volume of her Essays, wliere it stands first in order.
30
Christianity and Secularism.
Influence of
iuture
retribution.
Sjinpathy
and love of
goodness
stronger
forces.
But how are
they to be
produced 1
in some minds the deep pathos lying in the thought
of human mortality that we are heie for a little
while and then vanish away, that this earthly life
is all that is given to our loved ones, and to our
many suffering fellow-men, lies nearer the fountains
of moral emotion than the conception of extended
existence."
There are several positions here liable to remark.
The first is, that in point of fact, men are little
influenced by the dread of retribution in a life to
come. Is this an enlightened view of human
motive, as shown in history? Is it the doctrine
of the Greek tragedians, of Dante, of Shakespeare ?
"Why should " conscience make cowards of us all,"
if the doctrine of future retribution is so impotent?
Take away the doctrine of retribution in a future
life from Shakespeare, and would you not strip
him of one great element of his strength ?
Another position is, that inherent love of good-
ness and genuine sympathy for our fellow-men are
much more powerful motives to the doing of what
is right than either the fear of punishment or the
hope of reward in the life to come. Undoubtedly
they are; but the two classes of motives do not
exclude one another, and both of them have their
place in the Christian heart. It is a more relevant
question, How are you to get men inspired with
pure love of goodness and tender human sympathy ?
We affirm that this is a part of Christian education,
Christianity and Secularism, 31
and that, whatever may be true in exceptional
cases, it is only under the teaching and influences
of the Gospel, in the case of mankind generally,
that this spirit can be formed. Is not the forma-
tion of this spirit one of the highest aims of
Christianity? What are we to make of the ^.^^iLlonfor
eulogy of charity in the 13th chapter of 1st tw'"^ *
Corinthians? Or of this earnest word to the
Philippians : " Finally, brethren, whatsoever things
are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever
things are just, whatsoever things are pure, what-
soever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of
good report, if there be any virtue and if there be
any praise, think on these things." What more
powerful motive can be furnished to tender human
sympathy than the example of Christ? Where
was it ever more touchingly instilled than in the
parable " I was a stranger, and ye took Me in " ?
Or where, among the children of men, was there
ever a more beautiful development of this spirit
than in the great heart of the Apostle Paul ?
But the most questionable position in George immortafity^
Eliot's statement has yet to be noticed. She con- rouses
' sympathy
ceives that, in some cases, the pathos of human ^^^^^^
life is more moving, has more power over our
hearts, when death is conceived of as ending all,
than when there is the thought of a life to come.
Does this mean that men are moved to more sym-
pathy with their fellows, and to greater eiforts to
32
Gliristinnity and Siecularism.
Expenence
at French
Kevolution.
Experience
of Living-
help them, when they think of them as having no
hereafter, than when they think of them as immortal
beings ? In that case, one of the tenderest periods
of human history should have been the period of
the French Revolution, when death was voted " an
eternal sleep." "Was human life regarded then
with exceptional feelings of sanctity, when each
morning furnished its new batch of victims for the
guillotine ? If it be said that at that time fierce
passions were too much roused for men to act
according to their nature, we may turn our atten-
tion to another scene. When Dr. Livingstone was
trying to establish Christian missions in the Trans-
vaal, for the benefit of the natives, he was bitterly
opposed by certain Boers, and one reason for their
opposition to his missions and of their general
treatment of the negroes was that in their view
they had not souls. Did the thought that " death
ends all" to the negro fill the heart of the Boer with
a more tender sympathy for him ? If seizing his
cattle, making slaves of his children, compelling
him to work without remuneration, and sending
him into battle in front of the white man to
receive the charge of the enemy, be proofs of such
sympathy, undoubtedly the negro received them
without stint. Most men, however, would be
inclined to think that the sympathy of Dr. Living-
stone was of a healthier order, when he gave his
life v/ith such unwearied devotion to the cause of
Ghristmnity and Secularism, 33
the Africans, strove to enlist the civilized world
on their side, proclaimed to them the story of God's
love in Christ, and hy the example of the heavenly
Father tried to engage them to hehave to one
another as hrethren.^ Whatever may be true of
the "some minds" that, according to George Eliot,
are so moved to sympathy for their fellows by the
thought that there is no hereafter, it is certain that
with the mass the effect is quite the opposite ; that
sympathy and the desire to help are intensely
quickened by the thought of the eternal future,
and that the lives and interests of the feebler
classes would have but little consideration from
the stronger if it were the common belief that they
pass away into forgetfulness like the beasts that
perish.
(4.) The fourth obiection of Secularism to Alleged
^ ' '' imposiuon
Christianity is, that it subjects us to a hard autho- JiJiSJ^of a
rity in our belief and practice ; it puts reason authority
in fetters, checks all freedom of movement, and
prevents the soul from welcoming truth, and from
shaping its life in harmony with what is simply
good and true. It compels us to pay strict regard
to what it calls the will of God, both in what we
believe and in what we do. We may see strong
reasons for believing or foi doing what is different
from this will of God ; but be the reasons ever so
^ See Personal Life of David Livingstone, p^). 80, 90, etc.
on
the soul.'
34
Christianity and Secularism,
Authority in
other
spheres.
Secularists
themselves
recognize a
hard
authority.
powerful, it is impious to give effect to them ; there
is nothing" for us but blind submission to a will
which we dare not question.
There is probably no piece of moiiern poetry that
has been more admired than Tennyson's Charge of
the Light Brigade^ and no lines that have been
regarded as happier, or bringing out more vividly
the sublimity of the occasion, than these :
'''Forward the Light Brigade!'
"Was there a man dismay' d ?
Not though the soldier knew
Some one had blundered :
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die !
Into the Valley of Death
Eode the six hundred."
Yet what was this but a case of entire surrender
to another will, blind submission to hard authority ?
Will men allow that there may be occasions when
submission to a human will is not only right but
noble, but question, nay deny the duty of such
submission to the revealed will of God ?
That secularists and other sceptics should deny
that the Bible is the supernatural revelation of
God^s will to man on matters of faith and practice,
and should refuse it all claim to authority, is con-
sistent enough, though, in our view, utterly wrong ;
but that they should reprove Christians for rendering
submission to what they believe to be the Divine
will, or represent such submission as a poor super-
Christianity and Secularism. 35
stition and miserable bondage, is inconsistent and
ridiculous. The fact is that they themselves act in
the very same way towards what they believe to be
the supreme authority in the world. "What they
hold to be the supreme authority is the laws of
nature, and to these laws they maintain that
implicit obedience is due.^ Men must conform
themselves to the laws of physiology, nay, they
must even accept the laws of hereditary disease,
however hard and unreasonable it may be that
through these laws their lives should be endangered
by the ignorance of their forefathers or the care-
lessness of their neighbours. Now, why do secu-
larists make it " the great aim of all their efforts
to understand and obey the laws of nature?*'
Because they believe this course to be on the
whole most salutary and advantageous for human
beings, most conducive to the prosperity of human
life.
This being the case, is it unreasonable for Chris- authoiity
tians to have a similar belief in the excellence of ?fp?estnts
their supreme authority, the will of God ? Is it good and
perfect.
not natural that since God is a perfect Being,
infinitely wise and infinitely good. His will should
be regarded as identical with what is best and
highest for man? Now, the Scriptures are to
the Christian the revelation of the will of God.
In accepting the Scriptures as his authority, he
* See Note quoted at p. 17.
36
Christianity and Secularism.
Analogy
between laws
of nature
and laws of
revelation.
believes that they express in summary form that
wise and holy will which is the surest guide to all
prosperity and blessing. The Christian does not
reject the laws of nature, but he accepts over and
above the law of revelation. He conforms to the
laws of nature because they require what is most
beneficial to his material welfare; he obeys the
laws of revelation because they require what is
most beneficial to his moral and spiritual well-
being. Are we to be blamed and ridiculed because
we obey the one as implicitly as the other ? The
will of God expressed in revelation may seem to
us not fitted to its end, just as the laws of nature
sometimes appear not fitted to their end, when
they bear hard on human life and weKare; but
just as, in the latter case, we may be sure that, on
a wider view, they are the best laws that can be
given, so in the former we may rest assured that
the goodness and wisdom of God are capable of
the fullest vindication. Wo say again, that if
men choose to deny Revelation, they are consistent
in finding fault with the Bible ; but if they charge
those with dishonouring their reason who bow
to the authority of God in the Bible, they are as
inconsistent as if they should charge their own
friends with dishonouring their reason for accepting
the authority of the laws of nature.
To determine the boundaries of reason and
revelation is a somewhat delicate matter, and we
Sphere of
reason in
regard to
nature and
revelation
analogous.
Christianitif-MX^ Secularism.
will not attempt the problem here. We will
merely note the analogy between the spheres of
nature and revelation. In nature, reason is called
to investigate, to verify, to compare, to arrange
phenomena, and to draw conclusions corresponding
to them ; but reason must not alter or modify
phenomena, nor draw any conclusions which they
do not warrant. In revelation, reason is called to
read, verify, explain, compare, and systematize the
contents of the record, but not to alter or modify
any. In both cases, reason is minister et interpres
a servant and an interpreter ; in neither case
must reason bo a judge.
Haviug thus vindicated the principles of Chris- Principles of
tianity in their bearing on the welfare and progress "^^^ ^^^
of the human family, let us now examine the prin-
ciples of secularism, and inquire whether they are
adequate to the end in view.
It is well known that secularists are not agreed '^}Ff:^^. ^^ ,
o Atheism iiii-,!
i&m
nee
among themselves as to whether atheism is an ?!Siiferi^
essential element of secularism. Mr. Bradlaugh sSfnsta,
has led the party that maintain that it is ; Mr.
Holyoake has taught that it is not. Atheism is
at the foundation of Mr. Bradlaugh's paper, the
National Reformer,
According to Mr. Bradlaugh, all religion has a
38
Christianity and Secularism.
Mr. Brad-
laugh's
atheism.
AH religion
pernicious:
pernicious influence on human welfare and progress.
Religion is superstition, it encourages reliance on
false methods, it creates confusion, it perverts the
mind, and draws it mischievously away from the
true lines of improvement. ^ Mr. Bradlaugh's
secularism, therefore, not only makes no use of any
religious view, but holds it to be only evil, and that
continually. To believe in a holy Father, who
guides and strengthens His children to do justly,
and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with their
God ; in a gracious Saviour, who gave Himself
for us to redeem and purify us, and alike by precept
and example taught us that the servant of all, the
man who does most for the good of the world, is
the greatest of all ; and in a Holy Spirit, whose
ofiice it is to convert the soul, turn the wilderness
into a garden, and prepare men for a blessed life
where there shall be none to hurt or destroy in all
God's holy mountain : such faith is the most per-
nicious enemy to the cause of human welfare and
the civilization of the world. The self-restraint
1 '* There is another point that I do not think I need trouble
to discuss whether secularism is atheism or not, because I
think it is. I have always said so, I believe, for the last thirteen
years of my life, whenever I have had an opportunity of doing
BO." Mr. Bradlaugh, in debate with Mr. Harrison. *'I am,
too, an atheist, and I hold that the logical and ultimate conse-
quence of adopting secularism must be atheism." National
Reformer^ Oct. 16, 1881. On the other hand, "There are many
secularists who disagree with me. . . Clearly all secularists are
not atheists." Dahatc with the Rev. J. M'Cann, D.D,
Christianity and Secularism. 39
and devotion to duty that come from the sense of
a Divine eye upon us; the inspiration for the work
of faith and labour of love springing from fellow-
ship with a Divine Brother who loved us and gave
Himself for us ; the hope darted into our soul in
moments of despondency by the thought of a
Divine Spirit brooding over the moral chaos of this
world, and by many diverse instruments slowly but Man can
Z ' , . . and must do
surely working out the new creation all this is to ^^
be remorselessly discarded. If we will but believe it,
the voice of man is loud enough to still the winds
and the waves ; the arm of man is strong enough
to subdue all the powers of evil; every valley shall
be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be
made low; the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough places plain, and the glory of man
shall be revealed, to the confusion of all who dream
that there is a God in heaven, and who refuse to
serve the god of this world, or to bow down before
the golden image which atheistic secularism has
set up.
As advocated by Mr. Gr. J. Holyoake, secularism ^i;5\^"ce
does not deny the existence of a God, nor denounce 'or religion,
religion absolutely. It maintains, however, that
it is not by religion that the social welfare of
humanity is to be advanced. The welfare of man
in this world is a thing by itself, and is to be pro-
moted solely by secular means.^ The main attention
* *' If we are told to 'fear God and keep His commandments,*
40 Christianity and Secularism.
of all men should be given to the things of the
present life. The aim of men in this world should
be to seek their own highest good, and the highest
good of their family, their country, and their race.
True good is that which is in accordance with the
laws of nature, especially physiology; and evil is
that which contradicts these laws. Duty is syno-
nymous with ascertained utility to the greatest
number; for Providence, secularism substitutes
science ; for prayer, prudence and well-directed
labour ; for the worship of God, the service of man ;
for faith, knowledge ; for submission to authority,
reverence for truth ; and for religion, all the plea-
sures of domestic and social life.
FUnt'?"'^ Some of these positions of secularism have been
fheorts!''' very ably discussed by Professor Flint in his
Antiiheistic Theories^ especially the three following :
1. That precedence should be given to the
duties of this life over those which pertain to
another.
lest His judgments overtake us, the indirect action of this
doctrine on human character may make a vicious timid man
better in this life, supposing the interpretation of the will of
God, and the commandments selected to be enforced, are moral ;
but such teaching is not secular, because its main object is to fit
men for eternity. Pure secular principles have for their object
to fit men for time, making the fvilfilment of human duty here
the standard of fitness for any accruing future. Secularism puv'
poses to regulate human affairs by considerations purely human,'*
Principles of Secular2'sm, by George J. Ilolyoake.
Christianity and Secularism. 41
2. That science is the providence of man, and Three
* I , secular
that ahsolute spiritual dependency may involve positions.
material destruction.
3. That man has an adequate rule of life
independently of belief in God, immortality, or
revelation.
In reply to the first of these positions, Dr. Flint First sccuLix
^ '' ^ ' position
shows that of all the counsels that men need to
have pressed on them, surely the last is to attend
more to this life and less to the future the very
course to which most men are already much too
prone; that the distinction between the two sets
of duties is unfounded, for if there be a God, duty
to Him is a duty of this life ; and if there be a
future world, it is our present duty to take heed
of the fact ; nor can anything but evil come to any
good cause from disregarding the eternal mercy
and justice of God. M. Pasteur lately conveyed
the same thought in the French Academy, when
he charged Positivism with failing to take account
of the most important of all positive notions that
of the Infinite. In reply to the second position, ^econd
Dr. Flint shows that it is a mistake to oppose p^"'^^-
providence and prayer to science, for we honour
science as much as secularists, and yet we believe
both in providence and prayer as harmonizing with
science; and as to science becoming a substitute
for providence, the idea is absurd, inasmuch as
42 Christianity and Secularism,
science tlie science of gunnery, for example may
be directed to purposes of destruction; unless
science be directed by goodness, it is nothing. In
Third reply to the third, be admits that there is in our
secular ^ "
position. nature a sense of morality, a sense of right and
wrong, apart from religion. But morality can
have no valid obligation, unless there be a God
who enforces and who administers the moral law.
Moreover, it is religion that gives sanction and in-
spiration to morality. " One glance of God," says
Archbishop Leighton, "a touch of His love, will
free and enlarge the heart, so that it can deny all,
and part with all, and make an entire renunciation
of all, to follow Him." The alliance of secularism
with utilitarianism in morals is regarded rather as
Religion ^ wcakucss than a benefit to secularism. The mass
morality! * of pcoplo canuot eutor into the speculative labyrinth
to which this question leads. And if the reason
why we are to do our duty is only because it is on
the whole our interest to do it, we may well ask
why should we do any act which would involve
sacrifice, why should we sacrifice our interest to
the interest of others? The very definition of
morality which secularism adopts seems to be fatal
to all noble and self-sacrificing action.
In the same line we offer two observations :
Djbamic 1. Secularism makes very light of the dynamic
wanting. powcr which is to propel men to act in the way
Christianity and Secularism. 43
most conducive to their own true welfare and tlie
welfare of the community. In one of the Secular
Tracts to which we have referred, the expectation
is confidently expressed that " bringing men to
an acquaintance with the facts of physiology and in knowledge
general science will gradually annihilate drunken- physiology
ness, licentiousness, excessive indulgences, prostitu-
tion, and intemperance of all kinds." This expresses
correctly the general drift of secular teaching.
The world is an ignorant world ; enlighten it, and
it will become good.
Now, apart from all questions of theology, we
ask, Is this notion founded on a true view of human
nature ? Is there nothing in the old pagan maxim,
"Video meliora, proboque; deteriora sequor ;" or, in
the words of the Christian Apostle, " The good that
I would I do not ; but the evil that I would not,
that I do." Has the simple enlighteniDg of men's -
understandiDgs ever been found enough to turn
them from evil ways ? Has mere light such a
i power to subdue the fever of lust, to restrain the
I drunkard's thirst, to humble the ambition of the
conqueror, to bridle the greed of the miser, that
nothing else is required? Who does not know tms trust
. . opposed to
that the giant enemy of society is selfishness, and tuman
till that spirit is cast out, society can never be either
prosperous or happy ? And how are secularists to
\ cast him out ? They are to show men that while
a lower selfishness may incline them to disorderly
44
Christianity and Seciilarisin.
The
Christian
(lyuainic.
-ways, a higher selfishness, a wiser regard to their
true interest, will make them reverse their action.
Thus selfishness is to be cast out by selfishness in
another form. Unfortunately, this way of casting
out Satan has never proved a very successful
process. A much higher dynamic is needed.
I!^ow, of all that is grand in Christianity, nothing
excels its moral dynamic. Talk of the enthusiasm
of humanity, it is a mere idea. But the en-
thusiasm of Christian love is a mighty power.
The enthusiasm of hearts arrested by the mighty
love of Christ, drawn into sympathy with ILim,
reflecting on their fellow-sinners the compassion
that has embraced themselves, seeing in this
disordered world a blessed sphere of service to God
and man, and throwing their energies into the work
of blessing it that is a wonder-working power !
It goes on unweariedly in the work of faith and
labour of love ; never deemiag that it has done
enough, or that it can ever do enough for Him
whose love has fallen on it so richly, and is so
well fitted to bless the whole family of man.
2. Our second observation is that secularists are
in the habit of doing Christianity a great injustice
by denying to it the benefit of some of its own
principles, and representing these as the property
of secularism alone.
If the question concern the efficacy of prayer
or the reality of Providence, it is assumed that
Sucularists
rob Chris-
tianity of
some of its
own
principles.
Christianity and Secularism. 45
Cliristianity cannot recognize tlie uniformity of tlie
laws of nature. If it concern some practical end
to be gained, such as exemption from an epidemic,
it is averred that Christianity trusts for this
to prayer only, and makes no use of natural
means. If in connexion with Christianity some
human interest is found to he flourishing,
education, for example, or freedom, that state of
things is not due to Christianity proper, hut to
certain of the principles of secularism which it has
for the nonce adopted! All this is unfair and
even absurd.
We grant to secularists the credit of trying to Jf5^eo
make the most of the earthly conditions of human ^^'^^^^^^'
welfare. We allow that there has been some call
for their exertions. When Socialism and Com-
munism arose in France, labour was in a disorgan-
ized condition, and evils prevailed which undoubt-
edly there was need to reform. The Communists
wore not wholly wrong, but their methods were
wild and impracticable. Secularists in certain
respects desire to do good, they desire a more
thorough recoguition of the earthly conditions of
human welfare, and in so far they are entitled to
credit. But they are quite wrong in supposing Error in
that the relisrion of the Bible does not include and Christianity
^ ^ indifferent
involve an enlightened regard to the conditions ^^.^^g^^
of human welfare. The actual Christian Church
may often have overlooked much of this, but
46
ChrisHanity mid Secularhm.
Human in-
terests fully
recognized
in the Old
Testament.
Palestine,
Paradise.
Book of
l^roverbs.
undoubtedly it is in the Bible. In times of great
spiritual awakening, the overwhelming importance
of the unseen and eternal may have been so put as
to make temporal considerations appear to be of no
importance whatever ; but certainly this is not the
teaching of the Bible.
Everything that is good in secularism is in the
Bible. What system could have been better adapted
to develop the simple enjoyments of human life than
that which was prescribed for the Jews in Palestine,
when they dwelt under their vine and under their
fig-tree, contented, happy, prosperous, as if in a very
Arcadia ? We may go further back than the days
of the Jews in Palestine, back to the days of Adam
and Eve ; and in the arrangements of the happy
garden we may see how carefully the requirements
of the physical frame were provided for, and a life
inaugurated in which full regard was had to ma-
terial welfare as well as to spiritual fellowship and
growth. Advance if you will to the sketch of the
virtuous woman in the last chapter of Proverbs,
seeking wool and flax, and working willingly with
her hands ; like the merchants' ships bringing the
food from afar ; considering a field and bujdng it ;
holding the distafl and laying her hands to the
spindle ; stretching out her hand to the poor, and
reaching forth her hands to the needy ; making
herself coverings of tapestry, and clothing heri
household with scarlet : you see in her the model
Christianity and Seculai'ism, 47
woman of the Book, for "many daughters have
done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."
Yet we are told that when in any way we 'Borrowing
contribute to the welfare of human life, we are principles of
Secularism.''
borrowing the principles of secularism. We retort
the charge, and maintain that any good that
secularism does is done by principles which are
found in the Bible. Where was secularism when
the Book of Proverbs was written ? The funda-
mental principle of that book is that " the fear of
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,'* and yet on
that foundation a place is found for every real
maxim of human wisdom. Thrift, economy, dili-
gence, looking well to the flocks and the herds,
have all a place in this book, which seeks above
all things to extol i-he fear of the Lord.
Does, then, the New Testament supersede the Se^New^'
lessons of the Old ? When St. Paul rebuked the as to this
life.
busy-bodies at Thessalonica, and enacted the rule
that if any would not work neither should they
eat, it seemed very like going back to the Book of
Proverbs. When St. James denounced the em-
ployers that robbed their workmen of their earnings,
he seemed to echo the thunders of Isaiah or of Amos.
The New Testament brings the future life more to
the front; it shows more clearly and fully the
need of redemption and regeneration, while it
unfolds the provision made for these ; and it urges
more explicitly the infinite importance of our ever-
48 Christianity and Secularism.
lasting well-being. But it does not disparage the
life that now is. "What it is so eager to effect in
regard to the present life is that it be used wisely
as a training and preparation for the life to come.
Most powerfully does it show how utterly it is
thrown away and perverted, when it is regarded as
complete in itself, when it is viewed in the light
in which the secularist delights to place it. The
woridhness world in its wroug place the idol and treasure of
sense. the soul is what the New Testament is so con-
stantly reproving. B ut the ISTe w Testament carefully
guards all the principles of human welfare ; the
body is to be kept in subjection, lest evil defile it,
and to be honoured as the temple of the Holy
Ghost ; the bread we need for its sustenance is to
be asked in the prayer that at the same time seeks
the most spiritual blessings; the various social
relations of this life, that of husband and wife,
parent and child, master and servant, subject and
Our earthly rulcr, baptized now into the spirit of Christ, are
life elevated i i i ^ r, p i t
in the Bible, raiscd to a higher platform of obligation; while
every attribute of human life, sin only excepted, is
elevated and glorified by our relation to Him who
being the Eternal Son of God, became by incarnation
the Son of man.
Christianity and Secularism. 49
II. Facts. Facts.
Passina: now from the influence of Christianity outcome of
. '' the two
end Secularism in their principles, we proceed to systems.
view the two systems in relation to the resulting
facts. What, so far as can be ascertained, has
been the outcome of each in practical life ?
Who are the heroes of secularism ? Who are Theheroesof
Seciilarisin.
the benefactors of the world that have adorned
its ranks? Who are its philanthropists and
patriots ? Where is their Yalhalla, crowded with
the portraits of the great and good ?
In reply to our challenge we get the names of 4^ obscure
some half a dozen men who bore imprisonment for
blasphemy, early in the century, and helped the
cause of liberty of speech ; we are told of Eobert
Owen, the founder of New Lanark, and the first,
it is said, to have advocated infant schools;
perhaps we are told of Yoltaire, and his gallant
fight against the shameful persecution of Pro-
testants ; and of Girard, a rich merchant of Phila-
delphia, who left money for the magnificent Girard
College. Mr. Bradlaugh, in his debate with
Dr. M'Cann, besides referring to himself as the
uniform and consistent advocate of every reform,
tells of William Washington, a secularist miner,
who volunteered to go down on a perilous mission
50
Gkristianihj and Secularism.
Comparison
with
Christianit}'.
Pioneers of
British
civilization.
after an explosion in a pit; and the name of
John Stuart Mill usually brings up the rear. It
cannot be said to be a very imposing list.
It is not a very formidable rival to the Christian
Valhalla. "What name could Secularism ever daro
to place beside the incomparable name of Jesus
Christ ? What influence could it venture to com-
pare with that which we vaguely but significantly
indicate as the spirit of Christ ? Who can be
matched with the Christian pioneers of British
civilization, the Patricks and Columbas, the
Cuthberts and Ninians, and, in another sphere
of life, the Alfreds of our early history?
Where shall we find women like Elizabeth of
Hungary, or Catharine of Sienna ? What names
emit the aroma of Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis
of Assisi, or Thomas a Kempis ? If struggles for
freedom be spoken of, what champions of human
rights ever equalled in courage and in character
the Eliots and Pyms and Hampdens of the
seventeenth century ? What fabric of liberty has
proved so enduring as that which they helped to
establish in England, and their like-minded country-
men, the Pilgrim Fathers, in America? If the
reclaiming of barbarous nations be the topic, what
has secularism got to match our modern missions,
with names like those of Carey and Schwartz,
Vanderkemp and Judson, Eliot and Zinzendorf,
WiUiams and Moffat, GutzlaS and Burns,
IToly
women.
Holy men.
Champions
of liberty.
Beclaiming
Gavages.
Chridianity and Secularism. 51
Livingstone and Patteson, besides hosts of others
that have become household words for devotion
and self-sacrifice? If the slave has had to be thSi"??.
rescued from unlawful bondage, who have toiled
for him like Macaulay and Clarkson, William
Wilberforce and Sir Powell Buxton? If an Koformcf
prisons.
atrocious jail-system has had to be reformed, and
abuses corrected in Britain and the other countries
of Europe the record of which now fills us with
horror, what secularist ever flung himself into the
work with the ardour and seK-sacrifice of John
Howard? If projects for the amelioration of ^j^gg.
humanity have been started, what can be set over
against Pastor Fliedner's work at Kaiserswerth,
or John Best's enterprise at Laforce ? What ^ca^dtics.
secularist ever did for humanity what was done
for our crreat cities by Dr. Chalmers ? Was Nursing the
. . . sick.
Florence jSTightingale a secularist, or Agnes Jones,
or Sister Dora ? The crreat temperance reformers, Temreranco
^ ' reform.
the men whose appeals go to the hearts of the
multitude, and move them like the leaves of the
forest, such as John Gfough and Francis Murphy,
are not secularists, but Christian men. The man bomcr.*^^
who passed the Ten Hours* Act, who has identified
himself so conspicuously with the Ragged and
Ueformatory movement, and with every scheme
for the relief of toiling humanity, is no secularist,
but the eminently Christian Earl of Shaftesbury, ^."jfi^;^^
The very animals get benefit from Christian
52
ChristianitTj and Secularism.
Undistin-
guished
]>liiiauthro-
pists.
Sunday-
scliool
tcaciicrs.
philanthropy, for the founder of the movement for
cattle fountains and watering troughs was a
Christian Friend, the late Samuel Gurney. The
names which we have mentioned are stars of the
first magnitude, shedding a glory over the firma-
ment ; but who does not know of scores of like-
minded Christian men and women toiling more
obscurely but not less earnestly in the crowded
haunts of labour, opening coffee palaces, rearing
cabmen's shelters, providing creches, establishing
schools, institutes, and classes, sparing no effort to
do good where their services are needed among
their fellows ? What has secularism got to be
compared to the great army of Sunday-school
teachers, giving their service so readily and so
freely for the Christian good of the young ? True,
it is but a small proportion of our Christian people
who are actively engaged in such disinterested
labour ; but that is just because the mass of men
are so slow to realize their responsibilities ; beyond
all doubt it is the duty of every Christian to labour
for the good of others ; it ought to be true of the
whole Christian community that " no man liveth
to himself."
No reasonable man will doubt that under any
system a few strong-minded men maj' be found,
able to resist the immediate influence of their
system, and to stand forth as men of energy and
courage, the friends and protectors of freedom. We
Some strong-
minded men
may be
found in any
system.
i
Christianity and Secularism. 53
cheerfully admit that there have been such men in
the ranks of secularism. But they are not repre-
sentatives of a system. Take the case of Voltaire. '^^^^^-
The great writer of the eighteenth century had
undoubtedly an active spirit of humanity. His nia service
'' ^ 'to humanity
service in the cause of the shamefully -oppressed
Calas, and other victims of ecclesiastical tyranny,
was a noble service. His efforts on behalf of
Ferney were worthy of all praise; the buildings
he erected, the industries he encouraged, were real
services to mankind. But Yoltaire was a man by
himself a man of marked individualism. And ^^''^^"^*''
for every hundred that followed him in his sneers
and jibes at religion, there was not one who
adopted his spirit of humanity. Nor does Voltaire's
general character serve to adorn his principles. His
life was guided by a combined love of money, lovo
of pleasure, and love of fame ; he was eaten up
with vanity ; as a writer, he was cynical, sneering,
lying, and most scurrilous and abusive, not taking
the trouble to conceal his antipathies to what he
believed to be Christianity, or to offer any apology
for the unrestrained abuse he poured on its friends.
Of Eobert Owen we will sav that he was nobcrt
*' Owen.
one of those strong men who break away from
the common ruts, and devise liberal things ; but
did not Owen find that his system was unworkable,
and his house built on the sand ? If he was
early advocate of infant schools, let him hcy^^^f-^^ '-'^^z
pp.
64
Christianity and Secularism.
A humble
Christian,
school-
master.
credit for it ; but after all, what was this service to
the cause of education compared with the splendid
enterprise of John Knox, wrung in part from the
unv/illing hands of the Scottish nobility, which
contemplated universities, high schools, parish
cchools all that was needed for a good education
alike for high and low ?
If personal effort is the true measure of a
man's philanthropic spirit, we could more than
match the achievements of Robert Owen with that
of a humble Christian schoolmaster of the name of
Davies, in an obscure district of Wales. Planting
himself in a very destitute district, he not only
established a school and acted as teacher of the
young, with a salary of about 20, but he repaired
a church, he established trade, he worked as a
colporteur, he distributed Bibles and Christian
books on a scale of wonderful liberality ; and in
his old age, when his good work was sufficiently
established, he removed to an entirely new sphere
to begin his philanthropic labour from the very
foundation.^ If the history of all the schools
established in the British Empire were written, what
an immense proportion of the great achievement
would be found to be due to the devoted zeal of
Christian men and women.
We have made mention of Scotland. That
1 See a book entitled James Davies, Sclcoolmaster of Devauclen,
bj Sir Thomas Phillips, 1850.
Chrisfianity and Secularism,
country gets hard measure from the secularists Its g^^ciaiY^
rehgion is "a gloomy nightmare."^ According to ^^^"^^^^"^
Buckle, Scotland and Spain go together for ignor-
ance and superstition. Whenever religion has
been powerful, the people have been miserable, and
" the noblest feelings of human nature have been
replaced by the dictates of a servile and ignominious
fear." But is it not a somewhat notable fact that
in the battles for freedom and independence, Scot-
land has always borne so conspicuous a part ? Is
it not remarkable that her sons have gone over the
world, and, to say the least, have not as a rule
sunk into that condition of dull misery that might
have been expected of a people reared under such an
incubus ? There is no country whose outward con-
dition at the present day, in spite of faults and
blemishes that are not denied, shows a more won-
derful contrast to its condition before the Beforma-
tion, when it had neither agriculture nor commerce,
industry nor art, learning nor science, and when
the energies of its clans and nobles were spent in
mutual destruction.
The treatment which some of the srreatest and champions
of English
noblest champions of English freedom receive at freedom.
the hands of secularists is odd, and even amusing.
" Our Eliots, our Hampdens, and our Cromwells,
a couple of centuries ago, hewed with their broad-
swords a rough pathway for the people. But it
^ Watts : Christianity, its Nature and Influence on Secularism,
5G
Ckristianify 'and Secularism,
Their
alleged
successors.
The St,
iJartliolo-
luew men.
was reserved for the present century to complete
the triumph which the Commonwealth hegan." ^
And who do oxn reajiers suppose were the men
that put the copestone on the edifice which the
men of the seventeenth century began ? Paine,
Hone, Carlile, "Williams, Hetherington, "Watson ;
being the leading men who suffered prosecution for
blasphemy, and the too free utterance of their
religious b*entiments in the beginning of this
century. Yerily, " the world knows nothing of its
greatest men.*' It is a pleasure to come upon
unexpected wealth, but we fear we are so much
under "the nightmare of superstition" as not to
be elated by the discovery that the heroes of the
seventeenth century have been eclipsed in modern
days by so much greater men.
Again, we read that when, in 1662, the two
thousand clergymen " resigned their benefices and
gave up the national religion of the time because
they could not submit to the pet doctrine of the
Church, which was passive submission, they adopted
the very basis of free-thought principles.'* ^ But
why not go back fully sixteen hundred years?
When the apostles stood before the Jewish
Council, decliued the pet doctrine of passive
submission, and declared that they must obey
God rather than man, did they not, as much as
the two thousand clergymen, adopt free- thought
1 Watts : Frc'i Thowjid and Modern Progress.
GTivMianitij and Secularism. 57
principles? Undoubtedly they did. But is not Y^^^^^
this a reductio ad ahsurdiim ? The apostles adopt ^^"JJ'^Pled
free-thought principles ! There is a world of SS! ^^"^"
difference between the conduct of the apostles, and
that of freethinkers. It was not at the bidding
of their own reason that the apostles declined the
authority of man. It was at the bidding of God.
Free thought declines the authority of other men
at the call of reason ; the apostles declined it at
the call of God. The two thousand clergymen too
believed that they were obeying God; and when
His Yoice was heard commanding them, no other
course was for a moment to be thought of.
It is very important to observe to what an ex- Reiigous
^ element in
tent the conflict with the tyranny of the Stuart SstufS^^
kings, which did so much to establish our liberties, ^J^'^^y*
was a religious conflict. The men that took a
leading part in it had their consciences quickened,
their nerves braced, and their imaginations roused
by a sense of religion. However difficult the
struggle, they took heart from the assurance that
God was on their side. He was calling them to
the battle could they refuse His call? Their
religion gave them a lofty sense of the value of the
men whom the king was disposed to treat as
nonentities " dumb driven cattle." Who was
Charles Stuart, or any man, that he should lord it
over the consciences of men made in God's image,
and possessing immortal souls? Who was any
58 Christianity and Secularism.
earthly king that he should treat redeemed men
as if they owed no allegiance to Him who had
bought them with His blood? Was it to be
tamely submitted to, that in this land the oppor-
tunity should be denied of working out, in accord-
ance with God's will, that blessed scheme of
spiritual renovation which Christ had established ?
Was the very Gospel of salvation to be put in
fetters at the pleasure of an earthly king ?
We do not say that these were the only considera-
tions that nerved the arm of the champions of civil
and ecclesiastical freedom in the seventeenth century.
No doubt they were animated too by the instinctive
recoil of Englishmen from tyranny, and the sturdy
determination to resist it hy every lawful means.
No doubt they felt the stimulus of ancestral example,
and would have thought it foul scorn to refuse the
other than leojacv of freedom's battle, " bequeathed by bleed-
rehs'ious . . . .
motives. \^^ gjj.^ ^q SOU." But the religion which taught
them to "fear God" and "honour all men" gave a
new dignity to the struggle. It magnified the
interests involved, it connected the battle with
eternity, it mixed it up with the overwhelming
value of the soul. Whether or not the struggle
would have been an absolute failure but for these
considerations it w^ere hard to say ; but this we
know, that the battle was hot enough and long
enough to require the full force of all the resources
that could be mustered in the cause of freedom.
I
The Pilgrim
Fathers.
Christianity and Secularism. 51)
A secularist has made tlie supposition of a com- secularist
^ -^ supposition
pany of men and women going to an uninhabited andite^^
island, and there attempting to form a constitution p^^^^^pI^^-
to meet the requirements of modern society, based
upon the teachings of the New Testament. And
he has tried to show that any such attempt must
end in ridiculous failure. Did the secularist not
remember that the experiment had actually been Experiment,
tried ? Did he never read the history of the tried.
Mayflower and the Pilgrim Fathers ? That cer-
tainly was a community of men and women who
went, not to a desert island, but to a desert con-
tinent, for no other purpose than to carry out in
all their fulness the principles o the New Testament.
Did the experiment end in disastrous failure ? Is
that marvel of modern history, the rise and progress
of the United States, a proof of disastrous faiUue ?
In the very earnestness of their loyalty the
Pilgrim Fathers committed some mistakes, and
certainly no man would set up the United States
as a faultless community ; but undoubtedly that
country would have had a different history but for
them. These good men gave a tone to the new
country which has stood it in good stead to the
present day ; under them, great and good principles
acquired a vitality which has been a preserving
salt to the nation amid the endless rush of hetero-
geneous elements which the tide of emigration has
poured upon its shores.
60 Christianity and Secularism.
Value to It was an unspeakable boon to America that the
colonies of a
religious foundations of its society were laid by men who did
not go there to make fortunes, but to find freedom
to serve God. Would that all the other colonies
of Great Britain had been founded by men with
similar principles ! There are some of our colonies
where the principles of secularism have had almost
unlimited scope, for churches have been but slow
to follow to gold-diggings and diamond-fields the
hordes that have rushed to them for temporal gain.
But where is the colonial paradise, that secularism,
pure and simple, has established ? If we ask for
colonial pandemoniums that have grown up under
its auspices, we are more likely to find an answer.
The history of the Far West in America may tell
a similar tale. It is ludicrous to think how " the
greatest happiness of the greatest number " prin-
ciple would fare, in raw, wild communities, where
" every man for himself " is the order of the day.
We should fancy that when the schoolmaster had
taught the first moral lesson of secularism, that it
is the duty of every man to aim at what he regards
as his own greatest good, his scholars would think
they had got enough, and would proceed to carry
out the lesson very faithfully. If he should go on
to teach next that it was their duty also to aim at
the highest good of their country and their race,
we can fancy them much more puzzled. In the
first " standard," there would be no failures ; but
how many would pass the second ?
Christianity and Secularism. 61
\ In July, 1880, the present writer, being in Testimony
America, chanced to see a number of the New ^c^dtothe
York Herald^ containing a remarkable letter with SfSanity,
the signature of " Thurlow Weed.'* All Americans
are familiar with the name of the octogenarian who
some years ago was among the greatest and most
conspicuous of American politicians. His letter,
or, as the editor called it, " sermon," in the Herald^
was not in his olden strain. It was occasioned by
the public career of Colonel IngersoU, the Brad-
laugh of the United States. Colonel IngersoU goes
about the country delivering addresses against the
Bible, and making men infidels. Mr. "Weed's letter
contained a comparison between the work of D. L. STifSou
Moody and that of Mr. IngersoU. Mr. Moody led ^""^ '^"'^^'
men to think of the highest of all subjects ; and
while promoting their salvation, stimulated self-
control, temperance, beneficence, and every other
virtue. The line of his progress was marked by the
reform of drunkards, the union of divided families,
the consecration of young men's energies to nobler
objects, the drying up of the sources of the world's
misery, and the opening of fountains of benediction
and prosperity. What could IngersoU point to,
to match such work? What drunkard had he
reformed ? what home had he made happy ? what
life had he rescued from selfishness, and made great
and noble? The drift of Mr. Weed's letter was
that, tried by its fruits, Christianity was infinitely
62 Christianity and Secularism.
better than anytliiiig that IngersoU could substitute
for it. The letter was interesting not only as written
by a man who in his old age had undergone a great
spiritual change, but as presenting the view of a
man of aifairs, a man who knew human nature, and
understood something of the forces by which men's
lives are moulded. It showed that in the view of
such men it is only the gospel of Christ that is the
power of God unto salvation, both for the life that
now is and that which is to come.
What is needed is the gospel, pure and simple, but
t ^jS^aM^ large and wide-reaching, full of charity, faith, and
^Swcr. syiiipathy, and proclaimed in simple reliance on the
power of Grod. In a town in the north of Scotland,
a benevolent Unitarian minister once took to
preaching in the streets. He spoke of the beauty
of goodness, and invited sinners to the happiness of
a virtuous and orderly life. A group of waifs
and harlots hovered near, one of whom, who had
not lost all her mother- wit, replied to him in her
native dialect " Eh, man, your rape's nao lang
Ehort. eneuch for the like o' hiz " (your rope is not long
enough for the like of us). His gospel was not
capable of reaching down to the depths to which
waifs and harlots had fallen. It was a longer rope,
a profounder gospel, that was entrusted to the
Apostle, when Christ sent him to the Gentiles, " to
open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness
unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God''
AGNOSTICISM
A DOCTRINE OF DESPAIR.
BY THE
REV. NOAH PORTER, D.D. LL.D.
{President of Yale College, Newhave7t, Connecticut, U.S.A.),
author of
'The Human Intellect," "Elements of Intellectual Science," etc.
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY:
56 Paternoster Row, and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard,
London.
^nalgsiB oi the Tvart
The purpose of the Tract is practical. It is intended to
show the tendency of the really Atheistic Agnosticism so
prevalent in the present day. It destroys hope for science,
which cannot cast out God from its thinking. Ir inter-
preting facts, science is inevitably led into the very presence
of a thinking God. Order in nature is best explained by a
directing God, especially if the great law of evolution be
accepted. Science anticipates greater discoveries than any
yet made. Though it is not necessary for eminence in any
special science, that any question should be raised as to the
foundation of this hope, Christian theism is the best solution
of all the problems raised by all the special sciences. The
recognition of a personal intelligence, which all science
accepts as possible and rational, gives an assured hope to
science, and the denial of it takes its hope from science.
A personal God is also necessary, in order to give energy
and Ufe to conscience. A redeeming God is necessary
to give men hope of deliverance from sin and its conse-
quences, and enable them to realize the moral ideal. All
hope of this is cut off by Agnostic Atheism. The agnostic
ideal is destitute of permanence. Without God's plans and
purposes for human well-being, there is no rational ground
of hope for man's future. The history of the past affords
no hope for the future. Hope for the conduct of
individual life in the present, and the certain attainment of
another life hereafter, are dependent on faith in God. In
as far as God is denied, hope of every kind is abandoned,
and life loses its light and dignity, and becomes a worthless
farce or a sad tragedy.
AGNOSTICISM
^ gaj:tnne of ge^irair.
JHE descriptive phrase of the Apostle
Paul, in his Epistle to the Ephesians,
" having no hope, and without God in
the world," when condensed to its Ephesians
utmost might be read thus: Hopeless because
Godless. Each of these epithets is sufficiently
significant when taken alone. When coupled
together their force is more than doubled. To ^g*^*^
be Godless is to fail to acknowledge Him whom s<^^^*-
men naturally own. It is to refuse to worship
the Creator and Father in heaven, whom all
the right-minded and loyal-hearted instinctively
reverence. It is to forsake God, and therefore to
be God-forsaken, as the homely phrase is : that
is, to be a man whom the sunshine warms with
no heat and the rain blesses with no refreshment
because in the wide world which God has made
he finds no living and loving God. No wonder
that such a man has no hope that he is classed
Agnosticism :
with those " to Avhom hope never comes that
comes to all."
SfSn^o? "^^^ condition of the persons referred to by
JefeS-ed to ^t, Paul was simplj negative. They are described
y St. Paul. ^^ -without God and without hope. Possibly they
did not deny or disbelieve in God. They might
have been so occupied with the world itself in its
brightness and beauty, that God was absent from
all their thinking. Possibly one or another might
have had daring enough to say there is no God.
Perhaps, though not probably, in those times,
some of them held that God could not be known,
and invested this dogma with a religious halo to
which they responded with mystic wonder. But
to them all there was no God, and with them all
there was no hope. So wrote our apostle out of
Jxpewenc?'^ his frcsh and vivid experience of the hope which
had come to him from the new and vivid mani-
festation of God to himself, as revealed in the
face of Jesus Christ a hope which thrilled every
fibre of his being with electric life. Since his
time men in all generations have been transported
God-forget- with the same joyous hope. And just so often
hopelessness, as God has bccu forgottcu or denied has hope
left the hearts and habitations of men. But in
all these times, ignorance of God has been more
commonly regarded as a calamity or a sin. In
our days, as is well known, it comes to us in a
new form. Ignorance of God is now taught as
A Doctrine of Despair.
a necessity of reason. \Tlie unknowableness of ignorance
^ L- of God
God has been formulated as a Philosophy. It regardedas
' a necessity
has even been defended as a Theology and * reason.
hallowed as a Kehgion. The sublimation of
rational piety has been gravely set forth as that
blind wonder which comes from the conscious
and necessary ignorance of God. In contrast with
this new form of worship, the confident joyous-
ness of the Christian faith has been called " the
impiety of the pious/' and the old saying has
almost reappeared in a new guise that even
for a philosopher " ignorance is the mother of
devotion.'M
I do not propose to argue concerning the
truth or falsehood of these doctrines. I shall
spend no time in discussing the logic or philoso-
phy of the atheistic agnosticism which is some-
what currently taught and received at the pre-
sent time. I shall simply treat of it inpts
practical tendency as being destructive of hope Atheistic
- J t/ %> J. agnosticism
in man, and therefore necessarily leading to the <ie^rading.
degradation of mans nature^ and the loicering
of his life. I observe
I. That tcithout God there is no well-grounded no hope for
science
hope for science. ^ithout
God.
This may seem to be a very daring or a very
paradoxical assertion. There is more truth in it,
however, than appears at fiist sight. Inasmuch
Agnosticism :
Science
cannot cast
out God
from its
thought.
as it is in the name of science that ignorance of
God is exalted into supreme wisdom, it may-
be worth while to inquire what the effect upon
science would be, could it cast out Crod from all
its thinking. I say could it do this, for it would
be very hard for it to succeed should it try
ever so earnestly. Our newly-fledged agnostics
are apt to forget that all our modern science has
been prosecuted in the broad and penetrating
sunlight of faith in one living and personal
God that not a single theory has been pro-
posed or experiment tried in nature, except
with the distinct recognition of the truth that
a wise and loving Mind at least may uphold
and direct the goings-on of nature. The most
passionate atheist cannot deny that this is the
conviction of most of the living and breathing
men about him. The most restrained agnostic
cannot but know and feel that the theory which
he strives to cherish is rejected by most of the
women and children in Christendom who look
up into the sky and walk upon the earth. The
simple teachings of Christian theism are capable
The
Khristiln of being expanded into the grandest conceptions
theism. . i / i
that science ever attempted to lormulate con-
ceptions so grand that human reason is over-
whelmed with their sublime relationships, and
the human imagination is dazed to blindness
when it would make them real The first pre-
A Doctrine of Despair.
position of the creed which the infant pronounces
with confiding simplicity " I believe in God the
Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth "
is easily expanded into those conceptions that
the man necessarily and intuitively accepts as
the background upon which science traces all its
formulae and axioms, and by which it connects
its theories and proceeds to its conclusions.
That science must have both faith and hope
appears, whether we consider it as an interpreter,
an historian, or a prophet. Science is first of all science
* * strives after
an interpreter. Though it begins with facts, it theinvisioie.
does not end with facts. Though it begins with
the seen, it looks beneath the visible and strives
after the invisible. So soon as it compares and
explains, it connects phenomena and interprets
events by forces and laws, by hypotheses and
theories. Let it test its theories by experiments
a thousand times repeated, what it tests is some-
thing it has gained by interpretation, that is,
something not seen but believed. Following the
unseen along the lines of interpreting thought,
science is inevitably, even if reluctantly, led into
the very presence of a thinking God.
Having gained some insight into the present science
gearches into
by this process, science applies this insight in the past.
the form of history^ going backwards into the
remotest past and unrolling its records, whether
Jiie^se are written on indestructible tables of stone
Agnosticism :
or suggested by the casual deposits of heaps of
4terprS I'efuse. But history of every kind, even of nature,
law. is interpreted force and law ; and force, to be
interpreted by law, must be orderly in its actings;
naturibest ^^^ ordcr in nature, if it does not require a
rdirerting^^ directing God, is, to say the least, best explained
by such a God. [Especially if the great law of
evolution or development is accepted, and so a
long story of progress is traced in the past, there
emerges and shapes itself into being a continuous
plan, a comprehensive thought wide enough to
embrace all the events which have successively
germinated into being, and long enough to pro-
vide for their gradual succession. . This requires
a single mind as wide as that of one forecasting
God, and as unwearied as His understanding.
Science But scionce is also a prophet. It revels in its
anticipates
further and confidence in the future. Science believes that
unparalleled
discoveries, '^g interpretations of the present and its solutions
of the past will be surpassed by the discoveries
that are to be ; that both nature and man shall
continue as heretofore, obeying the same laws as
from the beginning that the revelations already
made of both shall be lost sight of and forgotten
in the revelations of force and law which the
future shall disclose, and that in all this progress
one of these revelations shall prepare the way
for another, as naturally and as gently as the
The hope of , . i . -, tt i
science. dawn brightcns into the sunrise. Here is hope.
A Doctrine of Despair. 9
ardent, confident, passionate hope, and, we may-
add, rational and well-grounded- hope. On what
does this hope rest this hope for the stability
of nature's laws and the promise of the evolving
future ? We need not answer by any abstract
analysis or refined ^ilosophizing. We concede
tliat it is not necessary for success or eminence Eminence in
in any special science that this fundamental sSLceTJt
. - dependent
question should be raised. We know that tor on faith in
eminence in any speciality, the natural faith and
hope of men in science as interpretation and
history and prophecy, is altogether sufficient,
whether it is or is not expanded into actual faith
in the living God. We do not object in the
least that science stops short in its explanations
of phenomena, at molecules, and motion, and
inertia, and attraction, and heat, and electricity,
and heredity, and development, and variation,
and environment. But we do contend that
atheistic agnosticism gives no solution of those
explanations that are fundamental to science
which can be so satisfactory as is the creed of christian
'' theism the
Christian theism. We also contend that the bestsoiution
of the ques-
personal thinker is more than the scientist who {jy^iY
interprets and prophesies, and that the living
man demands and accepts a personal God as the
best solution of all the problems which every
special science raises, but which no special science
can solve.
raised
the
pecial
sciences.
10
Agnosticism
luustration. Perhaps you have traversed a forest at mid-
night, and have painfully and slowly felt out
your path among the objects which the darkness
seemed to conceal rather than reveal. You have
mastered it by slow but sure steps, such as the
blind man feels out by exact and reasoning touch.
Anon you traverse the same forest by noon. How
luminous has it become by the aid of the alL
pervading light ! Possibly you do not think of
the glorious sun from which this light proceeds,
but you cannot but know that what was once an
obscure thicket, beset with dimness and shade,
is now flooded with the revealing light, and
that hope and joy have taken the place of caution
and doubt and fear. In like manner does the
recognition of a personal Intelligence who may
be known by man give an assured hope to what
men call science. In this way has it been to its
toSni?^^ advancing hosts a pillar of fire by night and a
cloud by day. The denial of such an Intelligence,
or the assertion that he cannot be known, takes
from science its hope, because it withdraws from
the universe the illumination of personal reason
and personal love, which all scientific thinking
accepts as possible and rational.
The
recognition
of a know-
able personal
Intelligence
gives
A Doctrine of Despair. 11
II. To be without God is to be without hope in
respect to man's moral culture and perfection.
What we are is of far greater importance than
what we Icno7/^. Strength and perfection of
character are the supreme aim of all right-judg- character
inof men. When they think of what man was important
f' '^ than know-
made to be, and of what they themselves might ^*^^^^'
become, they cannot but aspire. But strong
as conscience is to elevate, control, and command,
a personal God is needed by man to sfive to his a personal
^ ^ -^ P ^ God alone
conscience energy and life. Personality Avithout fj^^iif" t?^
is required to reinforce the personality within, conscience.
Conscience itself is but another name for the
moral person within, when exalted to its most
energetic self-assertion and having to do with
the individual self in its most characteristic
manifestation, as it determines the character by
its individual will. The theory that denies that Denial of the
God is a person very naturally and logically de- of goT
nies that man is a person. It makes him only a denial ot; the
- '^ personality
highly-developed set of phenomena flowering out of man.
from a hidden root the unknowable unknown.
What we call his personality, his ^yill, his
character, are all as unreal as the clouds of a
summer noon one moment apparently as fixed
as mountain summits, and another dissolving
as you gaze.
On any theory of man a personal God is
needed to give energy to the moral ideal and to
12
Agnosticism
The better
self.
Man a
siuner.
Needs de-
liverance
and hope.
Experience
of failure
proclaim it as his personal will. The other self
within us is often powerless to enforce obedience.
Much as we may respect its commands when
forced to hear them, we can, alas, too easily shut
our ears to its voice. But when this better self
represents the living God, who, though greater
than conscience, speaks through conscience, then
conscience takes the throne of the universe, and
her voice is that of the eternal king to which
all loyal subjects respond with rejoicing assent
and with the exulting hope that the right will
triumph they rejoice that God^ reigns in right-
eousness.
But man is not always loyal either to con-
science or to God. As a sinner against both, he
has need of deliverance and hope. What he
most needs and longs for is to be delivered from
the narrowness of selfishness, the brutality of
appetite, the fever of ambition, the meanness of
envy, the fiendishness of hate, and the righteous
displeasure of God against all these. When men
know what they are, as measured by what they
might have become, they cannot but be ashamed.
When they review their failures after trial they
cannot but despair. They find no rational ground
in themselves for hope that thej shall actually
become better in the springs of feeling or the
results of their life. If there is no God, or if they
know of none who can show them what they
A Doctrine of Despair. 13
ought to be, and who can and will help them,
and whom it is rational to ask to guide and help
them, they are without hope of lasting and no hope of
' " i. o success
triumphant success. But if God has made Him- ^^^^^^^ ^^^
self known in Christ in order to give us a living
example of human excellence, and also to inspire
us to make this excellence our own, and above
all in order to remove every hindrance or doubt
in the way then we may hope, by trusting our-
selves to this redeeming God, at last to be like Christ the
. source of
Him. His life, His death. His words, His acts, inspiration
' .... and hope.
His living self, are full of the inspiration of hope.
That inspiration has wrought with mighty power
through all the Christian generations. The more
distinctly and lovingly Christ has made God to
be known, the more confidently has man re-
sponded with hope that he shall be emancipated
into^likeness to God.
(From all these hopes the agnostic atheism Ejects of
cuts us off. It first weakens and shatters our atheism.
ideal of excellence; next it denies the freedom
by which we may rise ; and finally it withdraws
the inspiration which is mipistered by our per-
sonal deliverer and friend. ; It weakens man's
ideal. It cannot do otherwise, for it derives the
law of duty from the changing feelings of our
fellow-men. It degrades the law of duty into a
shifting product of society, it resolves conscience
with its rewards and penalties into the outgrowth
14
Agnosticism :
It sets free-
dom aside.
of the imagined favour or dislike of men as
unstable as ourselves when this is fixed and
transmitted by hereditary energy. Such an ideal,
or law, or tribunal, can be neither sacred nor
The agnostic Quickeninof nor bindino^ because it has no per-
idealhasno ^ , ^
permanence, manencc. To bc a good or perfect man in one
aeon is not the same thing as to be a good man
in another. It is altogether a matter of taste or
fashion, and each age under the law of develop-
ment sets a new fashion for itself
It also sets freedom aside. To reach any part
of this ideal is the result of simple mechanism.
Character is the joint product of inheritance
and circumstances. Freedom, with its possi-
bilities and its kindling power, is but a fancy
and a shadow the mocking phantom of man's
romantic longings or the vain surmising of his
idle regrets.
There is neither inspiration nor hope for such
DiTine help, r^ j^r^j^ jj^ ^]^q j^gjp Qf QqJ jJq ccrtaiuly needs
help from some one greater than himself If
his moral ideals are not fixed, and he has no
freedom with which to follow or reject such as
he has, he is like a man who is bidden to walk
in the sand that fails beneath his tread, and
whose limbs are at the same time frozen with
paralysis. Or he is like a bird with stiffened
wings when dropped into an exhausted receiver.
God cannot encourage or help him. To him
Leaves no
hope of
A Doctrine of Despair. 15
there is no God, or none of whom he can know
that He can or will give him aid.
He has no certain or fixed ideal to which to
aspire. He has no freedom with which even to
pray. He has no God to whom to pray. What T?nbridied
^ <J L J hcence the
better can such a man do than to give himself ^^* ^^^^^^
up to the passions and impulses of the moment,
which at least may divert his thoughts from his
degradation, or amuse his aimless and hopeless
existence, or throw startling and lurid lights over
the darkness of his despair.
III. Belief in God is the only condition of hope in
the advancement of public and social morality ^ and
consequently in social stability and progress.
The universe in which we live represents two
factors, the physical and moral. Both of these
are apparent in social phenomena. If God is
required as the ground of our hope in nature
and in physical science, and also in the sphere
of morals, how much more in that sphere in
Agnosticism
which nature and spirit meet together ! \Those reasKjr^
who deny God or who assert that we cannot hopefn
. / 1 f. 1 human
know Him, can give no reason lor their faith progress,
and hope in human progress. \ Force and law
alone, whether physical or moral, do not answer
ill! our questions here. Social forces, too, are
16 Agnosticism
less easily discerned than those purely physictl.
Even if we could resolve these forces into material
agencies, and assume that their laws can be
expressed in mathematical formulae, this would
avail us but little, because the forces are so
complex and subtle, less easily traced, less
readily analyzed, and less confidently interpreted,
God'B plans and less readily turned into prophecy. But if
the ground . "^ . .
of hope for vve bcHeve these forces to be largely spiritual and
man's future. o ./ x
personal, and accept freedom in both man and
God, then our only rational ground of hope for
man's future is that the Eternal has His own
plans concerning man's future well-being, and
will fulfil them in a consummation of good.
The past The developments of the past, except as they
fu*tu?e^^' reveal some plan of God, give no hope for the
progress. future. lu the facts of the past there is no
security that the movement of man is onward.
Manifold phenomena in human history suggest
fearful forebodings of degeneracy, depravity, and
retrogression. Long periods of darkness and
eclipse have gathered in gloomy folds over the
human race. Sudden collapses of faith have
spread like the plague. Fearful convulsions
have opened like the chasms of an earthquake
to swallow up the gathered fruits of culture and
art. But so soon as we know that God rules
over man for man's moral discipline, and that
Christ is setting up a kingdom of righteousness
A LoctrinS of Despair. ^^^^ 17
and peace and joy in the HoIy^Gl:^Q^^j|;j[j^/we
lift up our hearts, and gather courage fofman's
future history. We find good reason to con-
elude that man will continue to make progress
in the knowledge of whatever is true, and just, JJi^^/^tT^
and honest, and of good report. We become Christianity.
well assured that the simple law of Christian love
will in due time be expanded by Christian science
[ into thousands and tens of thousands of those
special precepts of Christian ethics, which future
generations shall joyfully accept, and that these
will be light as air in their facile applications to
the varying conditions of human existence, and
strong as links of iron to hold men to every form
^ of duty. We triumph in the faith that the time
^ will come when this unwritten law shall sound
within every obedient soul as winningly and as
lovingly as the evening breeze that rests on the
I. wind harp, and shall thunder as terribly in the
i ear of the disobedient as the voice of God from
Sinai.
Such a faith in human progress is rational. j^tg^iJ^o"^*^;^
It is true indeed that if God is personal and man ^^^^f
is free, the relations of God to man may be more ^^^'^^^
complicated, and less easily known than if man
is material and God an unknowable and im-
personal force. On the other hand, social science
gains nothing, but loses much, in telling us that
the laws of society are as fixed as the laws of
c
18
Agnosticism
Faith in
order and
purpose
necessary to
a science of
the future.
Order and
purpose pre-
suppose a
personal
thinker.
the planets, and that man is as plastic to their
moulding as Stardust or protoplasm are to the
cosmic forces. For on either theory, if we are to
have a science of the future, we must have faith
in order and a purpose as the ground of our hope
for that' progress in which we confide. But order
and purpose suppose a personal thinker. If we
have no God, or a God whom we cannot know,
we are without rational hope for that moral and
social progress in which we all believe. We can
only believe that men will make progress, because
we desire it. The socialistic agnostic is a dog-
matic sentimentalist, instead of a rational philo-
sopher.
The believer
in God alone
has solid
ground for
hope touch-
ing his own
life.
IV. Atheism., whether positive or negative y gives
no hope for the conduct or comfort of individual Ufe.
Each man's personal life is ever present to
himself as the object of his hopes or fears.
Shall this life be long or short? Shall it be
bright or dark ? Shall it be a failure or a success ?
The man who believes in God and trusts in His
guidance, he, and he alone, has solid ground for
hope. He knows God as a force acting by law,
and he knows Him no less as a person acting in
personal relations of influence and love. From
both he gathers hope. He knows Him through
A Doctrine of Despair. 19
the forces of the universe which surround and
confront him at every step, and he knows Him
as the heavenly Father who animates and directs
these forces in every single joy or sorrow. In hirSJn*""
both relations he is in harmony with him ; with ^'*^ ^'"^'
the first so far as he knows them, and with the
God Himself who controls both the known and
the unknown to his true well-being, and makes
even his ignorance and mistakes a blessing.
He knows and obeys God as revealed in nature.
He believes most profoundly that He acts in the He believes
^ \ , that God
maiestic forces of the universe and their un- acts in the
J forces and
changing laws. He recognizes the truth that both J^^^^.
are everywhere present in the world of matter
and of spirit. He watches these forces as they
move, often seemingly like the summer cloud
that broods lazily over the quiet earth at noon ;
sometimes like the cloud also in that it needs only
to be touched by another as quiet as itself, and
the thunderbolt and tornado will leap forth with
destructive energy. But he does not limit His
presence and his rule to physical agencies alone.
He recoofnizes also His moral and spiritual forces Hercoct--
O i msesthe
and laws. Though the moral are less obtrusive, Ky^of "
they are none the less sure; though slower in and'spS-l
their working, they are none the less energetic.
Their energy is even greater, resembling in this
tliose subtler agents of matter which, though
they glide into one another in secret hiding-
20 Agnosticism ,
places and under Protean phases, are for that
very reason the more easily gatliered for a fearful
retribution.
Man in the Within this vast enofinerv of force and law
midst of .
?orc^?lnd ^^^^ stands in his weakness and his strength.
laws. ipi^Q spectacle of this enginery is sublime, and
every day is making it more magnificent, for
every day reveals something new in force or lav?
which manifests more of the thought and power
of God. But while man continually finds his
strength in his power to interpret by scientific
thought the forces and laws which had been be-
fore unknown, he is in the same proportion made
more and more sensible of his weakness in his
augmented apprehension of what is unrevealed.
He is beset with fear lest he shall make some
His question, fatal mistake. Hence he asks earnestly. Is there
nothing more in this wide universe than force
and law ? If there is nothing more, no man is so
much to be pitied as he the man of scientific
knowledge and scientific imagination, for no man
nis loneu- feels so lonely and helpless as he. He is alone I
ness and ' *
on^i^^^^^ alone ! as he muses upon the vastness of this
BuSSon. great solitude, peopled though it be with the
enormous agents that haunt and overmaster him
with their presence, but are without a thought or
care for his personal life. Could he but see be-
hind these forces a personal being like himself,
and capable of directing both force and Jaw to
A DoctHne of Despair. 21
issues of blessings to men, how welcome would
that knowledge be to his lonely heart. That God folT^^""
he may see and find if he will. He is suggested
by his own personahty, which is his nobler, nay,
his essential self He is demanded by the weak-
ness and limitations of his own nature. Why
should there not be a personal and living God
behind this machinery of force and law which we
call nature ? Why should I not know a living
spirit, as well as unknown force and definite law?
and why should I not accept personality in God
as the best explanation of both ? There is, there
must be such a Person; He fills this vast solitude
by His immanent presence and His animating
life. He directs the forces which I cannot con-
trol. While I dare not transgress any known
manifestations of His will either in force or law, I
can trust myself to His personal care even though
I err from limited knowledge or foresight.
What natural theism thus suggests. Christian Godaccord-
o^ ' ing to Christ-
theism declares for man's guidance and comfort, ian Theism.
The living God becomes our Father in heaven,
the Guardian of our life, our ever-present Friend,
who understands our most secret thoughts, our
weakest fears, our blushing shame, our conscious
guilt, and who can bring to each and to all the
sympathy, and comfort, and guidance, of a per-
sonal friendshij) and an assured blessing. In
what words of sublime condescension and moving
i2
Agnosticism
The declara-
tions of
Cluist.
Illustrated
by His life.
Confirmed
by His
resurrection.
Repfiated
from iiea\ en,
pathos have these truths been declared : " Even
the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Ye are of more value than many sparrows. Take
no thought for the morrow. Your heavenly
Father knoweth that ye have need of all these
things. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness, and all these things shall be
added unto you." These are words of Him who
spake as never man spake. Nor did He speak
them alone. He lived them in His life, exempli-
fying them in look and demeanour, and showing
their import by His loving trust. The same
revelations of God were confirmed by His resur-
rection and His ascending majesty as He went
into the presence of His Father and our Father,
of His God and our God. From that presence
we hear the assuring words: "He that spared
not His own Son, but freely gave Him up for us
all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us
all things. Be careful for nothing, but in every-
thing by prayer and supplication with thanks-
giving, let your requests be made known unto
God; and the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds
through Christ Jesus." In this faith in God as
the guide of their personal life. Christian believers
by myriads have lived and died. In this hope,
and in this alone, can the living of this generation
stand.
A Doctrine of Despair. 23
V. The man without God is without hope for a
future life.
For such a man, at best, another life is simply no certainty
. .of a future
possible. He has no rational assurance that it iifetothe
7 ^ man without
is certain. The universe is so vast and man's cJo<i-
dwelling is so contracted; its inhabitants are so
manifold, and one among them is of so little
moment; the distances are so enormous, and
man's power to traverse them is so limited ; the
histories of the prehistoric ages are so gigantic
in their forgotten details, and yet the title of
each chapter is but an inscription over millions
of the dead, that men tremble before nature, as
when a child looks upward on the face of an
overhanging cliff, or peers over the edge of a
yawning gulf.
Man shudders before nature's remorseless in- Nature's
insensibility.
sensibility. He notices how little she makes of
the dead, and how little she cares for the living
how she mocks at and trifles with sensibility
and with life. An earthquake swallows up tens
of thousands of living men. The jaws of the
gulf that opened to receive them swing back to
their place, and forthwith flowers adorn the
ghastly seam, as if in mockery of the dead who
are buried beneath. A great ship founders in
the ocean, freighted with a thousand living souls.
As they go down they raise one shriek of anguish
that it would seem should rend the sky. But
S4 Agnosticism i
the cry is over, and the waters roll over the place
as smoothly as though those thousand lives were
not sleeping in death below. Of another life
there are no tidings and few suggestions, a
possibility, or perhaps a probability, but no
hope.
Thepossi- Nowadays even this possibility is denied by
denSdb? i^any, and the probability against such a life is
many. hardened into a certainty, and men strive to
prove that they are not immortal as men strive
for a great prize. All the analogies of nature
are interpreted to prove the extinction of man's
being. Those who acknowledge no God but a
mysterious force, those who deny to God per-
sonality and thought and affection and sympathy,
most reasonably find no evidence in nature for a
future life, for when they look upon her stony
and inflexible face, they find all the evidence to
be against it.
The awaken- Let sucli a man awake to the fact that God is,
fact of God's that He lives a personal life, that nature is not
existence *
ana person- gQ much His hiding- placc as it is a garment of
the revealing light ; that the forces of nature are
His instruments, and the laws of nature His
steadying and eternal thoughts; that man is
made after God's image, and can interpret His
thoughts and commune with His living self; that
life is man's school, every arrangement and lesson
of v/hich points to a definite end ; that this end
A Dodrine of Despair. 25
is not accomplished here then not only does The effect oi
there spring up in his heart the hope that this in|.^^^ ^"'
life shall be continued in another, but this hope
becomes almost a certainty. But this hope is a
certainty so long, and only so long, as this life is
interpreted by the light of God's thought and
God's personality. So long as this light continues
to shine, every difficulty that would make against
another life is turned into an argument in its
favour, and every new doubt suggests the necessity
of a new hope. Every roughness that has cast a
shadow on the picture reflects a gleam of light,
and the hard, inexpressive face of nature herself
becomes radiant with promise and hope.
Now let God be seen to break forth from Hi;; The effect nt
hiding-place, and to manifest himself in the Christ i^^ Christ.
who conquers death and brings the immortal life
to light through His rising and ascension, and the
hope that had been reached as a conclusion of
assured conviction is shouted forth in the, song
of triumph, " Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His
abundant mercy, has begotten us again unto a
lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible
and undefiled, and that fadeth not away."
I know that this argument, which sustains the
hope of another life, is set aside by the agnostics The value of
. . . a future life
with the denial that another life is of any value denied.
26 Agnosticism
or that men care for it. The next step is to
argue that it is weak and ignoble to expect or
mte for f" desire it. The next is to substitute for it an ideal
future ufo. existcncc in the lives of others by the continu-
ance of our thoughts and activities in those of
others, in whose lives we may expect to prolong
our own. Let those accept this substitute for a
future life who can, and find in it what satis-
faction they may. They will certainly confess
that this fancied contentment with personal
annihilation falls immeasurably short of what
men call hope, and preeminently of the Christian
hope that is full of immortality.
The doctrine itself seems to us to be simply
The agnostic inhuman and unnatural, and to be refuted by the
practically slmplcst practical test. If men do not care for a
tested. ^ . ^
future life, how should they, and why do they,
care for any future of the present life ? If they
do not dread annihilation, why do they not more
frequently commit suicide ? If the hope for a
nobler future existence does not animate and
inspire men as an original and inextinguishable
impulse, how happens it that men cleave with
such tenacity to the hope for a brief and perhaps
ignoble hour in the present ? Why is it so rare
that even the most disciplined of modern philo-
sophers is ready to exchange the briefest hour of
personal being for the lauded immortality of
thought or emotion in the person of another ? It
A Doctrine of Despair. 27
is not bravery, it is simple bravado to deny or
weaken the longing for a future life which every
man confesses and feels. The laboured apostrophes
of GeorG^e Eliot, and the studied declamations George Euot
o ' and
of John Morley over the entrancing prospect Joi^^^oricy
of annihilation, are silenced by the pithy con-
fessions of Shakespeare in Hamlet. The very
earnestness of the denial is but a confession of
the strength of the desire. I know that when Denial of a
a man half or wholly denies that God is, or that involved in
^ ' denial of
God is anything to him, he must, to be con- ^o^-
sistent, deny in the next breath that there is a
future life. I know that the temptation is very
strong that he should then seek to persuade him-
self that he cares nothing for that life. But he
cannot succeed. He must have hope for this
life, and he must have hope for the future. And
he needs to know God and to believe in God if
he would have hope for either.
This, then, is our conclusion : That so far as Abandon-
ment of
man denies God, or denies that God can be g^Pfy'^tind
known, he abandons hope of every kind that Sii'S'^'^
intellectual hope which is the life of scientific
thought; hope for his own moral progress; hope
for the progress of society; hope for guidance
and comfort in his personal life; and hope for
that future life for which the present is a pre-
paration. As he lets those hopes go one by one,
his life loses its light and its dignity ; morality
28 Agnosticism :
loses its enthusiasm and its energy, science has
no promise of success, sin gains a relentless hold,
sorrow and darkness have no comfort, and life
becomes a worthless farce or a sad tragedy
neither of which is worth the playing, because
agnostic? ^^"^ both end in nothing. Sooner or later this
agnostic without hope will become morose and
surly, or sensual and self-indulgent, or avaricious
and churlish, or cold and selfish, or cultured and
hollow, in a word, a theoretical or a practical
pessimist, as any man must who believes the
world as well as himself to be without any worthy
end for which one man or many men should care
to live. Possibly, under special advantages of
culture, he may be a modern Stoic without the
moral earnestness with which the ancient Stoic
grimly confronted fate, or a modern Epicurean
without the unconscious gaiety that Christianity
has rendered for ever impossible ; or he will grope
through the world seeking the shadow of a religion
that he knows can never give him rest, and a
God whom he denies can ever be found. But in
either case, the story of his life will be summed
up in the fearful epitaph, " He Iked without God,
and died without hope"
Agnosticism Aguosticism is a topic of present interest, on
Sterest. ^oih its speculative and its practical side. As a
speculation, however, it is not new. It is as old
A Doctrine of Despair. 29
as human thought. The doubts and misgivings
from which it springs are older than the oldest
fragment of human literature. The questions a?a%*S-
which it seeks to answer are as distinctly uttered *^^'
in the book of Job as are the replies of sneering
despair which are paraded in the last scientific
periodical. Modern science and philosophy have
not answered these questions. It may be doubted
iv^hether they have shed any light upon them.
They have simply enlarged man's conceptions of what^ ^^^
the finite, and thus made it more easy for him to ^ve done!
overlook or deny his power and his obligation to
know the Infinite and the Self-existent. Culture The effect of
culture and
and literature, to say the least, do not justify literature.
the modern contempt for positive faith. They
simply widen our knowledge of human weakness
and error, but most rashly conclude that every
form of faith and worship is an attitude of blind
wonder before the unknown, or a sentimental
groping after what can never be found. These
inferences are hasty and unwarranted, for the
reason that modern culture and literature were
never so enriched by the Christian faith, and
never could find reasons so abundant for acknow-
ledging Christ to be divine. And yet we must
acknowledge that to the superficially educated
and the hasty thinker, Agnosticism offers many
, , . , . . . Attractions
attractions, because it answers so many questions of agnostio-
ism. to the
by a simple formula, and gathers or disposes of superficial.
30
Agnosticism :
The popu-
larity; of its
theories.
Its tenden-
cies restrain-
ed by
counter-
acting in-
fluences in
many cases.
many phenomena under plausible generalizations,
and above all, because it releases the conscience
and the life from present obligations of duty.
Hence its theories run like wildfire among the
multitudes, whose superficial or unfinished cul-
ture and training, or whose moral preferences
prepare them to receive it. With many persons
these tendencies are comparatively harmless, at
least for a time. The old traditions of duty and
self-control, of decorum and worship, still remain,
even though God and conscience are speculatively
abandoned, and Christ is an unsolved enigma,
and Christian hopes are harmless dreams, and
the future life a questionable inheritance, and this
life is a prize in a lottery, and the fervors and self-
denials and self- conquests of the Christian life
are innocent but vapid sentimentalities. "With
others, after a longer time, the God at first un
known is openly denied, and Christ is rejected
with passionate scorn, and the inspiration and
restraints of Christian sentiment are contemp-
tuously abandoned. By others the theory is
applied still further. Their motto is, Let us cat
and drink, for to-morrow tee die. To one or another
of these dangers very many are exposed, most of all
to the danger that the energy of their faith may
be weakened, and the fire of their zeal may be
lowered, and the tone of their moral and spiritual
life may be relaxed by sympathy with this
Ultimrite
results in
others.
A Doctrine of Despair, 31
paralysis of faitli, which is everywhere more or
less prevalent.
No calamity can befall a younof man which is The greatest
^ "- calamity to
so serious as the loss of that fire and hopefulness m^"
and courage for this life and the future, which are
so congenial to the beginning of his active life.
Hence no sign of our times is more depressing
than that so many refined and thoughtful young
men so readily accept the suggestions of doubt,
and take a position of indifference or irresponsi-
bility in respect to the truths of Christian theism
and the personal obligations which they enforce.
Against these tendencies would I warn young ^^u^'^^*^
men earnestly, by the consideration that so fast
and so far as God is unknown by any man, so fast
and so far does hope depart from his soul : hope
for all that a man should care to live for ; hope
for scientific progress, for his own moral welfare,
for the progress of the race, for a successful life
and for a happy immortality. Therefore do I
declare to them as they soberly look back upon
their past life, and wistfully look forward to the
unknown future, that if they would live a life of Sfonrof a
cheerful, joyful, and buoyant hopefulness they ^^^^^^"^ ^^'^
must live a life that is controlled and hallowed
and cheered by God's presence and by a constant
faith in His forgiving goodness. All else that a
man should care for is secured by this living hope
in the living and ever-present God intellectual
32 Agnosticism,
What living success and satisfaction as he grows in all know-
secures, ledge and culture, sure progress in moral good-
ness, prosperity in his efforts for the well-being
of man, the kind direction of his earthly life, and
the assurance and anticipation of the life which
is immortal. " All things are yours ; . . . and ye
are Christ's ; and Christ is God's."
^. Present Day Tracts, No. 8. Y^
. .
MODERN MATERIALISM
BY THE LATE '
REY. W. R WILKINSON, M.A.,
Rector of Luttertoorth.
AUTHOR OP
Christ ouk. Gospkt,,'* (Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge,)
"SrKCiAL Providence and Peaydr," etc.
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY:
55 PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 65 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD,
^rgnment (xt the TtacU
The mystery of Being is impenetrable. We only know the
attributes and qualities of things. Elementary substances are
few. The universal basis of the objects of sense is designated
'* matter." A large proportion of the objects of sense are living
beings. They have certain characteristics and constituents in
common. Life does not result from their combination. The
mystery of life is as impenetrable as the mystery of matter.
Mind involves life, but is not co-extensive with it. Thought is
not a product of living matter, nor a movement of matter.
Mind underlies thought. The changes of organic bodies, as
well as their mutual attractions, and the action of chemical
affinities, are due to force. There are different kinds of
force. Matter is incapable of motion without force. The
difficulties of materialism are insuperable. No answer is
attempted to be given to the question, Whence were
matter and motion? The attempt to reduce all existence
to a material origin lands us in ideaHsm. Materialistic prin-
ciples lead to the conclusion that matter has a dependent and
derived existence, and are utterly incapable of explaining the
mysteries of life and thought. The construction of the system
of nature must depend on something that is not law on the
v.ill of an omniscient and omnipotent God, Materialism
necessarily denies the immortality of the soul. The atomic
theory is not necessarily inconsistent with Theism. The views
cf Cudworth, Descartes, and Newton are quoted.
MODERN MATERIALISM.
^-^Ts^^F^^^t- '
MoxG the wonders by wliicli we arc sur- simpb
' Being.
rounded there is no greater wonder than
that of Being. Contemplating any one
of the most familiar objects of our
senses, when we ask what it is which presents to
us certain observable qualities, what it is to which
they belong and are due, what is the thing itself,
apart from the combination of qualities by which
it is known to us, we cannot get a satisfactory and
intelligible answer; we find ourselves in the pre-
sence of a great mystery, and that the mystery
of Eeing.
If we consider, for example, a specimen of the
isubstance called Gold : it is known to us, generally,
^by its colour, its malleability, fusibility, and relative
weight ; and to some it is known as possessing other
qualities or attributes. But, whatever the number
and character of these, it is not, and it cannot be
^thought of, as an assemblage of certain qualities fg'^^u^Jj^JJj.
and attributes, but as that in which they are as-
sembled or united, that to which they belong. This
Modern Materialism.
inner ultimate something, the subject in which
such qualities are inherent, the substance, the un-
derlying reality, of the presence and nature of
which they are the indications, must have an
actual existence. They are not, but it is gold.
They, taken altogether, do not form Y, but it is so
constituted as to possess and exhibit them. And
yet no analysis has ever revealed it to our senses,
nor can our minds form any distinct conception of
it. As Sir Isaac Newton says in the conclusion of
the "Principia,'*
"We only see the forms and colours of bodies, we only hear
sounds, we only touch the outer surfaces, we only smell their
odours, and taste their flavours ; the inmost substances v.'o
apprehend by no sense, by no reflex action."
Attribntcs Extending our observation, we notice that most
objects of sense are compounds, consisting of
various substances in combination, and having
qualities arising from such combination. The
elementary substances, however those of which all
others are composed have been, perhaps, most of
them discovered, and are not very numerous.
Each of these is simple, and although it may have
qualities which are common to others, it possesses
them in virtue of its own nature alone.
If, in order to get as near as possible to the
foundation and root of Being, we inquire what it
i& which all these elementary substances possess
In common, and in all their minutest portions,
without which they could not be material sub-
of lieinf
Modern Materialism.
i stances at all, and ^vliich suffices to give them The
necessary
^ merely the character of material substance, we find elements (
J ' Material
these three necessary attributes or elements of ^^"s
material Being : extensioUy moveableness, and imjoe-
inctr ability. That is, a thing, to be a material sub-
i stance, must take up some room in space, it must \
'la capable of being moved from one place to
another, and its place, while it is in it, cannot be
occupied by anything else.
But here again we do not say or think that the
combination of extension, moveableness, and im-
penetrability, makes up a body, but that a body
is something which is extended, moveable, and im-
penetrable. Wc are still far enough from com- Matter tt
^ , basis of 11
prehending what that something is. It is that, '^^^^^^^^
however, which, as forming the universal basis of
objects of sense, we designate by the term matter.
Before we proceed to notice the attempts which Living
have been made to discover the nature and con-
stitution of this unknown reality which meets us
everywhere and in everything, we must attend to
the fact that a large proportion of the objects of
lOur senses consists of active or self-acting sub-
jstances, that is, of living beincrs. They differ from Their dis-
the rest of the objects of sense by the possession, gJks?*''''"
seven in their lowest forms, of an organisation, and
iof the faculties of feeding, growing, and producing
Itheir like. They are all compound substances,
tand all composed of the same elementary sub-
Modern Materialism.
stances, which, let it be remarked, have none ol
these faculties.
Lifo. But, although we know what are the material
constituents of every living structure, we cannot
ascribe life itself to their combination. Such com-
bination may be necessary to life, but it does not of
itself constitute nor produce life.
**Life," says the great naturalist Cuvier, "exercising upon
the elements which at every instant form part of the living
body, and upon those which it attracts to it, an action contrary
to that wliich would be produced without it by the usual
chemical affinities, it is inconsistent to suppose that it can itself
be produced by those affinities."
Kot a Vie cannot therefore conceive of life as the ae:2rrc-
cuiubination ^ .
ofatuibutes. gate of the material substances composing the
living Being, or of their affinities, any more than
we can conceive of a substance as the aggregate of
the qualities or powers which meet in it, and by
which it is distinguished and manifested. The
mystery of Life is as impenetrable as the mystery
of simple Being.
2-j^^ The remaining, and perhaps the most mysterious
phenomenon of existence is Mind. Mind involves
life. But as life is not co-existent with all matter,
so neither is mind co-existent with all life. And
as life is not accounted for, or caused, by the
mere assemblage or action of those elementary
substances which are always found united in every
living thing, so neither is mind accounted for or
caused by the union or operation of all those
Modern Materialism.
substances, properties, and powers which in our
experience are found combined in every thinking
Being.
Mind is, in all cases known to us, connected with Distinct
. , , . from its
a certain organization, and also with the faculties environment
of feeding J groiolngy and propagating. But it is
difficult to conceive of these as essential and ab-
solutely necessary to the origination, development,
and exercise of thought. They may be the condi-
tion of the existence of material Beings who have
mind, without being the conditions of the existence
of mind itself. Thought, even in its lowest phase Thought not
of mere volition, or conscious choice, cannot be a Hving
matter.
product of Kving matter, for then it would be itself
a material object of sense.
IMor can it be a movement of matter, such as a Nora
., . (, L '^ 1' c movement
Vibration ; for not every movement or vibration of of matter,
the matter the grey pulp brain, let us say which
is the organ of thought, is a thought ; consequently
there is a difference between such movement or
vibration as is merely mechanical, and such as is
simultaneous or identical with thought ; whence it
follows that something more than movement or
vibration is necessary to constitute thought. Mind Mind
'' ^ ^ ^ underlies
underlies thought as matter underlies all perceptible t^iought.
substance, and as life underlies all organic substance.
Life, in o?zr experience, is invariably connected with
matter, and mind with life and matter ; that is,
with living matter. But the connection of life with
Modern Materialism.
Life
independent
of matter.
Mind
independent
of life and
matter.
Force.
matter is, so to speak, arbitrary : that is, it is not
traceable, as an eSect, to the action of material
elements. Life is something of itself independent
of matter. Similarly, the connection of mind with
life appears from observation and reasoning equally
arbitrary. Mind is not due to mere life nor a
function or development of it ; but it is something
of itself independent of life and matter.
We must also take into consideration an attribute
or property of all being known to us, which indeed
some think entitled to be accounted an element of
being. This is Porce. That to which movement,
and the changes of organic bodies are due, as well
as their mutual attraction and the action of chemical
affinities, is Force. The growth, nutrition, repro-
duction and spontaneous motion of organised bodies
depend upon force, called, for distinction's sake,
Vital force. The same term expresses the distinct
idea arising from the exercise of what are called the
various powers of the mind. There is mental force
as well as vital force and physical force. Each differs
from the other as to the subjects specially and
appropriately affected by it, and in the mode of its
action, but they have that in common of which we
can form an abstract apprehension, designated by
the term Force.
DiflFeren*
kinds of
force.
Force in
relation to
material
existence,
life, and
thouglit.
Considering force in its relation to the three
modes of being simple material existence, life,
and thought we cannot conceive of the faculties
Modern Materialisvi,
of life otherwise than as present in and exerted by
that which has life ; nor of mental faculties, or the
power of thought, otherwise than as inherent in
and essential to mind. But we can conceive of
physical force as external to that which has a
material existence only. Indeed, it seems impossiblo
to conceive that such forces as gravitation, or
attraction and repulsion, can he possessed and
exerted independently, as inherent, essential powers,
by matter, the subjection of which to action by
those forces can only be explained by its own
incapacity of action its undoubted attribute of
inertia.
All mere matter, or matter without life, must, ?^reSt*-:i
in physical calculations in mechanics, for instance, ^^^^^^'
or astronomy be treated as incapable of motion
or change, except as acted upon from without, and
by some force applied. Newton has been careful Jg^J^^^^^^
to state that he employs the word " attraction," in ^Strac
speaking of the action of bodies on each other, not *^^""
in a physical sense. Indeed, in another passage of Definition a,
the "Principia," he says that attractions, physically ^^'j^',^''^^-
spealdng, are rather to be considered as impulses, b. i, section
xi., Intro-
In the end of his great work he seems inclined to duction.
the opinion that there is some subtle spirit by the
force and action of which all movements of matter
are determined. In his letter to Dr. Bentley, he says : fetter to
" The supposition of an innate gravity essential to and in-
herent in matter, so that a body can act upon another at a
10
Modern Materialism,
Early
objection to
tlie doctrine
of gravita-
tiuu.
iratefialism
an ancient
syatem.
distance, and through a vacuum, without anything intermeJiato
to convey from one to another their force and reciprocal action,
is to my mind so great an absurdity, that I do not believe that
any person who possesses an ordinary faculty for reflecting
upon objects of a physical character can ever admit it."
Objection was early made against the doctrine
of rravitation that it involved the revival of the
old scholastic belief in occult qualities, which the
whole philosophical and scientific world had agreed
in rejecting. JN'ewton's language, above quoted, is
a protest against this charge. Euler, in the next
generation of men of science, also showed that no
such belief was necessitated by the observed facts
and demonstrated laws of gravitation. Among
modern mathematicians and natural philosophers,
Le Sage, Biot, and Arago, may be cited as re-
pudiating the notion that the power of attraction
resides in matter as an inherent and essential
quality.
From the very earliest known times of philo-
sophical inquiry, however, down to the present,
there have been those who held the opinion that all
existence is to be traced back to mere matter, and
that all the phenomena of existence of every kind
are to be ascribed to the capabilities or qualities
inherently possessed by the ultimate particles of
matter. Those, including the most ancient and
the most recent, who have carried the process of
simplification to the greatest extreme, limit these
original attributes of material elements to mag-
Modern Materialism, 11
nitudc, figure, position, and mobility. From these,
all other qualities of all known existences are sup-
posed to have been developed, and to be due to
diversities of arrangement and combination of the
primordial atoms.
The first difficulty in this system is clearly to J-^jJjgJjg^^
account for the existence of an infinite number of
atoms ; the next, to account for their movement,
so as to coalesce and form the conditions for sub-
sequent interaction. Most of the ancient and
modern physicists who have maintained this theory,
being opposed to the belief of a Creator, or the
direct action of a Divine Being in the original
production or subsequent formation of all things,
have adopted the hypothesis of the eternal and
necessary self-existence of the atoms of matter.
For, supposing there was a time when no substance SaS.^^
existed possessing the primary qualities which we
ascribe to matter, it is impossible and inconceivable
that any such substance should come into existence
without the exertion of an Almighty will, that is,
tlie will of a personal Being who is absolutely
Almighty.
Again, movement, without which the atoms of ^^ motion,
the universe must have for ever remained separate
and independent particles, was assumed, by the
older theorists of the materialistic school, to have
been eternally co- existent with these atoms, and
to have possessed a rotatory or vorticular character,
12
Modem Material
mm.
Aristotle
Golution of
Epicurus.
His funda-
mental
hj'pothesis
crude.
whence their ultimate conglomeration into existing
forms. Aristotle, in Ms Metaphysics/ treats this
assumption with deserved contempt, reproaching
its authors with neglect or inability to assign any
cause of motion, and claims for those alone who
referred the origin of all substance to a supreme
intelligence the credit of establishing a principal
which is the cause of motion to things.
Epicurus, indeed, endeavoured to account for
motion by the supposed necessity of a continual
descent of the primordial atoms in space by this
action of gravity ; a notion, duo, of course, to his
ignorance of the fact that " up " and " down,''
'* above " and *' below," *' ascent " and " descent,"
are relative terms, and that gravity could not ac-
count for motion in any one direction rather than
another, nor, indeed, for any motion at all. Per-
ceiving, also, that this theory implied motion in
parallel lines, and therefore did not provide for
concourse and coalescence, without which matter
could not have acquired its rudimentary forms,
Epicurus proceeded to imagine a slight deviation
or swerving from their original direction of move-
ment by some atoms, so as to come into contact
with others; but for such deviation its where,
when, and how, no cause was, or on his principles
could be, assigned. His whole system, moral as
well as physical, is based upon this crude hypo-
^ Book I., close of Chapters 3 & 4.
Modern Materialism. 13
theory.
thesis, "a childish fiction," as Cicero very justly DeFimbus,
. i. 19. Do
designates it " a fond thing vainly invented. Fato, i. 9.
The modern theory, substantially that of Kant
and La Place, is, as enunciated by the latter, that
matter originally existed in a state of
*'nejulosity so diliase that its existence could hardly havo
been sus]3ected,"
and that the formation of nuclei, and of separate
zones revolving around them, breaking up after-
wards into detached spherical masses, was due to
the action of gravitation, or mutual attraction, the
collision and condensation of the cosmical particles
producing intense heat, which resulted in the fusion
of the masses, which were afterwards solidified by
the cooling caused by radiation.
This theory is equally inadequate with that of inadequate
' ^ -^ ^ to account
Epicurus to account for matter and motion. For, and^^otion.
however diffuse the nebulosity, it must have con-
sisted of separate particles, each of which, if not
self-subsisting and eternal, must have been created.
And motion, arising from gravitation, must have Diicmrrr..
been either an original and therefore essential
and co-eternal property or state of the mass of
atoms, or it must have been communicated to it by
some independent cause. In the former case it is
impossible to understand what should have deter-
mined the commencement of the processes which
have resulted in the present state of things. In
the latter, matter was put into a different state
14 Modern Materialism.
from that in wliicli it originally existed received
a property wliicli it had not before ; but whence
could this come, how could this be effected, but by
the will and power of a Creator ?
It may be said, and, for scientific purposes, with
apparent reasonableness, that those who maintain
the theory that, given matter and motion, all things
that are may be accounted for without the necessity
of supposing final causes, are not obliged also to
account for the existence of matter and motion.
Demand. But the mind, in contemplating this system, and
endeavouring to realise the principle on which it is
based, is logically compelled to examine its primary
conditions, and to apply to them its radical principle,
and therefore to ask, If from matter and motion,
progressively, and step by step, each deducible by
natural law from the preceding, all things and all
states of things have proceeded, whence were matter
and motion?
II.
Remarking, and registering the important fact,
tc?]?Sbic that no answer is attempted to be given to this
inquiry, or none sufiiciently plausible to be adopted
or countenanced by any eminent physicist, and that
therefore nothing has been proposed which can
supply the place of an intelligent personal Being as
the Creator of the elements of existence, we pro-
ceed to the consideration of the system of modern
reply.
Modern Materialism. 15
Materialism, as propounded by its latest and boldest
professors, and interpreted by various physiologists
among us, who, without admitting its extravagant
assumptions, accept it as the basis of the theory of
the construction of all things by development and
evolution.
Pure Materialism resolves all Being into matte)' creed of
and force, denying the fact or possibility of the materialism.
existence of aught that is not material. Its
maxims are :
'* No matter without force, and no force without matter ;
matter and force are inseparable, eternal and indestructible ;
there can be no independent force, since all force is an inherent
and necessary property of matter, consequently there can be no
immaterial creating power ; inorganic and organic forms are
results of different accidental combinations of matter ; life is a
particular combination of matter taking place under favourable
ch'cumstances ; thought is a movement of matter ; the soul is
a function of material organisation. "
Such a system, it is obvious, is essentially atheistic : J^e^Ji^i^
it excludes God from the universe. To those who ^^^^^'^-
receive it, the idea not only of the action but of
the existence of a purely spiritual Being, infinite
and omnipotent, is impossible : equally so the im-
materiality and immortality of the human soul.
One of the first physiologists of the age, Pro- ^^^^^f^i^^n?
fessor Huxley, in a remarkable treatise on the uJ[ey!'^'^'
"Physical Basis of Life," published in the Fort-
nightly Review for February, 1869, asserts that
" the materialistic position, that there is nothing in the world
but matter, force, and necessity, is as utterly devoid of justi-
fication as the most baseless of theological dogmas."
16
Modern Materialism.
But not in
its pre-
misses.
But, althougli he tlius pronounces against the
ultimate conclusions of materialism, regarding
tliem as unscientific, unphilosophical, and, indeed,
immoral, he assents to some of its most important
and most startling propositions, those, in fact, from
which its advocates, and others beside them, think
that the conclusions which he considers unjustifiable
must necessarily and immediately follow. He
believes, and produces his reasons for believing,
that all vital action, or life, is the result of the
molecular forces of the elementary living substance,
acting in a manner purely mechanical
** the product of a certain disposition of material molecules ; "
and he thinks it an inevitable deduction from this
statement, that
The
propositi 01-3
which he
accepts.
He admits
that their
tonus are
materialistic.
What h-s
reason lor
this
admission
iiiiplies.
"thought is the expression of molecular change in that matter
of life which is the source of our other vital phenomena."
He admits that the terms of these propositions
are distinctly materialistic, and contends for the
employment of materialistic terminology in the
investigation of the order of nature, alleging, as
a special and indeed the principal reason for his
demand, that this terminology connects thought
with the other phenomena of the universe. This
reason implies that all the other phenomena of the
universe are material, and that thought cannot be
conceived of as connected with them unless it be
conceived of as material assumptions by no means
allowable as axioms in the outset of this inquiry.
Modern Materialism. 17
There can be no better preparation for the dis-
cussion of the principles of materialism than a
summary exhibition of the train of observations
by which Professor Huxley brings us face to face
with the great problem of the origin of life. The
following will be found a fair representation of his
statements.
All living substances, from the lowest to the nuxieya
highest, possess a unity of faculty or power ; all
exercise the functions of feeding, moving, growth,
and reproduction. They all possess a unity of
form. They are all composed of corpuscles, or
structural units, fundamentally of the same cha-
racter, to which the name of protoplasm or " first
formation," has been given. He instances the
human being and the nettle. A nucleated mass of
protoplasm is the structural unit of the human Protopiasci.
body ; and the human body in its perfect condition
is a multiple of such units, variously modified.
The nettle arises, as the man does, in a particle of
nucleated protoplasm ; and similarly the whole
substance of the nettle is made up of a repetition
of such masses.
But there exist innumerable living creatures
which are each a single particle of protoplasm ;
each being nothing more than a unit of living
substance, yet having an independent existence.
And these, and all things that live, are composed
of the same material elements carbon, hydrogen,
18 Modern Materialism,
The material oxvgen, aiid nitrogen. These, in various combina-
elements of , . . .
gi living tions, produce carbonic acid, water, and ammonia,
wbicb compounds, under certain conditions, give
^^! rise to tlie complex body, protoplasm, tlie basis of
life. These elementary substances are themselves
lifeless ; and in their combination they can only
dJrive^Se ^^rm a living substance when appropriated and
sub?tanc^e? acted upon by a living substance already existing.
!N^or can every living substance so employ them im-
mediately. Plants alone can do this. The animal
depends for protoplasm upon the already formed
protoplasm of the vegetable, whereas vegetable
matter converts carbonic acid, water, and ammonia
immediately into protoplasm. It must, however,
be living vegetable matter. Without the agency
of pre-existing living protoplasm these substances
cannot form the matter of actual life.
Central pro- "VYc have now arrived at a fact upon which it
position. . - .
IS desirable to pause, and which should be kept
steadily in mind, for it is a cardinal fact in this
inquiry. The material elements of which every
living substance is composed cannot of themselves
combine into a living compound. Life must act
upon them before they can contribute to life.
Vital action There must be vital action employed upon the
necessary to ,.. i -i
the produc- hf elcss substauccs necessary to life m order that m
tion of life. ^ ^ ^ '
their combination they may form a living sub-
stance. Life can only come from life. This looks
very much like a scientifically ascertained ncccs-
Modern Materialism, 19
sity for an original infusion of life into matter by
a separate act of creation. The well-known ex-
periments of Professor Tyndal], which have dis- Tyndau.
proved the alleged fact of spontaneous generation,
powerfully support this conclusion.
But both these physiologists, in their zeal for unwarrant-
the construction of a continuous chain of material conclusion.
agency, without proof, and contrary to proof,
deduce from the fact that a combination of carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen is necessary to
life, the wholly " ultra- experimental conception,'*
as Professor Tyndall himself calls it, that life is
the immediate resultant of the properties of these
elementary substances, the product of a certain
disposition of material molecules, and all vital
action the result of the molecular forces of the
protoplasm which displays it. And if this be
conceded, there is drawn from it the conclusion that
thought is the expression of molecular change in
that matter of life which is the source of our other
vital phenomena.
To ordinary, perhaps also to logical minds, it inevitaWa
will appear, that from this conclusion, by an
almost immediate deduction, we derive the doctrine
of the most advanced materialists, viz., that the
thinkiDg substance, the soul, is a material organisa-
tion, its attributes and powers merely properties
of matter, results of a certain aggregation and
arrangement of its molecules.
20
Modern Materialism,
Disclaimed
by Iluxley,
Ontlio
ground of
our ignor-
ance.
WMcli
ought to
have pre-
vented hia
coiicluflion.
Let it not bo supposed that Professor Iluxley
is chargeable with maintaining this doctrine. In
repudiating materialism, and asserting that he is
"individually no materialist," he must bo under-
stood to reject it.
He promises in his Essay to point out " the only
path " by which, in his judgment, extrication from
what he truly calls " the materialistic slough " of
the conclusion to which he has conducted us is
possible. On examination, it is found that the
relief and refuge from materialism which he offers
consists in acquiescence in our total ignorance of
cause and effect, and of the nature of matter
and spirit, which, he says, are but names for
the imaginary substrata of groups of natural
phenomena.
The point at which he interposes a check in
the descent through materialistic interpretation of
vital and mental phenomena to absolute material-
ism is somewhat arbitrarily chosen. He draws the
line between the materialism of the process of
thought, which he allows, and the materialism of
the thinking substance, which he is not prepared
to allow. Ignorance of the nature of causation
and of matter and spirit, is held to be a sufficient
obstacle to further progress. He might have
applied this principle earHer, for he had occasion
for it. In the course of his previous investigation
he had arrived at a term where, in tho words ol
Modern Materialism. 21
Mr. Disraeli, he had " met the insoluble." His
continuous straight line of reasoning had ended in
a circle. He had discovered the material elements
of life, hut he had discovered also that they do not
of themselves produce life, and that life is necessary
to render them vital. But he would not accept the
position. JN'ot content at that point to pause before
the absolutely unknown, he endeavoured to bridge
over the void with a conjecture. The confessedly
unintelligible influence by which the matter of life
is made to live, is assumed to be something which
has a representative or correlative in the lifeless
elements of which it is composed ; that is to say, Husicy's
assumption
it is supposed to be a strictly material asrencv, a- ^}^^ ^^'^^-
^ -^ *' o .; ' sistency.
result of the yet undiscovered and perhaps undis-
coverable properties of certain dead matter.
And this assumption is necessary in order to
proceed to the next proposition, that thousrht, His next
* ^ . o ' proposition
mental feeling, and will, are the expression of J-fa^sum^
molecular changes in the matter of life, originating, *^^"
as life itself is supposed to originate, in the pro-
perties and arrangements of its elementary particles.
So that, if he had acted consistentlv with his former
course by following only experience and observa-
tion, and with his consequent course, by stopping
short at the great blank created by our ignorance
of matter and causation, he could not have ad-
vanced so near to the materialistic doctrine of the
origin of life or the nature of thought.
22 Modern Materialism.
The Kor can any fail to notice the formidable advan-
advantage
consisten"c ^^^^ givon to tlio advocates of absolute materialism
by this inconsistency. When once we have
arrived at the position that thought is a result of
the properties of matter, the inference that the
thinking substance, the soul, is material, seems
direct and immediate. We are not, however,
justified, according to Professor Huxley, in making
this inference, because of our ignorance of matter
and causation. But in forming the previous con-
clusion that all vital phenomena, including thought,
are results of elementary properties of matter, he
takes no account of this ignorance, although it is
plainly suggested by the difficulty which he has
acknowledged.
The materialist may fairly demand that if oui
ignorance presents no obstacle to the acceptance of
the grand and general proposition it shall not be
alleged as a sufficient reason for the rejection of
one of its corollaries. He may say to the Pro-
fessor,
The _ "If you believe that Kfe is tlie result of the interaction,
rejoinder!' ^'^ meclianical, cliemical, or electric, of lifeless material elements,
although you have no proof that such interaction ever produced
life, or can take place without a living agency, why should you
not believe that thought, the chief activity of life, which you
say is the expression of molecular changes in the matter of life,
is tlie action of a purely material substance, although you
cannot trace the relation between cause and effect, or between
the material and spiritual?"
It is, however, certain that our ignorance of
Modern Materialism. 23
matter, which the Professor fully recognises, and
to which, in fact, in the interest of materialism,
he makes appeal, involves a principle which must principle
.-,..., t> !( involved in
entirely mvalidate the materialistic theory oi lite, tiie acknow-
' "^ ledgment of
thought, and spiritual heing, and which suggests ignorance.
encouragement and consolation to those that main-
tain the old instinctive belief that mind is different
from matter, and that mind and m-atter are due to
that which is neither matter, nor force, nor law,
nor necessity.
If we attempt to reduce all existence to a
material origin, we shall arrive at a conclusion
which overthrows the foundation of materialism,
and substitutes its very opposite absolute idealism Materialism
. , supplanted
m its room. Fixing our attention upon that by idealism.
inseparable compound without which, according to ^^ /-
the materialistic theory, there can be nothing, and
besides and beyond which there is nothing matter
and- force we observe that every particle of matter
is matter because it possesses the attributes of
extension, impenetrability, and mobility. Of these
attributes the two latter are due to force, or are
exhibitions of force. Pure matter, then, becomes
mere extension endued with force. But if it be
admitted that all that is essential to matter is ex-
tension, then every particle of matter is nothing
but a portion of space. And so the idea of matter
vanishes entirely. Or if it be said that matter is
the unknown subject of which extension, impeno-
24
Modern Materialism,
trability, and mobility are the attributes, then,
since tbese attributes alone give us our perception
and conception of matter as such, the subject
underlying them, whatever it is, is not matter, but
an inconceivable and necessarily immaterial prin-
ciple of being.
M. Paul Janet with great clearness demonstrates
the necessity and exhibits the significance of this
conclusion :
Paul Janet
on the
sisnificance
of this
couclusion.
Le Mat^'iial-
isme Coii-
temporaire
en AUe-
magne,
chap. iv.
" If I am told," he says, "that the molecule itself is not the
ultimate element of matter, that beyond the molecule there is
a something, and that this something is absolute and in-
dependent, I reply that this is very possible, but that in this
case we give up what I call materialism for another hypothesis
which is not here in question. The molecule is the ultimate
representative of matter that is possible or conceivable : what-
ever is beyond is some other thing ; it is no longer matter, but
another principle which is conceivable by abstract thought alone,
and which we may call idea, substance, force, as we please, but
no longer matter. Matter is that which is presented to me by
the senses ; that which is beyond and out of the range of my
senses and immediate experience, is not matter. In what I call
a body I can easily, it is true, resolve certain qualities into other
qualities ; secondary qualities into primary ; smell, taste, colour,
into form and motion ; but, as long as there remains anything
of which I have a perception, it is still a body, and when I say
that everything is body and matter I mean that everything is
reducible to elements more or less similar to those which are
perceived by my senses. But if in what I perceive by my senses
everything is phenomenal, everything is mere appearance, if the
basis of the object of sense is absolutely different from the
object itself, I say that this object of sense which I call matter
is relative only, and reduced to a superior principle, the power
and value of which I can no longer estimate by means of my
senses. Matter then vanishes in a principle superior to itself,
end materialism abdicates in favour of idealism. "
This conclusion is not urp-ed in the interest of
Modern Materialismfi. 25
idealism, for the purpose of proving tliat matter The
has no existence. On the contrary, the reason- not urged
in the
ine: by which materialism is thus reduced to a interest of
o J idealism.
contradiction of itself is founded upon the evidence
of the senses, which report to us the existence of
something presented to them, and not resulting
from them, our perception of which as so attained,
satisfies us that what we perceive is an objective The
Trt t 1 -!- 1 rcasoninj?
reality different from ourselves. But what we m- founded in
'' the evidence
sist upon is that we are compelled to believe, even of ti^e senses,
by following out materialistic principles and pre-
misses, that matter has a dependent and derived Matter
existence, and that that from which it is de- and derived.
rived, and upon which its reality depends, is not
matter. "We need not argue the case of force.
All materialists agree in denying its independ-
ence, and assert that there can be no force with-
out matter, as no matter without force. Force,
therefore, like matter, is dependent and derived ;
it originates in that which is not force. There Soisforco
is no mechanical basis of force, as there is no
material basis of matter.
If, then, materialism is incapable of explain- Application
ing matter itself, we may reasonably conclude with pundpie of
M. Janet that
"a fortiori it cannot explain the two still greater mysteries
presented by nature that is to say, life and thought."
The doctrine that the existence and properties of
matter supply all that is necessary for the develop-
ignorance.
26
Modern Materialism.
Ex-aminstion
ot the
constitution
of matter,
loads to
the same
result.
Molescliott
rjid
Liichner.
ment of life and thought is no longer tenable when
we find that something beside and essentially dif-
ferent from matter is necessary to its existence.
The same result will be found to follow from
the consideration of the elementary constitution of
matter; and equally whether we acknowledge its
infinite divisibility, or adopt the hypothesis, so use-
ful for practical purposes, of the indivisibility of its
ultimate particles or atoms.
The most advanced school of materialism, repre-
sented by the German writers, Moleschott and
BUchner, rejects the atomic theory almost uni-
versally adopted by modern physiologists, and
maintains that every particle of matter is in reality,
as in conception, divisible. It is, therefore, a com-
pound, and every compound has necessarily a re-
lative and dependent existence. Its existence de-
pends upon that of its constituent parts. But each
of these is also a compound ; and so on in infinite
scries. "Whatever, therefore, may be the final abso-
lute condition of the existence of matter, it is plain
that-it cannot be material, since whatever is material
must be relative and dependent. And so with
regard to force. The force of every particle is the
resultant of the forces of its constituent particles ;
an absolute force, one, that is, not resolvable into
component forces, being nowhere to be found.
Therefore the existence of force depends ultimately
upon something which is not force.
Modern Materialism. 27
Dal ton's great discovery of definite proportions Daiton.
demonstrates, in tlie opinion of most men of science,
tlio existence of ultimate indivisible particles of
matter. Every molecule, or elementary constituent
of any kind of matter is, on his theory, an aggregate
of smaller parts called atoms, which are severally
uncompounded, and, as their name imports, indi-
visible. But by their indivisibility n:.us^ be meant .^'^)^.t.,.,
' '' indivisibility
not that they are actually without parts, but that ^^ Particles.
their parts are inseparable one from another ; not
that they are essentially and absolutely indivisible,
but that such is the constitution of nature that
they are never divided.
For atoms are of different weie-hts : the weiorht Atoms are
^ ofdiflterciit
of an atom of oxygen is eight times that of an atom 'n^eights.
of hydrogen ; and the weight of a body is dependent
upon its mass ; we cannot then avoid the conclusion
that an atom of oxygen contains eight times as
much matter as an atom of hydrogen, that its eighth
part is as heavy as an atom of hydrogen, and
that therefore it has parts. Atoms are also, as
Professor Tyndall says,
** probably of diflferent sizes; at all events it is almost certain Qj^g^j^^fcaf
that the ratio of the mass of the atom to the surface it presents Rays in the
to the action of the waves of light is different i.i different cases." ;^em'e" ^
If an atom has a surface extended over more space
than the surface of another atom, there must be
points on that surface distant from each other ; and,
therefore, by the action of a sufficient povrer, gucj
February,
1809.
28 Modern Materialism.
An atom is an atom would be divisible. An atom, tlien, is, like
I compound,
a molecule, an aggregate, a compound consisting
perhaps, of perfectly homogeneous parts, but still
having parts, and these also having parts, and so
?omYt^^as ^^ without limit. Consequently, the existence of
matter i?^* the atom is relative and dependent; and therefore
-S.^derh4a. the atomic theory fails to establish the independent
and absolute existence of matter.
If it be said that the terms weight and surface
are not to be understood when applied to the ultimate
elements of matter, in the same sense as when applied
to its particles appreciable by the senses, we repeat
the remark of M. Janet, that then we are dealing
with somethiDg totally different from what we know
or conceive as matter, an unknown something, a
principle which, whatever it may be, is certainly
not material.
The atomic There are other considerations arisina^ out of the
theory "-"
sipremo ^tomic theory which are worthy of some attention.
^^ If the ultimate elements of all substances are
particles which, although not essentially indivisible
since they are aggregates consisting of parts, are
yet actually, and as a matter of fact, uniformly
indivisible, such an arrangement cannot be con-
ceived of as necessary, but must be conceived of as
arbitrary. It amounts to a contradiction in terms
to say that non-essential indivisibility depends upon
necessity ; it must depend upon will.
Again, if the constituent atoms of a molecule are
Modern Materialism. 29
practically and actually indivisible, thougli they are Proof of a
composite, and this indivisibility is a condition of ^jJ^\^^^*J y^
the constitution of nature, and since, therefore, ^^^^'^
nature would not be nature if any conceivable force
existing in nature, could sever the atom into its
parts, it follows that there is no conceivable force
existing in nature which could condense those parts
into their present inseparable state, and which can
maintain them in it. If there is no possibihty in
nature, as it is, for the one, there is no possibility
in nature, as it is, for the other. Ilence the actual
indivisibility of these particles is due to something
which is not nature, nor in nature, something be-
yond and different from everything which we ex-
perience or conceive of as force. This is a power
of which matter and force may be creations, but
of which they are certainly not representatives, and
with which they have no conceivable affinity.
It appears, then, that our ignorance of matter ^^H^l^^^^
and force, pleaded by Professor Huxley in defence origiiVtedt
of the materialistic theory of life and thought, when
pursued into its darkest recesses, renders necessary
tlio conclusion that matter and force do not originate
in anything which is of their own nature, and that
therefore their continued existence and action do
not depend upon ultimate elements which are
material and mechanical.
But the fundamental difficulty of materialism
arising from our ignoranco of matter occurs not for
'60 Modern Materialism
Tiiefundti- the first time at the last stas^e of the inquiry into
mental . . ^ "^
difficulty of the basis of all ohiects of sense. It was encoun-
materialism "^
occurYorthc ^c^'^d, as WO liavG seen, in the attempt to trace to
tiif]astSa% its origin the connection of life with matter. For
c m^iury. ^^]^g^ -^ ^^g ascertained that the material consti-
tuents of living substances cannot, by mere com-
bination and interaction, produce life, but that life
in its lowest forms depends upon previously existing
life, it was already time to acknowledge the in-
competency of matter and force to account for the
phenomena of life, and to recognize the presence
and the power of an element of life which is cer-
tainly not material. The result arrived at by sub-
sequent investigation, viz., that matter and force
do not contain in themselves the principle of their
own existence, but that they also depend upon
something that is beyond them and not of them, is
more than an analogy to this conclusion, it is essen-
tially connected with it ; and it is impossible to
evade its significance as to the immaterial origin
both of life and matter.
III.
Lr.w3 cf Let us pass now from the constitution of matter
uature. ^
to the consideration of what are called " laws of
nature," or, by the more advanced materialists,
"necessity/* names given to conditions under
which the properties of matter act, and have come
Modern Materialism. 31
into action, so as to produce the phenomena of the Require-
, . TT imits for
universe. Given matter and force, space and tilne, g^^^^[J,"^ ^^
then, according to the materialistic philosophy, IZor^iu^t'i
nothing more is required to construct a world.
The molecules of matter, under the impulse of
molecular force, must so act hy the operation of
law or necessity as to originate combinations, the
results of which through a series of developme nts
are all existing forms. All that is needed is
sufficient time for the process, and of that, in a
past eternity during which matter has been in
existence, there is of course an unlimited supply.
But it is here, in the first conditions for the K-itoaaiism
' suffers
operation of law, that materialism suffers ship- tKrs?^*^
wreck, as before, in the first conditions for the forthe^
existence of matter or force. Supposinsr, for matter or
^^ .^ force.
example, the matter of which our system is com-
posed to have been, in its normal state, an ex-
tremely diffuse nebulosity, a mass of incandescent
vapour or gas (a hypothesis by no means exclusively
materialistic, though accepted by every materialist),
the commencement of the present order of things
must have been the formation of a central nucleus,
and its acquisition of a rotatory movement.
Let us date as far back as we please the tran- ^nlSntea
sition from the normal state of uniform or irregular opeStiSTof
diffusion to this incipience of organisation, no ^*^'
reason can be assigned by the materialist why this
transition had not occurred any number of ages
32
Modern Materialism.
Materialism
can j^ive no
reason why
our system
did not
arrive at its
present
condition at
an earliei"
period.
previously. It has taken from that point of time
to this to hring the matter composing our system
into its present condition. Materialism can give
no reason why it had not arrived at its present
condition by the time whence we date the com-
mencement of the process of which the present
condition is the result. There are discovered by
the telescope numerous masses of nebulous matter,
some apparently in the entirely diffused state,
some possessing nuclei already formed, all probably
destined to become systems like our own suns,
planets, and satellites, worlds of organised and
inorganic substances. Now, the matter of which
they are composed, like that of our system, has,
according to the materialist, been in existence
from eternity, and the laws of nature are equally
eternal. What has retarded the formation of
these masses into systems ? What has determined
their various stages of progression ? and what is
to account for the advanced state of the solar
system ?
It cannot be said that the operation of law
which produced the initial nucleus or initial
rotation in any case, was a necessary result of a
previous series of operations or developments, ex-
tending backwards into a past eternity; for this
would apply to all matter alike, all being eternal,
and subject to the same eternal laws; and there-
fore every mass of matter would be at any period
Modem Materialism, 33
in the same stage and condition. There would be
no reason, from the operation of fixed and necessary-
laws, for the commencement of one system which
would not be equally valid for the commencement
of every other at the same time.
Chance, the old Epicurean doctrine of the for- 2^"^^
tuitous concourse of atoms, is, with apparent creatSi^'^
seriousness, relied upon by some men of science,
even in the present day, as sufficient to account
for the origination of a system of worlds. But
what is chance ? What action or movement can
exist, or be imagined, which is not in sequence to
some previous action or movement, and in some
relation to it which could be represented by what
we call a law ? And so we are thrown back upon J^g^ity of
the difficulty offered by the eternal existence and e^stence*^
operation of law. But, adopting the mathematical SonofTaw.
notion of chance, that is, probability, let us say
that certain combinations of circumstances in the
relations among the particles of matter are required
for the production of the nucleus of a system of
worlds, and that there is a certain amount of
probability of their occurrence. One such com-
bination has resulted in the production of the
nucleus of our system. But the conditions necessary why were
*' *' not existing
to, and occasioning its occurrence, at any date, oJfgJ^teT'
cannot fail to have existed repeatedly in the SirUeri
eternal past antecedently to that date. The exist-
ence of so many millions of systems each, upon
D
34 Modern Materialism.
the chance hypothesis, due to such a fortuitous
combination, corroborates the conclusion arrived
at by abstract reasoning, that, in the case of every
separate mass of matter, the formation of which
into a system commenced at any definite period,
the probabilities were immensely in favour of the
commencement of the process many times over
before that period. Whenever it bef^an, it ousrht
The doctrine tip t p i i
of the to have bearun before. In fact, the doctrme of
eternity of '-^
matter fatal i\^q eternity of matter is fatal to the doctrine of
evoiSn':' evolution.!
That combinations and developments of matter
may begin at different perbds, and may be in
different stages, is only possible and conceivable on
the supposition that the different masses of matter
in which they take place came into existence at
different periods. They must have had each a
normal condition, and that at different times. The
normal condition of the more advanced must have
preceded that of the less advanced by the number
of ages necessary to bring the latter into the
present condition of the former. And a normal
condition is necessarily, by its definition, the
primary condition of existence, that which had no
predecessor from which it was evolved, that before
which was nothing.
These considerations lead us to the conclusion
' i.e. Godless evolutiou evolution supposed to be directed by iat?
without will.
Modern Mat&riatisiri, " ^^^ ^v *' 35
' ^ ^ '^:^:^U7o^o^;^
that the operation of law in the constructicmrof'tne The system
of nature
system of nature depends upon somethms^ which is depends on
^ r Jr o something
not law ; that the operation of chance to the same J^^^ ^^ ^"^
eifect, supposing it to be distinguishable from that
oi law, requires conditions which are independent
of chance. Matter and force we found could not
exist except by the agency of something which is
not matter or force. And now we find that some-
thing which is not law must determine action ac-
cording to law, and something which is not chance
must limit the range of probabilities. In a word, we are shut
^ ' # 1 T up to the
we are shut up to the necessity of believing m a necessity of
- ' *-* _ behevmgin
creative power, and a determining and directing
will, that is, an immaterial, conscious, intelligent,
personal Being, the Author and Designer of nature
an omnipotent and omniscient God.
a creative
power.
materialism.
lY.
Upon the materialistic theory, consciousness, in- J^^^J,^^^^
telligence, thought, and moral sense, are but the
highest developments of the faculty by which th^
lichen draws nutriment from the air or the rock.
The conscious, intelligent, thinking, moral being is
as much a material substance as the lichen. Its
intellectuality is due to the organisation to which
it has attained, that is, to a certain combination of
its material elements, and the forces with which
they are endowed. Consequently, when, in each
36
Modern Materialism,
Materialism
renders
immortaKty
inconceiv-
able.
particular instance or product, the organisation
ceases to act, and the combination is dissolved, the
result of the organisation and combination, that
is, the separate individual intelligence what we
call mind or soul vanishes entirely. So that
materialism necessarily denies the immortality of
the soul ; in fact, renders it inconceivable.
The evolutionist, who refuses to be bound by the
materialistic conditions of evolution, may perhaps
maintain that the human being has attained to
immortality by a process of development, as it has
attained to a life of consciousness, thought, and
moral feeling.^ But we are immediately arrested
by a difficulty which inevitably arises out of the
notion of such a development. It is essential to
the very fact of development that the highest con-
dition attained should be but a step from one next
below it, should indeed be evolved from it. What
is the condition of limited existence next lower than
immortality ? It is as impossible for such a con-
Evolution of
immortal
being
impossible.
Evolution
must
proceed step
by step.
' Sir C. Lyell in his Antiquity of Man, chap, xxiv., as quoted
by Professor Mozley in his Bampton Lectures (on Miracles) Lect.
iii. note 3, says : *' If, in conformity with the theory of progression,
we believe mankind to have risen slowly from a rude and humble
starting-point, such leaps (in intelligence) may have successively
introduced not only higher and higher forms and grades of intellect,
but at a much remoter period may have cleared at one bound the
space which separated the highest stage of the unprogressive intelli-
gence of the inferior animals from the first and lowest form of im-
proveable reason manifested by man." But, as the Professor truly
remarks, " such a leap is only another word for an inexplicable
mystery. Sxich a change cuts asunder the identity of the being
which precedes it and the being which succeeds it."
Modern Materialism. 87
dition to exist as for a number to be found next
less than infinity. Personal immortality, therefore,
must be as entirely a separate independent creation,
or endowment, as we have ascertained life itself
in its origin to have been.
Eminent materialists of the last generation ac- S^ctriJi?of^
cepted the doctrine of Cabanis, that thought is a *^"sw.
secretion of the brain, just as bile is a secretion of ^^^^^^ /
the liver. But modern materialism rejects this
doctrine, and affirms that thought is not matter
which the brain produces, but the very action of
the brain itself. It is described as the resultant of
forces that exist in the brain, or, according to
Moieschott, "thought is a movement of matter." opMo^
If so, then thought is the action of the molecules
which compose the brain of the ultimate atoms
which are the constituents of these molecules.
And this action, whether originating in the mutual Brain action,
attraction and repulsion of those atoms, or in a
material impulse communicated from without, must
be regulated by the ordinary laws of motion. And
if thought is the motion of certain molecules, this
motion must, as such, determine the character and
quality of thought, and be mechanically appro-
priate to its various applications. The character
and quality of thought must, therefore, depend
upon the magnitude and direction of molecular
force, and vary according to the form of its line of
action. This inference is inevitable ; Given that inference.
38 Modem Materialism,
tlie thinMng substance is material, that thinking is
the movement of its particles, that every thought
is the resultant of forces acting upon those par-
ticles, then every thought must have a particular
intensity of mechanical force, and a particular
direction in space, and there is nothing to distin-
guish it from, another thought except the difference
in intensity and direction.
iiGsuitg of The laws which regulate rectilinear and curvi-
txu8 doctrine. ^ ^
linear motion must therefore be the laws which
regulate thought. And thoughts will be right or
wrong, true or false, good or bad, according to their
direction in space, and the linear form in which
they move circular, elliptical, or parabolical, or
any of the endless variety of curves. Hence the
treatises with which mathematical students are
familiar on the dynamics of a single particle may
be expected to have an important bearing upon
mental science when established upon materialistic
principles. The formulse of these treatises must
necessarily express, if we could but interpret them,
laws or conditions of thought.
r)ipcjaimcd It is possiblo that those who have adopted the
materialistic creed, " There is nothing but matter,
force, and necessity," may accept these conclusions.
It is obvious that they must, if they would claim
credit for simple consistency. For, according to
this creed, all action of mind must be action of
matter, and there can be no laws of mind which
Modern Materialism. 39
are not laws of matter, and therefore all the known
laws of matter must act upon mind, and produce
its phenomena. Professor Huxley rejects and re-
probates this creed. He will not tell us that mind
is matter, or that thought is nothing hut a move-
ment of matter, or that tha soul is material. But
if we understand him aright, he would have us
pursue our psychological inquiries on the hypo-
thesis that these propositions are true. He says,
"With a view to the progress of science, the materialistic ter- But dis-
minology is in every way to be preferred ; " coStent!*
and again,
** There can be but little doubt that the further science advances
the more extensively and consistently will all the phenomena
of nature be represented by materialistic formulae and symbols. "
"What is to he inferred from these statements but
that the investigations of mental science, the study
of the nature and attributes of mind, t)ught to be
conducted on strictly mechanical and mathematical
principles, and the world of thought considered as
subject to the same conditions of existence and
action as the material world? There needs not
the absurdity which, as we have just seen, is in-
volved in the necessary conclusions to which we
are brought by this demand, to convince the intel-
ligent, honest, and earnest thinker, unbiassed and
unembarrassed by theories, of its utterly imprac-
ticable character.^
' " All this show of philosophy is pure illusion. No mind that
is capable of considteut thought can bring the forms and phrtises
1
40
Modem Materialism.
Atomic
theory
consistent
with theism.
t^udworth.
It would be unjust and unreasonable to assume
that all wbo maintain the atomic theory of the
constitution of the universe are absolute material-
ists, denying that there is any original and neces-
sary existence except that of matter and force.
On the contrary, there is reason to believe that
those very ancient physiologists who first broached
the doctrine of elementary atoms applied it only
to sensible substances, and fully admitted the
existence of incorporeal substances distinct from
matter, and principles of life and thought distinct
from the qualities and powers of matter. Dr.
Cud\North, the author of The Intellectual System
of the Universe, has investigated this subject with
profound learning, and affirms that he has
"made it evident that those atomical physiologers that were
before Democritus and Leucippus were all of them incorporealists,
joining theology and pneumatology, the doctrine of incorporeal
substance and a Deity with their atomical physiology."
lie also contends, with much force of reasoning,
of physical science into relationship with the processes, or the vary-
ing conditions of the mind.
" Mind and matter must each have its philosophy to itself. The
modes of reasoning proper to the one can only be delusive if carried
over to the other. That this is the fact might very safely be in-
ferred from what hitherto has been the issue, without an exception,
of the many ingenious theories propounded with the intention of
laying open the Avorld of mind by the help of chemistry, or any of
those sciences that are properly called physical. Every theory
resting upon this basis has presently gone off into some quackery
noised for a while among the uneducated, and soon forgotten."
Isaac Taylor, irorld of Mind, cviii.
Modem Materialism. 41
from considerations similar to those whicli we have
alleged, that the
*' intrinsical constitution of this (the atoniical) physiology is Book I,
such that, whosoever entertains it, if he do but thoroughly un- ^ *^' ^'
derstand it, must of necessity acknowledge that there is some-
thing in the world beside body, "
The following is his summary of the opinions of nis
.,,.,. . summary of
the earlier and better atomical physiologists, opi- the opinions
nions which were very clearly his own, and which ^"o'LSca?^
prove how thoroughly he understood the theories Physiologists.
of modern materialism, and the true reasons for
rejecting them :
' * Our ancient atomists never went about, as the blundering
Democritus afterwards did, to build up a world out of mere
passive bulk and sluggish matter, without any active princii^lea
or incorporeal powers ; understanding well that thus they
could not have so much as motion, mechanism, or generation in
; it ; the original of all that motion that is in bodies springing
from something that is not body, that is, from incorporeal
(immaterial) substance. And yet if local motion could have
been supposed to have risen up, or sprung in upon this dead
lump and mass of matter, nobody knows how, and, without
dependence upon any incorporeal being, to have actuated (acted
upon) it fortuitous!}^, these ancient atomists would still have
thought it impossible for the corporeal (material) world itself to
be made up, such as it now is, by fortuitous mechanism, without
the guidance of any higher principle. But they would have
concluded it the greatest impudence, or madness, to assert that
animals also consisted of mere mechanism, or that life and sense,
reason and understanding, were really nothing else but local
motion, and consequently that (they) themselves were but mere
machines and automata. Wherefore they joined both active
and passive principles together, the corporeal and incorporeal
nature, mechanism and life, atomology and pneumatology ; and
from both these united they made up one entire system of
philosophy correspondent with and agreeable to the true and
real world without them. And this system of philosophy, thus
42
Modern Materialism.
Book I,
chap. i. 41.
Modem
materialism
not modern,
but
antiquated.
Ancient
theories
revived.
Cudworth's
strictures
consisting of the doctrine of incorporeal substance (whereof God
is the head) together with the atomical and mechanical
physiology seems to have been the only genuine perfect and
complete (system)."
His strictures, in a later part of tlie work, on the
most advanced school of materialists in his day,
are singularly applicable to the revived theories of
Democritus and Epicurus, which find so much
favour with some of our modern physicists, and
show that there is nothing in them new or originah
and that they have no claim to be received as the
results of the progress and discoveries of the science
of the nineteenth century :
" But as for that prodigious paradox of atheists, that cogitation
itself is nothing but local motion, or mechanism, we could not
have thought it possible that any man should have given en-
tertainment to such a conceit, but that this was rather a mere
slander raised upon atheists, were it not certain, from the
records of antiquity, that whereas the old religious atomists did,
upon good reason, reduce all corporeal action (as generation,
augmentation, and alteration) to local motion or translation fronk
place to place (there being no other motion beside this con-
ceivable in bodies), the ancient atheisers of that philosophy
(Leucippus and Democritus) not contented herewith, did really
carry on the business still further, so as to make cogitation
itself nothing but local motion. And it is also certain that a
modern atheistic pretender to wit,^ hath publicly owned the
same conclusion, that mind is nothing else hut local motion in the
organic parts of man's body. These men have been sometimes,
indeed, a little troubled with the fancy, apparition, or seeming,
of cogitation, that is, the consciousness of it, as knowing not
well what to make thereof, but then they put it off again, and
satisfy themselves worshipfully with this, that fancy is but
fancy, but the reality of cogitation nothing but local motion ;
as if there were not as much reality in fancy and consciousness
as there is in local motion. That which inclined these men so
* Hobbes. Physic. Chap. xxv. Levianthian Pt. 1, Chap. i. ii.
Modern Materialism. 43
much to this opinion was only because they were sensible aiiu
aware of this, that if there were any other action besides local
motion admitted, there must needs be some other substance
acknowledged beside body. Cartesius (Descartes) indeed un-
dertook to defend (maintain) brute animals to be nothing else
but machines ; but then he supposed that there was nothing
at all of cogitation in them, and consequently nothing of true
animality or life, no more than is in an artificial automaton, as
a wooden eagle or the like ; nevertheless this was justly thought
to be paradox enough. But that cogitation itself should be
local motion, and men nothing but machines, this is such a
paradox as none but a stupid and besotted, or else an en-
thusiastic, bigotical or fanatic atheist could possibly give
entertainment to. Nor are such men as these fit to be disputed
with any more than a machine is." Chap. v.
Descartes above mentioned, the well-known Descartes.
French philosopher, perhaps the most eminent phi-
losopher of the seventeenth century, held that all
space was originally occupied by matter of a uniform
nature, divisible into innumerable parts, all in
motion ; and constructed a theory of the origin of
the universe from matter in motion, very similar to
that of Epicurus, or modern materialists. But he The
necessity of
freely acknowledged the necessity, not only of God's ^i
^ J ' J origination
causing motion for the origination of the universe, sS-y^^onac
but of his conserving motion in it for its sustenta- byS^^^^
tion. The hypothesis of the evolution of the
existing universe from matter in motion did not,
therefore, seem to him to exclude, but on the con-
trary, did seem to require, the existence and agency,
primary and constant, of a spiritual principle dis-
tinct from matter and motion.
Sir Isaac Newton was inclined to believe in the
44
Modern Materialism.
Newtun
inclined to
bfeliove in
the atomic
constitution
of the
original
matter of
the universe.
Book IV.
p. 2G0.
His
language
almost
identical
with that of
Lucretius.
Book 1.
503-564.
The doctrine
not
necessarily
atheistic.
Newion
ascribes the
formation of
matter to
the act of
God.
atomic constitution of the original matter of the
universe. He wrote in his Optics
' * It seems probable to me, that God in the beginning formed
matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable particles,
of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in
such proportion to space, as most conduced to the end for which
He formed them ; and that these primitive particles, being
solids, are incomparably harder than any porous bodies com-
pounded of them, even so very hard as never to wear out or
break to pieces."
He also speaks of these particles of matter as
*' perhaps of different densities and forces."
This language is almost identical with that of
Lucretius, the chief exponent of the ancient ma-
terialistic and atheistic philosophy. But we are
quite sure that the doctrine which it expresses is
not necessarily connected with the materialism
which denies all primary existence except that
of matter and its movements, or with the atheism
avowed hy Lucretius, and implicitly taught hy the
modern professors of the Epicurean system. For
it was not connected with such materialism m the
mind of Newton, who, as we have seen, in a passage
before referred to, would not allow that matter
possessed any inherent capability of action, or that
by matter and its properties the phenomena of at-
traction, electricity, light, heat, sensation, and the
voluntary movements of animal bodies, could be
accounted for. Still less was it connected, in his
judgment, with atheism ; for, as in the passage last
Modern Materialism, 45
quoted, lie ascribes the formation of matter to tlie
act of God, so elsewhere, repeatedly, in his most
scientific writings, he recognises the necessarily ex-
isting deity as the original cause and continual
support of all things that are, J^To mind was ever
so intimately and profoundly conversant as his with
the subject of matter and motion. The intellect
which grasped the idea of the primary force which
rules the movements of all bodies of the universe,
which measured it and discovered its laws, was
capable, beyond that of any other man, of realising
the constitution of force in the abstract, and the
extent and modes of its operation. Yet that in- The
. conception
tellect utterly reiected the conception of force as of force as
Jo J- independent
dependent upon matter, or as independent of the ^J^^^tion
will and action of God. On the contrary, Newton's ^tSy
contemplation of matter and force, sustained Newton.
throughout the composition of the most wonderful of
all mathematical works, the Principia, in which he
revealed and demonstrated his discoveries, led him
to close it by a formal and solemn acknowledgment
of the creation and conservation of the universe by
the will and power of an almighty personal Being.
With his profession of his philosophical creed we
may suitably conclude the strictures we have offered
on the modern materialism which would banish
from philosophy and science all consideration of
final ca-uses, or of God : '
"Tkis admirably beautiful structure of sun, planets, :iud
46 Modern Materialism,
The comets, could not have originated except in the wisdom and
philosophical sovereignty of an intelligent and powerful Being. He rules all
Xewton. things, not as the soul of the world, but as the Lord of all. He
is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient ; that is, His
duration is from eternity to eternity, and His presence from
infinity to infinity. He governs all things, and has knowledge
of all things that are done or can be done. He is not eternity
and infinity, but eternal and infinite. He is not duration and
space, but He is ever, and is present everywhere. We know
Him only by means of His properties and attributes, and by
means of the supremely wise and infinite constructions of the
world, and their final causes : we admire Him for His per-
fection ; we venerate and worship Him for His sovereignty.
For we worship Him as His servants ; and a God without
sovereignty, providence, and final causes is nothing else than
fate and nature. From a blind metaphysical necessity which,
of course, is the same always and everywhere, no variety could
originate. The whole diversity of created things in regard to
_. . places and times could have its origin only in the ideas and the
pp. 22-26. Yill of a necessarily existing Being."
^ PRESENT Day Tracts, No. 17. f-^
THE PHILOSOPHY
OF
MR. HERBERT SPENCER
EXAMINED.
BY THE
REV. JAMES IVERACH, M.A.,
Author of "Is God Knovvable?"
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY:
56, Paternoster Row; 65, St. Paul's Ciiukchyaru; and
164, Piccadilly.
lirgumcnt (xf the Tract
Agnosticism, a new word ; definition of its meaning. Reasons
for taking Mr. Herbert Spencer as the typical Agnostic. Funda-
mental position of Mr. Spencer. His Agnosticism based on his
doctrine of consciousness ; statement of that doctrine gathered
from his works. Inadequacy of it, and the inconsistency between
Mr. Spencer's analysis of consciousness, and his use of language.
Consciousness cannot be resolved into states ; must belong to a
personal being. We must regard consciousness as the con-
sciousness of a being who feels, wills, thinks. Criticism of
Mr. Spencer's Fi'rsi Principles. The attempt to make the ulti-
mate generalizations of science into a priori intuitions of the
mind is a failure, contradicted by scientific men, and by the
experience of mankind. In discarding these intuitions which
are universal and necessary, and in substituting in their place
the ultimate generalizations of science, Mr. Spencer has been
unreasonable and absurd. The Spencerian doctrine of the
Unknowable founded on a misconception. The antinomies
of Kant, and their solution. There are different kinds of being
Xi the world. There are infinite being and finite being,
beings who are conscious, and beings who are unconscious.;
and the antinomies cease to be contradictory when we re-
cognise different orders of being. Conclusion that the action
of our intelligence is true and trustworthy,
THE
PHILOSOPHY OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER
EXAMINED.
GNOSTICISM is a new word, lately intro- Agosticism
' a new word
duced into tlie English language, for
the purpose of expressing a certain
attitude of mind. It is doubtful whether
the word is an advantage, but it has become so
popular that we are constrained to use it. At The
necessity of
first sight it appears a very innocent word. "What ^si^ig it-
can be more innocent or more proper than to say,
" I do not know," or " I do not know completely
and thoroughly." If this were all, we should
certainly have no controversy with the Agnostics.
But Agnosticism has now come to have a larger
meaning. It has advanced beyond the affirmation xiie system
throws
that our knowledge is partial and incomplete ; and t^^^rust-
it has thrown doubt on the trustworthiness of our o/Jur"*"^^
intelligence. It dogmatically affirms that true or ^^*^^^^^^'*
real knowledge is impossible to man. It tends to
destroy the foundation on which belief, knowledge,
and action rest.
The reality of knowledge does not involve the
The Philoso2')hy of
The
limitations
of our
knowledge.
The trust-
worthiness
of necessary
beliefs.
The
literature
of Agnos-
ticism.
Mr. H.
Spencer
acknow-
ledged to
be the
greatest
of the
Agnoetics.
omniscience of the person who knows. We may
have to submit to ignorance because of lack of
evidence ; we may also have to submit to ignorance
because we are finite beings. All that we need to
contend for is that within the range of our faculties,
and in the normal exercise of our powers, we may
attain to real knovrlcdge. The beliefs which are
necessary to us are true and trustworthy, and
have a true correspondence with the reality of
things. We must trust the necessary beliefs, in
correspondence with which we must think. Know-
ledge is one ; and if at any one point the action of
our intelligence is untrustworthy, it can never be
trusted at all ; and the result is self-contradiction
and universal scepticism.
The literature of Agnosticism has grown to a
great bulk, and for the sake of clearness, we have,
in any discussion of it, to make a selection. We
shall do no injustice to Agnosticism in taking the
writings of Mr. Herbert Spencer as the chief ex-
position of the Agnostic view. He is recognised on
all hands, and particularly by the Agnostics them-
selves, as their chief apostle. From the references
to him and to his writings, which abound in current
literature, we gather that the best presentation of
the Agnostic view is to be found in his works. Ac-
cording to these references, Mr. Spencer with one
hand has shut the door which seemed to lead the
human mind into the region of the infinite and eter-
Mr. Herbert Spencer Examined. l
nal, and with the other hand has opened the gate
which leads into the fruitful fields of positive know-
ledge. He is the "Modern Aristcile," who has
unified our knowledge, and has accomplished for us,
after the accumulated experience of two thousand
years and more, what Aristotle had accomplished for
the smaller world of knowledge of his time. 'No
Agnostic, then, can complain when we take the
writings of Mr. Spencer as typical of this intellec-
tual movement. On their own showing he is the
strongest, wisest of them all. They have called
him " Our Philosopher." We proceed then to
examine the argument for Agnosticism as set
forth hy Mr. Herbert Spencer.
His argument is briefly this : Emotion, volition, ms
" , IP argument.
thought, are states of consciousness, and therefore
cannot co-exist. Consciousness is formed of suc-
cessive states, and to think of the Divine Being as
possessing a consciousness, consisting of successive
states, is to stop short with verbal propositions.
We are using unreal words. It is quite true on
the terms proposed by Mr. Spencer, we cannot
speak of emotion, volition, thought, in relation to
the Divine Being, any more than we can speak of
them in relation to any being, if consciousness be
only a series of states. We shall therefore discuss of^the'^^^^-
the subject in the following order : cussion.
I. We shall show by reference to the works of
The Philosophy of
Mr. Spencer, that ho does resolve consciousness
into a series of states.
II. We shall show that he is compelled to
disregard his own analysis of consciousness, and to
speak of mind as a being which experiences these
states.
III. We shall show that the ultimate general-
izations of science which Mr. Spencer elevates into
first principles, have not these qualities of univer-
sality and necessity which first principles ought to
have, and that we must return to those primary
beliefs which he has discarded.
lY. We shall examine the grounds on which
he propounds his doctrine of the Unknowable.
I,
Mr. Spencer's Doctrine of Consciousness.
Mr.
sp^e^ccr's \ye shall take, as the starting-point of our
starting^ crlticism, one of the latest utterances of Mr.
pomt. Spencer, in which he has himself summarised for
us the principles of his philosophy, and their bear-
ings on religion. This summary, no doubt, pre-
supposes a knowledge of the voluminous works of
Mr. Spencer, and we shall have to refer to some of
these in the course of this argument. Meanwhile
Mr. Herlert Spencer Examined.
we extract from the article in question the fol-
lowing : ^
"All emotions can exist only in a consciousness that is His
limited. Every emotion has i^ s antecedent ideas, and antecedent of the case
ideas are habitually supposed to occur in God : he is represented of Agnos-
as seeing and hearing thia or the other, and as being emotionally
affected thereby. That is to say, the conception of a divinity
possessing these traits of character, necessarily continues anthro-
pomorphic : not only in the sense that the emotions ascribed
are like those of human beings, but also in the sense that they
form parts of a consciousness which, like the human conscious-
ness, is formed of successive states. And such a conception of
the divine consciousness is irreconcilable both with the un-
changeableness otherwise alleged, and with the omniscience
otherwise alleged. For a consciousness constituted of ideas and
feelings caused by objects and occurrences cannot be simul-
taneously occupied with all objects and all occurrences through-
out the universe. To believe in a divine consciousness, men
must refrain from thinking what is meant by consciousness
must stop short with verbal propositions ; and propositions which
they are debarred from rendering into thought will more and
more fail to satisfy them. Of course, like difficulties present
themselves when the will of God is spoken of. So long as we
refrain from giving a definite meaning to the word will, we may
say that it is possessed by the Cause of All Things, as readily
as we may say that love of approbation is possessed by a circle ;
but when from the words we pass to the thoughts they stand
for, we find that we can no more unite in consciousness the
terms of the one proposition than we can those of the other.
Whoever conceives any other will than his own must do so in
terms of his own will, which is the sole will direct] y known to
him all other wills being only inferred. But will, as each is
conscious of it, presupposes a motive a prompting desire of
some sort ; absolute indifference excludes the conception cf
will. Moreover will, as implying a prompting desire, connotes
some end contemplated as one to be achieved, and ceases with
the achievement of it ; some other will referring to some other
^ "Religion; a Retrospect and Prospect." By Herbert
Spencer. Nineteenth Century, January, 1884.
8
The Philosophy of
end, taking its place. That is to say, will, like emotion, ne-
cessarily supposes a series of states of consciousness. The
conception of a divine will, derived from that of the human
will, involves, like it,Jocalization in space and time ; the willing
of each end excluding from consciousness for an interval the
vrilling of other ends, and therefore being inconsistent with that
omnipresent activity which simultaneously works out an infinity
of ends. It is the same with the ascription of intelligence.
Not to dwell on the seriality and limitation implied as before, we
may note that intelligence as alone conceivable by us, pre-
supposes existences independent of it and objective to it. It is
carried on in terms of changes primarily wrought by alien
activities, the impressions generated by things beyond con-
sciousness, and the ideas derived from such impressions. To
speak of an intelligence which exists in the absence of all such
alien activities, is to use a meaningless word. If to the corollary
that the First Cause, considered as intelligent, must be con-
tinually affected by independent objective activities, it is replied
that these have become such by act of creation, and were pre-
viously included in the First Cause : then the reply is that in
such case the First Cause could, before this creation, have had
nothing to generate in it such changes as those constituting
what we call intelligence, and must therefore have been unin-
telligent at the time when intelligence was most called for.
Hence it is clear that the intelligence ascribed answers in no
respect to that which we know by the name. It is intelligence
out of which all the characters constituting it have vanished."
This is perhaps the strongest statement of the
case for Agnosticism which we have been able to
find. It appears again and again in the works of
Mr. Spencer. On it he lays great stress, and he
seems to regard it as more effective, if not more
decisive, than the argument derived from the
nature of the Infinite, the Absolute, and the Un-
conditioned, which bulk so largely in the opening
chapters of the F'wd Frincijjles. The strength
stress laid
by Mr.
Spencer
on his
analysis of
conscious-
ness
Mr. Herbert Spencer Examined.
of the argument lies in the assumption that " con- ^^^^^ .,
sciousness cannot be in two states at the same aig^entia
time," that consciousness is formed of successive Snsdous-
states, and is nothing but the succession of these be^in two
states at
states. It seems at first siarht difficult to believe the same
tune.
that such a position could be really held by a
writer of the reputation of Mr. Spencer ; all the
more difficult it is when we read those parts of his
voluminous works in which he does not deal directly
with consciousness, but is using his consciousness
as an instrument for the discovery of truth. He
continually assumes that man has the power of
looking before and after ; that states of conscious-
ness can be compared, classified, and arranged ; and
that somehow there is a principle of continuity in
knowledge. We find a vivid contrast between what
Mr. Spencer describes consciousness to be, and what
consciousness is able to accomplish. He will not
allow us to regard consciousness as anything but a
series of successive states ; Avhile he continually J^J^^" ^,f
uses language which implies a permanent self who i^guage.
is conscious of these states.
The question is of such importance that we feel
bound to make sure of the meaning of Mr. Spencer.
It is difficult indeed to be sure, for the language he
uses is by no means consistent with itself. Take
the following from the First Principles :
'* Belief in the reality of self is, indeed, a belief which no
hypothesis enables us to escape. What shall we say of these
10
The Philosophy of
Mr.
Spencer's
view
that reason
cannot
justify the
belief in
the reality
of the
individual
mind.
successive impressions and ideas which constitute consciousness ?
Shall we say that they are the affections of something called
mind, which as being the subject of them, is the real ego ? If
v/e say this we manifestly imply that the ego is an entity." ^
We need not quote the passage at greater length.
It consists in showing first that we " must admit
the reahty of the individual mind/' and second,
that this belief admits of no justification by reason,
nay, that " it is a belief which reason, when pressed
i'or a distinct answer, rejects.'' Mr. Spencer tells
us that
**The mental state in which self is known, implies like every
other mental act, a perceiving subject and a perceived object.
If then the object perceived is self, what is the subject that
perceives ? or if it is the true self which thinks, w-hat other self
can it be that is thought of ? Clearly, a true cognition of self
impHes a state in which the knowing and the known are one
in which subject and object are one; and this Mr. Mansel
rightly holds to be the annihilation of both. So that the per-
sonahty of which each is conscious, and of which the existence
is to each a fact beyond all others the most certain, is yet a
thing which cannot truly be known at all ; the knowledge of it
is forbidden by the very nature of thought." ^
In almost all his writings, Mr. Spencer returns
to this analysis of consciousness. To quote again
from the passage on the freedom of the will
"Considered as an internal perception, the illusion consists
in supposing that at each moment the ego is something more
than the aggregate of feelin;];s and ideas, actual and nascent,
which then exists. A man who, after being subject to an impulse
consisting of a group of psychical states, real and ideal, per-
forms a certain action, usually asserts that he determined to
1 First Principles, p. 84. * Ibid, pp. 65, 60.
Mr. Herbert Spencer Exanfiined.
11
perform the action ; and by speaking of his conscious self as
having done something separate from the group of psychical
states constituting the impulse, is led into the error of sup-
posing that it was not the impulse alone which determined the
action. But the entire group of psychical states which constituted
the antecedent of the action also constituted himself at that
moment, constituted his psychical self, that is, as distinguished
from his physical self. It is alike true that he determined the
action, and that the aggregate of his feelings and ideas determined
it, since during its existence this aggregate constituted his then
state of consciousness, that is, himself. " ^
It is necessary to give attention to this view of f"^;^^^^,^
Mr. Spencer, for it is the main foundation of the X^^m&m
foundation
Agnostic position. On it he bases his argument of
as he unfolds it in the Nineteenth Century.
bears all the weight of the great inference that
there can be no mind equal to the creation, main-
tenance, and government of the universe. To
illustrate this point we make one more quotation :
* ' If, then, I have to conceive evolution as caused by an
'Originating Mind,' I must conceive this Mind as having at-
tributes akin to those of the only mind I know, and without
which I cannot conceive mind at all. I will not dwell on the
many incongruities hence resulting by asking how the * Origina-
ting Mind ' is to be thought of as having states produced by
things objective to it ; as discriminating among these states, and
classing them as like and unlike, and as preferring one objective
result to another. I will simply ask, What happens if we
ascribe to the * Originating Mind ' the character absolutely
essential to the conception of mind, that it consists of ,a series
of states of consciousness ? Put a series of states of consciouij-
ness as cause, and the evolving universe as effect, and then
endeavour to see the last as flowing from the first. It is pos-
bible to imagine in some dim kind of way a series of states of
consciousness serving as antecedent to any one of the move-
the
-p. Agnostic
it argument.
1 Principles of Psychology, Vol. I., pp. 500-501.
12
The Philosophy of
ments I see going on, for my own states of consciousness are
often indirectly the antecedents to such movements. But how
if I attempt to think of such a beries as antecedent to all actions
throughout the universe, to tho motions of the multitudinous
stars through space, to the revolution of all their planets around
them, to the gyration of all these planets on their axes, to the
infinitely multiplied physical processes going on in each of these
suns and planets ? I cannot even think of a scries of states of
consciousness as causing the relatively small group of actions
going on over the earth's surface ; I cannot even think of it as
antecedent to all the winds and dissolving clouds they bear, to
the currents of all the rivers and the grinding action of all the
glaciers ; still less can I think of it as antecedent to the infinity
of processes simultaneously going on in all the plants that cover
the globe, from tropical palms down to polar lichens, and in all
the animals that roam among them, and the insects that buzz
about them. Even to a single small set of these multitudinous
terrestrial changes, I cannot conceive as antecedent a series of
states of consciousness, cannot conceive it as causing the
hundred thousand breakers that are at this instant curling over
the shores of England. How, then, is it possible for me to
conceive an * Originating Mind, ' which I must represent to
myself as a series of states of consciousness, being antecedent
to the infinity of changes simultaneously going on in worlds too
numerous to count, dispersed throughout a space which baffles
imagination."^
We thus find that the view which Mr. Spencer
takes of consciousness is deliberate. At various
times, and in many ways ho has declared that
" consciousness cannot be in two distinct states at
the same time."
Mr.
Spencer's
view
of conscious-
ness is
deliberate.
From the publication of the First
FrincipleSy in 1862, on to the publication of the
article in the Nineteenth Centiiri/, he has never
wavered in this assertion, and has made it the main
1 Popular Science Monthly, July, 1872. Quoted in The
Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, by B. P. Bowue, A.B., p. 117
8, 9. Phillips & Hunt, New York, 1881.
Mr. Herhevt Spencer Examined. V6
support of his agnosticism. The position has such
grave consequences, not only with respect to
religion, but to science, and to the possibility of
knowledge generally, that it was necessary to set
forth Mr. Spencer's view in his own words.
II.
Mr. Spencer's disregard of his own Analysis
OF Consciousness.
It seems, however, that Mr. Spencer has the ^^^^i^e
' ' i conscious-
power of forgetting his own deepest views to an splncL'^as
unusual degree. The consciousness which he has to do.*^
brought down to the vanishing point of a single
state, has strange expansive power, and is equal to
any demand made on it. In the first edition of
the First Principles there is a preface con-
taining in outline Mr. Spencer's " system of Philo-
sophy." He there issues a prospectus of the
various works which are to form the system. Most
of these works have been published. Year by
year Mr. Spencer has toiled, and we have before
us a series of works which has carried into effect
the purpose formed by him long ago. He
claims to have reached conclusions of great
generality and truth regarding all that can be
known by man. In particular he believes himself
to have unified our knowledge, and to have framed
a formula, adequate to express all orders of change
14
The Philosophy of
in their general order, whether these changes be
astronomic, geologic, biologic, psychologic, or
sociologic. We must infer that this formula
answers to a state of consciousness on the part of
Mr. Spencer. - There can be no other conclusion,
for " consciousness cannot be in two distinct states
at the same time." We do not at present express
our wonder at the assumption that a series of states
of consciousness can conceive a law which can
express all orders of change in itself and beyond
itself. It is sufficiently marvellous : but our
present purpose is to place the achievement of
Mr. Spencer alongside of what he regards as in-
conceivable. He cannot conceive how a series of
states of consciousness can be the antecedent of all
the changes he knows to be going on in earth and sea
and sky. Why not, if a single state of conscious-
ness is equal to the construction and conception of
the formula of evolution ? If the law of all orders of
change can be grasped in a single state of con-
sciousness, why may not the changes themselves
also be? That the law of evolution may be grasped
by consciousness is manifest from the fact that
Mr. Spencer complains of Professor Tait and
Mr. Matthew Arnold, because, owing to defective
training, they " are unable to frame ideas answer-
ing, to the words in which evolution at large is
expressed." It is possible, then, if we are rightly
trained, to frame ideas which will correspond to
If a con-
sciousness
like Mr.
Spencer's
can do so
much, what
may'not a
greater con-
sciousness
effect ?
AFr. Herhert Spencer Examined. 15
the formula of evolution. But this is a great feat
on the part of a consciousness which can only be
in a single state at a time. If a single state can
do so much, what may not the whole series be able
to accomplish, more particularly if it should ever
become aware of itself as a series. The states of
consciousness of Mr. Spencer have been able to act
as antecedent to all the feelings, volitions, thoughts,
which have found expression in the volumes before
us ; may not there be other states of consciousness
of a larger order equal to the production of changes
on a greater scale ? If Mr. Spencer would only J^nL^'^'
consider what a burden he lays on a consciousness Ji^^'^qo^.
which can only exist in a single state at a time, he burden h?
would do one of two things ; either he would revise consdous-
his description of consciousness, and make it more single etate.
adequate to the task required of it, or he would
despair of acquiring knowledge of any kind, and
land himself in utter scepticism. At present
the whole pyramid of his synthetic philosophy
stands on the small end, and is poised in unstable
equilibrium on a single state of consciousness, and
must fall with the first breeze that blows.
We naturally ask if consciousness can only exist if con-
' *' SC10UST1CS3
in a single state at a time, as Mr. Spencer con- ^r^gpencei
stantly affirms, how it is possible for us to be con- reSoii^g
scious of more states than one ? But Mr. Spencer possible.
as constantly affirms the latter as he does the
former. " To be known as unlike," he says.
10 Tlic Philosophy of
" conscious states must be known in succession/'
and lie has no explanation of the puzzle how they
can be. The only explanation we have been able
to find is the following :
"By a process of observation we find that our states of con-
sciousness segregate into two independent aggregates, each held
together by some principle of continuity within it. The prin-
ciple of continuity, forming into a whole the joint states of
consciousness, moulding and modifying them by some unknown
energy, is distinguished as the ego ; while tlie non-ego is the
principle of continuity holding together the independent
aggregate of vivid states."^
We shall perhaps find a clue to the incon-
sistencies of Mr. Spencer's reasoning if we look
closely at this passage. For we have been utterly
puzzled to discover how a single state of con-
sciousness could compare, abstract, generalize,
and perform the operations ascribed to it by
S'aifob-"^'' Mr. Spencer. The key to the mystery will be
doaThe found in the opening clause of the foregoing
sciousness " Quotatiou I " by a process of observation we find "
cannot do. t
Mr. Spencer postulates a dismterested observer,
who can look calmly down on consciousness, and
as a *' spectator " keep an account of the process
of segregation into aggregates. The qualifications
of this observer are of a most distinguished order.
He can compare, remember, in short, he has
all the attributes which Mr. Spencer denies to the
ego itself. Por the most part Mr. Spencer
1 Psychology, Vol. II., p. 487.
Mr. Herbert Spencer Examined. 17
identifies Himself with, the disinterested ohserver
who looks on, and keeps a register of the changes
of the universe, and the law which regulates them.
As such he is present at the rude beginnings of
things ; as such he observes all the successive
differentiations and integrations which have
taken place; as such he has marked the place
where memory begins, and has set it down by
the clock as the moment when the organic
structure fails to correspond with the environment,
and therefore brought memory to its help, a
feeble substitute, but a necessary one : as such he
prophesies of a future when the correspondence
between organism and environment will be again
complete, and remembrance of the past shall be
needed no more.
It is because he so often occupies the place of Mr,
^ ^ Spencer's
the disinterested observer that Mr. Spencer finds ^J^^^
^ of per-
he can reduce the ego to a series of states of ^eceSSy
consciousness. If it were more than this, the system,
result would be rather inconvenient for his
philosophy. If he were compelled to regard
consciousness as an agent, capable of interaction
with other agents in a related world, he would
have to widen his calculus, and could no longer
hope to express all changes in terms of matter
and motion. On the other hand, by regarding
consciousness as a series of states, which are
dependent for their existence and for the order of
C
18 The Philosophy ojr
tlieir succession on causes beyond themselves, he
has been able to show a plausible possibility for
the truth of his philosophy. But he purchases
the possibility at a great cost. For there is not
a single argument in any of Mr. Spencer's works,
which does not imply the opposite of his deliberate
and repeated statement that consciousness can
only exist in a single state at a time. We may
take any argument we like, we may choose at
random. Take the following from the chapter on
" The Universal Postulate " :
*' If, having touched a body in the dark, and having become
instantly conscious of some extension as accompanying the
resistance, I wish to decide whether the proposition ' whatever
resists has extension ' expresses a cognition of the highest
certainty, hov/ do I do it ? I endeavour to think away the
resistance. I think of resistance, and endeavour to keep exten-
sion out of thought. I fail absolutely in the attempt. " ^
Yet in the One would like to ask Mr. Spencer how the
denying of i -i i i p
it he mental operation described m the loregomg
paragraph is possible. For he makes a distinction
between himself, the thinking person, and the
thoughts which he thinks. He distinguishes
between himself and the states of consciousness
which he has. He assumes that he can pass from
one state of consciousness to another, and back
again, and have a vivid feeling somehow of the
likeness or unlikeness between the two. It would
appear, therefore, that Mr. Spencer assumes that
1 Psychology, Vol. II., pp. 40G, 407.
Mr. Herbert Spencer Examined. 19
consciousness can be in three states at the same
time, if not in more. For every judgment involves
at least three states : two states which are com-
pared, and a third state which affirms the agree-
ment or disagreement between the other two.
We are anxious to observe that this remark is based
on the procedure of Mr. Spencer himself, while he
is describing the process of reasoning, as a spectator,
and apparently in forgetfulness of what he has
said about consciousness. We are not unmindful The prin.
ciples of
of all that he has written regarding the genesis of cann^of^^'^
consciousness, nor of the principle of association menSfiSS
which he calls segregation. But no more in his
hands than in the hands of Stuart Mill has the
principle of association shown itself equal to the
task laid upon it. For it is evident that, if the
principle of the association were adequate to explain
our mental life, we should never have been able to
ask how and why ideas or states of consciousness
associate themselves together. To ask such a
question shows that we have somehow got beyond
the principle of association, which would be im-
possible if association could explain everything.
The theory of Mr. Spencer, which simply substi-
tutes the experience of the race for the experience
of the individual, has not altered in any degree the
nature of the problem. Even if we were able to
trace the steps by which consciousness grew to
what it is at present, that would not help us much
20 The Philosojohy of
in determining the nature of consciousness as it
now is. Before entering on this topic, however,
we shall seek to make it clear that Mr. Spencer's
account of consciousnesss is inadequate. We mean,
of course, his formal analysis of it. For when we
pass from that, and have regard only to what
consciousness is able to accomplish, we find in the
works of Mr. Spencer ample testimony to self as a
permanent activity, and to the synthetic unity of
self-consciousness as the permanent unity, to which
all the experiences we have is constantly referred.
Conscious states past, present, and future are
bound together and formed into unity, because
they are states of the personal self, who knows
itself as present in all the variety of its experience.
Quotation Let US take in this relation the following quota-
from Lotze. . _
tion irom Lotze :
"To whatever act of thought we direct our attention, we
never find that it consists in the mere presence of two ideas
a and h in the same consciousness, but always in what we call
a Relation of one idea to the other. After this relation has been
established, it can in its turn be conceived as a third idea C ;
but in such case Ois neither on the one hand homogeneous with
a and h, nor is it a mere mechanical effect of interactions which
in accordance with some definite law have taken place between
the two as psychical processes with definite magnitudes and
definitely various natures. We may take as the simplest
examples of what I mean, the identification and the distinction
of two ideal contents. If we assume a and 6 identical with
each other, then unquestionably the idea a is present twice over
in our mind ; but the only result to which this circumstance
can lead us, on mechanical analysis, will be either that the two
ideas must count as one, because they exactly cover each other,
Mr. Serhert Spencer Examined. 21
or that as similar affections of the soul they will become fused
into a tliird idea of greater strength, or that they simply remain
apart without any result at all. But that which we call the
comparison of them, which leads to the idea of their identity C,
consists neither in the mere fact of their co-existence, nor in
their fusion : it is a new and essentially single act of the soul,
in which the soul holds the two ideas side by side, passes from
one to the other, and ia conscious of experiencing no change in
its condition, or in the mode of its action during or by reason
of that passage from the one idea to the other.
"Again : let us compare two different ideas a and 6, red and
yellow. Two external stimidi, which 'acting by themselves
would have awakened severally one of the two sensations, might
acting simultaneously coalesce in the nerve, through which they
propagate themselves still as physical states, into a third excita-
tion intermediate between the two, so as to occasion in the soul
only a third simple sensation. But two ideas which have once
arisen as ideas in the soul never experience this sort of fusion.
If it were to occur, if the distinctive experience of the two ideas
were to vanish, all opportunity and possibility of comparison,
and therewith as a remoter consequence, all possibility of
thought and knowledge would vanish also. For clearly all
relation depends upon preservation in consciousness of the
different contents unfalsified by any interactions of one upon
the other : the single undivided energy of thought which is to
comprehend them must find them as they are in themselves, so
that passing to and fro between them it may be conscious of
the change which arises in its own condition in the transition."^
This account of the nature of comparison differs Differs from
^ Mr. Spencet
from that of Mr. Spencer in only one respect. But ^^j^^ ^^^
the one point of difference is vital. Lotze pos-
tulates an active soul which can compare its ideas
one with another, and affirm or deny their
identity. But the postulate of Lotze, reasonahlo
though it seems, evidently puts Mr. Spencer into
^ Lotze, Lojic, p. 474. English Translation, Clarendon Press.
point.
22
The Philosophy of
Self-know-
ledge the
postidate
of aU
knowledge.
a state of uncontrollable alarm. " If we say this
we manifestly imply tliat the ego is an entity."
Well, suppose we do, what then? It will certainly
have grave consequences for the philosophy of
Mr. Spencer, but no other serious results which we
can see. For it is the one postulate which makes
knowledge and experience possible and intelligible,
as it is the postulate on which Mr. Spencer con-
tinually acts, as we have seen, whenever he describes
any process of thought. The only unity of ex-
perience which we can possibly have is that which
refers all experience to a conscious self, which is
the abiding subject of them all. For any possible
theory of knowledge assumes the reality of self.
If we are not sure of our own existence we are
sure of nothing. We are certain of our own
identity also ; that we are ourselves and not some
other. But this is the precise certainty which
Mr, Spencer in terms denies, even while he recog-
nizes the existence of self as constantly as any one
can do.
One great difficulty which besets the critic of Mr.
Spencer's philosophy lies in the fact that people
will scarcely beKeve that he actually holds such
opinions, unless they themselves are students of
his works. Denying as he actually does the exis-
tence and activity of self, it is scarcely credible that
he should as constantly affirm it. Yet so it is.
If we take his chapter on "the Composition of
Mr. Sevhert Spencer Examined. 23
Mind/' and read therein the way in which, according in Mr.^^^
to him, mind is built up, we shall be surprised to If^^^^
find that mind is postulated to preside over its own ITSa,
T, T mind is
genesis. I'or example: postulated
to preside
over its owii
"To complete this general conception it is needful to say genesis and
that as with feelings, so with the relations between feelings.
Parted so far as may be from the particular pairs of feelings,
and pairs of groups of feelings they severally unite, relations
themselves are perpetually segregated. From moment to
moment relations are distinguished from one another in respect
of the degrees of contrast between their terms, and the kinds of
contrast between their terms ; and each relation, while dis-
tinguished from various concurrent relations, is assimilated to
previously-experienced relations like itself."^
On the previous page he speaks of sensations being
at once known as unlike other sensations that limit
them in space and time. He speaks of sensations
as known, and of relations as recognized before
there is any conscious subject present to act in
these capacities. For by his hypothesis he regards
the subject as not yet built up nor come to con-
sciousness and yet the subject is present, active,
knowing, recognising, segregating. He has to ac-
count for feeling, thought, memory, and he accounts
for them by a theory which at the same time affirms
and denies the activity of thought and of the
thinking being. When we question Mr. Spencer
further as to the origin of all these changes, which
30 to form the ego, we find no other account than
i Pijcholouy, Vol. I., p. 183.
24
The Philosophy of
Mr.
Spencer's
argument
meaning-
less if, for
states of
conscious-
ness, we
substitute
' conscious
self," "con-
scious
person."
this, that the principle of segregation lies not in
the conscious subject, but in the nervous system.
On the nervous system, as it has been developed
through all the past, lies the burden of accounting
for all the states of mind, and for all the processes
of thinking. He sometimes seems to attribute to
the nervous system the power of recognising re-
lations of appreciating differencos, and of storing
up memories, which most other philosophers regard
as operations of the conscious ego. Even if we
attribute to nerve vesicles this extraordinary power
we simply remove the difficulty one step further
back, and we get no nearer a solution of the pro-
blem; and we have the added absurdity of at-
tributing to the nervous system all the results and
characteristics of mind.
"We return now to the statement of Mr. Spencer
in his recent article.^ We have seen that the
formal doctrine that consciousness is formed of suc-
cessive states, is repeated by Mr. Spencer in almost
all his works, and we have seen also that he is,
notwithstanding, constrained to speak as if ho
believed in a self distinct from, and cognisant of,
all the successive states of consciousness. Supposo
that instead of using the phrase " successive states
of consciousness,*' we were to use the phrase
conscious self in the extract quoted above, Mr.
Spencer's argument becomes meaningless.
^ Nineteenth Century y January, 1884.
Mr. Herbert Spencer Examined, 25
" Such a conception of the divine consciousness is irreconcil-
able both with the unchangeableness otherwise alleged, and
with the omniscience otherwise alleged. For a consciousness
constituted of ideas and feelings caused by objects and occur-
rences, cannot be simultaneously occupied with all objects and
all occurrences throughout the universe."
"We purpose to construct a parallel sentence : ^^^^
" The conception of a consciousness wHch. is formed
of successive states, is irreconcilable with, the per-
manence otherwise claimed, and with the know-
ledge otherwise claimed by Mr. Spencer. For a
consciousness constituted of ideas and feelings
caused by objects and occurrences cannot have been
simultaneously occupied with, or even successively
occupied with the thoughts contained in his works.
To believe in Mr. Spencer as the permanent subject
who produced all these works, would be to stop
short with verbal propositions." A similar series
of propositions may readily be framed to run
parallel with all the other propositions in the
quoted paragraph, and the result would be that
we have no right to speak of emotion, of will, or of
intelligence in connection with Mr. Spencer. We
cannot speak of him without attributing to him a
selfhood which has persisted from the pubKcation
of the First Principles onward, and this is precisely
what he will not permit us to do. Still we can
hardly be sure even of this, for we remember that
the persistence of force rests for final proof on tlio
persistence of consciousness ; " and our inability to
26 The Philosophy of
conceive matter and motion suppressed, is our
inability to suppress consciousness itself.*' Con-
sciousness cannot be suppressed, and persists, it
would appear, and yet can only be in a single state
at a time !
We may, however, be allowed to exhaust the
possibihty of the known before we take refuge in
the unknowable. We are entitled to try what can
be accomplished by a knowing subject who knows
itself as an agent in all the forms of its activity,
before we pass into the unknown, and postulate an
energy which is the hypothetical cause of our con-
scious states. No one ever laid stronger stress on
the separation between subject and object than
incon- Mr. Spencer has. It is an antithesis which ac-
sistencies ^
t ^cer cording to him can never be transcended ; and yet
Mr. Spencer constantly transcends this antithesis,
and identifies the two in the unknowable energy in
which we live and move and have our being. We
can only speak of matter, he tells us, in terms of
mind, and of mind in terms of matter ; and this he
maintains, while he also maintains that there can
be no resemblance between a feeling and a motion,
or between a thought and a material fact. The
passage we now quote is exceedingly curious :
"No effort of imagiuation can enable us to think of a sliock,
however minute, except as undergone by an entity. We are
compelled, therefore, to postulate a substance of mind that is
affected before we can think of its affections. But we can form
no notion of asubdtauce of Mind ubrfuiutely divested of attributes
Mr. Herbert Spencer Examined, 27
connoted by the word substance ; and all such attributes are
abstracted from our experience of material phenomena. Expel
from the conception of mind every one of these attributes by
which we distinguish an external something from an external
nothing, and the conception of mind becomes nothing. If to
escape this difficulty we repudiate the expression * state of con-
sciousness/ and call each undecomposible feeling * a conscious-
ness,' we merely get out of one difficulty into another. A con-
sciousness, if not the state of a thing, is itself a thing. -And
as many different consciousnesses as there are, so many dif-
ferent things there are. How shall we think of these so many
independent things, having their differential characters, when
we have excluded all conceptions derived from external phe-
nomena ? " ^
The last question can be answered very simply.
When we have excluded all conceptions derived
from external phenomena, we can think of conscious
persons in conceptions derived from internal phe-
nomena. Usually we describe a thing in terms of
the modes of its activity, and we say a thing is
where it acts, and the qualities of a thing are the
modes of its action. We therefore take one of the
sentences in the above quotation, and amend it to
read as follows : " Expel from the conception of S* mmd^"
mind every one of the attributes by which we dis- ^ot n'Jga-
tinguish an external something from an external i/termsof
nothing, and the conception of mind will still of matter,
retain that which is its essential characteristic. It
will still be a thing which feels and thinks and
wills. It will still remain conscious of itself, and
have the power of looking before and after.'*
1 Psycholorjy, Vol. I., p. C2G.
28
The Philosophy of
This is indeed the final statement of Mr. Spencer's
favourite theory, that our knowledge consists of
equations worked out with symbols, which can
never be known save as symbols. It is his final
statement of the necessity which compels us to
** find the value of x in terms of y, and of y in
terms of x/* and to go on so for ever without
coming nearer to a solution. But we have seen
that when we abstract all that we have gained from
material phenomena, we still have a conception of
mind, and a positive conception, not a negative,
which can be explained in terms of affections of
mind itself, and which can be realized in conscious-
ness.
We have dealt with this analysis of conscious-
ness at some length, for it is the key of the position.
And Mr. Spencer knows this to be true. Hence
the great trouble he has taken, and hence also the
necessity under which he lies of returning to the
question again and again, in order to give fresh
strength to the proof of it. The proof has failed
in every essential particular. It cannot even be
stated, except by implicitly affirming what is in
terms denied. The pre-supposition of all knowledge
is the knowledge of self; and the first unity of
things is the unity which refers all things to a
personal self, as the abiding subject of all possible
experience. ,
Conscious-
ness of self
the key
of the
position.
Spencer'3
Mr. Herhevt Spencer Examined. 29
IIL
Mr. Spencer's First Principles not Universal
AND iN'ECESSARY.
From this point onwards, we now proceed ; and
as we go on we shall find occasion to challenge the
competency of Mr. Spencer's reasoning on many Mr.
occasions. We find in particular, that Mr. Spencer's If^^^^
account of the forms of thought, and of the neces- JSought'.
sities of thought, to be most inadequate. The long
controversy between associationalists and intuition-
alists has been decided, and decided in favour of
the latter. As far as the individual is concerned,
Mr. Spencer acknowledges that there are forms of
intuition which are transcendental.
** If at a birth there exists nothing but a passive receptivity
of impressions, why is not a horse as educable as a man ? Should
it be said that language makes the diflference, then why do not
the cat and dog, reared in the same household, arrive at equal
degrees and kinds of knowledge?"^
The question is unanswerable; but Mr. Spencer
comes to the help of the associationalists, and
endeavours to reconcile the traditional experience
doctrine with the doctrine of true forms of thought.
The reconciliation is attained through the widening
of the meaning of experience. Mr. Spencer has irrational
indefinitely lengthened tho time through which inadequate
1 Psycliology, Vol. I. p. 4G8.
30
The Philosophy of
experience may act, and through which habit may
grow into necessity.
"The human brain is an organised register of infinitely
numerous experiences received during the evolution of life, or
rather during the evolution of that series of organisms through
which the human organism has been reached. The eflfects of
the mosD uniform and frequent of these experiences have been
successively bequeathed, principal and interest, and have slowl}'-
mounted to that high intelligence which lies latent in the brain
of the infant, which the infant in after-life exercises, and
perhaps strengthens or further complicates, and which, with
minute additions, it bequeaths to future generations." ^
Tlie
meaning
of the
proposition
that _
experience
can evolve
intelligence.
Let us see clearly what is meant by the propo-
sition that experience can evolve intelligence. It
is quite true that a man can inherit from his
ancestors constitutional peculiarities of disposition
and temper. It is another thing altogether to
assume, as Mr. Spencer does, that modes of thought
fixed forms of knowledge can be transmitted
or inherited. Unless the forms of thought were
already implicit in experience, there seems no pos-
sibility of their ever emerging from experience
If these forms are already in the mind, they can
readily be applied to the organization of experience ;
and we can thus understand how common experi-
ence is possible. For the mass of sensations which
any one may have comes to him in one way, and
to another man in another way, and can never
generate out of themselves the forms which are to
make them an intelligible experience.
J Psychology, Vol. I. p. 471.
Mr, Herbert Spencer Examined. 31
It is therefore no solution of the problem to say Experience
cannot
that forms of thought which are a priori to the evolve fonns
*-' -* of thought.
individual are a posteriori to the race. The problem
is how to account for experience, and the answer is
that experience is possibly because of the activity of
the subject. But Mr. Spencer assumes that the ex-
perience of the individual is one thing, and the ex-
perience of the race is another. For he acknowledges
that experience does presuppose mental activity
in the case of the individual, but not in the case of
the race. He gains time, no doubt, by the sup-
position; but he has not sought to explain how
the mere lapse of time can alter the meaning of
experience, and what is needed is an explanation
of experience as we have it ourselves.
That there are certain forms of mental activity Forms oi
' mental
we may therefore take as granted by all kinds of activity,
schools. Mr. Spencer insists on them no less than
others. He has no doubt discarded those forms,
which by the consent of philosophers have usually
been regarded as intuitions of the mind. It is univer-
sally conceded, however, that the mind has the power
of knowing some things to be true, without any
process of verification. There are truths which are
universal and necessary, which are seen to be true
as soon as they are understood. Experience does
not make them true, for the truth of them is in-
dependent of experience, and by means of them
unconnected sensations become orderly thought.
32
The Philosophy of
Necessary-
truth not
the result
of habit.
How do we come by these universal and necessary-
truths ? Mr. Spencer's reply is, that they are the
result of habit.
"Being the constant and infinitely-repeated elements of
thought, they must become the automatic elements of thought
the elements of thought which it is impossible to get rid of
' the form of intuition. ' "
Quotation
from
Professor
Bowne.
Obviously, however, the conception of automatic
elements does not help us. For we can never
rise above automatism, and can only assert of our
primary beliefs that we have experienced them,
and we can say nothing more. As Professor
Bowne says:
*By Mr. Spencer's own principles, our subjective inability to
get rid of these intuitions, is no proof f their objective
validity. The inability results entirely from habit. If we had
formed other habits, we should have thought otherwise. Besides,
Mr. Spencer is the last man who should appeal to our necessary
beliefs in support of any thing, for no one has done them
greater violence. We have already seen how he insists upon the
dually of subject and object as the most fundamental datum of
thought, and one which it is impossible for us to transcend ; yet
in spite of the impossibility, Mr. Spencer declares them one.
He further insists that no effort will enable us to think of
thought and motion as alike : yet he assumes it as a first prin-
ciple, that they are identical. We inevitably believe that per-
sonality is more than a bundle of feelings ; but Mr. Spencer
turns this belief out of doors without ceremony. We cannot
help thinking that we see things as they are, that the qualities
we attribute to them are really in them ; but this belief too,
Mr. Spencer cannot abide. There is scarcely a deliverance of our
mature consciousness which Mr. Spencer has not insulted and
denied. However, something must be saved in the midst of
this universal denial, or the universe would vanish in the abysf
01 nihilism ; and accordingly Mr. Spencer asks us to grant
ATr. Herbert Spencer Examined. 83
blra objective existence, and an infinite force, on the sole testi-
mony of the same mind which he has loaded with opprobrium
as a false witness. He insists upon these things because he
cannot start liis system without them ; he denies all the rest,
because they are hostile to his system. Can anything be n\ore
convenient than this privilege of taking what we like and
rejecting what we like ? Who could not build up a system if
we could indulge in this little thing ? We cannot grant it,
however. The elementary affirmations of the mind must stand or
fall together, for no one has any better warrant than the rest."^
Mr. Spencer has, however, got a number of first ^^-^^ ^.
principles of his own, which he has promoted to principles.
the place formerly occupied by the universal and
necessary truths he has sought to discredit. These
first principles of his are the ultimate generaliza-
tions of science; conclusions reached by observa-
tion and experiment, and by reasoning based on the
results of these. These results have been reached
by assuming the stability of the system with which
they deal. And physicists are careful to tell us so.
There is no diversity of opinion among men who
are competent to speak of natural philosophy.
We shall quote only one testimony from one of
the latest text-books on ' physics ; a testimony
which might be endlessly repeated.
**It cannot be too strongly insisted on that these general
principles, the Constancy of Nature, the Law of Causality,
Galileo's principle, the Three Laws of Motion, the Indestructi-
bility of Matter and of Energy, are of no value for us except in Generalisa-
80 far as they are supported by experimental evidence. Tliey g^^^^ *
are grouped together here, for the statement of them is necessary not first
principles.
* The Philosophi/ of Uerhert Spencer, pp. 21G, 217. New
Yurk, 1881.
34 The Philosophy of
for comprehension of the results which liave been obtained
through their aid. AYe are not here called upon to go through
the steps by which they have been arrived at, but we must bear
in mind that no a jpriori deduction of them by any metaphysical
reasoning is for a moment admissible. The doctrine of the
Conservation of Energy is very simple when stated as the result
of experiment, and its simplicity has led to statements that the
contrary is unthinkable, and that a belief in this doctrine is
deeply grounded in the constitution of the mind of man ; but
all conclusions derived from such reasoning must be regarded
with suspicion, for we must take warning by the example of the
ancients, who believed circular motions to be perfect, and
heavy bodies to fall faster than light ones, until experimental
evidence was adduced to the contrary." ^
View of Tlie process described by Mr. Daniell as illegiti-
Bcientific , ' n Tii/rr !
men. mate, is the process pursued by Mr. bpencer m his
First Principles, The second part of the First
Princi^^les may be described as an attempt to trans-
form the widest generalizations of science into a
priori principles, and the attempt must be charac-
terized as a failure. For the results of science
have reference to the particular system, which as
a matter of fact we have learnt to know. As a
system, the finite world we know is of a particular
kind. There are definite forces which interact with
each other, in ways which may be known, measured,
and expressed in mathematical formulaa. But the
only way we have of knowing these forces is by
way of observation and experiment. This is proven
both by the success of the experimental method,
and by the well-known failure of the method which
^ Danidl'a Text-Book of Physics, p. 8.
Mr. Herbert Spencer Examined. 35
in a disguised form has been sanctioned by Mr.
Spencer.
Foremost of the laws of the knowable, as enun- P^
law 01
ciated by Mr. Spencer, is the law of evolution, evolution.
jNTow we wish to say, that with regard to the theory
of evolution .as inunSatedoy Mr. Darwin we do
not profess to speak. That theory may be
held in such a form as to have no dangerous
consequences for philosophy or theology. But
the theory of Mr. Spencer, with its far-reaching
consequences, is altogether different from the
scientific theory of Mr. Darwin, with its limited
range and carefully guarded statements. Even
Mr. Darwin's theory can never from the nature of
the case rise beyond the dignity of a good working
hypothesis, an hypothesis attended with many
difiiculties. But the view taken by Mr. Spencer
may be disproved, and shown to be an untenable
hypothesis.
The starting-point of Mr. Spencer's law of f^^^;^^^^^^
evolution is found in the science of embry- f^^^l^^
ology. "It is settled beyond dispute," he says,
"that organic evolution consists in a Aange
from the homogeneous to the lieterog^^eouk"
This law of organic evolution is extended to all
changes whatsoever, and is made the law of all
evolution. Now, one would like to know what is
meant by homogeneousness. The acorn under
favourable conditions becomes an oak ; and from
o6 The FJiilosophy of
the minute jelly-like cell the completed organism
grows. But in what sense can the acorn or the
cell he said to be homogeneous ? Only in that sense
in which all things are alike in the absence of
light. It is obvious that there are differences
present in the germ- cell, or why does one become
a horse and another a man ? To the eye of reason
the germ-cell is as complex as the completed
structure. The one is the other made visible.
The same remark applies to the law of evolution
at large. For homogeneousness is never defined
by Mr. Spencer, nor is it ever present in any of
the illustrations he uses. There are differences,
even in the diffused state of matter postulated by
the Nebular hypothesis ; and differences are
present everywhere. In fact the difficulty with
regard to evolution is this, granted homogeneous-
ness to account for differentiation. And yet
differentiation, or variation, is just that part of
evolution which is supposed to account for every
thing, and which itself is unaccountable.
Difierentia- It Certainly is quite unaccounted for in the
tion Tin- n -KIT o ^ ^ I' ^
hccountabie. systom of Mr. Speucer. We have no rational
account of whence it comes, or whither it goes :
only this, that differences arise somehow. One of
two courses was open to Mr. Spencer : either to
admit that all differences are present at the outset,
in which case homogeneousness vanishes ; or else
to assume a power outside of the homogeneous,
Mr. Herbert Spencer Examined. 37
which can institute changes, preside over them,
and guide them on to a purposed end. The actual
course taken by him can have arisen only from
lack of clearness of thought.
Let us glance for a moment at these ultimate
generalizations of science which Mr. Spencer has
elevated into first principles. There is quite a
number of them, but we can only look at one or
two. The law of the conservation of energy has
become in his hands the persistence of force. As
we know the conservation of energy from the
researches of natural philosophers, it is intelligible,
and has reference to the universe as a conservative
system. Science teaches that energy is either
kinetic or potential, may be the energy of motion,
or the energy of position. Energy is being in- Energy a
cessantly stored as virtual power, and restored as ^^^ntity,
actual motion. The sum of energy is a constant
quantity, but the amount of it which is available
is continually decreasing. One result of the doctrine
of the conservation of energy is that we are dealing
with a finite system which has had a beginning,
and will have an end. The universe is likened by
Balfour Stewart to a burning candle.
"We are forced to realize a precise instant before which there r>egrada-
were no phenomena, such as those with which we are acquainted, energy
and since which the phenomena due to the relations of matter
and energy have been occurring : while in the future we have
to contemplate a moment at which the whole physical universe
will have run itself down like the weights of a clock, and after
38
The FJiilosophy of
Force an
tinreal
abstraction.
which an inert uniformly warm mass will represent the whole
material order of things."^
This doctrine of the conservation of energy is
named by Mr. Spencer "the persistence of force,"
and the nature of it changed in the naming. We
make bold to say that no physicist will recognizo
the scientific doctrine of energy in the strango
presentation of it given by Mr. Spencer, while a
medieeval schoolman would hail it with delight as
an old friend with a new face. ** Ex nihilo nihil
fit " is the olden maxim, which has been renamed
the persistence of force, and raised to the position
of universal datum, from which all else is deduced.
It was a barren maxim in the olden time, nor is it
likely to be more fruitful now. Mass and energy
are real things, which cannot be increased or
diminished, but force is only an abstraction which
has no corresponding reality in the world of actual
experience. Of course the concrete language of
physicists would not lend itself readily to the uses
of a philosophy. Had he used their language it
would not have been easy for Mr. Spencer to speak
of matter and motion as forms of force, and of force
as the ultimate of ultimates.
We here again come across the idea of the
homogeneous. But the forces we know are far
Distinction
between
gravitation
end other
forces.
from being homogeneous. It is true indeed that
a number of the physical forces are convertible into
1 DanidVs Text- Bool: of Physics, p. 45,
Mr. Herbert Spencer Examined. 39
each other; that light, heat, electricity, etc., may
pass each into each and back again. But there is
one force which is unique in its nature and action.
Other forces are propagated with a finite velocity,
the force of gravitation seems to act instan-
taneously over the whole universe ; other forces
depend on many conditions for their action and
existence, gravitation acts on all bodies alike under
all conditions, I^o obstacle stays its action, or
can hinder it from proceeding in the straight line
between the centre of attracting masses. It cannot
be exhausted nor increased, but remains constant,
every body attracting every other body in pro-
portion to the quantity of matter in it. It is
unlike all other forces that we know, and yet seems
to be the universal condition and measure of them
all. It may be remarked here that the work of
physicists is not yet finished ; and the doctrine of
the conservation of energy, and of the correlation
of force, needs a good deal of illustration yet.
"When Mr. Spencer speaks of the persistence of Kinds of
force, we are therefore entitled to ask what kind of
force ? Is it a force like gravitation, which is constant,
unchangeable, incessant, and inexhaustible ? or is
it a force like light, heat, or electricity, which is
limited in its manifestations to certain states of
body ? Is it a force like life, limited to certain
forms of organised matter ? or a force like mental
action, which appears only in more limited forms
40
The Philosophy of
What wo
know is a
system of
forces.
Correlation
of forces.
still ? It affords us no rational explanation of tlie
world in which we live, or of our own experience,
to hypostatise a verbal abstraction, and call it by
tlie name of force. What we do know is not force,
but a system, of forces, bound together in definite
relations ; and these relations can only be rightly
understood, or understood at all, when we bring in
the purpose of the system, and regard it as a system
meant to be conservative.
It is well to point out also that, while the force
of gravitation is used as the final measure of
energy, and we measure energy by foot-pounds,
yet the force of gravity does not pass into other
kinds of force, or if it does, it increases not, nor
diminishes. The energy of the sun, which now
comes to us as light, as heat, or in other forms,
will by and by be exhausted. The molecular
movements in the body of the sun will cease, and
the sun will no longer be a source of that kind of
energy. But even then gravitation will remain,
for the force of gravitation depends on the mass
and the distance, and will continue to act in a
dead universe. The doctrine of the correlation of
forces has been established because modes of
motion pass into each other, and because Vv^o
assume that the system of things is a closed
system. But the doctrine of the correlation of forces,
excellent though it be as a working hypothesis,
and proven true of certain modes of motion, ia
V |:e^SE UBf^
I r T.
OF THE
AFr. Herbert Spencer Exarrnn^^^^^^^Q^^^^s
yet not demonstrated true of gravitation, for
example.
It may be granted that it is very likely true of
organic forces, though there is as yet only a strong
presumption in its favour. But there is not the
shadow of presumption in favour of the correlation
of mental and physical forces. We write this
advisedly, and in full view of Mr. Spencer's oft-
repeated statement to the contrary. One of the
strongest of these statements is the following :
" That no idea or feeling arises, save as a result of some
physical force expended in producing it, is fast becoming a
commonplace of science : and whoever duly weighs the evidence
will see that nothing but an overwhelming bias in favour of a
pre-conceived theory, can explain its non-acceptance." ^
We can account for his affirmation of the corre- Mental ar
lation of the mental and physical forces only by forces
supposing in Mr. Spencer an overwhelming bias in correlate,
its favour. So far is it from being a common-
place of science that physical force is expended
in producing feeling, that the contradictory of
it may be regarded as a commonplace of science.
Of the many scientific witnesses we might call, we
shall content ourselves with the testimony of one,
and that one is an ardent supporter of Mr. Spencer's
philosophy :
" Does the motion produce the feeling, in the same sense that
heat produces light ? Does a given quantity of motion dis-
1 First Principles, p. 280.
42
The Philosophy of
Mr. Fislce's
testimony.
Mr, Fislre'
statement,
if true,
fatal
to Mr.
Spencer'3
EVBtem.
appear, to be replaced by an equivalent quantity of feeling ?
By no means. The nerve-motion, in disappearing, is simply
distributed into other nerve-motions in various parts of the
body; and these other nerve-motions, in their turn, become
variously metamorphosed into motions of contraction in muscles,
motions of secretion in glands, motion of assimilation in tissues
generally, or into yet other nerve-motions. . . If the law of the
* correlation of forces ' is to be applied at all to the physical
processes which go on within the living organism, we are of
necessity bound to render our whole account in terms of motion
which can be quantitatively measured. Once admit into the
circuit of metamorphosis some element such as feeling that
does not allow of quantitative measurement, and the correlation
can no longer be established ; we are landed at once in absurdity
and contradiction. So far as the correlation of force has any-
thing to do with it, the entire circle of transmutation, from the
lowest physico-chemical motion all the way up to the highest
nerve-motion, and all the way down again to the lowest physico-
chemical motion, must be described in physical terms, and no
account whatever can be taken of any such thing as feeling or
consciousness." ^
A bias to tlie contrary cannot be supposed true of
Mr. Fiske, or of Dr. David Ferrier, or Du-Bois-
Raymond, or of others who have spoken on the
subject, all of whom agree with Mr. Fiske, and
disagree with Mr. Spencer. If the statement of
Mr. Fiske is true, it is fatal to the system of
Mr. Spencer ; and if the statement of Mr. Spencer
be true, he will have to show its consistency with
the conservation of energy. Mr. Spencer shows
that strong mental action is accompanied by
motion in the blood, as can be seen from a flushed
face, and in other ways. But strong mental
action ought, on the theory, to be accompanied,
* Darwinism and other Essays, by John Fiske, p. 72,
Mr. Herbert Spencer Examined. 43
not by an evolution, but by a disappearance of
force. It may be noticed also that Mr. Spencer's
mochanical explanation of the origin and differ-
entiation of the nervous system, by the supposi-
tion of motion in the line of least resistance or
of greatest traction, or of the resultant between
the two, has now been shown to be inconsistent
with embryological facts.^
The teaching of science gives no support to The
persistenco
Mr. Spencer's datum of the persistence of force, of force un-
^ ^ ^ scientific.
Science discloses to us the working of a system of
forces, which by reason of the activity of their
interaction must work themselves out, and cease to
exert energy. If we wish to get persistence as a
foundation for our thought, we must in thought
go outside of the system of interacting forces, and
postulate some other kind of power. It is eminently
unreasonable to abstract from the various kinds of
force which we know, only one phase or aspect,
and credit that abstraction with the infinite variety
of the system. Still more unreasonable is it to
identify the eternal energy with the lowest and
simplest kind of energy which we can know. And
the most unreasonable course of all is to call it
" homogeneous." For neither homogeneous force,
nor a homogeneous unity of force can be found
either in science or in the works of Mr. Spencer.
If Mr. Spencer's datum of the persistence of
1 See Nature, Vol. XXII., p. 420.
44 The Philosophy of
force is doubtful, much, more doubtful are the other
mental forms, so-called by bim, wbicb he deduces
spencer's from it. The number of these is great. The
dog?aas.^ indostructibility of matter, the continuity of motion,
the correlation and equivalence of force, and others.
Each, chapter closes with an attempt to show that
th.e principle is a direct corollary from the persistence
of force, and an a priori truth of the highest cer-
tainty. What a pity that the discovery had not
been made sooner, what endless travail our toiling
men of science would have been spared had they
known that mere cogitation could have made them
masters of the results won by protracted labour
and experiment ! But on Mr. Spencer by the
necessity of his system is laid the harder task of
proving that laws which have been discovered by
Semblance iuductiou, are really a priori truths. The laws
entities and which ho calls tt prlori truths bear a suspicious
quiddities of .. i'it'pt
the^schooi- resomblauce to the entities and quiddities of the
schoolmen. One of these we have already men-
tioned, '^ex nihilo nihil fit" is the scholastic equiva-
lent of the persistence of force and the indestruc-
tibility of matter, while the continuity of motion
is nothing else than the old doctrine that " nature
abhors a vacuum," or "nature never makes a leap."
The only way of knowing whether these are or are not
true, is to find out. For many ages it was believed
as a matter of fact that matter was destructible,
and many people believe it still; no doubt this
men.
Mr. Herbert Spencer Examined. 45
belief is incorrect. But its incorrectness is not to
be demonstrated on a priori grounds, but in other
ways. Mr. Spencer feels obli2:ed Mr. spencer
*' -^ '- rejects a
large
"to reject a large part of human thinking as not thinking at portion of
n , , , ,?. 1 human
all, but pseudo-thmking ; thinking
as pseudo-
and the reason for rejecting it is that it is incon- because^in-
, , conceivable.
ceivable.
"Our inability to conceive matter becoming non-existent is
immediately consequent upon the nature of thought itself.
Thought consists in the establishment of relations. There can
be no relation, and therefore no thought framed, when one of
the terms is absent from consciousness."/
Now, if tbis sort of argument is good for Mr. f^^^^^^,^
Spencer's purpose, it is good for more. Let us try fJ'loS^^*
it with change. Our inability to conceive of change than hS
is consequent on the nature of thought itself.
Thought consists in the establishment of relations.
" Only the permanent can change," says Kant.
But permanence and change cannot be united in
the same act of thought. Let us, however, take
Mr. Spencer himself. Let us remind him of his
own argumentation about motion,^ and he must
acknowledge how vain his argument is about the
indestructibility of matter, and how idle his de-
monstration of the continuity of motion.
In truth this endeavour to translate ultimate
results of science into a priori truths is exceed-
ingly dangerous. Science teaches that the universe
1 Fir&t Princivlcs, p. 57, etc.
purpose.
46
The Philosophy of
Further
incon-
sistencies.
Continuity
of motion.
tends, in virtue of the expenditure of energy,
to a state of rest, Avhen all differences of tempera-
ture, which are the conditions of motion, shall
be merged in identity. In such a state of matters
motion will be impossible, and yet Mr. Spencer
states that the continuity of motion is an a priori
truth. Is not this to throw doubt on the nature
of our intelligence, and to bring the dicta of intelli-
gence into direct conflict with the system of things?
The only proof of the continuity of motion
which Mr. Spencer gives is derived from the
doctrine of the conservation of energy. Molar
motion is continued, and passes into molecular
motion. And it is difiicult to think of motion as
discontinuous since this discovery has been made.
Men have, however, thought that motion was dis-
continuous, and could be lost. They could never
have thought so if the continuity of motion were
an a priori truth, like the truth that two and two
make four. If Mr. Spencer should say " that the
explanation is that in this, as in countless other
cases, men have supposed to think what they do
not think," we reply by pointing to the opinion of
I^ewton, who was certainly a competent thinker in
matters of natural philosophy. We quote from
his Optics:
* From which instance it appears that motion may be gained
or lost. By reason of the tenacity of fluids, and attrition of
their parts, and the weakness of elastic force in solid bodies.
Ilr. Ilevhevt Spencer Examined. 47
motion is more readily lost than gained, and is continually de-
creasing."^
We quote this statement simply for tlie sake of
showing that the principle of the continuity of
motion cannot he an a priori truth, whatever kind
of truth it may he. It has reference to the system
of things which we actually find in existence, and
is a deduction from the thought that postulates the
stahility of the system.
The truth is that Mr, Spencer's highest postulate ^f-
is not the persistence of force, hut the assumption assumption
that the present system of things is the only
possible system. This assumption can he justified
only when we bring in another conception, which
Mr. Spencer never uses until he comes to speak of
sociology and ethics. The conception of purpose is
raised at the very outset of any system, and without
it it is impossible to have an intelligent conception
of the collocations of matter, or even of the nature
of molecular combination, and of the laws of
molecular action. The laws of matter are so and
so, because they have been made so. In other
words, the mechanical explanation of things in-
variably leads us beyond itself, and lands us in
intelligence as the only rational explanation we
can by any possibility have. The persistence of
force is a barren postulate, as fruitless and as
useless as the companion abstraction of "pure being."
1 Optics, p. 341. Ed. 170G. ^ ,.
UNI VK'RSI-]
48
The Philosophy of
Test of
truth.
Its positive
as Trell as
negative
form.
IV.
The Grounds of Mr. Spencer's Doctrine of
THE " Unknowable."
This leads us to the test of truth which Mr.
Spencer uses. A proposition is true when its
opposite cannot be conceived. We remark, how-
ever, that the inconceivableness of the opposite
is only one of the marks of universal and necessary-
truth. It has the disadvantage also of being
stated in a negative form. In a positive form, the
statement is that a priori truths are self-evident as
soon as they are seen and understood. The mind
asserts the knowledge of them to be true and valid,
and self-evident. Mr. Spencer's principle is the
same principle in a negative form. We try to
think the contrary to be true, and we find it im-
possible. If the principle be a primitive and
universal one, the impossibility to thought of its
contradictory is universal.
The advantage of having this test of truth stated
in its positive as well as in its negative form lies
here. It shows to us our primitive beliefs do not
arise from mental weakness, but from mental power.
It is not a negation of knowledge arising from our
inability to think, but an assertion of mental
activity so positive that it carries in itself the
consciousness that it is impossible io think the
Mr, Herbert Spencer Examined. 4V
opposite. Hamilton's theory of mental imbecility,
professedly applied by him to explicate the causal
judgment, vanishes at once when it is seen that
the causal judgment is an act, not of mental weak-
ness, but of mental power.
In the application of this test of knowledge in
its negative form, Mr. Spencer varies. Sometimes
he means by inconceivable what cannot be pictured
in imagination, sometimes what cannot be expressed
in a concept, and sometimes what is unthinkable.
But the conceivable cannot be limited to the
imaginable ; if it were, all knowledge expressed in
abstract terms would be unreal and untrue. We
have positive knowledge of what we mean by the
word book, to our imagination we can only picture
one particular book. Sometimes Mr. Spencer uses
the word inconceivable in this sense; but it is
obvious that he only does so when no other test of
inconceivability would readily apply.
More frequently, however, he uses the word in- ^^^^"^^l^^
conceivable to indicate that which cannot be ab^^^^"
classed. This is the difficulty which he has himself
added to the verbal dexterities he has borrowed
from Hamilton and Mansel, and he elaborates it
with great delight in the chapter on the relativity
of knowledge. If we say that the knowledge of
the individual precedes the knowledge of the general
notion, and the knowledge of the general notion is
dependent on the knowledge of the individual, wo
60 The Philosophy of
only say what every one knows to be true. But
Mr. Spencer will not allow us to suppose tliat we
can know a concrete individual unless we can class
it under a logical concept. In which case, we may
remark, we can never know an individual. We
must assert, however, that the concrete individual
is the starting-point of thought, and knowledge of
the individual precedes the formation of the concept.
The qualities of the individual are known before
they can be known as characteristics of a kind or
class. The procedure of Mr. Spencer is based
on the assumption that our knowledge of an indi-
vidual is derived from the general notion, and can
extend no further, and affirms nothing else than we
can obtain from the analysis of the concept. This
is not the only instance of atavism which we have
found in Mr. Spencer's reasoning. It is the method
of the schoolmen; and if it be true, there is no
possibility of synthetic judgment either a priori or
a posteriori.
In dealing with The Universal Postulate of Mr.
Spencer, we have been insensibly led on to his
Theun- doctriue of the ** unknowable." To this dogma of
knowable.
his, we now direct attention. At the outset we
have to complain that he has applied one measure
to the truth of science, and another to the truth of
religion. He has endeavoured to prove that the
ultimate scientific realities, represented by ultimate
scientific ideas, are unknowable because unthink-
Mr. Herbert Spencer Examined. 51
able. Mind, matter, space, time, force, are forms
of the " unknowable." But this does not prevent
Mr. Spencer from dealing with all these realities,
or from formulating a certain number of propo-
sitions regarding their nature and action. The
dread of committing himself to alternate impossi-
bilities has not hindered him from tracing in his
own way the genesis of our conceptions of these
"unthinkable" realities. But it was a sufficient
justification for denying the truth of religious ideas
and affirmations, to show that the affirmation of
the object of religion committed us "to alternate
impossibilities of thought." On his own showing,
the truths of religion must have, or may have, as
great a relative validity as the truths of science
aijd philosophy.
In conclusion, we shall look at the reasonings
by which Mr. Spencer believes himself to have
demonstrated that the ultimate reality is utterly
unknowable. The reasonings he has excogitated
for himself as well as those which he has borrowed
from Sir William Hamilton and Dean Manse],
are dearraded forms of the antinomies of Kant. The
o antinomies
They suffered their first degradation when o^^ant.
Hamilton changed the positive affirmations of
mind into mental weakness, and substituted for
the positive judgment of causality the negative
conception of being unable to conceive a be-
ginning. They suffered a second degradation
52 The Philosophy of
at the hands of Dean Mansel, and a third
degradation at the hands of Mr. Spencer. But
what cogency the argument may have is all
derived from Kant, and has gained nothing, hut
rather lost in the hands of the others. The
strength of the argument lies here, that from the
nature of the reason we necessarily helieve in two
contradictory propositions. Kant's antinomies are
four, and they emerge when we consider the idea of
tlie world. The thesis is that the world is limited
in time and space, and the antithesis equally affirms
that it is not thus limited. A second antinomy is
that the world consists of simple parts, and the anti-
thesis is that no simple substances exist. The third
antinomy is, that free will exists, and the antithesis
is that it does not exist, but everything happens
necessarily under the laws of nature. And the
fourth is that an absolute Being exists, and the
antithesis is that absolute Being exists nowherej
Are they lu thoso antinomies we have the type after which _
dictory? all the argumentation of Hamilton, Mansel, and
Spencer has been fashioned. Once we get the
model, the manufacture may go on without limit.
But the question arises are the antinomies con-
tradictory of each other ? and the apostles of the
"unknowable" answer in the affirmative. But if
we must believe in contradictory propositions, then
reason is no longer trustworthy, and cannot be
trusted in any affirmation it may happen to make.
Mr. Herbert Spencer Examined, 53
The contradiction arises only when we lamly (JfTxpianation
. . . ofanti-
assume that there is only one kind of being in the ^o^^es.
universe. If we suppose that there are more kinds of
beings than one, then the thesis may be true of one,
and the antithesis of another. There is no contra-
diction when we say that the material universe is
limited in time and space, and apply the unlimited
not to the universe but to time and space, which
cannot be conceived as limited except by further
time and space. There is no contradiction if we
say that the world is limited, and say that God is
unlimited. To pass to the second antinomy, can
we rationally affirm both the thesis and antithesis
here. I can affirm both of myself. I am conscious
of myself persisting in self-identity throughout the
years ; and I am also conscious of the actions,
feelings, thoughts, which are mine. Both sides of
the antinomy are realised as complementary of
each other, in the unity of self- consciousness. The
antinomy is reconciled also in any unity in which
opposites meet, or where many qualities manifest
the nature of any one thing. The third antinomy
finds its solution in the affirmation that some beings
are free and others are not free, because some beings
are personal and others are impersonal. Freedom
and necessity may also be predicated of the same
person. I express the antinomy thus, " I am free
to bind myself," a proposition which at once
unites the antinomy, and which everyone knows to
e2
64
The Philosophy of
be true. With regard to the fourth autiuomy of
Kant, which refers to the existence of the absolute
and both affirms and denies its existence, we may
remark that the contradiction vanishes when we
assume that there is an absolute, and that there is
a relative, which is rooted and grounded in the
absolute.
Thus the exercise of a little common sense will
largely set us free from the tyranny of the antinomies
of pure reason, and will lead us on to see that
reason does not belie itself in its deepest affirma-
tions. What has enabled us to escape from the
antinomies of Kant will also lead us out of the
dilemmas of Herbert Spencer. Let us take one of
the antinomies or contradictions paraded by him :
Examina-
tion of
a specimen
contra-
diction.
" If we now go a step further, and ask what is the nature of
the First Cause, we are driven by an inexorable logic to certain
further conclusions. Is the First Cause finite or infinite ? If
we say finite we involve ourselves in a dilemma. To think
of the first cause as finite, is to think of it as limited. To
think of it as limited, necessarily implies a conception of some-
thing beyond its limits : It is absolutely impossible to conceive
a thing as bounded, without conceiving a region surrounding its
boundaries. What now must we say of this region ? If the
First Cause is limited, and there consequently lies something
outside of it, this something must have no First Cause must
be uncaused , But if we admit that there can be something
uncaused, there is no reason to assume a cause for anything." ^
We place alongside of this the following sentence
from Mr. Spencer :
^ First Principles, p. 37.
Ilr, Herbert Spencer Examined. 55
, ** Amid the mysteries which become the more mysterioii. the The one
more they are thought about, there will remain the one absolute f^lfai^^
certainty, that he is ever in presence of an Infinite and Eternal
Energy, from which all things proceed,"^
We are not aware that any one interested in
religion or in philosophy demanded anything more
from a First Cause than this. "What reason asks
from a First Cause is that it he equal to the pro-
duction of all the effects. It is not necessary for
reason to say whether it is limited or unlimited,
any more than it is necessary to say that it is
black or white. I "If we admit that there can be
something uncaused, there is no reason to assume
a cause for anything.'' We do not assume a cause
for existence ; what reason demands is that every
beginning or that every change must have a cause.
Cause is necessary to account for beginning and for
change, and as the correlative of this axiom it
assumes as another principle that there is a being
itself unchanged, which is the cause of all changes."
It were tedious to pass through the various
contradictions heaped together by Mr. Spencer.
More strange than anything we have seen is the
affirmation which lie makes of the absolute cer-
tainty we have of an Infinite and Eternal Energy
from which all things proceed. If we were to
treat this after the Spencerian fashion, we should
have to ask how a conditioned and relative intelli-
^ Nineteenth Century, January, 1884.
56 The Philosophy of
gence can attain to absolute certainty ? How a
being can be called unknowable when we know it
to be Infinite and Eternal Energy ? "When we
gather together into one thought all that Mr.
Spencer affirms regarding the "unknowable," we
find that it is an absolute being, that it is an
omnipresent power, that it is incomprehensible,
and that it is the proper object of religious rever-
ence, and that we are ever in its presence, and
from it all things proceed. Truly we must come
to the conclusion that the word " unknowable "
is used only in a Spencerian sense. We have only
to say further of this Power, that it is conscious
spirit, and is intelligent and personal, and we shall
have all that is needed for religious life and
thought. If we can be absolutely certain that we
are in presence of an Eternal Infinite Energy, we
can be certain of more. By this affirmation Mr.
Spencer has transcended his own manufactured
contradictions as much as if he had gone on to
transcribe the Creed of Christendom in order to
conclude with it his Nineteenth Century article.
Summary "We have sceu then that Mr. Spencer's objections
and con-
clusion, from the nature of consciousness breaks down
when we come to understand what consciousness
really means. "We have seen that he could Lot
even describe consciousness without implying the
continued existence of the self-conscious subject.
"We have seen also that the self-conscious subject
I
Mr. Herbert Spencer Exaonined. 57
has definite ways of acting, willing, thinking ;
forms into which all its experience falls. We
have seen also that Mr. Spencer's attempt to
manufacture a priori principles, and to change the
ultimate generalisations of science into first prin-
ciples, resulted in failure, because they all involved
the stability of the system of things. We have
seen also that the " alternate impossibilities " of
thought arise only from confounding one kind of
being with another; and in conclusion that the
afiirmations of Mr. Spencer had only to be extended
a little further in order to include all we need.
The contradictions detailed at such length in the
opening part of First Principles do not prove what
Mr. Spencer supposes them to do : on the contrary,
they prove only that there are different orders
of being, and that our knowledge of being is real,
and that the distinction we draw between the
absolute and the relative, between independent and
dependent being, between personal and impersonal
being, is true and valid; and the contradictions
arise only when Mr. Spencer blends in one con-
fusion, and utterly.disregards the distinctions which
reason draws. If God exists, then reason is in
harmony with itself and with reality as known.
We have a real knowledge of God, just as we have wehave
a real knowledge of ourselves. In neither case do knowledge
1-11 11- of God.
we claim that our knowledge is complete and ex-
haustive. The mystery of existence may overpass
58 Philosophy of Mr. Herbert S])encer Examined.
God has
wrought
and spoken.
our kuowledge. To-day, as in former days, man
must say, " "Who can find out the Almighty unto
perfection ? ", And yet, when all is said that can
be said about the measureless mystery which
wraps us round, and the unexplored heights and
depths which are around us on every side, we may
rest secure in the persuasion that our knowledge is
true and real. Eeverence bows low in the presence
of the eternal silence ; and uplifts itself to hear the
voice that breaks the silence. The living God has
wrought, and the living God has spoken, and we
have heard His voice. We do not need to go back
to the time when men built altars to the unknown
God, for He whom men did ignorantly worship has
been revealed. We do know ,the God who has
revealed Himself in the universe, who is the Author
of its beauty, the Upholder of its order, and the
Guide of it to its appointed goal. We do know
the Eedeemer God, the Eestorer of the course of
the sinful world to eternal purity and peace ; we
do know the living God and Jesus Christ whom
He has sent. And though much remain unknown,
yet the knowledge is sure, and may be vindicated
on grounds of reason, that " of Him, and through
Him, and unto Him, are all things. To Him be
the glory, for ever. Amen."
Our
knowledge
of God
may be
vindicated
on grounds
oi reason.
-s>-^ Present Day Tracts, No. 29. |--
MODERN PESSIMISM.
BY THE
BEY. J. EADFOED THOMSON, M.A.,
AUTHOR OP
"The "Witness of Man's Moral Nature to CHRisriAxiTY."
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY:
56 Paternoster Row, and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard.
^rrjumcrjt of iTuc TrtxcU
Human life being composite, joy and sorrow being alike
facts of experience, various theories have been advanced
for its explanation. Pessiraism is the doctrine that all
things are for the worst, that there is no Benevolent Ruler
of the Universe, and no hope of happiness for man. A
revival of Oriento.l Buddhism, Pessimism at present prevails
largely in several countries of Europe. The metaphysical
bases of Pessimism are described, and its doctrines, as
wrought out by Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann, are
explained. Specimens are given of the gloomy view taken
by Pessimists of human existence.
The unreasonableness of Pessi mism as a Phi losophy i s
then exhibi ted. The error and unfairness of the Pessimist
view of life are next exposed. An estimate is offered of the
value of life, and it is shown that Christianity alone is able
to solve the problem.
The Tract concludes with a picture of the evils which
the prevalence of Pessimism would involve, and with a
contrast between the fruits of this system and those of the
Religion of Christ
MODERN PESSIMISM,
Pessimism a Philosophy of Human Life.
fEN. in tlie exercise of observation, r eflec-
j Jjon, find rPflgnm'n^ nnnTinf ]} nt endeavo ur
to construct a philosophy (^ life. The
children of nature may indeed accept
all experience without inquiry ; they may be con-
tent without seeking a harmony in life's varied
voices, without asking for a clue to life's perplexing
mysteries. But as soon as men begin to regard Men are
.. ^ ^ ! 1-1 11 constrained
existence as a whole, to consider the world as a to construct
n , . a philosophy
problem, to demand reasons for their own nature otme.
and experiences, for their own history and hopes,
^they must theorize, j In fashioning for themselves
a p hilosophy of life, men will of nece ssity ]?f iti
^^A ienced by individual temperament ; some are by
nat ure cheerful, and some are by nature morose.
^rcumstances, too, both personal and domestic^
both social and political, will largely affect their
s peculations and determine t heir con clusions.^
Modern Pessimism,
Human life
composite
Joy and
(iorrow aliko
natural and
jucvitable.
How can it
be ex-
plained ?
To the
Christian,
enlightened
by Reve-
lation, life
appears a
probation
and a dis-
cipliue.
It needs little experience, little observation, to
discern that life is a many-coloured web, in whicb
the bright warp of happiness is crossed by the dull
sombre weft of pain and sadness. Human experi-
ence abounds in sorrow and privation, in perplexity
and difficulty, in misfortunes and disappointments,
in sins and fears. Man's body is often weak, and
unfit for the demands made upon it; his intellect
is beset by doubts which cannot be solved; his
liaart has aspirations which cannot be satisfied;
his lot is liable to vicissitudes, to calamities, to
untimely end.
What explanation can be given of our existence ?
where shall its unity bo grasped ? whence shall
its purport and its prospects bo beheld ? Is a
philosophy of life possible? and if so, who will
help us to achieve it?
As Christians, accepting the Word of God as of
Divine authority, wc are not dependent for guid-
ance in such a path, of inquiry upon the specula-
tions of unaided human reason. We claim for
revealed religion that its representations of human
life are just and adequate, satisfying to the intellect
and the conscience. This is because the Scriptures
support and amplify the soundest and loftiest
teaching of reason, and add to this teaching declara-
tions, sanctions, motive^, and prospects peculiarly
their own. Christians have learned to exalt the
spiritual nature of man, at the same time that they
Modern Pessimism.
realize tlie fact of human sin. To them man's
earthly course is a probation and a discipline, the
moral relations of man with his Divine Lord and
Father are of supreme importance, and this state
of being is preparatory to one ampler, richer, and
immortal.
As a matter of fact, philosophies of life have various
been wrought out in all cultivated communities, proposed.
both in ancient and in modern times. They have
differed from one another, both in the measure of
fairness with which they have contemplated the
facts of human existence, and in the measure of
sagacity and insight with which they have appre-
hended the true and Divine meaning underlying
what is apparent.
arize, ife
Hmism \
To particularize, /chore are two opposite theories T woopposito,
known as Dptimiwf and pp.mmiRm: two thfiorins Sxl'l'^^
which regard the -sami^ facts in entirely opposite _S ^'^.''''"
lights^ According to the adv no.nfpa nf fhft first-^f and"^''""
th ese doctrines, this is the hesf: of oil pnnn'blf*
worlds, life_is fraug ht with happitiessJ-jnaa-i^ -.
cap able of development in all excelle d ^?, npd f^^
^prospect ^j^fore the humnn rnce is hngbt arid
_alluring. Tf. is^ TinwftvPr^ fr> fh^ pVn'1r>gr>pTiy wliinli -
is diametrically oppo site to tbi^ fhnt wp invifp fba
attent ion of the rea der.! ^
(Pe ssimism is the very expressive name given t o
tke doctrine that this is the worst of all possible
worlds, that human life necessarily contains moro
Modern Pessvniism,
Pessimism
defined.
Taken here
in a strict
Beiise.
pain than pleasure, that there is no prospect of
improvement in the human lot, that life is not
worth livinp^, and th a t conscious existence mu st
b eregarded as the worst of all possible evils . [
I It is true that the term in question is often more
loosely employe d. In popular la nguage those
persons^r e called Pe ssi mists who take a gloomy
^nd despondent view of their own lot, and of the
prospects of society at larg e. \ Wq meet with
manifestations of the pessimistic spirit ih a cynical'
style of conversation not uncommon among educated
men of a certain temperament, and in the sceptical,
hopeless tone of very much of modern literature.
But we have to deal here with a reasoned and
elaborate system of belief, having all the preten-
sions of a philosophy.
Occasional
signs of the
Pessimistic
spirit in the
ancient
Hebrew and
Greek
literature.
II.
Pessimism a Eevival of Ancient Buddhism.
Symptoms of a Pessimistic spirit are to be remarked
occasionally in ancient literature. In the Old Tes-
tament books of Job and Ecclesiastes are sweeping
statements regarding the misery of life, prompted
by phases of experience through which certain
characters are recorded to have passed. Some of
the great Greek tragedies pour tray the helplessness
of man in the presence of an iiTCsistible and
apparently malignant fate. But it is generally
Modern Pessimism,
admitted that the tone of tlio earlier Hebrew
literature, and tlie tone of classical antiquity is
rather optimistic than otherwise. Life seemed,
especially to the Greeks, a thing beautiful and
precious in itself, and man was regarded by them
as born for happiness.
The most remarkable development of Pessimism
in ancient times is to be sought in the theosophies
and religions of the distant East. /Fov thousands
of years India has been the home of the philosophy The hopeless
' . tone of the
of hopelessness. It may have been owmg par::ly \f^^^^'^
to the poverty, want, and misery, which have been and religion.
for ages the lot of untold myriads of Orientals,
and partly to the prevalence of cruelty and oppres-
sion in political relations ; in any case, the Hindus
see m always to have found a solution of their
difficulties, and a shelter from their wretchedness,
in a philosophy which has fully admitted the evils
they have experienced, and has in some measure
armed them for endurance, j Brahmanism has ever
taught the vanity and misery of human life, and
held out the prospect of absorption into the Infinite
Being as the highest attainable blessedness.
But whilst the Brahmanic philosophy represents
the created world as a fact to be mourned over,
the evil of which can only be remedied, or rather
neutralized, in the way proposed, Buddhism is Jj^'^/^J^^JJ^j
far more thorough-going in its Pessimism. This i*essimism.
influential system of belief and of conduct, which
8 Modem Pesaimism.
came into existence five centuries before Christ,
and whiciL has exercised influence so immense in
India, Ceylon, Thibet, and China, has been desig-
nated " the great heresy of the East." Much as
has been written upon Buddhism, discussion is strU
carried on with regard to some of its leading doc-
trines. The author of Esoteric Buddhism would
have us believe that we in the West are still all
Holding but ignorant of this pretentious theosophy. Still,
humanity '^ye may bc assured that Buddhism is Pessimism,
no hope save ' '
kuoa!" P^^^ ^^^ simple, that it acknowledges no Creator,
no absolute Being, whilst its only desirable prospect
in the future is that Nirvana, which is understood
to be utter extinction and annihilation, or at all
events an eternal and passionless repose.
"Buddha, Eckhart, and myself," said Schopen-
hauer, "in the main teach the same doctrine."
Pessimism is indeed the Buddhism of the nineteenth
century. Buddha was a theologian, Schopenhauer
Modern a phHosopher. Buddhism was a Gospel for sages ;
Pessimists , ^ .
^cknow-icdge Pessimism professes to be a Gospel for humanity.
Luddhism. ^^^ modern Pessimism has been well described as
*' Buddhism without Buddha/' Sakya Mouni was
not a philosopher who constructed a system for the
adoption of others only, while he himself dwelt apart
from human experiences of privation; he had a
deeply-rooted conviction of the evil and misery of
life, a conviction manifested not only in his
teaching, but in his whole life and ministry.
Modern Pessimism.
That Buddhism should prove itself the great
missionary faith of heathendom, that it should have
been accepted by so many millions as the true phi-
losophy of life and the true relieion, that it should '^^^ power
^ , , o J ^ andpopu-
have retained its hold upon vast populations for 5?iddMsm
successive generations and ages, that it should
afford some satisfaction to multitudes of thoughtful
and virtuous men as the best solution of life's
enigmas, and the best guide in life's perplexities :
all this is proof that there is in it a doctrine,
a principle, which responds to some deep-seated
sentiments in the human breast. It is very re-
markable that in our own day there should be an
attempt to introduce the Buddhist theosophy, with-
out any disguise, among the educated classes of
Britain and America, as the most profound and
satisfying of all known theories of man and of the
universe !
It is certainly singular that the very same
Pessimism, which has prevailed so widely and so The strango
'^ .... revival of
long in the East, should be revived. in this nine- ?f^j^^^^
teenth century among the most educated and JSnetLntia
advanced peoples of Europe, How is it to be ^^*^y-
explained that an age of enlightenment, of wide-
spread education, of unexampled material, me-
chanical and scientific progress, of political energy,
of social liberty, of missionary enterprise, should
give birth to so strange a product ? In a state of
society stationary, dull, unenterprising, such a
10
Alodeim Fessimism.
phenomenon would appear explicable, if not natural.
Its apparent J3ut in tlio natious of Western Europe there seems
discordance
with the
temper of
the ajrc.
much scope for activity, so much appreciation
of mental power, so much room for progress, and
so much stimulus to hope, that Pessimism seems
altogether out of place. Especially is this so,
when we consider the vitality and the growth of
Christianity, which, notwithstanding repeated and
powerful attacks, does far more than hold its own
in the moral conflict of the world.
However, the fact must be acknowledged, an.l
the issue must be faced. In Germany, the de-
pressing doctrines of Schopenhauer and Von Ilart-
raann have been received by multitudes among
the educated classes as a Gospel of despair ; a
Pessimistic school of philosophy has been formed,
and a Pessimistic literature has arisen. The same
way of regarding human life and the universe has
spread to other nations, and Pessimism is not
without its adherents and its influence in Franco
and in England. In fact, much of the sceptical
and cynical writing of our day, to be met with
in our reviews and magazines, is simply saturated
with Pessimism. We meet constantly with a tone
of cynicism and despondency, for the explanation,
the source, of which, we must look to the philosophy
in question. A vein of Pessimism runs through the
conversation and the literary compositions even of
those who might be supposed exempt from an in-
Modern Pessimism. 11
fluence of the kind. The young, the cultured, the
wealthy, the fortunate and prosperous, are to bo
found among the disciples of this school.^
I ^e question, which has been so keenly debated .
" Mljfe tcorlh living ? " could never have arisen in
an age which was alien from Pessimistic specul a-
tions. It is certainly an indication of a habit niiferencft
T .^ - of estimate
of going down to the vovy roots of controversy. -^^/^Vo/ufe.
that such a question should have been mooted an d
disc ussed. 12 plea sure be re garded as the only, o r
tl ie chief element which gives value to life, it i s
certain that different sides will be taken in this
debate. Mr. Herbert Spencer maintains that th e
a nswer to .^he question depends upon th ^ prppon -
d e ranee of pleasure over pain, or of pain ov^r
pleas ure; and evidently inclines to thf^ opinion thai.
"the excess of pleasures decides the value of life .
The same test however, when applied by th e
school of Schopenhauer, leads to the convictio n
that pain is the master force, and that conscious
existence is in itself an evil, j]
* It has been remarked by an Edinburgji reviewer (April,
1879) that many of the extreme departures from Christian
orthodoxy which have marked our own times have been revivals
of ancient systems. Certainly modern Materialism is simply
the old doctrine of Epicurus and Lucretius, adapted to the state
of modern physical science. The new Catholicism which has
made way among some classes of our own countrymen is the medicc-
V val theology reanimated. Mr. Matthew Arnold's moral Idealism
h little more than Confucianism. In like manner the Pessimism,
in exposition of which so many volumes have been written,
especially in Germany, is substantially the Buddhism of live
cciituries before Christ.
12 Modern Pessimism.
III.
The Advocacy and Prevalence of Pessimism
IN Italy, Eussia, England, and especially
IN Germany.
It would be impossible, and it is unnecessary,
here to enumerate all the symptoms of Pessimism
which have appeared in our century, or even to
mention the names of all the notable champions
of the system. It must suffice to refer to the
poetical Pessimism of the Italian Leopardi, to the
social and literary Pessimism of Russia, and to the
philosophical Pessimism of Gfermany; the last
being by far the most important and influential.
Even so limited a review will serve to convince the
reader that the philosophy which we are here
treating is amongst the great forces of our age.
The life of Lcopardi, the Italian poet, who was bom ten
Leo*'ai-di jeai'S after Schopenhauer, and who died before he
was forty (1798-1837), was a thorough-going
Pessimist. He does not seem to have been in
any way acquainted with the speculations of his
German contemporary, nor were his views of life
based upon any metaphysical doctrines. In his
youth he was devoted to study, and acquired con-
siderable classical learning ; he was regarded as a
man of genius, from whom great things were
Modern Pessimism.
hoped. Tnough of a noble family, his means were
very narrow, and circumstances no doubt concurred
with wretched health to sadden and darken his
views of liie. His reputation rests upon his original
poetry, his translations, and upon some critical
works. He himself denied that his philosophical
opinions were the result of his misfortunes. "I nis misery
A and hatreti
would beg of my readers," he wrote, "to bum my ^^^^-
writings rather than attribute them to my suffer-
ings." Still, how otherwise can we account for
the weariness and disgust of life which took
possession of him in the spring-time of youth?
When only nineteen he spoke of " the obstinate,
black, and barbarous melancholy '' which devoured
and destroyed him ; when twenty he wrote,
" I have passed years so full of bitterness, that it seeras im-
possible for worse to succeed them."
At a later period he thus expressed his feelings :
* ' I am weary of life, and weary of the philosophy of indiffer-
ence, which is the only cure for misfortune and ennuis b'lt
which at length becomes an ennui itself. I look and hope for
nothing but death."
In 1830, when dedicating his Canti to his Tuscan
friends, he thus referred to his ill-health and dis-
appointments :
"My sufferings are incapable of increase; already my mis-
fortune is too great for tears. I have lost everything, and am
but a trunk that feels and suffers. "
Leopardi cannot be suspected of affectation. It
is reasonable to regard his distressing emotions and
14
Modern PesshMsm,
of las state
of laind.
Explanation \ his pessimistic doctrines as largely the consequence
of bodily weakness and pain, and of disappointed
social and literary ambition, uncbastened by any
faith in Divine Providence, unrelieved by any
prospect of a happier life in the future. Physically
incapable of many of life's pleasures, he passionately
yearned for them. He was conscious of abilities
which his circumstances would not allow to develop
and mature. He loved apparently in vain, j
Soured and dissatisfied, Leopardi evidently em-
bodied in his letters, his dialogues, his poems, his
distorted views of life. Nothing in literature is
more sad than his language regarding human
existence. Infelicitd misery is, according to
him, the only explanation which can be given of
human affairs ; this is universal and irremediable,
such is our only certainty. " The most happy
lot," said he, "is not to live." " Human conscious-
ness is itself a curse, and the brute and the plant
are happier than man." "Our life, what is it
worth, but to despise it ? " " When will Infelicitd
perish ? When all ends ! "
His philosophy has thus been summarized by
Edwards, the translator of his works:
His
judgment
of the
human lot,
and his
despair.
" The universe is an enigma totally insoluble. The sufferings
of mankind exceed all good that men experience. Progress, or
as we call it, civilization, instead of lightening men's sufferings,
increases them ; since it enlarges man's capacities for suffering,
without propoi-tionately augmenting his means of enjoyment."
In short, Leopardi explicitly envied the dead, and
Modern Pessimism. 15
lamented the infinite vanity of all things. (L'infinita
vanita del tutto.)
Yet Leopardi was a patriot, a patriotic poet.
In the Italy of his time there was little to encourage
hope. His poetry sang of Italy's past greatness and
glory; ho cherished no expectation of national
revival. Events have shown that his estimate
was mistaken ; his pessimism, as far as his country
was concerned, has heen proved unjustifiable.
There is one country in Europe in which Pessi-
mism has penetrated to the lower strata of society.
That country is Eussia, the empire of absolutism
in political life, of ignorance and superstition in
religion. It is remarkable and suggestive that, Nihilism
notwithstanding the emancipation of the serfs, and ?^^^^"^^?
other steps taken in keeping with the march of
modern civilization, discontent so largely pervades
the Muscovite empire. The young and the intel-
lectual, women as well as men, furnish active and
enthusiastic supporters to the cause of revolution ;
Europe is periodically startled by proofs of the
boldness, the secrecy, the self-immolation of the
Nihilists. The existence of Pessimist sects among
the common people may be a symptom of that deep
unrest which cannot but prevail in a community
where personal liberty is unknown, where corrup-
tion is the canker of the official classes, where there
is no publicity in the administration of so-called
justice, and where there are no open and legitimate
16 Modern Fessir}iism.
means for the expression of dissatisfaction, and for
the furtherance of reform. It has for many years
been known that there are in Russia secret societies
comprising large numbers of adherents, whose great
uniting principle is a common conviction of the
The secret worthlcssuess and hatefulness of life. And it is
societies
RusSIn^^ also well known that in some such societies the
reasants. practice of barbarous mutilation prevails, with a
view to the prevention of offspring, and ultimately
to the extinction of the species. There must bo
something more than a philosophical theory to
account for fanaticism so extravagant ; the explana-
tion must be sought in the insufferable conditions
of society, and in the absence of a vital Christianity,
capable of assuaging sorrow, and of inspiring forti-
tude, toil, and hope.
But Russia contains Pessimists of the highest
literary grade. Among these may be mentioned
Literary tho popular author, fTolstoi. It has been surmised
Pessimism i. . .
in Russia, that Ms uuhappy disposition may have been fos-
tered by the premature success he met with in his
literary career, which left him little to look forward
to and to hope for. Though favoured with health,
fortune, family connections, and literary renown,
he found no satisfaction in his vocation, and pro-
fessedly hated life, and despised the human
species. )
In accounting for principles so monstrously per-
verted, it is not sufficient to remember that in
Modern Pessimism.
Russia literature and art are afflicted with, melan- Explanation
, of Russian
clioly, that Nature is for the most part sombre and Pessimism,
hard, that the Russian people seem to be by nature
and education insusceptible to those Western ideas
which are adopted rather than appropriated by
the cultivated and political classes. The political
state of the empire, perplexing and unique as it is,
may well engender hopelessness. The cynical tone
Baid to be characteristic of the society of St. Peters-
burg, and the prevalence of despair among the
sects just referred to, are evidences from widely
different quarters of a state of feeling favourable
to the reception and the spread of Pessimistic
views of human life.
The Pessimistic theory, however, has a hold upon The strain
the minds of many of the intellectual and literary ?f ^S^j?^
class amongst our fellow-countrymen, and Pessi- lit^^^^t^e-
mistic doctrines and views of human life are openly
advocated by English writers in this country.
A very few years since, Mr. James Payn, a very The avowed
successful litterateur y wrote in the Nineteenth Gen- f^l^
turf/ an article ^ entitled The Midway Inn, con- ^*^^
taining such reflections as may be supposed to
occur to a hard-working professional man, who
has reached middle age. It is impossible to read
this original and interesting, but very mournful,
article, without feeling that the writer regards
^ May, 1879. The article has since been republished in a
volume oressays by Mr. Payn.
18
Modern Pessimism,
human life, even to the successful, as a bitter
disappointment. He puts the matter very plainly
in this language :
** The question, Is Life 'worth Living ? is one that concerns
philosophers and metaphysicians ; but the question, Do I wish
to be out of it ? is one that is getting answered very widely,
and in the affirmative. This was certainly not the case in the
days of our grandsires."
And again:
"The gift of old age is unwished-for, and the prospect of
future life without encouragement. It is the modern conviction
that there will be some kind of work in it ; and even though
what we shall be set to do may be wrought with * tumult of
acclaim,' we have had enough of work. What follows, almost
as a matter of course, is that the thought of possible extinction
has lost its terrors."
It might he supposed that weariness and disgust
of life will lead to something worse than bitter
words. If existence is so wretched, it is not to be
supposed that men will continue to endure it,
when (as Epictetus phrased it) " the door is open."
Mr. Payn affirms that suicide is probably far more
frequent than is publicly admitted, and is of opinion
that it would be even more common were it not
for the fear lest the life-assurance companies should
withhold from the mourning family the sum secured
as a provision against want.
The Sjycdator ^ commenting in a leading article
upon Mr. Payn's essay, remarked upon one pe-
culiarity of the Pessimism it revealed :
1 May 3rd, 1879,
assertions
concerning
men's
weariness
of life.
Modem Pessimism. 10
** Melancholy, ennui, weariness to-day comes chiefly to the tj^q
workers, and makes men miserable who are toiling like navvies mclanclioly
for a success, or an object, which, when attained, will be, they middle ago,
know, like ashes in their mouths. . . . They ai'e weary of it all,
even in middle age."
In the opinion of the Spectator this state of
mind is due partly to a want of hope in a future /
life, and partly to a dovclopment of the imagina-
tion, producing a chasm between what men arc
and what they would if they could be, a disparity
between their " brain muscle,'' and the work un-
consciously required of it.
Mr. Eichard JefPeries, a charming and popular
writer upon natural history, in The Story of my
Heart, a sort of autobiographical confession, thus
avows his Pessimism :
*' How can I adequately express my contempt for the assertion ^^^^r. _
that all things occur for the best, for a wise and beneficent end, avowal of
and are ordered by a humane intelligence ? It is the most utter I^essimism
falsehood, and a crime against the human race. . , . Human
suifering is so great, so endless, so awful, that I can hardly write
of it. I could not go into hospitals and face it, as some do, lest
my mind should be temporarily overcome. The whole and the
worst the worst Pessimist can say is far beneath the least paiticle
of the truth, so immense is the misery of man. It is the duty
of all rational beings to acknowledge the truth. There is not
the least trace of directing intelligence in human affairs. . , ,
Any one who will consider the affairs of the world at large, and
of the individual, will see that they do not proceed in the manner
they would do for our happiness if a man of humane breadth of
view were placed at their head with unlimited power^ such as is
credited to the intelligence which does not exist. A man of
intellect and humanity could cause everything to happen in an
infinitely superior manner."^
1 Pp. 134-G.
20
Modern Fessimism.
Here is another passage from the same book,
inexpressibly mournful :
pisbclid "For grief there is no known consolation. It is useless to
benevolent ^^^^ ^^ hearts with bubbles. A loved one is gone, and as to
Creator. the future if there is a future it is unknown. To assure our-
selves otherwise, is to soothe the mind with illusions ; the
bitterness is inconsolable."
Pessimism
ill poetry.
Nor is contemporary Pessimism confined to
prose. The following very beautiful but very
sad stanzas are from a short poem significantly
entitled T/te Age of Despair, included in a little
volume of poems by Mr. H. D. Traill, Rccapiured
RJiymes.
** Dead is for us the rose we know must die ;
Long ere we drain the goblet it is dry;
And even as we kiss, the distant grave
Chills the warm lip, and dims the lustrous eye.
Too far our race has journey 'd from its birth ;
Too far death casts his shadow o'er the earth.
Ah, what remains to strengthen and support
Our hearts since they have lost the trick of mirth?
The stay of fortitude ? The lofty pride
Wherewith the sages of the Porch denied
That pain and death are evils, and proclaimed
Lawful the exit of the suicide ?
Alas, not so ! no Stoic calm is ours ;
We dread the thorns who joy not in the fiowcrCo
We dare not breathe the mountain -air of pain,
Droop as we may in pleasure's stifling bowers.
What profits it, if here and there we see
A spirit nerved by trust in God's decree,
Who fronts the grave in firmness of the faith
Taught by the Carpenter of Galilee ?
Modern Pessimism. 21
Who needs not wlue nor roses, lute nor lyre,
Scorns life, or quits it by the gate of fire,
Erct and fearless what is that to us
Who hold him for the dupe of vain desire 1
Can we who wake enjoy the dreamer's dream ?
Will the parched treeless waste less hideous seem
Because there shines before some foolish eyes
Mirage of waving wood and silver stream?"'
Germany is however the favoured and congenial
home of theoretical Pessimism. The two great
German advocates of this doctrine Schopenhauer
and Yon Hartmann have obtained European re- *-*
putation; and their works are now being repro-
duced in English in the Foreign Philosophical
Library, so that there is every probability of their
becoming very much more generally known in this
country. f \
The great work of Schopenhauer Die Welt f/Zs/ Germany \
Wille und Vorstelhmg (The World as Will and ash^^^^^^
Representation, or Idea), has every claim to be re- V^^^^^^^^^^j
garded as the authoritative manual of German
Pessimism, of which it both lays the metaphysical
foundations and explicates the practical consequences.
Schopenhauer was until late in life almost utterly schopcn-
^ " hauei'a
unnoticed by the devotees of Philosophy; it Avas career,
only during the last ten years of his course that
he became famous, and that was in consequence
of his less systematic and more comprehensible
work, published in 1851, the Parcrga und Para-
hpojJU'ita, In contrast to this neglect was tho
22 Modern Pessimism.
nartmann's popularity sGcured and enjoyed by Hartmann, the
second great light of the Pessimistic philosophy,
whose chief work was published in 1868, and
has gone through many editions. More a man
of the world than his master, although a vastly
inferior writer, he has gained the attention of the
reading public of Germany, and his writings are
eagerly read by a large circle of admirers.
The German Ih ondeavouring to account for the rise of spcc-
mcta- ulative Pessimism in Germany, the land beyond
physical
novelty, and all othors of G:eneral education, the land in which
quest of
of kS.w-^ the learned class holds the largv^st ratio to the
ledge and population, WO must not lose sight of the philo-
sophical tendency which has so conspicuously
characterised the Teutonic mind during the whole
of the present century. Ever since the new im-
pulse given by Kant's Critique {Kritik) at the
close of the last century, an almost unbroken suc-
cession of theories of knowledge and of being have
claimed the attention of the inquisitive lovers of
novelty. It would seem as if, with Hegel, the
circle of possible metaphysic must have been com-
pleted, as if no other path could be struck out.
And the original speculations of Schopenhauer and
Von Hartmann partake of the nature of paradox,
pessimists I^casou liaviug exhausted itself, it would seem that
thlphuo- a Philosophy of Unreason alone remained, by which
S^eascn. to startlo the human mind, and to acquire notoriety.
The Idea, the Reason, might be altogether dis-
Modern Pessimism. 23
placed, and the blind and purposeless TFill, or the
incomprehensible and uncomprehending Uncon^
scions, might take its place.
IV.
The Metaphysical Bases of Pessimism.
ethics of
a meta-
physical
foundation.
TpjT? ofVn>.nT ^nntriTips of the Pessirm sts are based ^^^
^ - - ethi(
upon i g etaphysical f ounda tions . It is necessary, bScd^p^n
therefore, to give a brief outline of the philosophy
of Schopenhauer and Yon Hartmann. These meta-
physical speculations are somewhat abstruse ; and
many persons adopt Pessimistic views, as they do
the views advocated by the expounders of othei
theories of life, without concerning themselves with
their philosophical bases.
Kant had taught that all our knowledge, being ^F^t's.
conditioned by the forms of thought supplied by f//e^"ti^Q
our mental constitution, is phenomenal, and of sub- p^e^o^^enai.
jective value only. At the same time he believed
in the Ding an sich, or " thing in itself," although
he regarded this as unknowable. These doctrines
suggested many speculations regarding the nature
of knowledge, speculations which have constituted
the bulk of German metaphysics during this century.
The names of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, will
occur to readers of philosophical literature, as in-
dicating the successive developments of post-Kantian
philosophy during the first half of this century.
24
Modern Pessimism.
Schopen-
hauer's
repudiation
of Hegel-
ianism.
Hia
acceptance
of the
Kantian
distinction
between the
phenomenal
and the
real.
^
His con-
viction that
we do know
the real,
viz., The
WILL.
Now, Schopenhauer took no notice of the
German metaphysicians who followed Kant, and
indeed was bitterly hostile to his great and for-
tunate rival, Hegel. It was an evidence of the
meanness of his character, that he despised the
" Professors '* of the German Universities, who, as
he maintained, taught doctrines agreeable to the
Governments and to the Churches, for the sake of
place, profit, and social consideration. For him-
self, he was soured by the utter neglect which his
philosophy met with for more than thirty years,
and was no doubt confirmed by his ill-fortune in
his hatred and contempt of his fellow-men.
Accepting the doctrine of the Critical Philosophy,
so far as it distinguished between the phenomenal
and the real, Schopenhauer asserted that we have
knowledge of the latter. In his view, the real
essence, the substantial source and explanation of
all things, is "Will. But by "Will he means not
only what we are accustomed to designate by
that terra, but the great forces of Nature, the
instincts and impulses of organic life, as seen in
plants and animals, and the promptings and pur-
poses of human beings. Motion, in all its varied
forms, seems thus to be metaphysically accounted
for. The one real, deep, eternal, and irresistible
Power of Nature is "Will, which manifests itself
in all the processes of inanimate existence, as
well as in all the activities of living things.
Modern Pessimism.
The World has, so to speak, two sides. On the
one side it is Represei^tation, or Idea (Die Welt
fst Vorstellung). The world, as representation, The world
has two indivisible halves, the Obiect and the Representa-
'' tiou or Idea.
Subject, every object existing under the forms of
time, space, and causality, and having a relative
existence, i.e., through and for something beside
itself. By a process of reasoning, which cannot
be made intelligible in a few words, Schopenhauer
comes to the conclusion that we must seek else-
where than in that " representation,*' which is one
aspect of the world, and which consists of the two
elements mentioned, for the innermost essence of
the Universe.
The other side of the World is this : The it is also
2. Wm, by
World is my Will (Die Welt ist mein Wille). l^^^^_
We can go deeper than that "representation," jiowe."''''"'
which, if it were all, would make the Universe a
dream. We are conscious that movements of our
body are due to acts of Will. Although in reflec-
tion we can distinguish between Will and action,
in reality the two are one. Pain and joy are
immediate affections of the will. The body is, to
use the awkward language of German metaphysics,
"the objectification of the will." In self-con-
sciousness the will is known immediately, bodily
impulses are apprehended as symptoms of the
action of the will.
Now, by analogy, Schopenhauer recognizes Will
26
Modern Pessimism,
as universally present in nature. Tho Will is
"objectified" by certain steps, e.g,, forces in in-
organic nature, forms in organic nature, partially
corresponding to the Platonic "ideas." But it is
one and the same Will whose presence is recognized
on every side. It is this that accounts for all the
changes, movements, and processes of nature, of life.
The universal Will is a will to live. A^lid-its
" ~ ^ " " The
Willis "the
will to live."
It issues of
necessitjr
ia suffering
to the
individual.
The * will
to live"
prompts to
love and
marriage
man ifold appearan ces we discern its unity.
rush of this vast Force into activity accounts for
al l the phenomena of the Universe. Hence the
endless and irreconcilable strife which the world
presents to the observer, and which indeed he feels
in his own nature. The impulses come into conflict
with one another, .so that none can be reaKzed, can
find satisfaction. (Life, Consciousness, Suffering,
these arc the results of " the Will to live," which
realizes itself in individual experience, and in the
history of the human race. EadL-ixuiJX-liaa.^a_
natural des i re to live , wroughtjwithin him by the
unconscious Force of nature, a desire which it is
his mys terious prerogative to affirm or to deny. In
affirming it, he seals h is doom to irremediable misery. 1
"" This same " Will to live " manifests its nature'
and its power in another direction. It works upon
the individual for ends beyond himself. As a
means to secure the continuance of the species, it
takes within the individual the form of sexual
love. The reproductive instinct is thus the ally and
Modern Pessimism. 27
the complement of the nutritive instinct. Whilst
the individual is deluded into believing that in it iiius
^ secures tlia
marriage he is acting for his own gratification and S^S'the
satisfaction, the truth is that he is seeking, though ^ery.*^ ^^
unco nsciously, the perpetuation of the race. He ^
tT^ iia hfi(^,o Tn<:>s th ft unwitting instrument in prolonging
human misery . The individual must vanish, and
his own personal wretchedness may be lulled into ,^.,,^
oblivion. But crafty nature takes care that by
begetting children he shall do his part to per-
petuate the misery of mankind! -
The ethical doctrine of Schopenhauer if ethical
it may be called is based upon his teaching with
regard to the Will. In the fourth book of his
great work he treats of " the conscious affirmation
and denial of the Will to live." (
I It is Will t hat is the source of all beiner; the Hcreiatho
Y ^ ^ . . root of all
world has come into existence because Will is. ^Q^Jf^^"
This supreme power of the Universe, manifesting
itself as the " will to live,'* is at the root of all
evil. To resist death is alike a necessity and a
misfortune. The individual man is impelled by the
great natural force to dread and to avert the cessa-
tion of being, and to use means for the preservation
of life, to provide nourishment for the body, andT;
to repel disease ^nd death. Nature thus secures
the perpetuation jof human wretchedness. )
If the Will is the key-note to Schopenhauer's
philosophy; that of Ilartmann's doctrines is the
28 Modern Pessimism.
UxcoNscious. lEduard von Hartmaiin ag,reed with
hi s predecessor in the b elieftha t the world, being
due to a n^n-rational Will, is a blunder^ is.^ajbad
w orld, and that non-existence is better th an exist-
Hartmann's cncc. ] Accordiug with tho ethical superstructure
theuncon- reared' by his master, Hartmann sought to lay for
BCIOUS.
it a deeper and broader metaphysical foundation.
Opposed as all the Pessimists have been to
Hegel, he utterly rej^ected jleason, as the ultimate
and absolute principle of the Universe. He intro-
duced the philosophy of the Unconscious {Philoso-
phie des Unbeiciissten), which represents the great
secret force and explanation of all things as being
T/ie Unconscious; which, however, has virtue to
organize, and which, in the pursuit of a great aim
(Zweck) gives rise to the Universe in all its
phases.
Kant had said that to claim to possess ideas,
and yet not to be conscious of them, is a contra-
aoing below dictiou in terms. Hartmann admits that " uncon-
Conscious- , .
pfs lie scions representation has the air of a paradox.
believes that ^ ^
?he??the -^^^ ^^^^^ *^ domain of Consciousness is a well-
pSfpi^eof tilled vineyard which can yield little more to
^"^' the labour of the student, perhaps he who digs
below the surface may find golden treasure in the
hidden depths of the Unconscious. Well-known
mental phenomena suggest the existence of un-
conscious representations and volitions ; may they
not be indications of that *' all- one " principle.
Modern Pessimism, 29
which may be accepted as the final and universal
explanation furnished by monistic philosophy ?
From the Vedanta philosophy of the East down intimations
to Schopenhauer, profound speculators so Hart- Principle
IT p ^ prepared the
mann thought-t^had gamed, glimpses of the great ^^y/^
truth that the tUnconscioud is the central prin-
ciple of phiJosophy, and /(the central power of
the world. | But the bold and ardent young Pessi-
mist of Germany claimed to have been the first to
bring this truth into the full light of day.
We intuitively know that many of our own "4^
actions are the expression of purpose ; and analogy
leads us to suppose that there is intention in \
Nature, that design may be recognized in the con- 1
stitution of the world. There are, however, auto-
matic movements and instinctive actions, pur-
poseful, without any consciousness of purpose.
Unconscious Will is to be postulated as accounting
for such movements as these.
pfhat Christians refer to a Divine Artificer, who
acts according to wisdom and goodness, Hartmann
refers to the Unconscious Will. He thus accounts unconsdous
for the great emotions and impulses which are regarded
, , ^ as the key
characteristic of humanity, for ccsthetic and moral to many
J ' mysteries,
judgments, for a priori beliefs, for religious prin-
ciples, and for the development of human history.
So-called philosophy has given birth to no more
signal master-piece of unreason than Hartmann's
account of the emergence of Consciousness into ^
80 Modern Pessimism.
existence, out of a Universe governed by Uncon-
The genesis scious Will. Consciousness is said to owe its being
sciousness. to the tearing away of the Representation from
its mother-eartb, i.e., from the Will, to its realiza-
tion of itself, and to the opposition of the Will to
this emancipation of the Representation from its
own control. The shock which follows this rebel-
lion, the penetration of the Representation into the
Unconscious, is Consciousness I
The reader will judge from these representations
of Pessimist metaphysics, as to the likelihood of
such writers producing a sober, credible, reason-
able system of morals. It must be admitted that,
however sophistical his reasoning, Hartmann has
the art, when he comes to deal with real life, of
interesting the curious, inquisitive reader. Ilis
aim is to depict the marvellous wisdom of the
Unconscious! Leibnitz had taught, in the con-
fidence of Optimism, t hat of all possible worl ds
-this is tlie besf. Schopenhauer had maintained
'the 'opposite theory Vfjia t^ this world is the worst
)ossible. Strangely enough, Hartmann holds, in
language at least, by the belief of Leibnitz. IIow
can this be Pessimism ? \Th^ fjifit \f, thnt Fnrt-
r mann means that no worse world could have rc -
mainecL in^exi stence, for, in jiis^pinion^this world
ia sn had tliatiiQ world at all would have b^ en^r
^^i^r i^T^^^^^Annp ig p] 'eferable to th isexist-
' ence, and in deed to any existence that is possi ble^ I J
I
I
MoJei^ Fessimism. 31
\Tl ie obvious question arises: Since huma n life
is so wrctclied, how is it that men not only
continue to live, hut either find, or fancy that they
find, in life compensation for its ills? The
Pessimist's nns wer is ! Men are renonciled to The
,___________ ~~~~^ j ^ Illusions by
l ife by the power of succes'sive illusions, devised ^nconsdous
by the craft and cunning of t he Unconscious ! If men t"uve?^
men saw existence as it really is. thev would not
submit to endure it. ^But nature has provide d
against such an issue. The unconscious Wi ll has
implanted in the human heart illusions so powerful,
and so rapidT in their successive appeara nce, that
men are willing and even anxious to live.
Three stages of illusion are described by Hart-
mann in a passage which has become somewhat
famous.
1. Happiness is thought to be actually attainable The first
in this present life. Such is the belief of youth, present ufo
and of the childhood of the race. Eeviewing in JTaTpSe^
detail the several occasions of pleasure and satis-
faction, Hartmann exhibits what he deems the
l^ excess in every case of pain over pleasure. ' The ""I
imagination is prompted to depict joys which are /
never realized. Health, youth, liberty, give no /
positive excess of pleasure. Love is not only disap- /
pointing; it is, for the individual experiencing it, an I
actual evil. Sympathy, friendship, family relations,
yield no real happiness. Vanity, prido, glory, are
all delusive. Eell^ious edification has, it is true,
32
Modern Pessimism.
The vanity
of earthly
delights.
its own consolations ; but in its higher stages joy
is seldom attained, and then only by means of
severe self^^^il, whilst the lower stages of the
religious life are accompanied by fear, doubt, and
anguish. Immorality is practised for the sake of
the gratification it is expected to yield ; but on the
whole it is productive of pain. The delights of
science and art are accessible to but a small
minority of mankind, and they render their
cultivators liable to keen and varied suffering.
Sleep and dreams bring no real, lasting relief.
The quest of property is laborio us, anxious, and
disappointing, ilope its e lf is delus ive and vain,
I In this desultory and illogical way the Pessimist
endeavours to show that, whilst nature urges men
to seek enjoyment in a multiplicity of ways, she
always mocks the victims she deludes. AH is
vanity : pains are many, and pleasures few.
The second 2. The Unconscious is not satisfied to rob the
that there is present of all its joy; it attacks the future; first
a heaven of ^ . .
thifulire deluding men by promising blessings in im-
mortality, and then blasting the hopes it has
fostered. Those who have renounced all hope of
happiness in this world may, nevertheless, look
forward to a world to come, and may support and
cheer themselves with the fond hope of eternal
felicity. The religion of Christ is represented by
Hartmann as corresponding with this phase of in-
dividual experience; for long centuries Christian
Modern Pessimism, 83
FaitTi has encouraged men to bear the ills of life
with fortitude, upheld by the hope jj||iplessedness
business to exhibit the baselessness of such a hope,
the utter vanity of the cherished expectation of the
individual, conscious life beyond the grave.
3. The qreat Unconscious power of the Universe The third
o J- illusion :
has not, in these two stages of illusion, exhausted a^trijhf ^ ^
its malignant hostility to man. Amongst those befo?^'
who have ceased to hope, either for pleasure in this society oa
. earth.
life, or for the joys of immortality, there are some
who cherish bright anticipations of the future of
huraapity. Thus there opens up to many unselfish
souls a golden dream. Hartmann presumes
that many of his readers will, at this point,
abandon his guidance, will refuse to cast away
their hope of the amelioration of the human lot,
will dare to anticipate that coming generations
may find life a better and a brighter thing,
perhaps, in some slight measure, through their
own efforts and sacrifices. lie accordingly makes
it his aim to cloud this bright vision of the future.
He argues that there is no reasonable prospect of
substantial improvement in the condition of man-
kind, no ground for hoping that the progress of
civilization, of art, of knowledge, of religion, will
remove or relieve human ills, will bring any acces-
sion to human happiness. There is no more hope
for humanity in this life than in any life to come*
D
34
Modern Pessimism.
The success
of the
charmer.
Tims the Unconscious flings her enchantment
hut too successfully over the sanguine anic
visionary nature of man, only to laugh at those
whom she has ensnared. In Philosophy, comfort,
strength, hope, are not to he found ; her light is
clear, but unsympathetic and cold. The veil of
Maja is on the face of mortal men.
The energy
of will
arouses
desire and
effort which.
are de-
Btructive of
happiness.
The Pessimism of Schopenhauer and Vqn
;,. ....!:: -.. Hartmann Explained.
' Schopenhauer's central ethical doctrine was
the essential evil and misery of Will. This is the
spring of efforts the most painful, of desires the
most unquenchable. Will awakens from the Un-
conscious, witii boundless wants, and with inex-
haustible claims. Every satisfied wish immediately
begets a new craving. Thus Life proves itself a
deceit, affording no satisfaction, no repose. Happi-
ness may be imagined in the past or in the future,
the present certainly knows it not, being filled with
insatiable desire. The will to live still asserts
itself under a thousand disappointments. What
are old age and death but the sentence of condem-
nation, passed and executed by nature, upon man's
will to live ? The happiest moment of life is that
of falling asleep, and forgetting life's wretchedness;
Modern Pessimism.
le most miserable moment is that of awaking to
sSd reality. Who would persevere in life were
death less frightful?
I The great principle of Pessimism is, that all life.,
is suffering (alles Lehcn Leiden ist). Man, being. The many^^^
what Schopenhauer calls ''the most perfect objec- i^^^^tuse^t
tificationof the will to live," is of all beings the S?;w
most necessitous, the most dissatisfied, and the are wretched
because of
most unhappy. He is constrained by his nature' enr.iu.
to long for what he has not. If ho desires, and
endeavours to obtain, such experience of effort is
merely painful ; if, on the other hand, he comes to
possess what he seeks, possession takes away all
charm from the object he has desired. Thus his
alternative is between the wretchedness of unsatis-
fied desire, and the ennui of satiated possession ;
and in either case no happiness can be realized !)
It is part of the Pessimistic doctrine that nothing Pain is
. \ . . positive ;
is absolutely good, although some things are better P^^^^f^l^^'^ .;
than others, that pain is positive, and that pleasure
is only negative.^ This unjust and gloomy dictum
is in opposition to Leibnitz's optimistic judgment,
that pleasure is positive, and pain is negative only.
There does not seem to be much meaning in the
language so employed. The two are opposites,
and the affirmation of the one is the denial of the
other. But both pleasure and pain are real, actual
experiences. By asserting that pleasure is only
negative, the !Pessimist^' intend to depreciate its
36
Modern Pessimism.
The hatred
felt by the
Pessimists
for_
Optimism.
value, and so far the epitliet is one it is unfair to
apply. Just as pleasure is nothing but the nega-
tion of pain, so right is merely the negation of
wrong: a dogma evidently intended to disparage
rectitude and duty.
Tha Pessimist not only differs from the Optimist,
he regards the Optimistic system with hatred, as
" an impious system." He who maintains that all
things are for the best, and that happiness is within
the reach of man, is regarded as holding a doctrine
which is a reproach and insult to the human lot,
as a lot of necessary and ceaseless suffering. It is
thus made every man's duty, if the word " duty "
is admissible, to be miserable himself, and to
account all other men equally miserable.
W It is an obvious question to ask; If existence
be so evil, and if death be annihilation, why does
not the Pessimist put an end, by suicide, at once
1o life and to suffering? But his answer is, that
he suicide is a witness to the value of life, and to
;he evil of pain only, for he slays himself not to
bscape life ^but to avoid pain^l Physical suicide
ts vain. Moral suicide should ]be tried. Let a
man be truly wise, and see the vanity of willing ;
let him by meditation rise above volition, and so
seek annihilation, which alone is blessedness; let
him quit the life of effort, and enter the Nirvana
of eternal rest !
The only prospect for humanity which can afford
N
Suicide is
condemned,
as promptei ,
not by
hatred of
life, but by
hatred of
pain.
Modern Pessimism.
37
fchopen-
l^auer
would have ^
each man
deny the
"U to live.
Ilartmann
wonld have
[the indi-
idual affirm
he -will to
ivo until
men are
)repared
'multa-
[eously to
my it.
7
any comfort is the prospect of annihilation. This,
according to tlie Pessimist theory, is to be brought
about (as has been said) by a denial of the will to
live. But there is upon this point a difference,
almost amusing to consider, between the two German
champions of the doctrine. The elder Schopen-
hauer would have each man act for himself, and!
negative that will to live which involves menjnl
misery so great. The younger Hartmann thinks
that each man should for the present affirm the
will to live, and that efforts should be made to
promote amongst men a knowledge of the cause
and of the cure of life's wretchedness, so that a
general determination may in due time be arrived
at by all the members of the race, who may by
one great and combined effort achieve the wished-
for and happy result, the extinction of human life
and consciousness, and the relapse into universal
oblivion and repose !
Meanwhile, however, it is fair to remark that
the exponents of the system have done little in the
way of example to further the desiderated end.
Schopenhauer was a sensual and selfish hermit,
who husbanded his inherited resources, and lived
in misanthropy indeed, but in comfort, to a fair
old age, fearing nothing more than sickness and'
death. Hartmann lives, it is said, a happy family
life, in competency an'd elegance, and in social
esteem.
The InconA
sistoncy \
between \
profession I
and actwal j
life. /
38
Modern Pessimism,
The contrast
in this
respect
between
Sakya
Mouni and
Paul on the
one hand,
and Scho-
penhauer
and Von :
Ilartmann
on the
other.
of re:
siinisi
V^XArt.
It would not, indeed, be fair in every case to test
doctrines by the life and practice of tbeir exponents
and promulgators. But it is instructive to re-
member tliat the greatest missionaries of the world
have been men whose conduct has accorded with
their teaching. Sakya Mouni, the founder of the
Oriental Pessimism, renouuced the position, the
dignities, the wealth, the opportunities of ease and
enjoyment to which he was born, and lived a self-
sacrificing life 6f sympathy and charity amongst
men. Paul, th6 apostle of Christ to the Gentiles,
war? not satisfied with bidding men live, not to
themselves, but to the Lord ; he actually did
count all things but loss for his Saviour's sake, and
lived, suffered, and died to promote the gospel
he proclaimed. Ycry diiferent has been the
practice of those who, in our own time, have
made it their business to publish to their fellow-
men the depressing tidings of a godless universe,
and of irremediable despair!
It may be asked, What temporary practical
relief or consolation does Pessimism offer? Di-
vested of metaphysical terminology, the answer of
Schopenhauer to this question is threefold.
' 1. Art The works of genius, embodied in archi-
tecture, painting, poetry, and music, when contem-
plated by the mind, ^afford a real delight. The
artist perceives and communicates the everlasting
ideas, which are apprehended by pure contemplation,
.N'A
Tlie
consolations \
res-
Modern Pesshnis-ni.
and whicli are esteemed tlie substantial and en-
during part of all tlie phenomena encountered in
the world of sense. It will be observed by the
reader that the author of Natural Religion has
warmly adopted this part of the creed of Schopen-
hauer. " ''' '-'"-' '- ' '-<'' -' - :' , ;
2. Sympathy. All men are fellow-sufferers, -and svmpatiiy;
it is well to acknowledge this community in a heri*-
tage of woe. The admission that compassion and
love are virtues to be cultivated, is the best feature
in the Pessimist teaching; but instead of sympathy
being based upon brotherhood in a divine family^ ,
it is here merely commiseration with those who
are doomed to the same misfortunes with ourselves.
3. Asceticism. The denial of the will to live will Asceticism.
most appropriately take this form. Let a man
refuse to be deluded by the craft of the unconscious
Will, let him voluntarily abstain from the deceitful
pleasures of this life, let him regard with indiffer-
ence those interests which appear to be his, but
which are in reality the interests of the species, let
him be upon his guard against the delusive " prin^ '
ciple of individuation,'' and he will do all that inJ^
him lies to defeat the machinations of the great
enemy, and to secure the diminution of the ills of
conscious and voluntary existence. The mysticsj
whose quietism is an abdication of the faculty of
willing; the ascetics, whether Oriental or Chris-"-
tian, who live apart from society, and indifferent
40
Modern Pesshnisvi'u
The
estimation
in which the
Pessimist
philosophers
hold the
Scriptures.
Their dislike
of the
general
teaching of
the Old
Testament.
to the pursuits and pleasures of mankind ; these
have chosen the better part. For true salvation
and release from life and its accompanying pain
are utterly impossible without the abnegation of
Will.
It is instructive to notice what is the attitude of
the Pessimists towards the revealed Word of God.
Schopenhauer makes a marked distinction between
the Scriptures of the Old Testament and those of
the New.
The Pessimists are severe, and even bitter, in
their condemnation of what they regard as the
Optimistic teaching and spirit of the Old Testa-
ment. Their resentment is roused by the account
given in Genesis of the Creation, in which all
things are pronounced to be *' very good." The
bright and cheerful view of human life, taken by
the ancient Hebrews generally, is repugnant to the
tastes and principles of the Pessimists ; but certain
passages, as for instance some of the mournful con-
clusions of the writer of Ecclesiastes, are more to
tbeir mind than the rest. The one Old Testament
doctrine with which Schopenhauer is in full
sympathy is that of the fall of man.
The Christianity of the New Testament, on the
other hand, is commended, as according with the
ethical spirit of Brahmanism and Buddhism! "In
the New Testament . . . the world is represented
as a vale of tears, life is a means of purifying the
Modern Pessimism. 41
soul, and an instrument of martyrdom is the symbol
of Christendom."
Of Redemption^ as propounded in the Christian Their
Scriptures, Pessimism takes no notice. So far as the Ne^
^ . . Testament
Christ renounced the will to live, Schopenhauer is based
' t r ... * - upon a mis-
approves His choice and His example. So far as conception,
the Christian takes up his Master's cross, i.e., lives
a life and dies a death of self-mortification, the
Pessimist commends his conduct. But this morti-
fication is, in his view, a mere ahjuring of life's
pleasures ; and Christ^s work he regards not as a
rescuing of men from sin and destruction, hut as
an example of the renunciation of the will to live.
The Christian rejoices in salvation, the Pessimist
only hopes for annihilation.) In the Pessimist's Christianity
. ... would
view Christianity represents the will to live as JroS^^i^"
personified in Adam, with whom we sin ; and that wou?d"^*
unwillingness to live, which is the only method of fr^om the ^
relief, as personified in Christ. But to the Chris- conscious
. . . . . being.
tian his religion represents the Saviour as living and
dying for man's deliverance from sin, and its curse
and power. Life is indeed admitted to ahound in
suffering, hut the inspired writers exhibit pain and
weakness, sorrow and trouble, temptation and per-
plexity, as the appointed means of spiritual disci-
pline, of progress in a God- ward course. The
Pessimist views life's ills not so much as means by
which we may, by God's grace, cease from sin, as
means by which we may cease to live, and cease to
42 Modern Pessimism.
suffer. The Christian doctrine of salvation by
faith, and not by works, is oddly distorted by
Schopenhauer. In works he sees the expression
of the will which he hates ; but for him fait/i is
in knowledge, and intellectual contemplation brings
Opposition man some small relief from woe! Christianity
between
Pessunism holds out a prospcct of improvement in the state
tianity. q humau socioty, and of a moral perfection to be
attained in the eternal Hereafter. In Schopen-
hauer's judgment, all that man can do to ameli-
orate his condition is to turn away from life and
its pains, and seek, like the Hindu who longs
for absorption into Brahma, like the Buddhist
who aspires to Nirvana, to be restored to that,
nothingness which alone is painlessness and peace.
The No wonder that the great Pessimist preferred
Pessimist's , , . . . .
prefcrcneeof Catholicism to Protcstautism I for its asceticism,
Catholicism
teste^ism. monasticism, and mortification, were, in his view,
wise exercises of the Will in the denial of life.
It will assist the reader to realize the extra-
ordinary and extravagant beliefs of the Pessimists
if we collect and lay before him a few of the obser-
vations and reflections which human life has sug-
gested to Schopenhauer. Some of them are shocking
to the moral sensibility, and some of them approach
blasphemy. But it is well that it should be under-
stood what are the sentiments of a school credited
by many in our day and in our civilized and Chris-
tian society with profound and practical wisdom.
Modom Pessimism. 43
Here are some statements regarding our existence
generally :
"The end of human existence is suffering." "The life of man
is a struggle for existence, with the certainty of being con-
quered j "." a voyage in which there is before every mariner
the sure prospect of shipwreck." "It is the superior know- The
lodge of man which renders his life more rich in suffering than paradoxes of
tliat of the animals." "When we consider the suffering on
this planet, we see that the moon, where is no life, is preferable
to the earth." "Accustom yourself to consider this world as a
penal colony." ^**The world, and consequently man, are such
that they ought Siot to exist. A man should^ot address his
neighbour as Sir! but as My fellow-sufferer ! 't| " Consideiring
life under the aspect of its objective worth, it is at least
doubtful whether it is preferable to nothingness, and I would
even say that, if experience and reflection could make them-
selves heard, it is in favour of nothingness that they would
raise their voice." "The life of man oscillates, Hke a pendulum,
between suffering and weariness." -i.--
Sucli being represented as the real condition of TheiUusiona
humanity, how is it accounted for that men are so crafty
/ . Nature
little alive to their wretchedness ? Hero is the deceives
men.
answer :
" Few men come to penetrate by reflection, the illusion
of the principle of individuation. . . . Our will needs to be
broken by a great suffering: before it comes to renounce itself ; "
i.e., man has to be taught, by bitter experience,
that life yields no personal happiness, that nature
is careless regarding the individual, and seeks only
to secure her own blind ends.
Love and marriage are regarded with aversion, \
as the crafty means whereby the IJnconscious (as \
Hartniann expresses it) perpetuates the race, and \
so perpetuates human misery.
44 Modern Pessimism,
The "Sextial love is the will to live, i.e., in the species. The
Pessimistic importance of love cannot be exaggerated ; it is the perpetua-
marriage. tion of the race which is its aim." ** Marriages of love are
concluded in the interests of the species, not for the profit of
the individual."
A}\ this wretchedness is the work of hard, un-
feeling Fate.
The irony " It seems as if Fate had wished to add derision to despair,
filling our life with all the misfortunes of tragedy, and denying
to us the dignity of tragic persons. Far from that, we
inevitably play the sorry part of the comic."
Hostility to religion is, as a matter of course,
characteristic of the whole system.
- '
The hostility " The misery which fills the world protests aloud against the
sii^sm to hypothesis of a perfect work, due to a Being absolutely wise
religion. and good, and also almighty." ** If a God has made this
world, I should not like to be that God ; the misery of the
world would break my heart." ** Religions are the daughters
of ignorance, and cannot long survive their mother." "Every
positive religion usurps the throne which belongs to philosophy.
Thus philosophers will always be at enmity with religion. " ^
Among the extravagancies to which Pessimism
has given rise may be mentioned such thorough-
going cynicism and despair as those of Eahnsen,
who believes that annihilation is impossible, that
it is in vain to hope for any cessation of sorrow, in
Specimens of fact that misorv is inevitable and eternal ! With
Pessimist '
ganS" ^^^^ ^^y ^ classed such melancholy absurdities as
that of the Eussian Pessimist poet, Tolstoi, who
expressed his deep regret that the arts of writing
1 Some of the above quotations are taken from Bourdcau,
PertsJes, etc.
Modem Pessimisvi. 45
and of printing had been invented, and that, in
consequence, it was not possible for his own writings
to be destroyed, and so to cease from influencing
the minds of his fellow-men.
VI.
The Unheasonableisess of Pessimism as a
Philosophy.
y^' Pessimism is to hp. rftjecfftd, in t he first place,.
Mcause its metaphysical foundations are utterl y
irrational. T b/^ pygfPTn rpgfg npnn q liqgi'a nf
nvowpd TTnrfi^finn ^-iipnn ^1ip pngfulafA fT^of hllTlfl. The phUo-
; ] . . . sophical
unconscious "Will is t h^ primPj ^ll-^^ntr^^lb'ng powp^ bases of
^ the Universe. The aim of many mfin nf Science ?7ational.
as shall credibly account for all things without
affirming, without requiring, the admission that
there is a Divine Creator of all that exists, whose
government is one of reason. They desire to
evolve the reasonable out of irrationality. That itevoive3
there is purpose in the Universe, the most ordinary able from
I intelligence must recognize as evident. There is
1 mathematical law, there are mechanical forces,
there are vital powers, above all, there is the
nature of man, marvellous for intellectual, and
still more for moral and spiritual, capacity and
faculty. What explanation is to be given of these
tokens of design, of these apparent evidences of
46
Modern Pessimism.
Man's mind
naturally
looks for
ideas, laws,
causes, to
account for
phenomena.
mind, planning, governing, co-ordinating all things?
It may be answered : Our minds are not capable
of constructing the theory that seems to, be re-
quired. We must coijtent ourselves with the
knowledge of phenomena. This reply is, of
course, that of philosophical scepticism. It is
to be observed, however, that those who profess
to adopt this theory do not consistently carry it
out, but constantly introduce ideas, laws, powers,
whenever it suits their purpose to do so, in
order to satisfy the natural desire for explanation
and for unity. /' And there is no likelihood and no
possibility of thinking men being content with a
mere knowledge of phenomena; they will ever
., obey the intellectual depaand for a knowledge of
'" * laws, causes, purposes, intellectual and moral aim^
. Heuce it is that theories have been devised
.^^^hich aim at satisfying the natural tendencies of
men to theorize, and to construct satisfactory ex-
planations of phenomena, without having recourse
to what is sometimes called the. hypothesis of a
personal, rational, eternal, designing Creator and
Lord. Pessimism has been described as offering
a " metaphysic of materialism," as propounding a
principle which may serve as a philosophical
justification for atheism. We are told that it is
far more reasonable to postulate an impersonal,
unconscious Force named Will as the essence
and cause of all material things and of all
Attempts to
satisfy this
intellectual
longing
without
admitting
a Personal
Creator and
Ruler.
Modern Fesshnism. 47
living and all rational beings, than to believe
in God. Now, it is difficult to understand
what can possibly be meant by Purpose, unless a
Being capable of foresight and of design be pre^
sumed, in whom purpose can reside, and operate, BeUefin
. ^ ^ . ' ^ God is philo-
and by whom it can be carried into actuality. A sopMcaUy
more
reasonable
greater absurdity than unconscious Will was never San^beUef
in tli(
Unco
WiU.
fashioned, in the brain of an enthusiast. If we unconscious
are told that by will we are to understand power,
TVe ask, Whose power? or. The power of what
Being, or Substance, or Cause ? If an omnipotent ".,
will and an omniscient intelligence are included in
the Unconscious, and if this Unconscious has ac-
cordingly created the mental and material universe,
what can the Unconscious be, except another
and misleading name for God, who so far from
being unconscious is Himself Infinite Intuition
and Infinite Reason ? A more retrogressive and
incredible doctrine than that of the Pessimists has
never been devised, a doctrine so paradoxical as
to set blind, unconscious Porce above Beflection,
Intelligence, and Reason !
2. Another ohjoction to the fonn dflfinps nf Ppa. The
' . Psychology
simism is suggested by the unreasonableness of its andPsy-
. . .-^ _^,_, -r-^ chosenyof
psychology. If the blind' Will, or the "Dnconscio us. arJgSty.
hp. thf^ ahsolnff^ e xistence, how can we account f or V.
the emergpup.p of Donso.imisT^ess ? Rpligion has a
very simple and sublime, and, to our minds, a
very satisfactory answer to the inquiry as to the
48
Modern Pessimism
origin of tlie human soul : " God made mau in
His own image," "The inspiration of the Al-
mighty giveth him understanding." But what
does Pessimism say on this matter ? According
to Schopenhauer, the Will, moved by its blind
and unconscious desire to live, at length reaches
consciousness of itself in the human brain ; but
there also it loses all the illusions which had
sustained, or rather bewildered it. The Will
discovers, when in man it reaches the elevation
of consciousness, that all reality is vain, that life
The
failure of
Pessimism
to account
for Con-
sciousness.
is painful, that annihilation would be preferable.
The height of perfection is the negation of the
will to live. And, according to Hartmann, Con-
sciousness arises through the shock which the
Will experiences upon the rebellion of the Idea
against the authority of its lord and master :
when Eepresentation penetrates into the Uncon-
scious, then Consciousness springs into being.
Who can be convinced that this is a just
account of the origin of the mind of man, of the
faculties which observe and reason upon the facts
of Nature ? The passage from unconsciousness to
consciousness is a passage which cannot be thought.
One mechanical force is changed into another
without break of continuity, for all such forces
are naturally correlated. But the chasm between
mechanical force and mind is a chasm which
cannot be bridged.
Modern Pessimism, 49
3. We deny tlie assumption made by Scliopen - Thoaccpuut
hauer reffardinej tlie chara cter of volition. Ac- andefforfc
^ ; 2 2 1 ; 1 '^'^ ^ ^ given by
cording to the Pessimist, Will, effort, is in itself pg^gsimistsis
"evil, and is productive only of Tnisery . Because "^^^^'^'^^^^o*
said to be destined to wrfi tfrhf^dT^P^*^ Pleasure is
j2assive. as is sensation, or the aestbetic percep-
tion. To desire, to strive after, to toil for, any
supposed satisfaction, this is depicted as of
Now, this doctrine Is not likely to meet with
much acceptance from healthy, energetic natures,
nor indeed from any who consider the high value
of resolution and strenuous effort. A^ sound p hi-
Josophy of human nature regards will, endeavour,
vpersistent striving after a worthy obje ct, as_ tho
truest and noblest discipline of humanity. It
is not just to account Will to be the master, Endeavour,
in subjection
and Eeason the servant : on the contrary Eeason to reason,
' ' IS the glory-
prescribes both the ends and the means of na?urT.^^
life, and the Will is entrusted with the office of
carrying out the purposes conceived, approved,
and adopted. And the pursuit of reasonable and
righteous ends is the best of all employments.
Endeavour is the indispensable condition of our
highest life, our most precious knowledge and ex-
perience, and, so far from being the chief cause
of human misery, is the chief cause of the greater
Modern Fssi7)iism.
part of our cheerfulness, contentment, and even
happiness.
4. A very obvious objection to the Pessimist ic
re medy for the evils of ex istence, has often been
urged. . Granting the possibility of a conspir acy
among men to put an end to human consciousness,
granting that the measures taken may prove
effectual, what guarantee is there that the whole
tragedy will not be repeated ? Is the crafty un-
conscious Will to be checkmated bv the short-
sighted wisdom of those in whom it has become
objectified ? Surely the same force, which in some
way has given birth to consciousness, may well
refuse to be defeated in its design by the machina-
tions of its own offspring ! The prospect of a final
escape from life and all its attendant and inevitable
miseries, is a prospect which the Pessimist cannot
reasonably expect to realize. IsTature will prove
too strong for man.
yii.
The Error and Unfairness of the Pessimist's
Eepresentation of Life. The True
Solution OF the Problem.
Looking at the great question before us, not
now in the philosophical light in which it has just
been considered but in the light afforded by the
daily experience of practical men, we do not hesi-
Modern Pessimism. 51
tate to say that the representation of human life The injustice
... * . , of the
given by the Pessimists is altogether unjust. It is ^fg;;;'^^'^
their unfair custom to quote as the deliberate ii^u^^ajiiife.
judgment of great and wise men, passages from
their works, which in some cases evidently ex-
pressed a passing or occasional feeling of dissatis-
faction or despondency. But a difference is to
be observed between the hasty or passionate
utterances of men in certain moods, sincere
enough at the time, and deliberate judgments
gathering up lifeloug experience.
Thus, passages like the following, however
touching in themselves, and however effective in
quotation, are scarcely authorities for Pessimism.
Petrarch wrote : " Mille piacer non vagliono un Bitter
sayings are
tormento" (A thousand pleasures are no compen- J^^J^J*^
sation for a single agony). Yoltaire testified: ^^^od'sani
" Le bonlieur n'est qu'un reve, et la douleur est moments,
reelle. Il-y-a quatre-vingt ans que je I'eprouve *'
(Happiness is but a dream, and pain is real. For I
eighty years I have experienced this). Calderon
is quoted as having said : '* The greatest crime of
man is to have been born." Schopenhauer quotes,
as descriptive of the ills of human society, the
apophthegm : " Homo homini lupus " (Man is a
wolf to his fellow-man).
v/<Language such as this may be quoted in abun-
dance even from great and high-minded writers.
AndCfhere are few men who, when vexed with the
52 Modern Pessimism.
cares of life, perplexed by its problems, disappointed
in its projects, weary of its toils, have not now and
again given way to the temptati' i to think and
speak ill of this human existence./ A>ut let a just
The actual and impartial mind carefully consider the eni ov-
en] oyments * *' "^ ''
li^are'^^ ments, the comforts, the opportunities of healthful
JJSigh fts exercise of body and of mind which this life affords ;
ills
and let him then compare them with life's inevitable
evils, with sickness, suffering, distressing weariness,
privation, and disappointment ; and the result will
be a conviction that the good, in th6 majority
of cases, far outweighs the evil. l^This seems
established by the fact that those ?^ho complain
so bitterly of life are nevertheless usually most '
unwilling to part with it. They hold it dear, and
use every method to prolong it.\ It is indeed not
commonly from the afflicted that these complaints
arise ; they are very often the morbid utterances
of the discontent cherished by the favoured and
Life's evils prosperous. Many of the illusions which make
are often the . . ( i -!-
result of sin. human life, m the view oi the Pessimist, so
grievously evil, are simply the result of his own
sin. If men expect from life what it is not in-
tended to yield, if they desire everything to minister
at all cost to their own personal gratification, if
they regard the creature more than the Creator,
no wonder if they are rudely awakened from their
dream, and discover to their dismay that univenjal^^
enjoyment is not the great end of God*s universe. /
Modern Pessirmsm, 63
The philosophy of Pessimism may well he
helieved to have met with acceptance all the more,
hecause the generation to which it has appealed is
largel}/ a materialistic, money-getting, pleasure-
seeking generation. \ The royal author of the Book ^^^ ^^<^
of Ecclesiastes seems to have sought satisfaction in SS^worid
all carnal delights, in the exercise of power, in the S?ap- ^
enioyments of wealth, in the experience of material their
"* , ^ , , Hedonism
prosperity. And every reader of his instructive ^"J*?"
^ -' ' '' revxilsion
record of his thoughts and sentiments, must have Sk^sm.
had forced upon his mind the conclusion that his
Pessimistic tone of mind was chiefly owing to the
weariness of satiety to which he doomed himself
to the sinful endeavour to find satisfaction where
satisfaction ought never to have heen sought. This
view of life continued until he was at length
brought to the conclusion that the fear of God
and the keeping of His commandments are the
whole duty of man. The inclusion of this Book
in the Canon of Scripture seems intended to remind
men that this world cannot truly, fully, and for
ever, bless those who regard created things rather
than the Creator, the gifts rather than the Giver,
The process by which the wise man came to his
conclusion, " Yanity of vanities : all is vanity," is
a process which multitudes have repeated, and it
is not surprising that the result has been the same.
Men yield themselves to the fascinations of sense,
they become lovers of the world, they live for self,
54
Modern Pessimism.
If pleasure
were the
highest good,
then indeed
to many life
would not be
worth living.
for pleasure, wealth, and fame. And they wake
to find they have been chasing an ignis fatuus, that
they have been speeding towards a mirage of the
desert never to be reached. And their disappoint-
ment lands them in despair, and the wail of hollow
hopeless misery evinces at once the emptiness of
the world and the retribution of a righteous God.
I If life is to be estimated simply by balancing
pains and pleasures, it may be a question whether,
in all cases, life is worth living. In the teeming
cities of China, as is well known, life is held very
cheap, and men are found willing, for a small sum
of money, to undergo a death penalty in the place
of a condemned criminal. There are even in
Europe countries where poverty is so burdensome,
and where the conditions of life are so hard, that
to live must be to suffer rather than to enjoy.
And there are those in all communities who, from
birth or by accident, are so crippled and disabled
that they have of necessity a lot of pain and of
infirmity, with few capacities for pleasure, and with
lictle prospect of the alleviation of afiliction. There
are also what are called unfortunate tenrjDeraments,
disposed to irritability or to melancholy. /
Now, human beings whose lot is so pitiable,
may well supposing them to be without the prin-
ciples and consolations of Heligion come to the
conclusion that life is a burden, that to exist is to
suffer, that it were better not to be. The only
Tlie lessons
of religion
alone can
suffice to
console the
unfortunate.
Modern Pessimism,
way in which to bring to them true relief of mind,
patience, fortitude, and hope, is to convince them
of the care of a superintending Providence, to lead
them by the path of faith into the rest of sub-
mission, and to inspire them with the hope that
as they are chastened, not for God*s pleasure, but
for their own profit, so the time shall come when
they will look back with gratitude upon the dis-
cipline appointed for them, and will recognize in
it the means by which they were taught lessons
inestimably precious, and made partakers of a
happiness unspeakably glorious.
The Pessimists represent all conscious life and Enjoyment
^ , , derivable
all active exertion as of necessity miserable. We ffomthe
^ right
ovr
faculties.
contend that this representation is unjust. It is exercise of
often said that in a state of health the mere con-
sciousness of existence is happiness. Without
going to such a length, we would ask the reader
to consider the several faculties of his nature, and
to put to himself the question, Is their exercise,
naturally and on the whole, in their normal con-
dition, pleasurable or otherwise? Our senses,
sight and hearing, for example ; are they not the
occasion of hourly enjoyment ? That we see
unpleasant sights, and hear discordant sounds, is
true, but it is undeniable that the active exercise
of the senses yields a preponderance of pleasure.
It will scarcely be contended that to become deaf
and blind would be an advantage, as rendering a
56 Modern Pessimism.
man insensible to tlie usually disagreeable sights
and sounds to which the possessor of these senses
IS necessarily exposed. We are created with
appetites and instincts ; can it be seriously main-
tained that these arc the occasions of more pain
rrovision than pleasure ? ' The same Power that has given
made for tho ^
iatisSSn ^^^^ craving has also provided for the legitimate
appetites Satisfaction of the craving. In varying degrees
fnstincts. these natural and primitive impulses of our nature
are evidently the means of almost constant enjoy-
our social meut. Our social affections, if duly regulated, are
affections r i-a i i t
sources of the sourccs of life-long pleasure. It is not denied
pleasure. *-" "
that here we are especially vulnerable. But love
and friendship, notwithstanding the assertions of
Pessimists to the contrary, are the wealth of our
humanity. And who will question that even the
wounded heart is not without compensations ?
**'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all."
The exercise \ The intellectual powers, again, in their just and
^'i*T?er?brfn<' temperate exercise, bring the purest delight. We
deUght. are told that he that increaseth knowledge in-
creaseth sorrow. True, yet the capacity for joy
is enlarged with the susceptibility to unhappiness
arising from doubt and a widened horizon of
sjTnpathy. In fact, whilst we admit that human
existence is a chequered -iscene, and that only the
superficial can pronounce life all pleasure, we
gtill maintain that the proper exercise of human
\
Modern Pessimism 57
powers brings satisfaction and happiness to the
thoughtful and virtuous man. The arrangements
of our life are decisive as to the benevolence of
the Creator.
But do we deny the existence of evils, of pain, Existing
disease, and privation ? of sorrow and disappoint- ^^""tted
ment ? of bereavement and anguish ? By no
means. The ills of human existence are real, and
in very many cases are such that, if life were to
be judged by a balancing of pains and pleasures,
it would not be worth living. But those who be-
lieve in God, as revealed -in the Scriptures, as
manifested in Christ, are not without some kind
of key to these phases of human experience. There The key
is no malevolence in the Divine government. On of^Jfg"^"^"
the contrary, the ills as well as the joys of life are
intended for the truest, highest good of men. Such
good is not necessarily and always secured by
trouble and sorrow. But in some measure it is so
secured in the case of the submissive and obedient
disciple of Christ, who learns to wear his Master's
yoke, to bear his Saviour's cross. It is his happy
conviction that whom He loveth God chasteneth,
that they who partake Christ's death shall share
His life, that if they suffer with Him they shall
also reign with Him.
[in fact, there is no possibility of understanding
the perplexities of the human lot except by the
perception of the two greatest facts in human
58 Modern Pessimism.
Sin and history, Sill and Redemption. / Sin accounts for
the greater part of human misery, which is not a
sign of Divine heartlessness or indifference, but of
the rule of a righteous moral Governor, who, in
the maintenance of His authority, and for the
highest good of His subjects, will not suffer sin
to be unpunished. All this the Pessimistic theory
overlooks.
The evil of And the Christian is assured that the evil of the
not Ti^-e- world is not irremediable. His belief in the re-
demption of man body and soul by the obedience
and sacrifice of the Incarnate Son of God, itself
saves him from Pessimism. The mediatorial work
of Christ changes the curse into a blessing. If sin
abounds, grace much more abounds. The power
of the Saviour's love, the efficacy of the Holy
Spirit's operations are such that in their presence
no evil is invincible, despair gives way to hope,
and earth's darkest shades are pierced and irra-
diated by the beams of a heavenly day.
Modern Pcssimi^^^ ^ -^^ .-xjT
0^^ Lisft^
t .? THE y^
y^-^ ' V ERSITY
VIII.
The Practical Evils connected with Pessi-
mism. A Comparison between Pessimism
AND Christianity.
It will bo well now to glance at the consequences
which might be expected to follow the prevalence
of each of the alternative systems : Pessimism and
Christianity.
A very natural result of the adoption of Pessi- The pre-
^ ' valence of
mistic views must needs be the general prevalence ^oJiJ^ci f
of depression and of discontent. Pessimism is ^^^<^<'"*^^*-
worse than some other forms of error, inasmuch
as it not only undervalues the enjoyments of the
present, but takes from its disciple all hope either
of an improved condition of human society in this
world, or of a blessed immortality hereafter. What
motive is left to labour for human welfare, when
human welfare is believed to be an impossibility ?
Who can bear the inevitable ills of human life,
when unsupported by any prospect of alleviation,
any expectation of future happiness ? f To be other
than depressed, melancholy, and discontented, would
in a Pessimist be unreasonable and inconsistent.
What would be the consequence of the general
acceptance of such views as those described?
Fancy a society, a nation, a world of Pessimists !
It would become a society, a nation, a world of
60 Modem Pessimism.
madmen! And individuals adopting such prin-
ciples could not fail to be a source of wretchedness
in any community. ^
ressimism The " strength-iuspiriug aid " of hope is no in-
Jf'hTe'*^ considerable factor in human society. This has
been well expressed by^^ Qolerid ge in the familiar
lines :~
; Work, without hope, draws nectar in a sieve ; }
I And hope without an object cannot live." j
A community of persons deprived of all expecta-
tion of individual happiness and social progress
must be utterly paralyzed for all honest toil, all
heroic self-devotion, all patient endurance. And
if expectations are cherished, only to prove illusions,
and to mock the misery of the disappointed, the
case must be, if possible, even worse; by how
much a cynical despair exceeds in wretchedness a
settled stolid gloom.
It would As to the morality which would accompany the
^ce. "^ popular acceptance of the Pessimistic theory, we
may safely say that that theory supplies but few
restraints from vice and crime, and but few motives
to virtue. Asceticism might be the result in some
few cases, but experience of human nature leads
to the belief that the denial of God and the culti-
vation of hopelessness would more frequently issue
in self-seeking and sensuality.
Compare the influence of the two systems re-
spectively upon the conduct of human life. Men
Modem Pessimism. 61
by their constitution and their circumstances are,
generally speaking, required to work and to 8uffet\
That these are two great provinces of moral dis-
cipline can scarcely be questioned. The propor-
tion of those who are exempt from toil and from
"trials," and who, as life-long favourites of fortune,
are largely occupied in enjoyment, is too small to
be taken into account. Take human life at the tho
inliuence of
average, and Christian and Pessimist will agree f^^^gjj^^
that it is chiefly occupied with bodily or mental Smaa"^''''
toil, varied with frequent experiences of weakness, ufe'Sfm-^
pain, sorrow, and disappointment. It is a fair test
of the two theories of life, to consider which of
them is the more fitted to assist men in the dis-
charge of necessary duty, and in the endurance of
inevitable trouble.
Why should the Pessimist work with cheerfulness, Man must
'' . / work ; but
diligence, and perseverance ? The effort which is *^^f^^g
necessary is, in his apprehension, itself an evil. S2)tii?to''^
The ends to be attained by labour are for him the n^ to eu-
mere illusion created for its unconscious purposes affliction,
by an unconscious force, having no excellence, and
affording no satisfaction. In labour, he feels
himself the wretched and passive instrument of a
power which he hates. Nor is there any prospect
of future results which can inspire the worker with
a bright anticipation. He is satisfied that no real
good can result from human effort. Human nature
is essentially bad and unimprovable. Human life
(52 Modern Peeswiism.
is evil, and the alleviations are few and slight.
Human history has no future to bo contemplated
with satisfaction, save the prospect of its own
eternal annihilation. Why should the Pessimist
consent to work for himself or for others ?
On the other On the othcr hand, let it be considered what
hand, Chiis-
lianity motivcs tlio plainest and the least fortunate of
places wovs *
highest Christians has to fulnl vrhat he believes to bo his
furnishesThi appointed task, to pass through what to him is
the highest an ordaiucd probation and discipline. Ills active
nature he regards, not as a curse, but as a bless-
ing ; iu its exercise he fulfils the true functions of
his nature, realizes his ideal of human excellence,
acquires those virtues which are the crown and
glory of his being. To him, daily work is not the
enforced service of a cruel serfdom, the tribute
wrung from him by the violence of a ruthless
tyrant. It is rather the opportunity of showing
his fidelity and gratitude to a benevolent Euler, an
honoured and beloved Father. What he does, he
aims at doing " as unto the Lord, not to men."
Eemembering his Master*s words : " My meat and
my drink is to do the will of my Father iu heaven/'
. he makes it his daily business to tread in that
Master's steps, and to please and glorify his God.
Christianity 13^|J it {g ^q^ to be lost sight of, that the Christian
is not exempt from the afflictions which befall men
generally. It is instructive to observe, however,
that these afflictions are, in his view, neither un-
impart
fortitude and
hope to
li:3 suiferer.
Modern Pessimisvi. 63
mitigated evil nor unrelieved by a prospect of their
serving as means to highest good. They are be-
lieved and they are found, in common with all
experiences providentially appointed, to " work to-
gether for good to them that love God ; " and they
are also believed to work out for such " a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
A comparison such as this furnishes us with the
best reasons as practical beings for congratu-
lating ourselves upon being Christians rather than
Pessimists. Strenprth to work and strength to ncasonand
^ ^ experience
suffer, doubtless depend, to no small extent, upon approvhi
the convictions which, as intelligent persons, we aiSIn^^^''
cherish with regard to our present position and our pcssimisiu.''
future prospects. Pessimism is not only unwar-
ranted by reason ; it is condemned by experience
as an unpractical and unworkable system. A
community of Christians who lived up to their
Christianity, would be heaven ; a community of
Pessimists who lived down to their Pessimism,
would be hell.
Let Pessimism triumph, and become the TheawM
* prospect,
Philosophy, the Eeligion, of the future; and p^^^^n^i,;-,
what will the future witness? The brightest ^^^^^
prospect which opens up is a prospect of uni-
versal destruction, annihilation, the cessation of
consciousness ; and that can scarcely bo called in
any sense a prospect, which is the prevalence of
unconsciousness, of infinite, eternal night.
64 Modern Pessimism.
The glorious L et ChrJstiam'iy hft Yi' fi^or ious. and re alize IQO
conse- -' '' ^ \ "^ \ ; '
thivicto? purp oses and the predictions of its Divine Founde^ -,
tiLSty^ a nd how utterly opp osite, how unsp eakabl y mor e
"Tlessed and glorious, the fu t ure of humanity 1
Vhp.n nil -mpn flTpTrlrn.wn nntii-XlhrlRt by the
attractive power of His Cross, and by the gracious
constraint of the Comforter whom He has sent;
when the one new humanity is constituted and
is complete in Him ; when the reign of righteous-
ness is established, and the law of love is supreme ;
then shall the spiritual Kingdom ol the Eternal
have come, and then shall the Will of the Holy
Father- not the blind, unconscious, imaginary
force which the Pessimists have fashioned into
an idol, before which they have fallen down and
worshipped, then shall the Will of the Holy
j?A.TaEit be done on Earth as in Heaven!
'-^
-^4 Present Day Tracts, No. 34. \-^
UTILITARIANISM :
AN
llldgital aitb |m%iMs Clje^rg ai Slflxals.
BY THB
EEV. J. RADFORD THOMSOlSr, M.A.,
attthor op
"The Witness of Man's Mo ral Nature to Cheistianity ; *
"Modern Pessimism," Eia
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY:
S6 PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 65 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD,
^xgnm^xii of the TrncU
While Christianity regards man as a spiritual being, amenable
to a Divine law, Physical Ethics consider him as an organism
susceptible of pleasure and pain, and governed in conduct by
this susceptibility.
Utilitarianism is defined as the system of Morals which
teaches that Pleasure is the chief good, and the standard of
right, but that the pleasures of others than the agent are to be
sought. The ethical theories of Bentham, Mill, Sidgwick, and
Herbert Spencer are explained. The prevalence and influence
of Utilitarianism are shown and accounted for.
The first principle of this system, viz., that Pleasure is the
standard of right, is contested. Pleasure is shown to have no
fclaim to such a position, either when sought by the individual
Ifor himself, or when sought by the individual for society. The
fimpossibility is made manifest of applying the test of pleasure
and pain as consequences following upon action. The dangerous
results which would ensue upon the adoption of the Utilitarian
standard are exhibited. The relations between virtuous conduct
and happiness are considered. It is shown that Utilitarianism
gives no account of the moral imperative, of duty and con-
science. What is termed Christian Utilitarianism is considered,
and its inconsistency is made apparent. Right is shown to be
discoverable by considering human nature in its completeness,
by examining the moral order discernible in the Universe,
by pondering the character of the Divine Ruler.
The superiority of Christianity over Utilitarianism is then
a conclusion exhibited in detail.
UTILITARIANISM:
AN
ill09ti:al mxb IxulmoxxB Shears oi iRords*
Introductory.
[heke is no question of the present day The need of
11-1 111.1 * reasonable
more deDated among tnougntful men, foundation
or more vital to the prospects of human conduct,
society, than the question as to tho
foundation of right and duty. If to this opinion
it he objected that men are generally agreed
that certain actions are good and praiseworthy,
and that others are evil and blamable, and that,
this being the case, we need not trouble ourselves
about " the why and the wherefore," the reply is,
that to all who think, and sooner or later to all
men, it must greatly matter what is the nature of
the ground upon which obligation is believed to
rest. A well-built house needs a sound foundation.
Men will not always act, certainly in the times at
hand they will not act, simply from habit, from
tradition, from authority. Our times are times in
which men ask a reason for everything, and in
which they will not be content without a reason,
Utilitarianism,
To neglect
the prin-
ciples
underlying
morality-
would be
fatal to the
best hopes of
the future of
humanity.
There are
mainly two
opposed
theories of
man's
moral life.
It is not to be expected that disagreeable duties
will be readily performed, that a laborious and
self-denying life will be cheerfully led, by men
who do not understand why they should not
abandon themselves to self-indulgence. = Virtue
must have its grounds, its sanctions, whether
political, philosophical, or religious, or all com-
bined. Society will fall to pieces unless there are
bonds strong enough to bind it together. If in-
dividual impulse and the desire for individual
gratification become the principle of human action,
men will return to the condition of the brute-
beasts that roam through desert steppes or savage
jungles. There are passions and notions and even
principles abroad which, if unchecked, will lead
to anarchy and to animalism. There would be no
surer way of bringing these horrible evils upon
mankind, than to cultivate indiiference with regard
to the principles of morality. It may be taken
for granted that, if Christians do not inculcate and
defend sound principles, there are those in abun-
dance the worst enemies of human society who
will take advantage of every opportunity to diffuse
doctrines debasing and disastrous in their effects.
There are now taken throughout civilised society,
two contrasted and opposed views of human
nature, human conduct, human life, and human
prospects.
(^ On the one hand is the distinctively Christian view,
Utilitarianism,
that man is the offspring of the eternal God, made ri'garKSi
originally in the Divine image, and consequently spiritual
sharing in some measure the Divine Reason, and capable of
capable of apprehending and approving the Divine God, and of
Righteousness. If this is so, then, although man ^jt^t^uL
has a body, which is the link that connects him ^^^'
with the realm of matter, man is a spirit. Related
to the eternal order, man is endowed with a moral
nature, and is called to a moral life. The con-
ditions of his earthly existence, and the fact of his
sinfulness, no doubt interfere with his perfect vision
of God, and his perfect sympathy with Divine
law. Yet he is susceptible of teaching both by
Nature and by Revelation, and he is capable of
being affected by those spiritual influences which
are as real as physical forces. He can recognise
moral authority ; he can decline the imperious sum-
mons of the body, and the more imperious summons
of society ; he can consent to the demand of
Conscience, he can obey the behest of Law, he can
do the will of God.
Those who take the spiritual view of human Difference
among
nature and morality differ, no doubt, among them- J^^g^^X.
selves. But all agree that man is spiritual, that questions of
the voice of Duty speaks from above, that Right nSterfero
is to be sought in what is higher and more reverence in
common for
authoritative than feeling, whether the sensations gj.^* ^^'^
of the body or the emotions of the soul.
There is however another view of morality
Utilitarianism*
The otlier
theory
regards man
as a superior
oigaiiism,
with a wider
range of
function
and of
Bensitive-
ness.
This
physical
theory of
Ethics
naturally
regards
pleasure
and pain as
the true
criteria of
conduct.
widely different from that now explained, and a
view which has unhappily been adopted during the
present century even by many whose sympathies
are with the cause of virtue, so far as virtue subsists
between man and man. The progress of physical
science, and especially of physiology, the wide-
spread acceptance of the modern theory of De-
velopment or Evolution, have concurred to prepare
the way for a so-called scientific theory of morals in
complete opposition to the rational and religious
theory above set forth. The starting-point of this
opposing theory of ethics is to be discerned in the
very common belief that man is an organism, and
nothing but an organism, that he is simply the
most highly developed of the animals which inhabit
this globe, whose highly organised brain and
nervous system have taken on Avider and finer
functions than those discharged by the inferior
creatures from which he is diiferentiated. Upon
this theory mind is feeling, more or less com-
plicated. The theory in question does not pretend
to do away with the mystery of Consciousness ; it
maintains the perfect distinction between the
physical nervous shock and its psychical symbol in
consciousness. But it regards all that is mental as
the outgrowth of what is bodily. According to the
Philosophy of feeling, pleasure and pain are the
accompaniment of proper function, and accordingly
the guide-posts pointing to proper conduct. By do-
utilitarianism.
ing what is pleasurable and avoiding what is painful,
men will thus secure their own well-being, and pro-
mote the development of the race, both physically
and socially. There is, according to this doctrine, no
other law and no other motive for human conduct
than the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of
pain. As will be shown presently, there are in-
troduced by ethical philosophers various consider-
ations qualifying the crude dicttcfUy that what gives
pleasure is therefore right. Still it will not be
denied that the advocates of physical ethics,
whether Epicureans, Utilitarians, or Evolutionists,
are of one mind as to the criterion^ the law, the
motive, the sanction, of human conduct, depending
upon the experiences of pleasure and of pain alone.
The reader will now see clearly for what reasons Hence the
we invite his attention to the doctrine of Utili- S^examin-
tarianism. "We know that this doctrine is held refuting its
claims.
and propagated by sincere Theists, and even (it
must be admitted) by some Christians. But we
believe that it can be shown that its acceptance is
inconsistent with Theism and with Christianity,
and is antagonistic to that cause of independent
and disinterested morality which those who profess
Theism and Christianity should have at heart.
6
Utilitarianism,
utilitarian-
ism is a
variety of
Hedonism.
Hedonism
teing the
doctrine
that
Pleasure is
the standard
and test of
right action.
The Central Doctkine and the Definition op
Utilitarianism.
What is the chief and central doctrine of
Utilitarianism, tlie one characteristic by which
it is distinguished from other theories of morals,
that by which it is defined and described ? The
answer to this question is plain and unambiguous :
that course of action is right which issues in the
largest amount of pleasure, or the least a7nount of
pain, to all sentient beings who are affected hy the
action. It is evident that two propositions are
included in this definition: viz., 1. Pleasure is
the chief good, and Pain the chief evil; and 2.
the Pleasure and Pain to be considered are not
simply those of the agent, but of all concerned.
"Hedonism" is the term used to denote the
doctrine that pleasure is the standard and criterion
of moral good, of right action. There have been
and are, Hedonists who think that whatever gives
pleasure to the agent, ^.e., the most pleasure on
the whole, is therefore the right thing for him to
do. Such Hedonists are called Egoistic, because
the beginning and end of morality, according to
them, is the pleasure of the agent. The higher
and nobler Hedonists, however, take a very different
UtilifaHanism.
view. As the proper aim of conduct, according to utnitarfens
^ ^ , . holdthat
them, is the promotion of the happiness of the *^dp?ope?^
community generally, they are properly named, ^^man
Unwersalistic Hedonists. Hedonists of this type, promotion
who aim at the general diffusion of pleasure, are diffusion of
... . . Pleasure.
commonly designated Utilitarians. Pleasure is still
" the one thing needful," the one thing all-sufficient ;
hut the pleasure sought is that which is diffused
throughout society. This theory is thus far from
being selfish : it is in its very essence benevolent
With regard to the first of the two propositions
involved in the definition of Utilitarianism, mis-
understanding is scarcely possible. It affirms that
Pleasure is the summum bomcm, the hest thing in
the universe, that to seek pleasure and to shun
pain is the sum and suhstance of morality. Other
things may he desired, but they are all desirahle
for the sake of the pleasure they yield. But
Pleasure is an ultimate, self-sufficient end, is desired
and is desirahle for its own sake, and not for the
sake of anything else. There is no need to bring it is easy to
forward any reason why Pleasure should he thus that
PleasTire
sought. The reason is engraved deeply upon our swd be
own constitution J it is in the very nature of things S|?Jsr*^
that Pleasure should be the ultimate end and ^'^'
justification of action. This principle is held to be
intuitively apprehended.
With regard to the second of these propositions,
there is some opening for difference of opiuion as
10 Utilitarianism,
It is not very to its Gxact meaniiifir. For, whilst Utilitarianisni
easy to see , ,
th^rS^e^^ IS certain that an agent ought not to seek merely
ted bTt^hose ^^^^ ^^^ pleasure, it leaves it an open question how
uniVersaS^ wido shall bo tho range within which the quantity
nedonism. of pleasure following upon any action is to be
calculated. We are to act so as to give pleasure
to others, and then we shall certainly act aright ;
., but as to whom we are to please by our action,
Xl^^ith regard to this there may be room for discus-
sion. Those immediately connected with us are too
few, and offer a scope too limited. Yet to include
all sentient creatures that are, or may be, in distant
places and times,' in'Sirectly affected, seems, on the
other hand, to give too wide a range.
The Although the Hedonist regards Pleasure as above
utilitarian . . .
ay. all thinpis to be desired, and Pain as above all
consistently o '
suffeT'pIhi things to be dreaded and avoided, it must not be
of ViJlsure^ supposed that he is unwilling in all circumstances
beatt!u"ned to encountor pain, bodily and mental. Whether
an Egoist or an Altruist, he is bound to brave
suffering, when by doing so he can add to the total
stock of pleasure. \_The benevolent Utilitarian re-
cognizes that the plan of the world is such that
some must bear ills from which their nature shrinks,
in order that others may experience relief and joy.
To him Pleasure is so excellent, that in order to
increase its sum, he is willing to submit to the
often grievous conditions by which only the general
happiness can be secured and increased.
Trtilita'i ianisml 1 1
"What docs Utilitarianism claim to be? Its
pretensions are large and bold.
1. Its upholders assert that Utilitarianism is the utilitarians
. claim that
one true theory of Morals. It is well known that for they have
'^ '^ ^ ^ found the
more than two thousand years various theories have the'^^uStSn
been maintained for the scientific exposition and agYtScd^
establishment of the morally good, the right, in ceSuries;'^
human character and conduct. Apart from Eeve- have
reached tho
lation philosophers thought, speculated, and wrote, T^^th upon
upon these themes. And even since Christianity has ^tfrestT^
shed light of priceless, peerless value upon Morality,
discussions have still prevailed, even amongst those
who acknowledge the Divine origin and authority
of our Beligion, with regard to the foundations of
right and of duty. Some have regarded Reason as
the criterion of morality; some have sought the
supreme test of Eight in a " moral sense," others
have looked for the standard of duty to the Will
of God, as declared in Nature, and as more fully
revealed in Scripture. There are those who seek
the authoritative law of conduct in the organiza-
tion of man's nature, ^in the perfect exercise of
human powers, ^in the structure of Society, or in
the law of the State, or in that Universal Order
which is recognizable in the creation. But the
Hedonist seeks the solution of the vast question
in man's capacity for pleasure, and the Utilitarian
in that capacity for pleasure as possessed both by
the human race, and by all sentient beings.
12
Utilitarianism.
They claim
to have laid
a scientific
basis for the
legislation
of all States.
They claim
to apply an
intelligible
and
unfailing
rule to the
conduct of
individuals.
2. Utilitarianism further offers itself as the
ultimate principle of legislation. Tlie advocates of
the system rely for its general acceptance, in uo
slight measure, upon its supposed applicability to
questions of political and legislative interest. They
urge that no consideration is more potent with
law-makers than the consideration of Utility. Is
it not the aim of unselfish and public-spirited
legislators to seek the increase of the pleasures and
the diminution of the privations and miseries of
the community ? Statesmen and politicians have
been accustomed to test measures proposed for
their adoption by their agreement, or otherwise,
with the formula : ** Aim at the greatest happiness
of the greatest number."
3. The principle in question claims to be the one
all-sufficient practical rule of individual conduct. We
are told that the endeavour to apply other criteria
will frequently involve us in perplexities and diffi-
culties, and will lead to no definite and satisfactory
result ; but that nothing can be simpler than the
inquiry, What course of action will yield most
general pleasure? and that no moral law can be
more plain and unquestionable than that which is
yielded by translating the answer to that inquiry
into the imperative mood. It is not denied that
there are other more familiar and more *' handy"
rules of conduct, e.g.^ What is customary ? What
is the law of the land ? What is the dictate of
Utilitarianism, 13
Relirion ? Nay, it is admitted that there is such They
" '' consider
a quality as Virtue, that it is right to do virtuous {.^f^w^eTen^
acts, that a man may properly ask concerning any J^ll^^^
proposed conduct, Is this according to Virtue ? for^
But as the Utilitarian considers that Virtue is good
simply because its prevalence is a means to the
increase of Pleasure, which is the supreme end
of conduct, ^he does not look upon Virtue as con-
flicting with Utility, for the laws of Virtue are in
his view only the subordinate rules framed for the
purpose of promoting the pleasurable experiences
of mankind.
II.
The Historical Genesis of Utilitarianism.
[Like most systems of philosophy and morals, ^^Hg^J^f'
that now under consideration had its roots in An- JougM^nthl
cient Greece, where Aristippus and the Cyrenaics, of IncSnt^^
and Epicurus and his school, advocated pleasure thouprh'the
^ ^ . ^ growth
as the highest good. In modern times, Hobbes ^^J"^^-"^
and Locke revived the doctrine of Hedonism, and anVistii
Hume by his writings gave it a powerful philo- ^*^^^^'
sophic impulse. But we will come direct to those
names associated with our modern Utilitarianism,
and with contemporary controversy.
Utilitarianism, as a principle held and advocated
by a powerful school of ethical and political philo-
sophers, owes its origin to the writings of Jeremy
14
Utilitarianism.
BenthL Bentham. The first sentences of his work on The
Snodem' Principles of Morals and Legislation are so plain
utaxtanan- ^^^ outspoken that they may with advantage be
quoted verbatim:
Bentham's
undisguised
Hedonism.
He considers
Pleasure and
Pain not
only as
criteria of
ends to be
sought ; but
also as
means to be
employed
by Society.
** Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two
sovereign masters, 'pain and 'pleasure. It is for them alone to
point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what
we shall do. On the one hand, the standard of right and
wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened
to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in
all we think. . , , The principle of utility recognises this
subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system,
the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the
hands of reason and of law .... By the principle of utility
is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every
action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears
to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party
whose interest is in question .... An action then may
be said to be conformable to the principle of utility ....
when the tendency it has to augment the happiness of the
community is greater than any it has to diminish it."
According to Bentham, pleasure and pain are
not only of supreme importance as ends of human
action, i.e.y to be sought and shunned respectively ;
they are equally important to Society, and par-
ticularly to the Law, as means by which those ends
are to be secured. That is to say, the pleasure of
the community is to be promoted by the infliction
of suffering upon those individuals whose conduct
tends to diminish the sum of the general pleasure.
Although he expressly mentions physical, moral
or popular, and religious sanctions, Bentham lays
the greatest stress upon the political sanction, in-
Utititarianism. 15
asmuch as legislation is, in his view, the most im-
portant department of the science of human conduct.
In Bentham's view not only must conduct he Bentham
regards the
judged by its tendency to promote pleasure or pain. ^^^^^^
Pleasure is a good, and the only good; pain an evil, avoidance of
and the only evil. But these experiences, actual oniy moth^es
or prospective, act also as motives. The only
motives which can induce men to act are the hope
of securing pleasure or avoiding pain. Thus Ben-
tham is led into the paradox, that
** There is no such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a
bad one."
Even the pleasure of malice, envy, and cruelty
is good, and
"While it lasts, and before any bad consequences arrive, it is
as good as any other that is not more intense." (!)
And although Bentham does not directly attack He identifies
. . , ' the Divine
Religion, he resents every representation of the Jf^g^"^'^
Deity which does not identify the Divine will with l^^^fZ
the intention to promote universal happiness, i.e., ^^i^^^^^^-
the prevalence of pleasure. He complains that
few of the votaries of religion are believers in the
benevolence of God.
In our own time Utilitarianism has been re- Mr. j. s.
Mill's
commended to public favour by the advocacy of teaching is
^ ' 'an advance
Mr. J. S. Mill. The interest and charm of Mr. Seam's.
Mill's work on Utilitarianism do not lie merely in
its style and its illustrations, but still more in the
attempt to build a noble life upon a theorv^^^
^ V^ OK THK
f UNIVERSITT
16 Utilitarianism.
together insufficient to sustain it. His philosophy
was a philosophy of pleasure, of utility; yet in
two ways it differed from ordinary Epicureanism.
L It had regard to the welfare of the whole species
without exception ; and may justly be designated
n"ifiihes TJniversalistic Hedonism. This was one character-
pi?a?uresin istic ; there was a second : viz., that it did not,
quauty" and as lias too ofteu beou done, sink all distinctions
prefers . tot i t
higher to m the quality of pleasures, reducmg them to one
pleasures. common level. He differed from his master, Ben-
tham, in laying stress upon the qualities character-
istic of different kinds of pleasures, varying with
their sources and occasions.
It must not, however, be lest sight of that
Mr. Mill maintained Pleasure to be the one only
standard of right.
"The creed," he wrote, "which accepts as the foundation of
morals, Utility or the greatest happiness principle, holds that
actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness ;
wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By
happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain ; by
unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure." " Pleasure
and the freedom from pain are the only things desirable
as ends^"
Mr. Mill, like some others of the Epicurean
school, assigns a higher place to
" the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination,
and of the moral sentiments,"
than to the pleasures of sensation. But his
peculiarity is that he recognizes the former class
as of superior excellence by reason of their intrinsic
utilitarianism. 17
nature, and not merely because of tlieir greater To introduce
rrn . * principle
permanence, safety, and uncostlmess. The question qualifying
^ ^ J ' J- pleasure is
of course occurs, How is it to be decided whicli ^consistent
pleasure of two is the higher ? to which the answer goiig"^^'
is given, That one which is preferred by those who ^ ^^^^'
are equally aicquainted with, and equally capable
of appreciating and enjoying both. Mr. Mill
makes the very obvious mistake of supposing that
no one who knows a higher pleasure will choose a
lower. In this he judged men by the standard
of his own preferences. He was right in saying
"It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied, than a fool
satisfied ; "
but in saying this he virtually gave up the cardinal
principle of Utilitarianism. If pleasure is the
standard of good, a world of well-fed, mirthful
fools is a better world than one peopled by dis-
contented sages.
Bentham repudiated the term eudsomonism (from
evdaifjioyia^ happiness) as less suited to describe
his theory than hedonism (from v^ovrj, pleasure).
The former seemed to him to point to a too elevated
and refined theory of life. To Bentham, quantity
of pleasure was the main thing : in an oft-quoted
sentence he says :
"Given equal amounts of pleasure, pushpin is as good as
poetry."
And this is sound hedonism, which Mill's doc-
trine of difference in quality of pleasure is not.
18
Utilitarianism,
Sidgwick has well observed upon Mill's refined
doctrine :
" If of two pleasures the one that is * higher' or more ' re-
fined ' is at the same time less pleasant, the Hedonist must
consider it unreasonable to prefer it."
Mr.
Sidgwick
renounces
the dogma
that
Pleasure is
the only
thing
desirable.
Mr. Herbert
Spencer
dis-
tinguishes
between
absolute and
relative
ethics.
Mr. H. Sidgwick, in his Methods of Ethics, whilst
dealing with the several systems of morals in a
spirit of calm impartiality, still accepts the Utili-
tarian method as that which, in his opinion, has
fewer difficulties than the others, and is, upon the
whole, more satisfactory. It is, however, observ-
able that he frankly gives up the dogma that
Pleasure is the only desirable thing, whilst he
holds fast to the belief that Pleasure is the ultimate
standard of good.
The latest exposition of Utilitarianism that de-
mands notice is that presented by Mr. Herbert
Spencer, in his Data of Ethics. In the preface to
this work we are informed that the author's
''ultimate purpose, lying behind all proximate purposes, has
been that of finding for the principles of right and wrong in
conduct at large, a scientific basis."
To the establishment of satisfactory principles of
morals he deems all the preceding parts of his
task as subsidiary.
In accordance with his special theory, Mr. Spencer
considers
*'that Ethics has for its subject-matter that form which
universal conduct assumes during the last stages of its evolu
tion."
Utilitarianism, 19
As, however, these stages have not yet been gene-
rally reached, '* absolute ethics " have to be fore-
gone in favour of those "relative ethics" which
are adapted to the present state of society.
Now conduct is regarded as good or bad accord-
ing to its effect on " the complete living " of one's
self, one's family, and society. And
" life is good or bad, according as it does, or does not, bring a
surplus of agreeable feeling."^ "The good is universally the
pleasurable." -
Our ideas of the goodness and badness of forms Morality
n T . according to
01 conduct Mr. Spencer
must be
"really originate from our consciousness of the certainty or rv^^v*^v+^
probability that they will produce pleasures or pains some- Eyolution.
where." ^
Pleasure is the ultimate moral aim, and
"is as much a necessary form of moral intuition as space is a
necessary form of intellectual intuition."*
But Mr. Spencer objects to the ordinary induc-
tions of Utilitarians as crude and unscientific, and
thinks them
" but preparatory to the Utilitarianism which deduces principles
of conduct from the processes of life as carried on under es-
tablished conditious of existence."
The consideration of ultimate causal connections
will, he thinks, lead us to wider views of human
conduct. When moral phenomena are treated as
phenomena of evolution, it is seen that the conduct
1 Data of Ethics, p. 28, 2 jj^i^^ ^^ 3q^ a ^j^^ p, 32
* Rid. p. 46.
20 Utilitarianism.
is morally good wliicli furthers the higher develop-
ment of humanity, that is to say of human
society. Singular results are reached by this
method; e.g.y it is held that
** the performance of every function is, in a sense, a moral obli-
gation. " ^
Two things have to be considered : the connec-
tion between pleasure and normal development,
I and the influence of heredity. It is thus that
Y Morality arises and is improved. On the whole,
that conduct is good which is adapted to the main-
tenance and development of human society. The
end is the prevalence of pleasure, the means are to
be found in the connection between life-furthering
conduct and pleasure. So that whilst in reading
Mr Spencer Mr. Spencor's hpok, the student is sometimes
prefers tf- ^
ES|Ji?^li tempted to class the author with the " Perfectionists,"
Sm and^^" as seckiug the supreme good in the highest develop-
deduces laws , "iipi l i 'ii*
of conduct ment possible oi human nature and society, he is
consider- constraiuod by Mr. Spencer himself to assign to
ideal society, j^im i}^q designation of a Rational as distinguished
from an Empirical Utilitarian. Consistency there
is not in this philosophy: Mr. Spencer sets out
thl^ ^^^ ^ ^'^^ ^^ most sweeping assertions of the supremacy
S^itoufsm^ of pleasure; he ends with a picture of ideal society,
vith egoism. ^y]^gj,g altruism tempers egoism, and where most
of life's evils are averted, and sets this before men
j as the aim to which effort should be directed. The
1 Data oj Ethics^ p. 76.
Utilitarianism. 21
author of the Evolutional Philosophy leaves us in
a state of uncertainty as to whether pleasure or f
progress is the chief aim, the highest motive, of
human conduct.
It is not difficult to account for the popular it is not
acceptance with which the system under con- that
. ...... Utilitarian-
sideration has met. There is much in Utilitarianism i^m is
popular.
which is peculiarly suited to the temper of our
age. .1. Its apparent simplicity and compre- it has a
hensihility are in its favour. Whilst it requires simpUcity.
application and reflectiveness to comprehend
Aristotle's definition of well-heing, JoufProy's
doctrine of the universal order, or Mr. Green's
theory of perfection, every one is persuaded that,
as pleasure is so familiar a fact of experience, he
is ahle to apply such a test as the measure in
which human actions promote men's enjoyments
or miseries. 2. This system falls in with what it displays
'' sensitiveness
may he called the henevolently sentimental ten- to suffering,
dencies of the times. If the ancients erred in laying
almost exclusive stress upon the sterner virtues,
it must he admitted that in our times the softer
excellences of character are put too prominently
forward. Sensitiveness to suffering, especially to
the suffering of others, is doubtless a virtue ; but
there are many signs that this is carried to an
unwarrantable extreme. There are worse things
in the world even than pain and weakness. But
the pseudo-humanitarianism so prevalent in a
22 Utilitarianism.
somewhat luxurious and effeminate state of society,
is apt to look upon suffering as the one thing above
all to be avoided, and a diffusion of general enjoy-
ment as the one thing to be sought. And with
this temper it is obvious that Utilitarianism exactly
poin^l of harmonizes. 3. There is a superficial compatibility
wlth^Sr* with Christianity, which recommends the system
chSsti^ty. under consideration to many who would shrink
from an obviously un- Christian doctrine. Mr.
Mill has taken advantage of this fact. He
remarks :
** In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the com-
plete spirit of the ethics of Utility. To do as we would be
done by, and to love our neighbour as ourself, constitutes the
ideal perfection of Utilitarian morality."
The real connection between this system and
our religion will be considered presently ; we here
simply point out an apparent and superficial cor-
respondence which has assisted Utilitarianism into
It has public favour. 4. And yet again, it should be
convenience i i i i
as applied to noticcd that there is so much m "the greatest
legislation, ... . .
happiness principle " which agrees with the theory
and practice of our legislators, that in the view
of many minds Utilitarianism, having entered by
the open gate of Law, has taken full possession of
the very citadel of Morality.
Utilitarianism. 2S
III.
Against the system of Morals now sketched, it is an
^ error to
we first contend that SSureas
the highest
The Eadical Doctrine of Utilitarianism, viz., good.
THAT Pleasure is the " summum bonum,"
is erroneous.
1. Pleasure is not the natural, universal, and su- Amoral
' ' being shoulQ
preme end of the actions of a moral being. Pleasure X^^i^o^as
and Pain are facts in human experience of great Se.^^*^ '
interest and significance. They are accompani-
ments of function, normal and healthy, or abnormal
and unhealthy. But they are not, ordinarily, ends
to be sought. It is not pleasure which is desired,
I but the exercise of some power, the satisfaction of
some want. Pleasure is an inducement to eat ;
but hunger craves food, not the gratification of the
palate. Pleasure is an inducement to exercise, but
the impulse is towards the employment of the
muscular powers, not towards the ensuing pleasure.
Mr. Sidgwick, a powerful reasoner, himself in-
clining to Utilitarianism, has attacked the doctrine
that men are ever aiming at pleasure as the end
of their actions. He contends that another im-
pulse, the love of virtue for its own sake, comes
into conflict with the desire for pleasure.^
To make pleasure, even refined and religious
^ Methods of Ethics, p. 41.
24
UtilitaHanism.
There is no
satisfaction
in a life
which aims
at pleasure
as the chief
good.
pleasure, the end of all our aims, seems very un-
worthy of such a being as man. There is something
mean and ignoble, something degrading and to be
ashamed of, in such a principle of action, as the
supreme principle applying to all the many depart-
ments of human life. It is true that Utilitarians
do not require that we should always consciously
set this aim before us, that we should always con-
sciously pursue it. But they do require that, when
we reflect and analyse, we should recognize this as
the substantial element in moral excellence, as the
all-including and all-satisfying end of life. Now,
that which is ultimate and elemental should surely
be somethiog upon which we can reflect with satis-
faction, as meeting our most lofty aspirations, and
fulfilling our noblest ideals. Can as much bo
asserted for pleasure, of whatever grade ?
Utilitarianism debases the noblest virtues of
which rational and voluntary beings are capable,
to a position in which they are subordinate and
subservient to pleasure. If asked. Why should
men be, just towards their fellow-creatures ? Why
should they cultivate and practise purity of life
and of heart ? Why should they revere and con-
fide in a God of faithfulness and love ? the answer
which the Utilitarian gives is this : Because justice,
purity, and piety, are productive of personal and
of general pleasure, and because the practice of
these virtues will involve less suffering than their
Can we
cultivate
justice,
purity, and
piety, for
the sake of
the enjoy-
ment they
may yield?
Utilitarianism. 25
neglect or repudiation ! An answer this which
it must need great prepossession in favour of his
own theory, and great indifference to the realities
of the case, for a thinker to accept with acquies-
cence and satisfaction.
Yet the Utilitarian does not hesitate to avow The lengths
to which a
that what we call sin would not be sin, or at all utouSn
events what we call crime would not be crime, "^"^*so.
were it not productive of suffering.
** If it can be shown by observation," writes Professor Huxley,
" or experiment, that theft, murder, and adultery do not tend
to diminish the happiness of society, then, in the absence of
any but natural knowledge, they are not social immoralities."^
This is a doctrine which confuses an accident
with the essence of morality.
2. If Pleasure is not the proper end of individual Pleasure
lifey it cannot he that of the life of society. There ^^X^^^dof
are many who would be ashamed to avow that fndividuai,
their own pleasure is the one aim they seek by all unsuitable
. . . 1. Ji when
their actions, that personal enjoyment is the sought over
ultimate object of existence. Yet they think it a ^^^^ge-
praiseworthy principle to seek nothing higher than
the comfort and ease, the pleasure and enjoyment
of their fellow- creatures. But reflection must con-
vince us that an end, which is not satisfactory
upon a small scale, cannot lose its unsatisfactory
character when the scale is enlarged. If knowledge
is good for the community, it is good for the
1 Nineteenth Century. No. 3. May, 1877.
26 UtilitarianisTYi,
individual. The volume makes no difference in
morality. Pleasure is a good both for one and for
many ; but as it is not the supreme good for one,
it is not the supreme good for the nation or the
race.
As far as we 3. Pleasure cannot he deemed the Jiiqhest end con-
can trace tne ''
Govern- tcmplated by the government of God. All who believe
no't"find that in ^ Diviuo Ruler and Lord, who is the Eternal
its supreme Roason, must beliove that there is intention in the
end.
Universe. To decide what the ultimate aim of all
things really is, may be beyond our limited powers.
Still, facts are accessible to us ; we daily make our
observations upon the course of Providence, and
we draw our inferences. If Pleasure were the
highest good, we should surely see in the world
some evidences that this is the case. The Creator
designs that Pleasure should be largely diffused
among men ; still Pain is an unquestionable fact,
and its existence presents formidable obstacles in
the way of believing what a religious Utilitarian
must feel it a necessity to believe, viz., that God
desires for His creatures as their highest good the
largest possible amount of enjoyment. Indeed,
Mr. J. S. Mill was so impressed by the magnitude
of human suffering that he deemed it necessary,
in order to retain faith in the benevolence of God,
to renounce belief in His omnipotence.
It is apparent to the thoughtful observer that the
end contemplated by the Author of all being is a
Utilitarianism,
far higher end than conscious enjoyment. God holf^esfSnd
desires that His intelligent creatures should he happiness is
conformed to His own holy character; "man's ordinated;
/-N T -I 1 n 1 man there-
chief end is to glorify God; and to this all else, fore should
even religious pleasures, must be subordinated; {J^Itofand
albeit the highest kind and degree of pleasure f^^^^^,
will be experienced by all who fulfil the chief end
of their existence. They will "enjoy Him for
ever." Enjoyment of the highest kind comes to
the man who truly glorifies God. ^
lY.
The Impossibility of Applying the TJtili-
TARIAISr EULE OR TeST.
At the very outset we ask, What pleasures are to The
^ , . -^ , utilitarian
he calculated ? Are we to include in our reckoning the *est is one
<-' which can-
pleasures of intellectual exercise, of aesthetic appro- appuld.
ciation, which are enjoyed by comparatively few ?
On what ground can we exclude the pleasure of
gambling, which is evidently to many persons one
of the most intense of delights ; for otherwise they
would not sacrifice for its sake reputation, wealth,
domestic happiness, and other ffoods. On what y^.^^^^^t
nr ' o ^ decide what
ground can we exclude the pleasure of witnessing llH^^^ ***
a bull-fight in Spain, or a pugilistic encounter in
England ? To multitudes, such spectacles afford
the keenest enjoyment. On what ground are we y
to exclude the pleasures of malice, felt by many
28
Utilitarianism,
We are at a
loss whose
pleasures to
consider.
who delight in the failures, the losses, the suffer-
ings of their fellow-men ?
Whose pleasures are to he taken into account?
Are we to regard the happiness of our family, our
social circle ? or are we to take a more extended
view, and include our fellow-countrymen, those of
our own race, or even all mankind, i.e., so far as
they may he supposed to he slightly and remotely
affected hy our actions ? Are we to think of the
present generation only, or of our successors in
distant ages ? Shall we deny ourselves, with the
hope of promoting the welfare of generations that
may never come into existence ? There are other
sentient heings upon the earth hesides men : shall
human happiness be sacrificed in order that multi-
tudes of the inferior animals may live, and enjoy
life's pleasures?
Are the pleasures of men to he regarded without
reference to their character ? The rule proposed is :
* ' Every person to count for one ; no person for more than
It is unjust
to regard
man's
pleasures
irrespective
of their
moral
character.
If this is in any sense benevolence, it is certainly
injustice. The rule seems to imply that the plea-
sures of the selfish, the vicious, the criminal, the
idle, the injurious, are to be as much a matter of
concern to us as those of the virtuous, the self-
denying, the noble ! Can this be what the Utili-
tarian intends ? Or are we to suspend or modify
the principle in certain obviously diQ.cult cases ?
utilitarianism, 29
The unreasonableness of Bentham's doctrine,
taken by itself, has been well sbown by Mr.
Herbert Spencer, who concludes tbus :
" If the distribution is not to be indiscriminate,; then the
formula disappears. The something distributed must be appor-
tioned otherwise than by equal division."^
How are we to estimate the ^^leasures of people in what gives
great
different stages of moral development ? Men's natural pleasure to
constitution differs in different cases : to one man f^H^l to
pain is so repulsive that he will deem no pleasure ^^^^^^-
worth acquiring which costs suffering ; to another
pleasure is so alluring that he will readily brave
pain in its pursuit. Further, what is joy to one
man is tedium to another. We cannot attribute
capacity for intellectual pleasures to savages, or
even to the lower types to be met with in civilized
communities. Is that conduct to be commended
which contributes to the enjoyment of the multitude,
or that which favours the happiness of the cultivated
few?
Sow are pleasures to be weighed against pleasures, Pleasure ana
77 7 J u T 7 I*ain are not
and how are pleasures and pains to be compared ? measurable.
Many rules have been formulated, most of them
expansions of the *'* Canons of Epicurus." All
these rules presume that these experiences can be
dealt with as lines which can be measured, or as
solids which can be weighed. That pleasure is
said to be preferable which involves least pain, etc.
But however well these rules look upon paper,
^ Data of Ethics, p. 222.
30
UtUitarianism.
The calculus
not appli-
cable to
experiences
BO varying
with
different
individuals.
The
question
must arise,
At what cost
of pain is it
lawful to
purchase
pleasure ?
their uselessness is apparent when we attempt to
put them in practice.
The operations of weighing one pleasure against
another, and any pleasure against any pain, are
operations not simply difficult but impossible.
Bentham tells us that we need a " moral Arith-
metic " for the purpose, and Sidgwick terms the
process the " Utilitarian calculus." But as there
is no acknowledged unit of either pain or pleasure,
there is absolutely no possibility of performing the
balancing operation. For a comparison of the
kind required will yield quite different results
according to the temperament, the character, the
circumstances of the persons undertaking it. Plea-
sure and pain are experiences too decidedly subjec-
tive to admit of such treatment as that proposed.
And if the process were possible upon the under-
standing that quantity of feeling only is to be con-
sidered, it becomes impossible when qualities of
experience are discriminated from one another.
How far is it justifiable to inflict pain, if there is
a prospect that an excess of pleasure may ensue '^
The gladiatorial shows practised in ancient Eome
yielded intense enjoyment to thousands of all ranks
in life. And this enjoyment was purchased by the
pain and death of a few wild beasts, and of a few
men who were presumably of a more or less
brutalized nature. If the pleasure preponderated
over the pain, was the exhibition right ?
Uiilitarianism. 31
It is often impossible so to calculate the consequences
of actions, as to foretell what pleasures and what pains
will follow. If the morality of actions depends upon
such a calculation, great uncertainty cannot but
attach to their moral quality ; and the man who is
anxious to do right must always be liable to make
the discovery that he has been doing wrong.
Who shall he entrusted with the responsible offices The
prediction of
of estimating and foretelling consequences, and so oj the con-
deciding xchat conduct is virtuous and praiseworthy, 5?^^^t'|^J
and tvhat is 7iot? Shall every man do what is JS'at^^^Se
" right in his own eyes " ? Then, one person will sulh^-
Ipraise as virtuous acts which another will condemn shcuM u
K ^ possible bo
as wrong. Shall the general sentiment, the public avoided,
opinion, be accepted? Then the standard must
vary with successive generations, and with differing
communities. Shall a congress of philosophers be
entrusted with the decision ? Then we must wait
for the promulgation of their decrees !
Tho^e is an obvious ambiguity in the expression. The ambig-
" " '' uity of the
*' The greatest happiness of the greatest number." ^'^^^^^
One course of action may be such as to involve hap'Jfnessof
an equal distribution of pleasure amongst many ; nuiSer.'^
another course of action may be productive of
great pleasure to the vast majority, and yet
may be the means of rendering a few intensely
wretched : which course should be adopted in
order to fulfil the rule laid down in the above
words of Bentham ?
3i^ Utilitarianism.
Are we to understand by it (1) the highest sum
total of pleasure, all sentient beings considered ; or
(2) the highest average of pleasure diffused amongst
those sentient beings ? If the first interpretation
be adopted, then it is good to inflict misery upon
a few for the sake of the enjoyment of the many.
If the second interpretation, then it is necessary to
be very careful to avoid any actions which may
lower the measure of happiness experienced by any.
We are thus involved by the doctrine in a maze of
casuistry.
UriLITARIANlSM MISAPPREHENDS THE RELATIONS
BETWEEN Virtue and Pleasure.
Its un- The best feature in the system known as Utili-
selfishness _ ^
benevolence ^^^i^^^sm, or Univcrsalistic Hedonism, is its
felturl^?? hostility to selfishness, a feature borrowed from the
^itanan- j-gj^g^Qj^ ^f j^q Lord Jcsus Christ. But even this
cannot make amends for its exaltation of Pleasure
to the highest rank in the moral standard and in
the moral motive. In fact, there is a discrepancy
between the two leading principles of the Utilitarian
theory which has sometimes escaped observation.
There is no logical pathway from pure Hedonism
to what is called Utilitarianism. Hedonism means
nothing if it does not mean that pleasure, personal
happiness, is the one supreme end of life.
Utilitarianism, 33
It is often and justly said that if we seek the Aspieasuro
good of others in order that we may please our- twng
^ ^ *' * personal, to
solves, we are not acting benevolently, but selfishly, ^re^ourllii
as egoistic hedonists. If, on the other hand, we Sstenwlth
make the happiness of others our law, we desert bSI^oienc.
Iledonism altogether, surrendering pleasure, and
adopting quite another principle of morals.
Is it a fact that all virtuous action tends to promote
immediate ha2^piness, if by happiness we are to
understand pleasure or the absence of pain ? The
Utilitarians maintain that there is no excellence,
no moral merit, in virtue except in so far as
virtue furthers happiness. Now so far as observa- As far as
, , , , observation
tion goes, and the Utilitarian holds experience fj^'pieal^^
to be the only source of knowledge, it cannot XajTcJn-
be shown that all conduct which is admittedly iSalifo?
virtuous does, as a matter of fact, increase the
stock of pleasure enjoyed by mankind in this state
of being. We see suffering result from right
actions ; yet sometimes strain our eyes as we will
we can discern no compensating happiness en-
suing. Only faith in goodness, only a conviction
in a Divine Ruler of righteousness, can sustain us
in the persuasion that such disinterestedly virtuous
conduct should be approved and imitated. There
have been cases in which Christians have endured
torture and martyrdom from Pagans, or Protestants
from Papists. Rather than abjure Christ, such
holy sufferers have endured and even died. "No
D
84
Utilitarianism,
On
Dtilitarian
principles
how can the
Belf-sacrifice
of the mar-
tyr and the
patriot be
justified?
doubt there have been instances in which martyrs
have experienced an inward consolation, and even
a joy of spirit approaching rapture. But generally
speaking, those who have suffered death for the
truth have endured pain amounting to anguish.
Is their conduct to be admired and commended ?
If so. Why? Their sufferings were fearful, and
they sank under them. If the spectators of
these sufferings experienced no pain of sympathy,
as tl y probably did, thus increasing the sum
of misery, we can scarcely set the malevolent
enjoyment of a fiendish or brutal inquisitor over
against the martyr's anguish. But were there
compensating advantages in remote and general
happiness ? Alas ! in many cases, so far as earth
is concerned, the purpose of the persecutor was
fulfilled ; independence of thought and speech was
crushed, and bigotry triumphed!
If all kinds of pleasure-yielding actions cannot
fairly be termed morally good, where shall we look
for the distinguishing feature which confers this
quality ? Dr. Bain seeks it in the civic or social
authority by which certain courses of conduct are
prescribed. "Utility made compulsory" is moral
goodness or rightness. The Government enjoins
certain actions which are for the public good, i.e.,
which are productive of general pleasure. Con-
science is the mirror of social authority, and
confirms inwardly the injunction imposed from
Dr. Bain's
teaahinp,
that social
authority-
sanctioning
fiction pro-
ductive of
happiness
constitutes
rightness
is rather
Hobbism
than Utili-
taxianism.
Utilitarianism. 35
c^ithout. Fear of punishment is the essence of
noral obligation. This doctrine is scarcely Utili-
:arianism, high as is the value it sets upon Utility.
I [t seems to make the State or Society the arbiter
)f right and wrong, and gives us no direction
ivhen our personal view of expediency points one
f7ay, and the strong hand of the law points the
)ther.
The system now under discitssion certainly bases f^Sf^'
Morality far too much upon the passive nature of Such upon ""
naUf upon his sentiencyy and capacity for enjoyment, padties.r
man s ca-
, no:
enough
[t has been said by Professor Grote, in technical upon'his
^ ' faculties.
anguage, that we have to consider in Ethics, not
)nly the summum bonum, which corresponds to the
-vant of human nature, the acquirendum; but
dso the summum jusy the right, which corresponds
|io human activity, the /ac^e?^^^m. He means to S^f*^ijj\
nsist upon the great truth that a good man will agreTabSf
)e actuated in his conduct, not so much by con- ^^^*
iidering what he may attain in the way of enjoy-
nent, as by considering in what way he may
exercise his powers and fulfil his actual duties.
jS^ot what affords most pleasure, but what calls jliL^ft-y^S
ut the powers of our nature in healthy and Pi
ippropriate exercise, is the true moral ideal, at
7hich ethical endeavour must always aim, and
hort of which ethical endeavour cannot do other
han fail.
It is sometimes asserted that Utility is an ob-
Utilitarianism.
utility,
when ana-
lysed, ap-
pears to be a
very
decidedly
subjective
standard of
conduct.
Virtue is
not always
rewarded
upon earth
with recom-
pense of
enjoyment.
jective standard of morality, one that can accord-
ingly be represented to the mind, and applied
without difficulty or ambiguity. JN'ow, this is a very
misleading view of the facts. Of all our experi-
ences none are more purely subjective than pleasure
and pain. Law, on the contrary, is an objective
standard, one independent of our feelings, and
apprehended by our intelligence. In pleasure and
pain there is the utmost possible indefiniteness.
What is very painful to one person is but slightly
so to another, and that which scarcely yields a
thrill of enjoyment to a man of a stolid constitution
may bring ecstasy to a more susceptible and sensi-
tive temperament. And the same individual is at
different times sensitive to feeling in very varying
degrees.
It is certain that in this earthly life pleasures
and pains are not apportioned in consonance with
the character and deserts of men. Yet all mankinc
are undergoing moral discipline, culture, probation,
The vicious are sometimes punished " in the flesh '
for their vices, when those vices are violations o:
physical laws. The virtuous are sometimes per-
mitted to suffer even for their virtues, when thos<
virtues lead to conduct out of harmony witl
physical surroundings. We recognize intention!
purpose, in this arrangement; but only (so t('
speak) in the very germ or bud. There is n(
completeness in the system ; there are indications ,
/ ^ OF -l-HK \
; : VBRSITT I
Utilitarianihm.o L^ .^\^y 37
but often little more tlian indications of tlie aims
of a Holy and Beneficent Governor.
Eeflecting minds have, in all ages, been led by The pro-
bability,
these considerations to cherish, the expectation of upon
* ^ grounds of
a life to come, and of future rewards and punish- ^^turTiifi"^
raents. There is a moral perception which seems Son!*"^^*
to require that the wrongs of time should be
redressed in Eternity, that persecuted and calum-
niated goodness should be approved and recom-
pensed, that prosperous wickedness should be
overtaken by retribution, that the incomplete
discipline should be continued, that the results of
probation should be made manifest, that the
unfinished work of God should be brought to a
3onclusion harmonious with the Divine attributes,
and that the just government of the Almighty
Ruler should be vindicated in the experience of
sail mankind, and in the presence of a satisfied and
approving Universe.
VI.
Utilitarianism gives no Explanation of the
Moral Imperative.
I It is a crucial test to which we put the Utili- Moral
:arian system when we ask, How does that system, ^ fact for
explain the moral imperative? Is it compatible SorT'
.vith the existence, the sacredness of duty ? The S^oundto
loctrine which we are criticizing, is, that moral
^S Utilitarianism.
good and evil are merely kinds of pleasure and
pain. Now, can it be maintained that we are
bound to do the thing which causes pleasure as we
are bound to do " the thing that right is ? " that
we are bound to refrain from all that causes suffer-
ing to ourselves or others, as we are bound to
shun wrong- doing and sin? If we do feel our-
selves morally obliged to do what involves pain to
ourselves or others, is our justification, our defence,
simply this, that we expect present suffering to
produce a larger measure of future joy ?
Utilitarianism nowhere more conspicuously fails
than in attempting to deal with duty. If there is
one factor in human nature more interesting and
admirable than another, it is our subjection to
moral obligation. The word "ought" is indeed
often used very loosely and inaccurately, but it
a wd often has a proper meaning, from which the secondary
figuratively and figurative uses of it are derived. It is quite
applied. ^ *
true that we say, I bought my watch from a good
maker, and gave a large price for it ; it ought to
keep good time ; or, My horse ought to do the
distance in an hour ; or. My sight being good, I
ought to see a vessel on the horizon as I look out
to sea. But these are simply adaptations of
language, recognizing the dependence of certain
movements or feelings upon the corresponding
function. The real and true meaning of " ought "
only comes out where voluntary conduct is in
Utilitarianism. 39
question, where an alternative between different its real
meaning is
courses oi action opens up, and where the person connected
who is called upon to act is conscious of the power J^'J^'inan^
of choosing one of these courses in preference to ^^^^^^^
others. It is possible for a moral agent to speak
truthfully or deceitfully, to deal honestly with his
neighbour or to defraud him, to act like a churl or
with generosity, to read the Scriptures or a foul
French novel, to pray or to curse men and blas-
pheme God. But in every such case of moral
alternative, one mode of action is morally im-
perative as compared with the other. Whenever
we can say, This action is right, we can also say,
This action it ig the duty of a free and moral agent
to perform.
Utilitarians cannot, however, 'regard human
conduct in this light. Such independent obligation
is most distasteful to Bentham, who in his
Deontology says:
** It is in fact very idle to talk about duties." " The talisman jj-^j.^,
of arrogance, indolence, and ignorance, is to be found in a single obligation la
word, an authoritative imposture . , . . It is the word ' ought, ' denied or
or 'ought not,* a circumstances may be .... If the use of explained
the word be admissible at all, it * ought ' to be banished from utuSarlans.
the vocabulary of morals."
A popular writer of our day, Professor Bain,
speaking of Morality, Duty, Obligation, or Eight,
says :
"I consider that the proper meaning or import of these
\ terms refers to the class of actions enforced by the sanction of
punishment." ^
* The Emotions and the WUl, chap. xv. p. 264.
40 Utilitarianism.
A man's duty is, then, that for neglecting which he
would be punished, either by actual suffering in-
flicted by law, or by public censure and social
penalty. According to this moralist, Conscience is
"that portion of our constitution which is moulded upon
external authority as its type." ^
Dr. Bain If this be the case, then society, by means of
resolves the / , , Jf J
Sr into government or otherwise, inflicts punishment upon
fTunishment. ^^^ actions as interfere with the pleasures or
increase the pains of men ; and then association
being established in the mind between punishable
actions and punishment, men come to dread and
avoid suchi actions. Duty and Conscience thus
derive all their meaning from the social usage of
punishment. Morality is the offspring, at all
events in the first instance, of fear. The Con-
science is a miniature police court within the
breast, keeping order by threats of apprehension
and consequent " pains and penalties." Upon
this scheme of morals, duty has regard only to
wrong- doing. It is no man's duty to do more
than avoid such conduct as is punishable ; it is
meritorious to be benevolent, but it is not morally
obligatory.
Mr. J. s. "^Y^ J. S. Mill is no more successful in accounting
Mill regards '^
CTeaturlS^ upou Utilitarian principles for the great fact of
Education. ^^^^| obligation. He thinks that there is " an in-
ternal sanction of duty,'' but that this exists only
T/ie Emotions and the Will, chap. xv. p. 2S5.
utilitarianism, 41
for those whose moral feelings have been trained
to take pleasure in whatever promotes the general
good. It is his hope that a regard for the happi-
ness of others may by careful education acquire
the force of a religion. For those persons in
whose mind no such association has been estab-
lished, Mr. Mill does not seem to have any special
sanction provided.
Thus we come back to the question :
How does the contemplation and calculation of om?^^'*'^^
pleasure and pain bring into the mind the concep- mSby
tion corresponding to the word " ought " ? Duty, to ILounr
moral obligation, is an idea which cannot be re- obligation.
solved into the dread of punishment. When a
man says, " This I ought to do, however I may
be regarded or treated in consequence by my
fellow-men ; " he is saying something quite dif-
ferent from "This it is for my interest to do;
if I neglect to do it; I shall be punished by the
powers that be." The two principles of action
must not, and cannot, be confounded. Is there no
difference between the principle which actuates a
craven slave, and that by which the hero or the
saint is inspired to suffer and to do ?
The fact is, that, in pleasure and in pain, there Pleasure
* . . IT > and Pain ava
is nothing morally authoritative. They are both Jj^rii^^^
great realities of experience, which no man can ^^^^^^^y*
overlook in making and in carrying out his plans
in life. But we do not feel that when these
42
Utilitarmnism.
Duty and
Conscience
are sacred.
elements alone are present, there is of necessity
the element of moral obligation. I ought to do
what a just authority commands ; but I cannot
say, I ought to do what will deliver me from
suffering, what will bring me delight. It is some-
thing quite different from interest, whether of one's
self or of others, which accounts for the sacred
imperative of duty.
Yet Duty and Conscience are realities, and among
the most precious realities of human existence. In
recent times their importance has been effectively
exhibited by Kant, who has rendered no greater
service to the cause of sound and religious philo-
sophy than by his repudiation of all merely
empirical explanation of our moral nature, his
exaltation of the proper dignity of the moral agent,
his insistance upon the sacredness of the moral
law, the so-called "categorical imperative." A
system like Utilitarianism has, at this point, to
encounter all that is most vigorous and ennobling
in contemporary philosophy, both on the Continent
and in Britain.
They are
upheld as
sacred by
the greatest
Moralists.
VII.
Christian Utilitarianism.
Some sincerely religious readers may object to
the foregoing criticism that it is unfair to represent
Utilitarianism and Christianity as opposed to
Utilitarianism. 43
each other. They may contend for the possibility There is a
. 1 P 1 Christian
of combining the two, the philosophy of the xJtiutanan-
Universal Hedonists and the religion of the New geSn'as
Testament. They may remind us that the happmess
Creator does really desire the happiness of His re'yiiSS
creatures, and especially of those rational beings happiness
*- _ ^ ^ as its motiye
whom He has created with capacities for pleasure P^^er.
so vast and varied. They may add that the
Scriptures frequently depict the happiness attend-
ing a pious life as an inducement to embrace the
true religion, and they may urge that the Saviour
Himself invites the sinful and unhappy to His
own gracious person, with the assurance that His
yoke is easy and His burden light, and that He
recommends His service by the glorious prospect
of participation in the victorious Captain's blissful
throne.
There is prevalent, among many professed g^?f.^*^^^ .
Christians, a view of the Divine Government je^resents
which may be called " Christian Utilitarianism.'* itfef aimto
-r, , p T 1 'J render man.
It IS not uncommon lor religious persons to write happy, and
and to speak as though the one great end sought chief aim to
by the Divine Buler were the enjoyment of His ^^^^^^0!^
creatures. It is urged that benevolence is one SJeSenJ^*^
of the most glorious attributes of the Divine
nature, that, being infinitely benevolent, God
must desire to see all His creatures happy, that
revealed religion has the happiness of men for its
one great end, and that, sooner or later, pain and
44
Utilitarianism.
But God
is more
concerned
for men's
goodness
than for
their
enjoyment.
sorrow must be banished from the universe, and
the reign of perfect, unbroken, and eternal
happiness must be established. Paley has even
defined Virtue, as " the doing good to mankind,
in obedience to the will of God, and /or the sake of
everlasting happiness'* He teaches that the will of
God is indeed the rule, but that everlasting happi-
ness is the motive to virtuous conduct.
Such a doctrine as this is no doubt very-
different from the doctrine which leaves out of
sight the existence and the government of a divine
Sovereign. But it is a doctrine very much at
variance with the stern facts of existence, and
with the character of the Christian Bevelation.
Whatever we may think of God's benevolence,
the existence of sin and the prevalence of a vast
amount of wretchedness are undeniable. There
is every reason to believe that the Euler of all is
less concerned for the enjoyment than for the
moral improvement of His intelligent creatures.
The Christian religion first of all deals with sin,
and deals with unhappiness only in subordination
to the higher problem of human life. The re-
demption of the Lord Jesus Christ is a redemption
from the bondage and the curse of sin. The work
of the Holy Spirit is a work of regeneration and
of sanctification. That those who embrace the
Gospel, who live a life of fellowship with God
as His reconciled and obedient children, are
Utilitarianism. 45
introduced into a state of progressive happiness, Christianity
^ promises
is indeed true ; and this is an arrangement of ^^l^^^
Grod's government, for which we cannot be Kings.
sufficiently grateful. The promise is graciously
given: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness, and all other things shall be
added unto you/' Still, the enjoyment which the
Christian now finds in the reception of the truth,
and in communion with God, varies to some
extent with temperament and with circumstances,
whilst this variety does not affect the individual's
real relationship to his God and Saviour. Happi- True,
ness is a merciful and precious addition to the depicts
^ * ^ ^ happiness
privileges of the Christian ; it is not the essence ^^jj^"'^^^"^^^,
of his religious experience, nor is it the highest gooJf^^*"'^
gift of God. Even when we think of the future
state, of the abode and the occupations of the
glorified, is it not the case that the first and most
welcome thoughts of heaven are of the perfect
conformity there attained to the holy will of our
Father, and the freedom and devotion with which
God's servants shall there serve Him day and
night in His temple ? The fellowship with Christ
shall be perfect, and the society of the blessed
shall be intimate. All this will be productive
of complete, incomparable happiness. But it is
not happiness that will make heaven ; it is heaven
that will make happiness.
40
Utilitarianism,
l\itting
aside
Utili-
tarianism,
is there no
bettor and
truer stan-
dard of
Riirlit and
Duty?
Tlowto
discover
rectitude.
Our ovra.
mental
and moral
constitution*
YIII.
The Alternative, if Utilitarianism be
Rejected.
But if the Utilitarian standard of morality be
rejected, what shall be accepted in its place ? It
is sometimes said that Utilitarians put forward a
criterion of Right and Duty, at all events intelli-
gible, but that alternative criteria are vague and
indefinable. Every one, we are told, can under-
stand what happiness is, and those who, by culti-
vation, are able to enjoy pleasures of a higher
order, can classify the pleasurable experiences of
which human nature is susceptible, and so can
construct an intelligible rule of human conduct.
But if this theory of duty be rejected, we are
challenged to say what shall be substituted for it
The demand is reasonable.
In our judgment the standard of right is dis-
coverable, and may be apprehended with growing
completeness by those who will regard three im-
portant considerations.
1. To understand what is the true and authorita-
tive principle of morality, it is necessary to examine
our own constitution, the powers with which we
are endowed, the development of which those powers
are by exercise capable, and the perfection of our
Utilitarianism.
nature whicli we may thus attain. Professor
Calderwood has well said :
"If a general conception can be formed of the end or final
object of our being, it must be by reference to the higher or
governing powers of our nature ; and as these are intellectual or
rational, the end of our being is not pleasure, but the full and
harmonious use of all our powers for the accomplishment of
their own natural ends."^
The same truth has been thus expressed by a
philosophical writer of a different school from
Professor Calderwood, the late Professor T. H.
Green, of Oxford. He says:
* * The real value of the virtue rises with the more full and
clear conception of the end to which it is directed : as a cha-
racter, not a good fortune ; as a fulfilment of human capabilities
from within, not an accession of good things from without ; as
a function, not a possession,"*
And again:
*' Our rheory has been that the development of morality is
founded on the action in man of an idea of true or absolute
good, consisting in the full realization of the capabilities of the
human bouI."^
2. It is not a complete view of the foundation of Themst
ethics to confine our attention to the development order with
1 . . which we
of our own powers. We are but units m a vast are related.
whole, members of a glorious and mystic body.
In the universe of being, every conscious individual
has his allotted place, and his allotted function.
Corresponding to the capacities and faculties within
^ Handhodlc of Moral PhilosopJiy, p. 1S3.
* Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 265. ^ m^^ p, 308,
48 Utilitarianism,
are the relations with, which we are encompassed,
the heings in federal relation with ourselves. There
is a moral cosmos, a universal order, from which
we cannot escape, and in which we may bear a
serviceable and not ignoble part.
TiiP -Dmno 3. It is of ten and instlv said that a law implies a
Lawgiver o v l
?d-n wh^se J^w-giver. The Utilitarian theory is not indeed
KghteoSs! inconsistent with Theism, but it is a theory which
^"^ may consistently be held, and is held, by those
who do not believe in God. It is the favourite
theorj" of those who regard evolution as the great
formative principle of the universe, who consider
intelligence to be a development from sensation,
and moral distinctions and moral faculties to be a
further development from the same elements, along
the same line. It is especially the theory of those
to whom susceptibility to pleasure and pain is suffi-
cient to account for all that moral life which con-
stitutes the chief prerogative of humanity. As it
represents obligation as persistent instinct or impulse,
and responsibility as liability to punishment by
human governors, or at all events by human society.
this theory is naturally acceptable to those who
maintain that what they call "the hypothesis of
God " is unnecessary and superfluous.
Man's as- That man admires and aspires after moral ex-
pirations ^ ^ ^
*aTSd- cellence which has never been in his experience
God^s""^^ realized, may be taken as a suggestion of a nature
purer, nobler than his own, either nearer to abso-
Utilitarianism. 49
lute perfection, or actually possessing and mani- Andsub-
f esting it. His moral nature is, on the one hand, Goi's wiii.
so imperfect, and yet on the other hand has so
inextinguishable a yearniag for flawless and awful
goodness, that it has ever been deemed the truest
and mightiest witness to the Deity. Yery beauti-
fully has Professor Grote expressed this common-
place of the higher philosophy in these words :
**If we think of that which should be, and consider at the
same time that the mind and the will of God are according to
this, we are in point of fact trying to imagine what it is that
He thinks and wills. And I do not know that we can have a
better notion of morality than as the imagination on our part of
the thought and will of a better and superior Being. " ^
The ne-
If it is difficult to srve any reasonable or even cessityofa
, Creator of
plausible account of the material universe apart ^^'^. piiysicai
^ ^ universe,
from the existence and will of a Divine Creator and ^^^^f of the
Lord, whose reason and whose purpose are mani- SSTverse.
fest in the marvellous arrangements and harmony
of this majestic cosmos; it is in our apprehension
utterly impossible, apart from the same great fact,
to give any explanation of the far more wonderful
and interesting realm of moral life into which every
human being is introduced. Our E-eason presumes
a Divine Mind, in which all things are perfectly
comprehended, which we apprehend in their in-
completeness. Our freedom presumes a peculiar re-
lation to the Eternal "Will, and involves certain and
inevitable responsibility to the Omniscient Judge.
Professor Grote on Utilitarianism,
50
Utilitarianism,
The Divine
Will is a
reality.
The Divine
Avill is not
to be re-
garded apart
from the
Di\'ine
lleason.
Those who identify the standard of righteousness
with the Divine Will are sometimes met with the
objection that such an identification tends to make
morality altogether arbitrary. If what God wills
is the right, then (it is urged) if God were to will
in the contrary direction, what we hold to be right
would become wrong, and what we hold to be
wrong would become right. How can that be an
independent standard of morality which is depen-
dent upon the will even of God ?
The answer to these diificulties is to be found in
the consideration that the Diving Will (if we may
use language so human) is according to the Divine
Eeason. The Will is simply the imperative, so to
speak, corresponding with the Reason, which is
indicative. Man's will is often capricious, is often
in contradiction to his highest conceptions and
convictions, is often according to his evil passions
or foolish fancies, and not according to his reason.
With the all-perfect Deity this is not the case.
Whilst the attributes of Wisdom, Justice, and
Benevolence prescribe the law of morality, the^
Will of God publishes, sanctions, and enforces it
The revelation of the law in the human conscienc
and in the inspired volume is a revelation of the
Nature and Attributes of God, but it is a revelation
made by the Will of God, the practical mani-
festation of Himself as the Ruler and Judge of
His intelligent and responsible creatures. What-
Utilitarianism. 51
soever rewards or punisliments obtain under the
Divine government are administered by the Infinite
Will of the Governor Himself. But they are
simply the expressions in judicial action of the
nature and perfections of the Eternal, who is just
and good beyond all degrees.
If, then, we are asked. What is there open to
us as an alternative theory, in case we are convinced
of the unsoundness of the Utilitarian doctrine?
the answer is plain. Conscience, the imperative
of Duty, within, has corresponding to it the
standard of Eight, the Moral Law. Where is this
to be discovered ? How is this to be determined ?
1. Eegard man's nature ; and the Moral Law, the ot^^^
Ethical Standard, is to be found in the harmo- of moSiuty!
nious and perfect development and exercise of the
powers with which the Creator has endowed him,
2. Regard the Moral Universe of which man forms
a part ; and the Moral Law, the Ethical Standard,
is to be found in the Universal Order, the good,
i.e., the perfection, not of the individual agent,
merely, but of aU beings with whom he has rela-
tions, and whom his actions may affect. 3. Eegard
flie Supreme Lord, Euler, and Judge of the Moral
Universe ; and the Moral Law, the Ethical Stand-
ard, is to be found in the Divine nature and
attributes of Him who is infinitely good.
52
Utilitarianism,
IX.
The general
acceptance
of Utili-
tarianism
would be
injurious
to public
morality.
It would
discredit
Cliristianiry,
Utilitarianism and Christianity Contrasted
IN THEIR Principles and Effects.
Although it is true that there are amongst
those who claim to be orthodox Christians, some
who have given their assent to the theory
known as Universalistic Hedonism, it is necessary
to expose the erroneous nature of this system,
because a theory is often held by those who are
not alive to all its proper and logical consequences.
The general acceptance and prevalence of Utili-
tarianism, moreover, would be most injurious to
the public morals. If men generally come to be-
lieve that whatever promotes pleasure is right, that
there is no test of rightness, except only a tendency
to increase enjoyment and to diminish suffering,
that Utility is to be enthroned as the sovereign
principle by which mankind are to be swayed; then
the general conception of human nature will be
degraded, for human nature will be considered as
constructed for no higher end than pleasure ; then
morality will suffer, for virtue will be despised,
except where it is seen to be a means to happi-
ness; and then Christianity will be discredited,
for a religion which exalts righteousness and holi-
utilitarianism, 53
ness, and which endeavours to raise men above the
mere consideration of consequences, cannot but
appear as hostile to the scientific law and aim of
human life. Whilst our Saviour lays the greatest
stress upon the morality of the heart, and insists
upon the uprightness, the purity, the benevo-
lence of the thoughts and desires ; the Utilitarian
doctrine offers no effectual check to the evil
imaginations and longings, which are prone to
flourish unrestrained in the recesses of the soul.
There is danger lest those who deny the inde-
pendent authority of right should deem themselves
at liberty to indulge their covetousness and fleshly
appetites, when they can do so without fear of de-
tection, and without involving any manifest injury
to their fellow creatures. Religion bids men aim at
an ideal excellence, and reveals God as making this
life one of moral discipline and probation ; Utili- ^Jj\^*^j
tarianism bids men seek the general enjoyment, and i-^ Is^'^'^*^^
either misrepresents God as supremely concerned for fjjo^ment ;
1 1 1 * T XT 1 1 Christianity
human pleasures, or else maligns Him as unable regards life
_ , as pro-
to secure an end which, nevertheless, upon the bationary
^ ^ and dis-
whole He aims at. For these reasons we think cipunary.
it necessary to protest against doctrines which in
many respects harmonize with current feeling and
wishes, to show that however they accord with
imagination and sentiment, they have not the
support of reason or of facts. Utilitarianism is in
the view of those who look below the surfacq a
64 Utilitarianism.
decidedly irreligious system of morals. It is not,
indeed, denied that upon it may be based rules of
conduct and legislative enactments which, may
secure a certain measure of individual and social
well-being. But it leaves out of sight, where it
does not actually negative, all that is of highest
interest in human life. It dispenses with our
spiritu al natur e, for it analyzes man's constitution
into his capacity for pleasure and pain, and bases
What mill- the rules of life upon that analysis. It dispenses
tarianism _ ^ ^ ^ '' ^
^spenses ^fth a future life, for it regards the present state
of society in connection with prospective develop-
ment upon earth, as a complete and sufficient
whole. It dispe nses with G od^jfor even if it tole-
rates in words the supposition that there is a
Supreme Euler and Magistrate who sanctions
beneficence of conduct ; it has really no place for
a Supreme Being, the Ideal of goodness, fellowship
with whom is spiritual life. In a word, it makes
It is favour- man *'of the earthj,_earthy." It favours such a
able to .^_, __._=
Secularism, yiew 01 the future of humau society as was
lately advocated by a distinguished English judge,
who holds that religion may disappear, that Chris-
tian self-denial and self-sacrifice may vanish, and
that life may still remain a very tolerable, indeed,
a very agreeable and comfortable thing.^ It
secularizes all that has hitherto been irradiated
* Vide Mr. Justice Stephen's article in the Nineteenth Century
for May, 1884.
Utilitarianism,
with a halo of Divine glory. Such is the profession
of one of its champions :
"ISTow," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, "that moral injunctions
are losing the authority given by their supposed sacred origin,
the secularization of morals is becoming imperative." ^
Against such principles we have an impregnahle
bulwark in Christian morality. The superiority of
Christianity over Utilitarianism is, upon an exam-
ination of the two systems, the two theories of
human life, perfectly incontestable.
1. The best feature in the theory considered in The
this Tract, is its unselfishness, its benevolence
UTJ-
selfishncsg
of Utili-
tarianism ia
This is cordially acknowledged. But this feature f "o'SrSTe
New
is not original, it is borrowed from the New Testa- Testament
ment, from the life of Christ Himself, from the
teaching of His inspired Apostles. It is Jesus of
Nazareth to whom we owe the maxim, "Do unto
others as ye would that they should do unto you,"
from whom we have received the great law of the
redeemed society, the new commandment, "Love
one another." It is He who, by His teaching and
by His example, has shown us the beauty of self-
denial. The world had not to wait for Comte to
teach the lesson, '' Live for others ; " it is a lesson
which has been familiar for more than eighteen
centuries in the Church of Christ. It was an
Apostle of our Lord who bade us "bear one
another's burdens," and * look every man upon the
things of others."
1 Data of EthicSf p. 4.
56
Utilitarianism.
The su-
periority of
tli(i aim of
Clii istiaiiity,
which seeks
not the en-
joyment,
but the im-
provement
and moral
and
spiiitual
welfare of
men.
2. When we ask, what services are we to render
our fellow- men, how is our good- will to express
itself ? the answer of the Christian to this inquiry-
sets his religion in a light far brighter and holier
than that which the Utilitarian reply sheds upon
his system. The latter professes a desire to pro-
mote the enjoyments of his fellow-creatures ; this
is his highest aim, for if he espouses the cause of
Liberty, of Order, of Yirtue, it is only because
he holds Liberty, Order, and Yirtue to be conducive
to human happiness. The Christian, on the other
hand, seeks the glory of God in the moral and
spiritual welfare of the race. All measures
devised for human improvement are in his view
inadequate, which do not go to the root of the
evil. Believing that the Gospel is the Divine
remedy for sin and its fearful consequences, he
seeks to bring the Gospel home to the sinner's
heart, with a view to his salvation. His aim is,
by the use of Divinely appointed means, and
in dependence upon Divine Agency, to bring
about the spiritual renewal of those whom he
desires to benefit. To him, the restoration of men
to the Divine image and favour is a far loftier aim
than the mere increase of their gratifications ; and
this is an estimate which a just mind will approve.
3. Whilst Utilitarians judge men by their out-
ward actions, and commend such conduct as tends
to promote pleasure, Christians are bound by the
Utilitarianism. 57
teacliing of their Divine Master to lay stress upon
the thoughts and intents of the heart. The stand- :jj'w>t .
^, , , , . Utilitarian-
ard of Utility is independent of spiritual excellence; j^^^^^^^^
according to it, that course of action is deserving S-Stiamty
of approval which tends to the general pleasure. inneVepSiS
The standard of Christian morality has reference, nek
not to acts merely, but to the dispositions, purposes,
and habits of the soul ; it requires sincerity, up-
rightness, purity of heart, as indispensable to
acceptance with Him who judgeth not as man
judgeth. If man have a spiritual nature, and if
action is valuable as expressive of spiritual prin-
ciples, then it is indisputable that Christianity,
which places man's spiritual state and experience
foremost in dignity and importance, takes a juster
view of humanity than is taken by the Utilitarian
philosophy.
4. "When the motive to action is taken into The
, . . . superior ox-
consideration, our estimate of the comparative and ceiience of
^ ^ Christianity.
indeed of the absolute merit of the Eeligion of
Christ becomes still more apparent. Some He-
donist philosophers maintain that we seek to
benefit others only for the sake of the pleasure
such conduct brings to ourselves; others main-
tain that natural sympathy is a sufficient motive.
The first of these principles of action must
constantly fail to secure benevolent conduct ; it
operates only when the pleasure exceeds thj
sacrifice involved. The second is a naturi
UNIVERSITT
58
Utilitarianism.
The motive
upon which
Christianity
relies, viz.
love and
gratitude
towards a
Redeeming
God.
Failure of
Hedonistic
effort.
powerful motive, but is not competent to vanquish
human selfishness. How conspicuously superior to
other considerations are those which Christianity
brings to bear upon those who yield themselves to
its sacred influences ! The love of God the Father
is a motive to the soul that recognizes and feels it,
sufficient to awaken love to " the brethren whom
we have seen." " If God so loved us, we ought
also to love one another." " The love of Christ
constraineth us." The Cross has ever been the
most powerful corrective to human selfishness, the
most powerful incentive to human philanthropy.
From the Cross an inspiration proceeds which is
sufficient to sustain the Christian labourer in his
service, to nerve the Christian soldier for his
warfare. He who seeks the good of his fellow-
men can come under no power so invincible as
that which is supplied by the love and sacrifice of
the Eedeemer, who "bare our sins in His own
body on the tree." For this power reaches aTid
sways the inmost heart of the believer.
5. Let it be borne in mind that those who on
the Hedonistic system seek the happiness of their
fellow-men, often fail in their endeavours ; for
happiness is not a commodity that can be trans-
ferred from one to another. JSTeither can they be
assured of attaining happiness for themselves. On
the other hand, the Christian, seeking a higher
aim than pleasure, will not be left unrecompensed.
Utilitarianism. 59
If the Universe is the work of a riffliteous and success of
Christian
benevolent Grod, who has the highest moral ends effort
before Him in the government of the conscious
and voluntary natures He has created, it is reason-
able to believe that ultimately He will confer
happiness upon those who are obedient and sub-
missive to His will. The Christian cannot seek The
Chnstian
enjoyment, either for himself or for others, as the acceptauc"^^
highest aim of his action. Fellowship with God, ewriasting
likeness to God in moral attributes: this is his
highest conception of well-being. Yet, finally and
in eternity, a character in harmony with Divine
rectitude and purity cannot but be appointed to
experience the truest happiness, whatever may bo
the calamities and sorrows of the earthly life.
There is accordingly the glorious prospect before
the Christian of realizing for himself, and for those
whose welfare he is the means of promoting, the
inexhaustible meaning of the exclamation of the
Psalmist, " In Thy presence is fulness of joy ; ii^
Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore " !
^>
\ PRESENT Day Tracts, No. 40. H^-
AUGUSTE COMTE
AND THE
''RELIGION OF HUMANITY."
BY THE
EEV. J. HADFORD THOMSOjST, M.A.,
AVTHOU OF
"Witness of Man's IIorat, NATunE to Chhisttanity ;'* "Modern Pessimism
"Utilitarianism," etc., eto.
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY:
56 PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 65 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD,
LONDON.
^tgnmcxii at ttue Tract*
The process is described by which Comte, the author
of the " Positive Philosophy,'' which limits human knowledge
to the results of observation and experiment, came to be
the founder of the "Religion of Humanity." His aim is
ackrwwledged to have been the illumination of the intellect
by the heart. The Comtists are shown to elevate mankind,
and especially illustrious benefactors of the race, and ^
woman, as the emotional and spiritual sex, into the object
of worship and veneration. The Positivist Church and
its organization are described, and the moral, political, and
social views of Comte's followers are stated.
The Tract then proves that the Religion of Humanity is
both atheistic and idolatrous, that human beings are not
worthy objects of supreme reverence and adoration, and
that true prayer is not a possible exercise on the part ot
those who disbelieve in a Being almighty and benevolent.
Positivism is shown to be lacking in moral authority over
human conduct. The unreality of the Positivist immor-
tality is exhibited.
The Religion of Humanity is then in several particulars
contrasted with the Religion of Christ, with the result of
showing the essential superiority of the latter in every
respect,
AUGUSTE COMTE,
AND
'^THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY."
I.
The Author and Origin of the Religion
OF Humanity.
UGUSTE CoMTE, who was bom in 1798,
and who died in 1857, was a man who
made his mark upon the intellectual
history of this century. His reputation ^J"* ^^ \
and influence have not been limited to his native exercised
country France but have, in the course of a lice^bofh"
generation, spread through the civilised world. He and eise-
founded a school of philosophy ; but his power has
been felt far beyond the limits of his school. His
spirit has penetrated many students and thinkers
who are not adherents of the system known by
his name. Comto has been called by an admirer
" the Bacon of the nineteenth century ; '* we may
dismiss such an estimate of his rank as ex-
aggerated, and may yet admit that he has made
for himself a place among the intellectual and
social leaders of our time. It is further claimed
for him that he has invented a new religion.
Augusts Comte, and
His attain-
ments were
great; his
passion for
classification
was exces-
sive; his
ambition
was vast.
In his youth and early manhood, Comte was a
most diligent and enthusiastic reader, and under
the influence especially of Saint Simon and do
Maistre, the Utopian Socialists of the day, an ardent
student of all social questions. His attainments
in mathematics, his extensive acquaintance with
European history, his knowledge of the physical
sciences, in the stage of development in which they
existed in his early days, are all admitted and re-
cognised. His sympathies were less with the de-
structive tendency, which originated with Yoltaire
and Uousseau, than with what he deemed the con-
structive forces, represented by Diderot, Hume,
and Condorcet. He regarded Bichat and Gall as
his precursors in science. Possessing unbounded
self-confidence, and a passion even a genius
for classification, Comte made it his ambitious
aim, by means of his teaching and his writings, to
reconstitute science and philosophy, to revolutionize
education, and thus to regenerate humanity.
Positivism is the name given by its author to
the vast body of doctrine presented to the world by
this professed prophet and priest of the nineteenth
century. By the term " positive " Comte intended
to designate such knowledge as is based upon
actual observation and experiment, the accepted
methods of modern physical science. Nothing
else is, in his view, true knowledge ; philosophy,
as hitherto understood, and of course theologv of
The
" positive '*
philosophy
would limit
knowledge
to what can
be acquired
by observa^
tion and
experiment.
Tke Religion of Humanity'^
every kmd, are dismissed, as outgrown and aban-
doned by this age, steeped as it is in tbe modern
scientific spirit. Comte's writings were encyclopaedic ; ^pj,^^"!'
bis system was professedly comprebensive of all inTerpSdJ
buman knowledge. His two great works, Positive ten? wiS^"
, . 1 . all meta-
Philosophy and Positive Polity^ were designed to physics
include all tbe sciences of nature and of man, and theology.
the classification of tbese sciences was represented
as being tbe true and indeed tbe only philosophy.
Much of what Comte wrote has no longer any
special value or interest. But in two directions, J?g*J^^g
one speculative and tbe other practical, bis influence fXence
survives to the present day. He advanced a stuisumvcs.
startling theory of human development, and he
propounded a religion and established a church.
The first of these must be briefly explained, as
very closely connected with the second.
The intellectual growth of mankind is represented
by Comte as passing through three successive
stages or epochs. The first of these is the theo- His doctnne
A ^ _ of the three!
logical stage of knowledge, in which the facts of intfiTectuai^
nature are explained by the supposed presence and of maukiud!
action of supernatural beings. Men are supposed
to begin their religious development with fetichism,
to proceed to the higher position of polytheism,
and thence to advance to Monotheism, which is
deemed the summit of this first movement. The
second is the meta'physical stage, in which all
unseen personal agencies are discarded, and
Augusts Comte, and
According to
Comic, -the
" ]iositive"
etajre is to
supersede
the theo-
logical and
the meta-
physical.
principles, laws, abstractions wliicli are the creation
of the mind J are represented as accounting for
natural phenomena. The third is the positive
stage, which has now at length been reached by
the most enlightened of mankind. These have
outgrown the intellectual illusions of childhood
and youth, and are content to take phenomena as
they find them, to classify them in co- existences
and sequences, and to renounce as vain and useless
all search for causes, whether personal or meta-
physical.
Such a doctrine as this certainly appears to
forbid scientific men to retain religion of any kind,
in fact to preclude the possibility of religion except
in the case of the ignorant and unreasoning.
Through the greater part of his life, Comte seems
to have regarded science as completely satisfying the
wants of his nature, and accordingly to have utterly
ignored all religious beliefs and practices. How, it
may well be asked, can the so-called " positive "
stage of human development admit of a Deity, of
prayer, of thanksgiving, of a priesthood and sacra-
ments, of immortality ? The answer to this question
must be sought in Comte's own personal experience,
in circumstances occurring in his life, in the history
of his heart. The process by which he came to
feel the need of religion for himself, and so to
found a religion in his judgment adapted to a
scientific age, is well worthy of careful attention.
Until he
approached
middle age,
Comte
altogether
ignored and
repudiated
all religion.
" The Religion of Humanity,"
It was by feminine influence that Comte was led
to crown the '* Positive " philosophy by the " Posi-
tive " religion, usually designated, to distinguish it
from Theism, "the Eeligion of Humanity." Comte's
marriage was not a happy one ; and after many
years of wedded life, the savant was separated, on
account of incompatibility of temper, from the wife
who had borne with him in his petulance, and watch-
ed over him during a period of mental derangement.
After this separation he made the acquaintance of His intimacy
^ . ^ with Clotilda
Madame Clo tilde de Vaux a youna: woman of ^^ ^^^^
' o was the
thirty, and seventeen years his junior who came ^^'^^^^'^l ^^
to exercise an extraordinary influence over his Ss^vflw^
character, and indirectly over his teaching. The necessitica
object of his admiration was, like himself, unhappy moral
in marriage, and was separated from her husband, ^^^ ^^<-
who was at this time a convict undergoing punish-
ment. Her qualities of understanding and of heart
called forth the devotion of the Positivist prophet,
opened a fresh fountain of feeling in his nature,
and led him to take a different view of human life.
He wrote of his " St. Clotilde " in terms of extra-
vagant eulogy, as
"the incomparable angel appointed in the course of human
destiny to transmit to me the results of the gradual evolution
of our moral nature."
The friendship lasted but a year ; Madame de
Vaux died in 1846, but bequeathed to her admirer
an influence which lasted all the remainder of his
Auguste Comte, and
life, and whicli affected all his subsequent specula-
timcom\e ^i^ns. From this period may be dated what has
omotiinli*^ ^ccn tcrmcd the new birth of Comte's moral nature.
impoTtanr^ Up to tliis point knowlcdgB had been everything
than the -i >
intellectual, to him ; honceiorward he confessed the supremacy
of the affections and the claims of what he held to
be religion. In the dedication to Clotilde's memory,
of his great work on Positive Polity ^ Comte records
that it was her influence that had taught him the
preponderance of universal love.
** After frankly devoting the first half of my life to the
development of the heart by the intellect, I saw its second half
consecrated by the illumination of the intellect by the heart, so
necessary to give the true character to great social truths."
Thus Positivism was transformed from a very
secular doctrine into one in which everything was
subordinated to emotion, morality, worship, and
on'comte'f roHgion. The change was variously regarded.
Tschism in Many of Comte's followers refused to accompany
the ranks r>( i ji
of Comte's him UDOU this new departure, ouch was the case
followers. * ^ ...
with his most distinguished French disciple, M.
^e'fuled to Littre ; whilst his English admirer and friend,
in"hJnew Mr. J. S. Mill, criticised the master's aberration
epar ure. ^.^^ extrcmo scvority, and went so far as to say :
' M. Comte gradually acquired a real hatred for scientific and
all intellectual pursuits, and was bent on retaining no more of
them than was strictly indispensable."
On the other hand, the thorough-going scholars
in the Positivist school regard the emotional and
moral stage of Comte's life with reverence and
" The Religion of Humanity.
liratitude. An Englisli representative of what may others
..... ' admired and
be called Ecclesiastical Positivism speaks thus accepted
* Lis later
warmly of the high-priest of the new religion ; aXp^t&|'
his new
* It should become clear to us that the philosophical and '^^^eion.
political thinker had merged in the saint, that the life of thought
was so fruitful of good because it was a life of prayer, that if he
preached sacrifice to others, no man ever lived who imposed it
more completely on himself ; that if he preached humanity to
others, he had been the first to give her all, to consecrate every
faculty and power to her service ; that if he made love his
watchword, it was because he was the most loving of men."^
Comte's own view of the relation between the
two sections of his life is apparent from his remark
with reference to Madame de Vaux :
" Through her I have at length become for humanity, in the
strictest sense, a two-fold organ. . . My career had been that
of Aristotle I should have wanted energy for that of St. Paul,
but for her. I had extracted sound philosophy from real
science; I was enabled by her to found on the basis of that
philosophy the universal religion. "^
II.
The Positivist View of Religion.
CoMTE and his followers disbelieve in the super- The
natural ; to their minds faith in an unseen Creator SeUeve m
and Ruler of the universe appears unscientific, '
and unworthy of enlightened cultivators of physical
science, of " Positive " knowledge. On the other
hand, the master, and those of the scholars who
' Cougreve, The Annual Address, Jan. 1, ICSl.
2 Catechism^ Preface, p. 10.
10 Auguste Comte, and
follow him in tlic later development of his teaching,
have always and earnestly repudiated secularismj
and have claimed to be truly religious, only with
a kind of religiousness becoming, as they think, to
men living in a scientific age, and having no sym-
cut those pathy with superstition ! The Positivist reliojion
who a<rree *. ^ j. <->
hi*hisiS?r boasts itself as "the concurrence of feeling with
fnaintS'^"* roasou iu the regulation of our action." Comte
of Religion ^ himsolf taught that religion has two functions : viz.,
to iuiiuouce to order the life of the individual, and to combine
men's indi-
sociifi&e*^ men into a social unity. It must, as an intellectual
power, satisfy the mind with truth, the object of
belief; and it must, as a moral power, satisfy the
heart with appropriate emotion.
Th'is, however, is morality rather than religion.
Comte saw that men need not only a law of con-
comte duct, but an object of reverence. He accordingly
that he sought to replace the sentiments and motives
reconciled
^^^ths^ evoked by Christianity by raising Humanity into
tJtin^g^^^' tb^ supreme place in human regard. He was
foTood^as rigtt in recognizing the superiority of man over
objec?of'^^ matter, of human virtue above physical law. But
rcvcrGiiCG
and worship, he was wroug in exalting man into the place of
God. However, the Comtists believe that religion
is possible upon their basis of the supremacy of
humanity. Positivism, one of them tells us,
" will be religion, inasmuch as it will infuse a grandeur and a
unity into human toil, knowledge, and interests, by filling them
with all the light of duty, and the warmth of a social aflFection.
In every pait it will be a human religion, a perfectly piactical
*' The Religion of Humanity,** .1 1
and mundane religion, grounded in thought, and issuing in act j
beginning on earth, and ending in man." ^
The English school of Positivists lay the greatest J^j^^^^g
stress upon the religious aspect of their system, posftiSsts
and persuade themselves that all the good results accord with
vhich Christianity has brought to past ages may
be secured by a religion more in harmony, as they
bold, with the spirit of our own times. Thus Mr,
Frederic Harrison urges :
"All th^ eternal and essential institutions of religion are not
)nly open to Positivism, but are profoundly developed and em-
jraced by it. It is familiar too with that sense of individual
veakness and yearning for consolation, that spirit of humilia-
ion before Providence, and contrition in the consciousness of
juilt, that peace within in communing with an abiding sweetness
md goodness without, that unquenchable assurance of triumph
n final good all of v.'hich are the old and just privileges of the
)urest Christianity."*
The reader may well be curious to know what
ihere is in the Positivist religion to justify such
issertions and such expectations as are contained
n the writings of Comte and his followers. Of "^e know
^ what Chris-
I Christianity we know that it professes to reveal a ^o^and^Jas
|jod of righteousness and of mercy, a God loving mankind,
ind pitying mankind, and able to save and bless
hose sinful beings who turn to Him in penitence
md in faith ; that it professes to reveal a Divine
kviour, and a Divine Helper, unseen but ever
)resent ; that it brings new motives, new powers,
"^ Congreve, New I'ear's Address, for 1880.
Contemporary Review, November, 1875.
12 Augusie Comte, and
new hopes to men ; that it professes to reveal a future
state with prospects of retribution and of recom-
pense. Such a religion must have, and actually
Sy^ask^ ^^^ ^^^ exercises, a vast spiritual power. What
'^^eiiglon has Comtism to ofPer to the world, that it ventures
ity" rival" to vie with the faith of Christ ? So far as can
the Religion i i n i rv
of Christ, be gathered from its documents, it oners us a body
a*Ml)mi*^^^ of scientific doctrine, the lessons and examples of
Force? human history, a scheme of worship, with the
apparatus of priesthood, liturgy, sacraments, the
outward and visible sign of human federation, anc
a system of government of the most fantastica
order. Religion is to centre in Humanity. Tc
quote the words of the founder of this religion :
*' Under the permanent inspiration of Universal Love, th<
business of doctrine, worship, and discipline, is to study, U
honour, and to serve the great Being, the crown of al
human existence."^
Ill
The Positivist God.
All religion assumes the existence and the rul
of a higher Being, worthy of worship and service
Positivism Comte proposed that reverence, praise and d(
humanity, yotiou should be rendered, not to a Deity abov
humanity, the Creator and the Governor of
men, but to humanity, the collective human rac
and especially to the great men of the past. Pos
^ Positive Polity, vol. ii., p. G6.
'* The Religion of Huvianity." IH
ivism means the sovereignty of the dead over the it proposes
the person-
ivinff. Comte personified Humanity. mcation of
*-' * ' numanity as
the Deity
" We condense the whole of Our positive conceptions in the whom men
-ne single idea of an immense and eternal Being, Humanity, ??"J^
: lestined by sociological laws to constant development under the
I ireponderating influence of biological and cosmological ne-
lessities."^
Towards Humanity, who is for us the only true great
iJeing, we, the conscious elements of whom she is composed,
hall henceforth direct every aspect of our life, individual or
ollective. Our thoughts will be devoted to the knowledge of
lumanity, our affections to her love, our actions to her service. " *
But we are not to understand hy the Humanity ^^it in con-
' "^ structing
ve are summoned to worship, all mankind, " good, ^o^nJe^cS
)ad, and indifferent," but only such as have sought wthies'^s^
he common good. The " mere digesting machines " aUd con- ^^
joins only
nay, it is suggested, he replaced hy the nobler select and
imonsr the brutes ! The God, or Goddess, whom presentatives
o ' ' of our race.
uen should worship, is in a measure their own
ireation ; Comte reminds men of the duty of pre-
erving, developing, improving, and perfecting their
Deity. But we are assured that the object of
vorship is no abstraction, but the actud assem-
)lage of those who have led a noble and useful
ife.
It was, however, perceived hy the founder of ^?J^,^"
he Positivist religion that " Humanity " is to men ^^dSy^
;enerally somewhat vague, that they need to adore Jafrto^*^
vhat is concrete, living, and personal. Thus
^ l^he Catechism, of Positive Religion, p. 63.
* Positive Polity, vol. i., p. 201.
J4
Angiiste Comte, and
Hence
Comte pro-
poses that
woman, as
the emotion-
al sex,
should be
the object
of adoration
and prayer.
Mother,
wife, and
daughter
are to be
venerated
as types
of moral
excellence.
Comte was led to the proposal that woman should
be the object of ordinary and private worship.
The " affective sex " (he held) embodies, in its
best representatives, what is most worthy of re-
ligious reverence.
** Prayer would be of little value unless the mind could clearly
define its object. The worship of won:an satisfies this condition,
and may thus be of greater efficacy than the worship of God. " *
The worship of the Virgin Mary, so prevalent
throughout the so-called Catholic world, was re-
garded by this ingenious idolater, as a happy intro-
duction to the ciiltus of that graceful personification
of humanity which we are called upon to admire
in womankind. The mother speaks of the past,
suggests obedience, and requires veneration. The
wife speaks of the present, suggests union, and calls
for attachment. The daughter is of the future, sh(
needs protection, and is regarded with benevolence
Such a group of female relatives is commended a;
constituting collectively a suitable object of dailj
adoration. Women, however, are expected t(
worship the mother, the husband, and the son. I
must not be supposed that this teaching was a men
eccentricity of Comte, occasioned by his ad
miration for his St. Clotilde. Mr. Congreve, J
leader of English Positivism, presents the cas
very clearly:
*'What is the most universal constituent of this composii
spirituality ? The answer is clear. It is in woman that we fin
1 Positive Polity, vol. I., p. 209,
*'The Religion of Humanity." 15
it ; and therefore it is that, as the most universal and the
most powerful of all modifying agents, woman is in our religion
the representative of humanity. " ^
It may appear to the uninitiated that there is Tn his
' '' worship of
some confusion involved in the proposal to conjoin ^o^j^'te^g'^.^
the worship of the Supreme Being, i.e., the ideal Z.Slt"
Humanity, with that of an individual woman, d^soipies S
Such a helief does not vanish when we consider
Comte's account of his own habitual worship of
Clotilde. He anticipated the " extension to others
of his own personal worship of the angel from
whom he derived its chief suggestions." He thus
described the combination at which he arrived :
**She [i.e., Clotilde] is for all time incorporated into the true
Supreme Being, of whom her tender image is allowed to be for
me the best representative. In each of my three daily prayers
I adore both together. " ^
It would be interesting to know whether any
habitual votaries of Clotilde de Yaux are to be
found in the select circle of our English Positivists.
lY.
The Worship of Humanity.
The worship presented by the religious man The
to his deity is twofold. He brings his offering, a which
. Comte
sacrifice, a hymn of praise, or an act of homage or J^jjf "^ ^^^
obedience ; and, whilst acknowledging favours re- ^ mcdita-
ceived, he prays for spiritual or temporal good.
^ Il'uman Catholicism, p. 18. ^ Catechism, Preface, p. 88.
tion and
aspiration.
IG
Auguste Oonite. and
Now Comte enjoins prayer, or rather meditation
and aspiration, under the designations, " com-
memoration " and "effusion." Erroneous as is
his conception of the object of worship, his account
of fellowship with the Unseen is not without
dignity and beauty.
The
Religion of
Humanity
prescribes
both private
and public
devotion.
Stated
seasons of
worship are
appointed.
"Prayer in its purest form offers the best type of life, and
conversely life in its noblest aspect consists in one long prayer
The humblest home in Positivism should contain, better even
than under Polytheism, a sort of private chapel, in which the
worship of the true guardian angels would daily remind each
Positivist of the need of adoring the finest personifications of
humanity. " ^
Private prayer is enjoined upon the disciple of
Comte. He devotes
" the first hour of each day to place the whole day under the
protection of the best representatives of humanity."^
He offers a shorter prayer at mid- day, and again
at night as he sinks into slumber. The recom-
mendation with regard to family prayer reminds
us of the immemorial practice of the Chinese :
"The father of the family invokes, as household gods, the
chief ancestors of the family." *
Private prayer should be observed daily, weekly,
and yearly ; public prayer weekly, monthly, and
yearly. Whilst worship is to be offered only to the
"great being," Humanity, it is contemplated that
the Positivist temples shall contain a visible re-
presentation of the unseen object of adoration.
^ jfosiUu<i Fulity, vol. n., p. 68. ^ m^^ ^^i^ iv., p. 103-
* Jbid. vol. IV., p. 107.
" The Religion of Hutnamty." 17
" la i)ainting or in sculpture equally, the symbol of our
Divinity will always be a woman of the age of thirty, with her
son in her arms. The pre-eminence, religiously considered, of
the affective sex, ought to be the principal feature in our em-
blematic representation, whilst the active sex must remain
under her holy guardianship."^
If it is asked whether it is possible for Positivists
to worship their human god in the methods con-
secrated by the usage of devout generations, the
material for an answer to this question may be ^^^^^4^
found in the prayers used by the priest of the gy^^he'"''^^
Positivist community in London, which are prefixed pjsltivists
to the annual addresses delivered upon New Year's iished.
Day, the festival of Humanity, and regularly pub-
lished. These prayers are addressed to
"the Great Power, acknowledged as the liighest, Humanity,
whose children and servants we are." ^
The petitions are, for the most part, petitions for a
better knowledge of Humanity, with a view to
warmer love and truer service, and that life may
be strengthened and ennobled by sympathy and by
mutual aid. Among the blessings ardently sought of^sup^^fi?'
are union, unity, and continuity; but there is a necrSarify
lack of definiteness in the language, arising from indefinite,
the fact that the worshippers have no clear appre-
hension of the moral and religious qualities which
alone can make these blessings precious and
desirable. It is observable that the expressions
of the Positivist prayers are largely borrowed from
Catechism^ p. 142. ^ yj^^g ^y^^ Years' Addresses, passim.
1^ Auguste Gomte, and
the Christian Scriptures. The Positivists have
their benediction, viz. :
The ** The faith of Humanity, the hope of Humanity, the love of
liuma^dty' Humanity, bring you comfort, and teach you sympathy, give you
sanctions peace in yourselves and peace with others, now and for ever.
the use of Arnfm "
lienedictions '^i'^^^-
and
Collects. There is an Advent collect, which represents
Comte as the Messiah ; the opening clauses shall
be quoted to give the reader an insight into the
evident desire of the Positivists to link their religion
on, in thought and phrase, to the religion they
hope to supersede :
" Thou power Supreme, who hast hitherto guided Thy chil-
dren under other names, but in this generation hast come to Thy
own in Thy own proper pei-son, revealed for all ages to come by
Thy servant, Auguste Comte," etc.
Christian In the same spirit, Thomas a Kempis' devo-
manuals oi r ' r
aSIpteTtr ^ional manual "Of the Imitation of Christ," is
the use of approved by the Positivists as edifying reading ;
Catholics.'* in fact, Comte himself used it daily in his re-
ligious exercises ; but that it may be adapted to
the use of " Human Catholics,'* it is directed that
"Humanity " be everywhere substituted for '' God,"
and *' the social type " for the personal type of
Jesus! "What is left, when the Father and the
Saviour of man are eliminated from this famous
book of Christian devotion, may readily be im-
agined.
In the adoration and prayer offered to Humanity
by her votaries, one thing is very obvious Whilst
" The Religion of Humanity. " 19
the petitions of Christian worshippers are presented
to a Being justly and confidently believed to
comprehend and to sympathise with the wants of
the petitioners, and to possess the power and dis-
position to grant the favours sought, no Positivist i* ia ^n-
can for a moment suppose that the dead and j^p?ay^t?*^
vanished persons who constitute the humanity of in'^the^ew
past ages, can possibly be conscious of the desires worshippers,
professedly poured into their ears, or can possibly longer
do anything in response to prayer, to fulfil the JJ^^^^J^
supplications of their worshippers. sciousness.
V.
The Church of Humanity.
It was Comte's aim to found a society com- comte
aimed at
posed of all who should acknowledge himself as jjjj^j^^j^^n
the prophet of the new and crowning dispensation, church%ut
and who should accordingly regard Humanity as Stwn*^^
the object of supreme reverence and affection, those em-
bodied in
He perceived the miofhty hold which Eoman Boman
Catholicism had for centuries exercised over the
mind and life of Europe, and he attributed this
power to the adaptation of this mediaeval system
to the emotional and the social nature of man.
He accordingly set himself to copy the methods
and the very details of Romanism, and to institute
a church upon the broader basis of Hiunan Gatho-
lickm. There was this diifereuce between the two
usage.
20 Auguste Comte^ and
systems: Roman Catholicism carried the super-
natural into every region of human life, whilst
Positivism sought to exercise religious influence
by the use of means purely natural and human.
Thus the Church of Humanity came into ex-
istence. The founder of the Church drew up its
calendar, a very remarkable document which
bears witness alike to the extent of Comte's
knowledge, his love of system, and his width of
The sympathy. Each of the thirteen lunar months of
Positivist .
Calendar the year is sacred to the memory of a great leader
celebrates ' jo
Ind TerSs ^^ humauity in some department of thought or of
mustoous activity. Thus the first month is known by the
name of Moses, and every one of the twenty- eight
days in the month is commemorative of some
distinguished man associated with the early re-
ligions of the race. The seventh days the four
Sabbaths of the month are connected with the
names of Numa, Buddha, Confucius and Mahomet
chiefs in religious belief and in church organisa-
tion. The second month is consecrated to Homei
and the ancient poets ; the third to Aristotle anc
the ancient philosophers; and so on with the rest
The thirteenth month is known by the name o:
the physiologist, Bichat, and its days are al
connected with the memory of men eminent
modern science. The complementary day is th
" Festival of all the dead," and the additional da;
in leap-year is the " Festival of holy women "
** The Religion of Humanity,'' 21
Comte also published a system of Sociolatry, There are
comprising eighty-one annual festivals, upon which J^f ^J^J^j^^''^'*
the worship of Humanity should be celebrated. |aiSt8'^**^'
These were intended to replace the " holy days " ^^^^'
and "saints' days," which form so important a
part of the observances prescribed by Rome.
In this system it must be evident to the reader The
/-HI* Religion of
that man is everywhere ; whilst God is nowhere. Humanity
'' exalts man
Indeed, the religion of Humanity has been well andbanishes
described as " Catholicism without God."
Positivism was intended by its founder to have positivism
its priesthood, supported at first by the free con- priesthood,
tributions of believers, and when the faith shall
be generally adopted, by grants from the public
treasury Aspirants are to be admitted to the
priestly office at the age of twenty- eight, vicars afc
thirty-five, and priests proper at forty-two. Mar- TJie
riage is required of those in the second stage : ^M^^*;
of this
" for the priestly oflSce cannot be duly performed unless the man religion.
be constantly under the infljience of woman."
The business of priests is to teach the sciences,
and to preach upon the duties of private and
[public life. The supreme head of the body is the
'high priest, who is to be invested with absolute
power .^ In his love of organisation, Comte went
so far as to fix even the number and the stipends
of the Positivist clergy.
* Comte was succeeded in the Pontifical oflGice by M. Lafitto,
the recognized head of orthodox Positivism.
22 Auguste Gomte, and
It has its J^fine sacraments were instituted : presentation,
sacraments , . . , . .
initiation, admission, destination, marriage, ma-
turity, retirement, transformation, and incorpora-
The tion. In the case of women, the fourth, sixth and
character of
these " sat^ soveuth sacramcuts are dispensed with. The
raments." ^
reader cannot fail to ohserve that, whilst the
Christian sacraments are revelations of Divine
purposes, and symbols of Divine acts, the Positivist
institutions in question are all ordinances based
merely upon human life, especially upon events
occurring in its several stages,
rhe organi- It may be asked. Has any attempt been made
sationofthe "^ f J r
^chm-ch of to realise these schemes ? In Paris, the metropolis
toheadl of the Eeligion of Humanity, the institutions
auarters. founded by Comte are maintained: there is a
Positivist society, and high priest, there is
public worship and commemoration, there are
authorised publications advocating the Comtist
doctrines.
The position The Positivists of Loudou, who accept the later
of this ^ .
a^siSand. P^^^^ ^^ Comto's teaching, are organised into a
religious sect, numerically indeed small, but
comprising men of learning, ability, character,
and influence. They hold religious service every
Sunday morning, and social meetings on five
Sunday evenings in the course of the year. The
London members of the " Church of Humanity "
observe the appointed festivals, make contributions
in England.
" The Religion of Humanity.'* 23
towards their sacerdotal fund, their school fund,
their printing fund, and in their proceedings act in
some measure in accordance with the ordinary
usages of other English congregations.
In addition to two congregations in the metro- ^^^^^^ o,
polis, the religious Positivists of this country have S"^e?cS
, i- < p 1 2. T counts but
regular meetings m a lew or our large towns, in few aducr-
1876 they acknowledged that, outside of France,
they had no one in communion with them on the
Continent of Europe, with the exception of one
person in Sweden ! In the same year it was men-
tioned that one Oriental an Indian was in
fellowship with the hody. They do not, however,
seem discouraged by the slow progress they mako
as an organization, but rather look hopefully to
the diffusion of their principles among those who
do not join their assemblies.
This slow progress in a state of society which Their rata
^ o 'of increafo
might be supposed to be peculiarly suited to the ^J^lbhe'^
development of this humanitarian faith is certainly SmlS)sciiro
significant and suggestive, especially when com- seek
pared with the rapid advance of various forms of
Christian congregational life. Several obscure
sects of English Christians, even with all the
disadvantages of poverty, social insignificance, and
an illiterate ministry, have been seen so to grow
that, within a few years of their establishment,
they have come to number hundreds of congrega-
tions and tens of thousands of adherents. Tho
24
Aiiguste Comte, and
*' Eeligion of Humanity," on the other hand, has so
little attraction for those who are supposed to be
yearning for such satisfaction as it professes to
offer, that, notwithstanding all the advantages
\vhich intellect, learning, and social position confer
upon its leading representatives, it can with
difficulty gather and keep together in the metro-
polis two small congregations ! The adhesion of
individuals is chronicled as matter for rejoicing;
and it is recorded with seriousness as a reason for
congratulation and as an omen of prosperity, that
in a certain provincial congregation progress has
been so striking and so encouraging that a har-
monium has actually been introduced with the
laudable design of aiding the public devotions of
the faithful !
The
dilBcxilty Of
keoyiing
together
tlie two
Positive con-
gregations
in London.
Comte had
definite
political
plans.
VI.
The Practical Side op the Eeligion of
Humanity.
Comte, though an ardent theorist, was not con-
tent to propound a so-called science of Sociology,
a science which aims at reducing all the facts re-
lating to human societies and their actions to great
generalisations and laws. He believed himself to be
legislating for what, in his own grandiose way, he
termed *' the Eepublic of the West," by which he
meant the nations of 7estern Europe, with their off-
spring in America and the Colonies. He imagined
" The Religion of Humanity.^* 25
that the power of the Religion of Humanity would He aimed
m ' '11 -11 ^* recon-
prove sufficient to induce the nations to resolve them- structinp:
^ ^ society in
selves into small communities, each including from ^auSn?*'''^'^
one to three millions of inhabitants, to give up
^nationality," and to accept as the basis of their
true unity the sway of the Positive faith. The
new religion was to remould all political institu-
tions. Comte had great hope that the proletariate,
i.e.y the working classes, would hail his doctrine
with enthusiasm. He intended that there should
be an industrial patriciate having charge of the
proletariate. These capitalists and masters were
to include bankers, merchants, manufacturers, and
agriculturists. A council af bankers was to rule
all society ; with the advice of the "Western priest-
hood, acting under the direction of the high priest
of Humanity, this council was to fix the rate of
wages, and to administer the social and industrial
business of the civilised world.
Whilst the Positivists in our country claim to be, Jhe English
'' ' Positivists
as a body, entirely dissevered from party politics, tolcaven'^
they professedly make it their aim to leaven national SJSr ^^*^
life with moral principle, and to influence national ^"""^ "
action in favour of justice and peace. Accepting
the Christian doctrine of the universal brotherhood
of men, they are often to be found advocating the
Christian polity of mutual forbearance and good-
will.
Comte himself was a very decided opponent of
26
duguste Comte, and
Comtc'a con-
servatism.
The influ-
ence of
Positivism
over English
thinkers and
writers.
those revolutionary forces which have during the
last century played so mighty a part in the political
life of his native country. His tendencies were
mainly Conservative. He even hailed the accession
to Imperial power of Napoleon III. He addressed
the Czar of Russia, Nicholas I., in language of
extravagant eulogy. It was his opposition to
democracy, his subserviency to autocrats, that as
much, perhaps, as his development of the religious
stage of his doctrine, alienated from him some of
his most admiring friends, especially his celebrated
disciple, M. Littr^. In his aversion to democracy
Comte has not been followed by all his disciples.
As a rule, the Positivists have cared more for the
lofty ends of justice and peace, than for the special
political means by which these ends may be
sought and perhaps attained.
Positivism has exercised a powerful influence
over our contemporary English literature. We do
not refer merely to the scientific, anti-philosophical,
and anti-theolugical bias which such writers as the
late Mr. Gr. H. Lewes received from the study of
Comte's works, but also to the quasi-religious ideas
which were imbibed from the same source by the
late "George Eliot," and which are advocated
with so much persistency and fervour by Mr.
Frederic Harrison.
The stories, poems, and essays of " George Eliot "
bear more than mere traces of Positivism ; the
" The Religion of Humanity.^* 27
authoress herself described her longest poem as
" steeped " in this doctrine. That devotion to the George
welfare of others, which Comte denominated ^^If^
" altruism," was ardently adopted and commended STncuil
by this writer, who seems to have substituted this S Lr ^
form of benevolence for one more distinctively
Christian. She was also possessed with the Comtean
belief regarding the reign of the dead over the
living. But she was utterly opposed to the Chris-
tian doctrine of God, and had no faith in Revelation.
In her life occurs the following remarkable utter-
ance :
' * My books have for their main bearing a conclusion without The main
which 1 could not have cared to write any representation of ^^^T^^i"'
human life, namely, that the fellowship between man and man,
which has been the principle of development, social and moral,
is not dependent on conceptions of what is not man ; and that
the idea of God, so far as it has been a high spiritual influence,
is the idea of a goodness entirely human, i.e., an exaltation of
the human." ^
"We do not hesitate to say that just here, where
this popular authoress placed her moral strength,
just here lay her moral weakness. She was well
aware of the immense power for good residing in
Christian faith when sincere and active. But the The
impression
general tendency of her works is to suggest the J^J*^^^? ^^
possibility of a pure, self-denying, bright, and bene-
ficent life, altogether apart from the motives and
the hopes of the Christian Revelation, altogether
^ George Eliot'' s Life, Letter to Lady Ponsonby. Vol. ill..
P- 245. ^ ,
V*' OK THB
UNIVERSITT
28
Auguste Comte. and
Her better
characters
unnatural
because the
motives
thatwould
account for
their actions
are ignored.
apart from belief in a Divine Euler, and from ex-
pectation of retribution and of conscious develop-
ment in a future state. Some of the better
characters she describes strike the reader as un-
natural, because the principles and motives which
would fairly account for their actions, are ignored.
A painful sense of defect mars the satisfaction of
even the admiring reader ; his mind seems to ache
for truths withheld, for prospects darkened, for
spiritual motives expunged by the destructive
power of unbelief from the probationary and dis-
ciplinary life of man.
If Revela-
tion be
rejected
what sub-
stitute do
unbelievers
offer for the
satisfaction
and guid-
ance of
mankind ?
VTI.
Positivism, though an advance upon some
OTHER FORMS OF UnBELIEF, IS VIRTUALLY
Atheistic.
What, let us now ask, is offered by those
eminent and able men, upon the Continent of
Europe and in our own country, who reject reve-
lation, and with revelation all that is supernatural
in Christianity, what is offered as the substitute?
There are indeed some unbelievers who consider
that no substitute is necessary or desirable, that
man has no need of religion, that this life and its
pursuits, interests, and pleasures are all-sufficient.
But thorough-going Secularism (as this doctrine is
termed) finds adherents chiefly among those of a
" The Religion of Humanity.'^ 29
lower intellectual and moral type. By men of secularism
historical knowledge and philosophical insight it is thequc>stion,
generally admitted that man^s higher nature can on/f^f^rthe
only be developed, that his higher aspirations can inSecu^^^
only be satisfied, when he accepts the declarations m^rliiy?
and gives himself up to the influence of religion.
But the question is, Where shall the basis, the
scope, the motive of religion be found, if God be
denied, if revelation be pronounced impossible, if
the supernatural element in the Bible be deemed
incredible, if a future life be dismissed as an un-
founded and unverifiable dream ?
Two answers are ffiven to this question. The Butieamed
^ ^ and able
answer given by Strauss in Germany, and by the s^thr^^^
author of Natural Religion in this country, is this : the^fXre,
that the universe itself, as studied and represented ence fo/"
1 rp 1 p T Of natural law
by science, anords scope lor our religious feelings ; and for
that to admire nature, its vastness, regularity, 'g^c^g^s^m'
and beauty, is sufficient for a religious being ; that
the highest and purest emotions are thus evoked,
and that human life is thus saved from Secularism.
Further, as man is, in the view of these specula-
tors, part of the universe, the productions of human
art and the exhibitions of human virtue, are to be
taken into account in estimating the power of so-
called Cosmic religion.
But there is another answer, that namely with
which this tract is concerned. The Comtists differ
not only from the Secularists, who think that no
30
Auguste Comtek and
The
Positivists,
deeming
this an in-
sufficient
foundation
for religion,
propose that
the Human
shall be
deified.
religion is necessary, but further, from the Cosmists,
who think that the admiration of the universe is
the all-sufficient religion for man. In the view of
the Positivists there is something better than the
facts and processes which can be formulated in
mathematical and physical laws. Man is superior
to unconscious, to irrational nature. And since the
Comtists believe that God is only the name for an
abstraction, formed by projecting our own mental and
moral character and attributes into the imaginary
realm of the supernatural, they ask us to renounce
what they regard as superstition, and to rest satis-
lied with what is undoubtedly real, the race to
which we belong and the characteristics which, as
human beings, we share.
We readily admit that it is a higher exercise
of the soul to admire and to adore such human
qualities as justice, love, and pity, than to admire
and adore the revolutions of the planets, or the
symmetries and correspondences observable in the
various forms of life. But, after all said in favour
of the Positivist religion, it remains undisputed
that it is not Theism, That there is a Power
superior in might and duration even to Humanity
the Comtists do not deny.^ But Oomte himself
regarded the constitution of the universe as faulty ;
it often aroused his indignation, it never awakened
* Comte indeed recognized what has an apparent corre-
epondence to the Christian Trinity, in the three great powers,
Space, the Earth, and Humanity.
The
Religion of
Humanity-
is an
advance
upon
Secularism
and upon
Cosraism.
But it falls
Bhort of
Theism.
" Tioe Religion of Humanity*' 31
his reverence. He traced no moral purpose in
nature ; and therefore we cannot he surprised that
for him man was higher, more deserving of esteem
and veneration than any power, knowable or un-
knowable, to which Humanity owes its origin and
also the circumstances by which, upon this planet,
the race of men has been encompassed.
In the view of the Christian, Positivism is As denying
a living
atheism and idolatry; atheism, because denying ^jJ^^J^g^-^,^^
the existence and rule of a living and personal, an
almighty and righteous, a moral and supreme
Euler ; idolatry, because substituting for the Object as wor-
of worship whom Christians apprehend by faith, j^stSrl?^
either an abstraction of the understanding, or else i^ls^S^'^'
concrete, actual, and finite beings coming within
the range of perception. Whilst, then, we can sym-
pathize with the indignant and eloq[uent protests
which the representatives of Positivism now and
again utter when Secularism and Agnosticism out-
rage by their cynical negations the best feelings of
mankind, we cannot be misled by our sentiments
into the admission that the E-eligion of Humanity
is properly entitled to the name of a religion,
since, if it is not without a cultus, it is without a
revelation, without a law, without a gospel, without
a God.
In exalting the human race to the highest posi-
tion of honour and of reverence, the Positivists
virtually affirm that no intelligence or virtue higher
32
Auf/uste Comte, and
Positivists
confine their
regard and
reverence to
finite and
imperfect
beings.
We cannot
consent to
render to
man what
is due to
God alone.
than the human can be known to us. They do
not indeed pretend that man is the only rational
and moral being in the universe. Professing to
concern themselves only with what comes within
the range of observation, they are content to re-
cognise the existence of the human race and the
manifestation in its best representatives of qualities
higher than are discernible elsewhere. They refuse
to consider the question whether the phenomena
of the physical universe and the existence of con-
scious beings, involve or suggest a superhuman
Power. Regarding this as a question which our
intellect is unable to answer, they urge that, of
what we really know, the human qualities in-
tellectual and moral are most deserving of that
admiration which is the nearest approach to
worship allowed by their system.
Now this proceeding cannot be witnessed with-
out deep grief, without strenuous protest. It is
not in our nature to shut our eyes to the evidences
of a superior a supreme Power presiding over the
world, and revealing and exercising the attributes
of reason, righteousness, and benevolence attri-
butes which properly and necessarily belong to a
Person, a Divine Person. It is admitted that man
is not supreme, that he is no explanation of his
own existence, or of the existence of the material
universe. Yet we are urged to concentrate our
veneration and devotion upon man. This is a
" The Religion of Humanity ^ 33
demand with which our reason will not suffer us
to comply. We cannot but look higher than to
our fellow-creatures. We cannot but ask whether
there is not sufficient evidence of the existence of
a Creator, with glorious moral attributes. Wo
cannot but withhold from the manifold imper-
fections of man the homage we are ready to yield
to the infinite perfections of God.
Comte's hostility to every form of religion which comte was
acknowledges a Divine Ruler of the world, is de- oJ^'-KeSiT
cided and undisguised. The servants of humanity, thei^m"^
in claiming as their due the general direction of forms,
this world
" exclude, once for all, from political supremacy, all the different
servants of God Catholic, Protestant, or Deist aa being at
once behindhand and a cause of disturbance." ^
Monotheism, which in the East assumes the form
of Mohammedanism, and in the West that of
Christianity, forms mutually hostile and irrecon-
cilable,^-must, in Comte's judgment, abandon its
pretensions, and must submit to be fused and
superseded by the religion of the future, the
religion of Positivism, of Humanity.
It has been maintained, by Strauss and by
many of his English disciples, that we may reject
Christianity and yet may retain religion. But
facts do not favour this contention. Those who
repudiate the Religion of the New Testament
may in doing so resolve that they will substitute
1 Catechism, Preface, p. 1.
34
Auguste Comte, and
The impos-
sibility of
rejecting
Christianity
and yet
retaining a
Religion.
To abandon
Christianity
for Positiv-
ism is to
fall into
Atheism.
for it some other religion, more rational and credi-
ble as they think, but still a religion. But ex-
perience shows how slender a hold such a resolu-
tion has upon the mind of the infidel. That Au-
gusta Comte was sincere in his profession, that for
him religion was of supreme importance, we do not
question. But what are the facts with regard to
his followers ? It is well known that many who
regard the founder of Positivism as one of the
greatest of philosophers have no sympathy with
his religious views, but regard them as signs o:
his utter dotage ! They see no consistency between
the Positivism which teaches that exact science is
man's only intellectual possession, and the position
to which, in his later days, Comte exalted the
emotions of man, the precepts of morality, and the
mysterious observances of religion. Such was the
view taken by M. Littre in France and by Mr
G. H. Lewes in this country. The course o:
human events leads us to the conclusion, that, U
abandon Christianity for Positivism, is nothinc
else than to abandon Theism for Atheism.
YITT.
Humanity is neither an Intelligible Nor.
Worthy Object o Worship.
Whilst Christianity sets before us a Deitj
whose moral attributes, and especially whos
" The Religion of HuTnanity,** 'So
moral perfections, are so superior to our own,
ihat it is obviously iust that, if He exist, He ThewowhiT>
, , of humanity
Ishould receive our adoration and liomas:e, Comte is virtually
o tne worsmp
land his followers have nothing higher to offer us, ' ^"*
as the object of our worship, than is to be found
in our own human nature and qualities. Eeligious
isentiment is to be directed towards men and women,
rwith ordinary human characteristics. This amounts
feto nothing very different from the worship of
ourselves !
Let us try to understand what is that Humanity S^ .x_
' '' Hmnanity
which the Comtists propose as the Deity of the cJmtist?*
future and more enlightened generations of hi^tho^"*
iworshippers. When we make an attempt at God\as no
. . existence
idefiniteness, we find ourselves very much at a save as a
' conception
loss to know what we are to revere, to what ^i^y^
we are to offer our prayers. Strictly speaking,
ihumanity is an abstraction, a notion under which
Iwe gather together those qualities which distinguish
ttnen from brutes. "No doubt we shall be told to
Ibring together just those attributes which com-
nand our respect or win our love. Still, after all,
t is an abstraction, with no existence outside
our own thoughts. And how can we worship an
bstraction ? How can we trust, love, and serve
pin abstraction? Upon considering the Comtist
ieity, Dr. Mark Pattison came to the conclusion
that by humanity we can only understand
"A mere word, an abstract term, the pure creation of the
minds.
36
Auguste Comte, and
logical faculty, of which we know that it never was or can be
a real entity." ^
Others than Cliristiaii advocates have rejected
Tv^ith contempt or ridicule the proposal to set up
Humanity as a God. Professor Huxley, satirizing
the ecclesiastical pretensions of the founder of the
Positivist religion, says :
The utter
unrealitjr of
the " being '"'
thus offered
as a
eubstitute
for the
living God.
Probably
the Positiv.
ists worship
individual
human
beings,
dead or
living.
" Great was my perplexity, not to say disappointment, as T
followed the progress of this mighty son of earth, in his work of
reconstruction. Undoubtedly Dleu [God] disappeared, but the
Nouveau Grand-etre Supreme [the new, the Sxipreme great
Being] , a gigantic fetich, turned out brand-new by M. Comte'a
own hands, reigned in his stead." ^
Similarly, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen,
comparing Mr. Herbert Spencer's Agnosticism
with Mr. Frederic Harrison's Positivist Eeligion,
has said with point and with impartial severity :
"Humanity with a capital H is neither better nor worse
fitted to be a god, than the unknowable with a capital U."^
In fact, it is necessary, in order that Humanity
may have some plausibility as an object of
worship, to personify the idea. When the French
atheists deified the " Eeason," which they designed
to replace the Christian God, they personified the
attribute Eeason, representing it in the person of
a woman, whose character and reputation were
not such as to inspire the respect of the virtuous.
And the Comtists, there can be no doubt, instead
^ Co'itemporary Revieio, March, 1876. ^ Lai/ Sermons, p. 148.
' Nineteenth Ccntwi/^ June, 1884.
" The Religion of Humanity'* 37
of adoring the abstraction Humanity, actually
picture to themselves certain historical personages
who command their admiration, and make, now
this, now that, hero, saint, or sage, the object of
their veneration.
Apart from such personification it does not itseema
scarcely
seem consistent with reason and common-sense to possible to
worsnip an
worship Humanity. As well might we attempt to abstraction.
revere and love Mr. Matthew Arnold's " stream
of tendency, not ourselves, which makes for
righteousness." When Mr. Harrison afiirms that
"the sum of human effort in thought and act
forms a current of power," we admit the justice of
the statement, and the felicity of the figure. But
when he proceeds to describe Humanity as " a
composite human power," and, in his endeavour to
be more definite, as " a being, an organism with
every quality of organic life,"^ we resent the
transition from agreeable rhetoric to misty and
misleading philosophy. Much of the language
which the preacher of Positivism employs might
indeed justly be applied to that Being who made
man in His own image. Thus he speaks of
"the ever present sense of a superior power controlling our
lives, itself endowed with sympathies kindred to our own."
He adds:
' ' The entire system of Positive belief points to the existence
of r. single dominant power, whose real and incontestable
^ Contemporary Review, December, 1875.
38 Auguste Gomte, and
attributes appeal directly to the afifections, in no less measure
than they appeal directly to the intellect."
"^fedT^ is Such language as this would be most appropriate
which^^^"^ from a Theist believing in a living, conscious,
appropriate persoual Euler and Father of men. But it is
to ffir mere inflated rhetoric in the mouth of a thinker
meaningless who believes in no conscious and personal Power
if applied to . .
Humanity, superior to what is human, and who regards the
dead of former generations as the sovereigns who
rule our spirits and deserve our adoration.
Sober reason cannot but acknowledge that the
bulk of our fellow-creatures, living and dead, are
very partially deserving of our admiration, and
have no claim upon that religious veneration,
which is appropriately rendered to a Being with
Men, moral perfections. Human virtues have existed
generally ^
^ave^^' in all states of society, but in how few characters
JSy'^quiii. have these virtues been impressively preponderant !
fied admira- xtt l l { ^ i
tion : and We owe to our aucestors and predecessors much
few llSLVQ
deserved of ffood influence ; but alas ! not a little of evil.
ordinary '-'
reverence. Beverence and gratitude may justly be felt towards
some whose example has been found elevating and
inspiring. But, on the other hand, there have
been those of whose influence over ourselves wo
can think only with regret, even it may be with
loathing and with shame.
If a selection is to be made of certain individuals
who shall typify the true Humanity, who is to
make such a selection, and upon what principle ?
^'The Religion of Suvianity." 39
Are we to worship the soldier or the saint, the is a
^ ^ ^ selection of
emperor or the martyr, the missionary, the sage, Jeroe^'' and
or the poet? The type of character to this day '^0^;^
admired hy the multitude is often far from being ^^^^^^
such as would be approved by the intellectual, or the
religious. Comte was aware of the difficulty in
attempting to define the duly adorable Humanity :
he was not successful in overcoming the difficulty, J^j^o'^^haii
The " Calendar " is indeed a marvellous work, but Srectioni
it is noticeable that among its 500 names there
do not occur any of those which are connected
with the uprising of the enlightened intellect, the
quickened heart of mankind against mediaeval
superstition. In vain do we look for such names comte
^ unfairly
as Wyclif, Savonarola, John Huss, Luther, Mel- JJ^^^^JJ^^
ancthon, Calvin, Zwingle, Knox, Latimer. That mln'jfofthe
such names are " conspicuous by their absence," is purett,'
what we should expect, knowing Comte's prejudices useful oi
against Protestantism. Whoever shall select the
typical names will of necessity set before us only
a partial representation of humanity. Whether
the choice be arbitrary or rational, whether it be
according to personal preference or to general
conscience, the result cannot be other than un-
satisfactory. The author of Positivism endeavoured
to be at once comprehensive and eclectic.
* Humanity is not composed of all individuals or groups of
men, past, present, and future, taken indiscriminately. The
new great Being is formed by the co-operation only of such
existences as are of a kindred nature with itself ; excluding such
40
Auguste Comte, and
as have proved only a burden to the human race. It is on this
ground that we regard Humanity as composed essentially of
the dead." I
Either the
worshipper
or tlic
priest must
by selection
virtually
determine
nnd create
the object
of worship.
The
Comtist,
like the
Papal
Calendar,
distracts the
mind by the
multiplicity
of the saints
whose claims
it presents.
It is then admitted that Humanity as a whole,
is not a suitable object of reverence and worship.
The unworthy members of the race the vast
majority must be put aside, and the choicest
spirits, the few elect and precious, must be set
apart and placed within the shrine for adoration.
Now, upon what principle, by what faculty, by
whose authority, shall that part of humanity be
selected, to whom worship shall be offered? Comte
himself acknowledged that no arbitrary principle
is to be admitted, that the worthless and useless
must be deliberately eliminated, and that the gold
of humanity, liberated from the dross, must be
praised and honoured as God. This is as much as
to determine that either the worshipper or the
priest must make his God, and must do this in the
exercise of his own discrimination and judgment.
A practical difficulty in the so-called "Religion of
Humanity," arises from the multitude of objects
proposed for worship. The Comtist calendar is
crowded with names, names of men illustrious
in every field of research and achievement. The
aim of its author was to present a kind of synopsis
of humanity, and in this he may be credited with
having partially succeeded. The prototype of this
Positive Polity y vol. i., p. 333.
" The Religion of Humanity** 41
calendar is evidently the ecclesiastical calendar
comprising the saints who have heen canonized,
in the course of successive centuries, by the
Church of Eome. Let this diversity be com- 1f\^^^^
pared with the unity of the object of worship cSian
revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New ^hiSd
Testaments. The Papal and the Positivist SthiV^^
, diversity,
worship are alike distracting to the mmd ;
all that can be said in their favour is this:
that every character is sure to find something con-
genial in the multiplicity which is thus approved
by worldly wisdom. Inconsistent and opposite
qualities are alike honoured. On the other hand,
the Bible exhibits One only and supreme object of
veneration in the Divine Creator, moral Grovernor,
and Redeemer, in whom no moral imperfection is
to be found, and who combines in Himself all
moral excellence. The worship of the living God
brings into one focus all the spiritual aspirations
of man, and leaves no room for aught to be added.
The immediate object of human worship is
represented by Comte as being woman, especially
in the person of mother, wife, and daughter. But
worship must be of that which is above the J^^^^S-'
worshipper. What guarantee is there that the i^'^nora^^*
worship of woman will be, in all or in most cases, object of
1 p 1 n T religious
the worship of the superior ? It is not every man worship.
who can look up to his feminine relatives as models
of human excellence, far less as incarnations of
42 Aiiguste Gomte^ and
reason*
Divine glory. It is not every woman whose
worship will elevate her worshippers. Probably
there may be in the world more very bad men than
very bad women. But it is questionable whether
the highest and finest models of moral excellence
are to be found in the female sex. The worshipper
of woman will, to a sensible man of experience,
appear to be worshipping the creation of his own
imagination, coloured by the soft delusive light of
sentiment.
wsS^"i3 ^^ ^^ mainly to the religion of our Lord Christ
SntimJn!* that womau owes her elevation to her proper and
thllot ^ Divinely appointed position in human society.
The contrast between the regard in which women
were held, and are still held, in unchristian com-
munities, and the regard in which they are held
where the Eedeem.er of our humanity bears rule,
is striking indeed. But reasonable persons will
not be blind to that tendency to sentimentalism,
which is observable in religious society generally,
and which is referable to a deep-seated principle
in human nature. The worship of the Yirgin
Mary, so long and so extensively practised in
Itoman Catholic communities, however it may
have been originally suggested by heathen usages,
owes its popularity mainly to the power of senti-
mentality ; and the Positivist doctrine concerning
the worship of women, though traceable to Comte's
personal temperament and experience, lays hold
" The Religion of Humanity" 43
upon a tendency of human nature which will not
be, and ought not to be eradicated, but which
certainly needs to be governed and controlled. It The moral
^ ^ exccllenco
is not derogatory to women to say that, notwith- f^Sfcenda
standing all their excellences and all their charms, human^*^^*
they are but human ; and that, because they are both^mascu-
human, they are *' compassed with infirmity,'* and feminine,
are unsuitable as objects of supreme admiration
and unqualified praise. The just object of religious
veneration and service is a Being who combines
in His character, and who transcends, the ex-
cellences which are deemed distinctively masculine
and those which are deemed distinctively feminine.
The inferiority of the worship of woman to tho
worship of God, is apparent to every one who
believes that all human virtue is but the glimmer-
ing emanation from the goodness which is un-
created, eternal, and Divine.
IX.
The Inconsistency of Positivism with True
Prayer.
Nothing is more obviously inadmissible than comtists
offer prayer
the Comtist teaching upon prayer. The founder ^^^^^^
of the " Religion of Humanity," and those of his ^^*
followers who sympathize with the religious part
of his teaching, lay the greatest stress upon the
duty of devotion, and encourage direct addresses
44 Auguste Coonte, and
to the *' Great Being," i.e., to the human race as a
whole. That this Deity is unconscious, is incapable
of hearing the cry of suppliants, is neither pleased
with honour rendered nor able to confer favours
Such implored: this is unquestionable. We contend
prayer is *
for^it^does ^^^^ prayer to such a Deity is irrational and
beforo'those moaniugless. Better no prayer at all than that
to whom itp p I'll 1 L ^ 1^
is addressed. lorm 01 prayer which alone can be presented to
"Humanity;'* for the prayerless may be convinced
of sin, whilst those who fancy that they pray when
they invoke a shadow, an abstraction, a name, are
certainly deluding and deceiving themselves.
other hand, The prayer which is enjoined and exemplified
the Creator in Holy Writ is of a very different kind from any
and Saviour
of mankind rccommended by the Comtists. Christian prayer
i>< just and ^ r J
elevating. jg offered to a Being personal, conscious, able by
His very nature, disposed by His moral attributes,
and pledged by His faithfulness, to enter into with
sympathy, and to consider with wise kindness, the
desires and requests of His people. That in saying
thus much concerning God, we are making use of
language based upon human experience, and adapted
to human comprehension, we admit ; but the lan-
guage, though imperfect, is not unwarranted or
misleading. Man is declared by the inspired
apostle to be "the image and glory of God."
Prayer is then offered by spiritual natures to that
eternal and blessed Being who has made men
capable of knowing, trusting, loving, and serving
I
" The Religion of Hurru-inity, 45
Him. The Positivist theory forbids our attempting
to conceive an almighty Author of our individual
existence, an almighty Sovereign of our race ; and
enjoins upon us the adoration of those who at the
best are the " image," and the imperfect image,
of the Infinitely Excellent. It seems to us, as
Christians, more reasonable to believe that God
" is, and that He is a rewarder of them that seek
after Him." We have faith in One who, whilst Gratitude
and rever-
"one generation passeth away, and another genera- ^^J^-^^'^
tion cometh," abides unchanged and unchangeable, S'^our''^ *^"^
who includes in His own person in glorious per- ^^^-^^
fection those moral attributes which awaken our
admiration, even when dimly reflected in the
character of His creatures and subjects. As unbounded
the Source of wisdom and goodness this Being may and affSou
reasonably be invoked and entreated in prayer. gSi our
But with regard to the memorable and illustrious
dead, we cannot but perceive that what good it
was in their power to do they have already done ;
they have said all that it was given them to utter
of inspiration and of counsel ; they have left their
example and their influence behind, as a precious
legacy to their successors. Commemorate their
virtues we may and will; implore their aid we
cannot; the one is the dictate of gratitude, the
other would be the proof of infatuation. In fact
the prayer of the Positivist is simply an uncon-
scious witness to the heart's deep need, and an
46
Augiiste Comte, and
inarticulate acknowledgment of the heart's yet
deeper despair. Pray we must; but to whom
shall he pray, for whom no God in His all-wise
but inscrutable counsel sways the destinies of the
nations, and in tenderness as mysterious watches
over the child's uncertain steps ? There remains
for him nothing but the invocation of human pity
and human helpfulness. Alas ! for those who are
doomed to experience how vain is the help of man,
and who yet know not that God is " nigh unto all
them that call upon Him, to all that call upon
Him in truth." ^
It is often urged by Positivists that the prayers
of Christians are selfish, whilst their own devotions
do not aim at securing personal advantages, but
take the form of communion with and of aspira-
tion towards the highest good. Now we contend
that meditation upon moral excellence is more real
and helpful in the case of those who believe in
that excellence as eternally distinguishing the
Being who is interested in and who presides over
human affairs, and who is Himself concerned that
His rational creatures should themselves partake
and exhibit it. "Whatever reflex advantages prayer
to Humanity secures to the Positivist worshipper,
are certainly enjoyed by the Christian. And the
Christian reaps in his own heart and life the
benefits of answered prayer. It is a great mistake
Sad is the
case of
those who
must pray,
but wliu are
ignorant of
the true
and proper
object of
prayer.
It is
objected by
Tositivists
that the
prayers of
Christians
are selfish.
1 i'ealm cxlv. 18,
" The Religion of Humanity.** 47
to suppose that to ask for, and to use means for
obtaining blessings for ourselves, is the exercise of
a selfish spirit. Selfishness is the habit of seeking Prayer for
ffood for ourselves without regard for others, at shipper's
. . , 0^^ spiiit-
the expense of others, and with a view rather to "ii i^-
A ' provement
our own enjoyment than with a view to the pro- ig"noT^^^^^*
motion of the welfare of mankind and the glory of ^^^^^^*
God. If the Christian's prayer is selfish, then in the
view of the enlightened and spiritual, it ceases in
so far to be prayer at all. The essence of prayer
is submission to the Divine Will, that Will which
is the expression of righteousness, holiness, and
benevolence. That God's kingdom may in some The
Christian is
measure come through our agency, that God s bound to
*-" o ./ ' seek, above
glory may in some measure be promoted by our ^i}^^^i^y'
life, this is the supreme and constant desire and Go^and
hope of the Christian, and it is this that he em- ^^^**^*
bodies in his daily supplications. That the dross
of human earthliness mingles with the fine gold of
devotion, we all know from sad experience; but
this however the Comtist may be offended by the
explanation is because there is in our prayers
too much of man, and not enough of God.
48
Augusts Comte, and
Religion
should not
only i-evL-al
truth, but
enjoin law,
and exercise
authority.
What shall
be the
rule of
social life?
The
Christian
and the
Comtist
answers
to this
question.
X.
The Moral Authority of the Religion of
Humanity is insufficient to guide and
govern the llfe of individuals and
Communities.
By common consent, religion, that it may de-
serve acceptance, must offer to men, not only a
system of doctrines to be believed, but a law to be
obeyed, with motives and sanctions sufficient, in
some measure, to ensure the obedience enjoined.
It is not an ornament to be worn, but a force to
be obeyed. Mankind needs a religion that will
"work," that will deal with a wilful, rebellious
nature, with a life abounding in temptation, with
a society prone to inflame passion and to enervate
virtue. Religion, if it is to prove suitable for man,
as man is, must come to him as to a sinner, must
bring a remedy for man's moral disorder, succour
for man's moral weakness, control for man's moral
waywardness. It must not only reveal truth ; it
must impose and enforce law.
In Comte's view, the Christian rule of social
life, Love your neighbour as yourself, is a rule which
distinctly sanctions egoism ; and in the love of
God the ground of the rule he finds a direct
stimulus to egoism. He proposes instead, the
formula, Live for others ; but he qualifies this by
" The Religion of Humanity.'' 49
permitting men to gratify their personal instincts,
with the view of fitting themselves to be better
servants of humanity.^
The word " altruism " has been adopted into our The
, , "Religion
language from the French tonarue, which owes it ?/ Human-
" o o ' ity ' en] 01113
to the inventive genius of Comte.^ It is opposed " Altruism."
to " egoism," and signifies the principle according
to which a man lives, not for his own pleasure or
good, but for the pleasure or good of others.
Comte considered that he was the inaugurator
of a new social era, a new social life. If there
was one practical precept more frequently reiterated
by him than another, it was that embodied in the
above formula, "Live for others." The motto The
Comtean
which the disciples have adopted from their master, ^^*^-
^ and which they prefix to their publications, is,
* ** Love as our princijile, Order as our basis, Progress as our end"
The true interpretation of altruism includes
If not merely a regard for our fellow-men, but a
distinct ignoring of our Creator. It would be
easy to show that a community in which every nSfessity of
member of society should lose all thought and rrudcnco
renounce all care of himself, would become utterly benevolence.
disorganized. Comte was very well aware of this ;
he knew that it is by the due combination of
prudence with benevolence that human well-being
^ Catechism, p. 313.
- The word should have been " alienism," biit "altruism " is
now established by its adoption by Mr. Herbert Spencer and
other well-known writers.
50
Augusts Comte, and
is secured. His vanity led him to exalt his own
moral axioms ahove those accepted in Christendom.
Yet an impartial student of religion and of morals
cannot but regard the Christian law as superior
to that of Comte. ** Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God ivith all thy hearty . . . and thy neighbour as
thy self y^^ is a wise and practical principle of human
conduct ; it presumes as natural and right a regard
to our own interest, but directs us to make this
regard the measure of our interest in our fellow-
The
stipcriority
of the
Christian
over the
Comtist
law.
The
superiority
of the
Christian
motive.
men. Eighteen centuries before Comte's day,
Christ had inculcated the duty of unselfishness
and benevolence. But whilst Comtism relies only
upon the feeling of human community and sym-
pathy as the motive power to compliance with its
law, Christianity derives the love of man from the
love of God, and supplies in the revelation of
Divine compassion and mercy the spiritual impulse
which is mighty to prompt man to benevolence.
And experience has shown that there is no motive
so efficacious to secure the prevalence of mutual
love and helpfulness, as that arising from the pity of
the heavenly Father and the sacrifice of the Divine
Redeemer. He who is led by the faith he holds to
cherish love to God feels the force of the admonition
that, loving God, he shall love his brother also.
With regard to the other clauses of the Positivist
motto, it may be said that their unsatisfactory cha
racter is apparent at first sight, and that it is wonder
" The Religion of humanity.*' 51
ful how thoughtful men should accept them and glory-
in them. " Order as our hasis, Progress as our end.*'
Comte distrusted all political revolution, and was The
Comtist
reactionary m his approval of strong government, motto criti-
His veneration for authority was such as to verge
upon the admiration of absolutism. The basis of
" order " was for him something very different
from the mutual respect which men should cherish
for one another's rights. And how can "pro-
gress " be regarded as the " end " ? The language
contradicts itself ; for progress should be towards
an end. Progress towards a good end is a desira- "Progress"
. ^ ^ is no proper
ble thing; the all -important question, which Comte "end-"
does not answer, is this, In what direction, towards
what goal, is progress to be made? There is
progress towards anarchy and atheism ; and there
is progress towards peace, freedom, righteousness,
and piety. If the first be deemed retrogression
rather than progress, this should be stated, and the
true end should be defined. There is none of this ThequeRtion
is : to what
vagueness in the prospect which is opened up, in the ^^*^gceif ^
path which is prescribed, by the Christian revela- p^ogSs!
tion. The end there represented as worthy of all
human effort and sacrifice, is not mere progress, it
is the reign of God, i.e., the prevalence of justice
and benevolence among men, based upon faith in a
perfect spiritual Euler and Saviour, and intro-
ductory to the future and heavenly glory, to the
city and the kingdom of God Himself.
52
Augusts Gomte, and
Tho aimo-
nitions of
Positivism
are for the
most part
truisms, and
in no
sense
peculiar
to the
system.
"With these
should be
contrasted
the deeply-
founded
laws of the
Christian
Kevelation.
The divine
and
practical
power of
Christianity.
The mottoes which have been so much vaunted
by Positivists, e.g.. Live for others ! Live openly !
Let the strong devote themselves to the weak, and
let the weak venerate the strong ! The man must
support the woman ! etc., are very good as far as
they go. But they are no revelations of Comtism.
They are ethical truisms, and, what is of more
importance, such precepts do not meet the necessi-
ties of human life. The world is not governed by
mottoes. Christianity propounds a law, as the
expression alike of the reason and the righteous
will of the Author and Ruler of the universe.
Christianity reveals a future life, and thus adds to
the range and the solemnity of the moral outlook
of mankind. Christianity makes known the interest
of the Supreme Lord and Father of men in their
spiritual state. His displeasure with sin. His desire
to pardon, to purify, to bless. Christianity brings
to bear upon the heart and conscience of human
beings the mighty motive of love, enforced by
gratitude and by hope; so that this motive be-
comes the spring of a new moral life, of a cheerful
and enthusiastic obedience, Christianity reveals
an all-perfect example, the example of Christ, and
at the same time supplies needed power, the power
of the Holy Spirit. In all this we have some-
thing very different from mottoes; we have
principles whose efficient power is proved by
ample experience. Positivism has no resources to
" The JReligion of Humanity." 63
compare with these, no resources adequate to the a super-
. " , . natural basis
necessities of the case. The witness of Sir J. F. necessarj'
for religion
Stephen, himself unfriendly to Christianity and yf^fed^n"
apparently to all religion, may he accepted to the ^^"'^^'^"'^y-
principle, supported by human experience, that
the only religion which will work "must be
founded upon a supernatural basis believed to
be true."i
XI.
"Subjective" Immortality is a poor Substi-
tute FOR THE Personal Immortality
REVEALED BY CHRISTIANITY.
The Positivist teaching with regard to im- cpmte8
mortality is, when compared with the teaching of immortality
the Lord Jesus and His apostles, very defective pon/j^ts
and unsatisfying. Whatever there is in it sound Knucnc"
and good is equally the property of the Christian,
who is the possessor at the same time of a glorious
hope to which the Positivist is a stranger. Comte
held that, inasmuch as the social existence of man
consists in the continuous succession of the genera-
tions, the living are of necessity always under the
government of the dead ; conscious existence
ceases at death, and each true servant of humanity,
upon quitting this life, " exists only in the heart
and intellect of others."
* Nineteenth Century, June, 1SS4.
after death.
54
Aiigiiste Covite, and
Comte gives
no hope of
conscious
and happy
existence
after this
life.
" This is the noble immortality, necessarily disconnected with
the body, which Positivism allows the human soul. It preserves
this valuable term soul to stand for the whole of our in-
tellectual and moral functions, without involving any allusion
to some supposed entity answering to the name." ^
Death dissipates man's bodily structure into its
component elements ; and, since the soul, according
to Positivism, is but the function of organised
matter, it ceases to be when the organism ceases to
live. But the Comtist comforts himself with the
assurance that a useful, devoted, and unselfish
life cannot be without influence upon the future of
that race which to him is the one object of supreme
interest and affection. The doctrine offers no
prospect of a life after death, to animate the self-
denying toiler with the vision of fruit not to be
reaped on earth, to cheer the sufferer with the
anticipation of relief and of repose. But it offers
compensation for this loss in the assurance that
every generation that does its work faithfully con-
fers priceless benefits upon the generations which
follow. Thus the individual may be said, when he
has lost his personal existence, to live afresh in the
higher and happier life of those who come after
him, and who inherit the fruit of his work and
sacrifice. A man, we are told, will prove himself
more noble and less selfish, in cheerfully renounc-
ing all thought, all desire, of personal, conscious
immortality, when he has the conviction that his
* Catccliism, p. 77.
He
represents
it as a
high and
uneelfish
aim to live
for the
benefit of
posterity.
" The Religion of Humanity J* 55
best purposes will be realised, and his best en-
deavours rewarded, in the purer and richer life of
his successors.
" The old objective immortality," said Comte, "could never
clear itself of the egoistic, or selfish, character." ^
Let, then, this view of immortality be compared
with the prospect revealed in the Scriptures, and
cherished by every Christian.
There is nothing peculiar to Positivism in the The prospect
of leaving
belief that a good man's work endures after he good
o influence
himself has gone ; that in this sense he lives on in Jommon^to
the life of those who succeed him. This kind of ^^hS^'"""
immortality if it may be so called is the
property of Comtist and of Christian alike ; and it
is very strange that it should be claimed by the
former as his special revelation and possession.
The consolation of contributing to the future well- work^aMdes
being of humanity, is a just and worthy and real wo^rklr
goes to his
consolation to him who toils and suffers and waits, rest.
who seeks the good of his fellow-men, and often
seeks it in weariness and amidst many discourage-
ments and disappointments. The future of human-
ity is, however, a very different thing to the
Christian and to the Positivist. To the former,
mankind appears to occupy this earth for a period,
as a tribe of sojourners or pilgrims seeking, and
not in vain, a better country elsewhere. To the
latter, mankind appears to have this earth as
1 Caiechism, Preface, p. 33.
Augusts Comtej and
Positivism
contemplate*
the extinc-
tion of the
human race,
hody and
aoul, and the
consequent
annihilation
of every
good man's
work.
Christianity
opens up a
boundless
prospect of
results as
the harvest
of toU.
its possession and its one and only home. The
thoughtful man, however, will not forget that the
race is no more immortal than the individual. He
who believes in a future life may reasonably expect
a golden and imperishable harvest in eternity.
There is no limit, no end, to the beneficial results
of a virtuous and self-denying course on earth.
The new heaven and the new earth shall be
the scene, and eternity shall afford the un-
limited opportunity, of progress and of blessed-
ness. But to the Positivist no such prospect
opens up ; to him the future has no such re-
compense, no such compensation in store. What
then has he to look forward to ? The develop-
ment of earthly society, the prevalence among men
of peace and amity, of plenty, of culture, of order.
But the Positivist, as a man of science, knows that
this planet will cease to be the dwelling-place of
man, that our race will perish from off the earth.
And this means /or him the blankness of annihila-
tion. To his apprehension, all shall in the future
be as if knowledge and virtue and self-denial had
never been !
The Christian has another advantage over the
Positivist. Assured that his victorious Redeemer
has " abolished death, and has brought life and
immortality to light by the Gospel," he has no
gloomy expectation of extinction, but a bright
hope of personal life in closer commupion with the
" The Religion of Humanity*^ 57
ever-living God. This prospect he prizes as he in
prizes the present hie not lor an unworthy and Christianity
^ ^ *' assures us
merely selfish reason, not as the prospect of ^^^^' ^
pleasure made perpetual; but because there is gf^fS"*
11 ^ 1 ^ J* L p expectation,
thus opened up to him a luture oi unceasing personal and
devotion to the service of Him who is the highest immortality,
and the best, and who has the first claim upon
the love, the praise, the consecrated and loyal
devotion of His people. The Master lives, and
therefore the servant, the disciple, shall live also.
The relation gives dignity and blessedness to the
prospect of personal immortality- And with the
evidence upon which this prospect rests, the
Christian is abundantly and most reasonably
satisfied.
XII.
The Religion of Humanity, and the Religion
OF Christ.
If these rival claimants to man's spiritual comte's
misrepvescn-
loyalty are to be compared, the comparison must !j*^ji^on
not bo between Positivism and such Christianity ^ ^^"*^'
as Comte's wayward and prejudiced fancy con-
structed for the purpose of demolishing it. The
appeal of Christ's followers and friends is to
Christ's Word. It is necessary to refer to some
of Comte's misconceptions and misrepresentations
of our religion, for they have been too generally
58
August e ComtCy and
accepted by those who know little at first hand of
the Inspired Yolume.
Comte's enmity towards Christianity was in-
spired, partly by a dislike to its fundamental
revelation of a superhuman Being, the Euler of
the universe, and partly by a misunderstanding of
the character of our religion. He objected to it,
because in his view it represented
Comte
regarded
Christianity
as only
concerned
with the
unseen ;
nrhercas the
Incarnate
Son of God
makes the
invisible
visible.
He
looked on
Christianity
as opposed
to
benevolence;
whereas
sin is a
departure
from the
ideal nature
which
comprises
love.
He thought
that
Scripture
treated
labour as
in itself
a curse ;
whereas
it is sin
which
renders
labour
a penalty.
"perfection as consisting in an entire concentration upon
heavenly objects ; '"'
an objection which overlooks the great Christian
doctrine of the Incarnation, a doctrine which makes
it possible for us to realize, and so to admire and
revere, the moral attributes of the Supreme as
manifested under the conditions of a human
character and a human life. He condemned
**a morality -which proclaims that the benevolent sentiments
are foreign to our nature ; "
whereas the truth is that the Scriptures represent
malice and hatred as forms of sin, and sin as a
departure from the proper and Divinely constituted
nature of man. He complained that Christianity
"so little understands the dignity of labour as to refer its
origin to a Divine curse ; "
which is in contradiction to the Biblical statement
that the Creator placed unfallen Adam in the
garden " to dress it and to keep it," and that his
sin was the occasion not of labour in itself being
cursed, but of labour in the new conditions that
" The Religion of Humanity.'* 59
arose partaking of the penalties attaching to man's
disobedience. He describes our religion
" as putting forward woman as the source of all evil ; "
igard
woman as
the source
of all evil.
womau.
whereas the narrative in Genesis renresents the Eeveiation
. , , ^ . . , does not
man as equally guilty with the woman m violating ^cg
Divine law, whilst no book in the world has done
so much as the Bible to elevate the position of ^^n^^j/d^''
woman, and to strengthen her moral influence bSgumy,*
amongst mankind. Comte held that Christians christiaiiity
has done
much to
" pursue no good, however trifling, but from the hope of an ^^^^1%
infinite reward, or from the fear of an eternal punishment,"
thus "proving their heart to be as degraded as their in-
tellect. "
In this misrepresentation the master has been Hope
commonly followed by his disciples. Yet both aJenSf
Old and New Testament rely upon the love, the motives to
, ... - Christian
gratitude, the spiritual sympathy, cherished to- ^^ith and
^ ./ i V ' obedience.
wards the God and Saviour of mankind by those '^ratitude
who accept the message of Divine authority and fenf *
mercy, as the most powerful motives to well-doing. thJ aiT ^^^
A regard to personal welfare and happiness, power of
-^ . , , rr the Christian
though not the highest principle of obedience, is ^^*'-
yet a lawful and proper principle, and it is not the
fault of true religion that many of its expositors
have lost sight of the purest and best motives, and
have laid an undue stress upon those which have
right only to a subordinate place. No system of
morality, intended for men as they are, can al-
60
Align ste Comte, and
The
defects and
errors
involved
in the
principles
of the
Positivist
system.
together dispense witli the consideration of the
consequences of actions. But the more Christians
are penetrated with the distinctively Christian spirit,
the less will they act aright from motives of hope
and of fear, the more will they be actuated by
the impulses of duty, of loyalty, and of love.
Positivism cannot clearly distinguish between
the worshipper and the Deity, for both alike are
human. The object of adoration does not actually
exist ; it has had a partial existence in the past, it
is to have a completer existence in the future.
Meanwhile the devotee is to assist in the growth,
the construction of his god.
Positivism discerns in man no truly spiritual
nature. The phenomenal only can be known, and
the phenomenal has no lasting existence. All
that is human is physical, mortal, perishable.
Positivism recognizes no law independent of
human origin, no eternal, unchangeable govern-
ment and authority, superior to the generations
of mankind which come and which pass away.
Humanity is making a law as it is making a God ;
and that which is made is inferior to its maker.
Positivism knows nothing of sin; for it re-
cognises in man no Divine image which has
been defaced, it admits of no Divine standard from
which man has deflected, it knows no Divine
authority which has been defied. Upon vice and
crime, indeed, it looks with detestation, as injurious
I
represents
both God
and man ;
it abolishes
" The Religion of Humanity, " 01
to the happiness of the individual and to the peace
and order of society. But sin it is from its very
position and principles unable to comprehend; for
sin is against God, and the " Eeligion of Humanity '*
ignores and denies God. If man owes no allegiance
to a Supreme Power, he cannot rebel.
Positivism is ignorant of redemption ; for if
there is no sin, there can be no need and no
possibility of salvation. On the assumption that
God is not, the mercy, the pity, the love, which
Christians believe have provided a Saviour, ^vanish
and become mere fancies and illusions. For the i* "-
Positivist there can be no such thing as Divine
forgiveness, as restoration to Divine favour, as par- SiSlaw:
ticipation in Divine life. human sin;
it deprives
Depriving mankind of the Redeemer and of the " of the
blessed fruits of His redemption, the system now if^eakens
under discussion leaves the world poor, desolate, toV?tST'
1 . , . 1 1 , it limits out
and hopeless indeed ! prospects to
-r-k PIT T 'IT *^^ present
Positivism unfolds no reason, no substantial and '^^^
sufficient motive for a virtuous life. There is no
Divine purpose, and no imperishable aim to be
sought and secured by self-denial and beneficence.
The alternative in human conduct is simply between
the temporary happiness of one person and that of
another, and it is not clear why the agent should
prefer another's happiness to his own.
Positivism restricts our regards within the horizon
of earth and of time, i.e.y such a period as com-
62
Auguste Comte, and
prises man's tenancy of this perishable planet.
Beyond, it offers no prospect for either the in-
dividual or the race ; no scope for future recom-
pense, retribution, or development.
Does Christianity take a less noble view than
Positivism of human nature, as created by God,
and as re-created in Christ by the Spirit of God ?
On the contrary, the Scriptures assure us that
" God created man in His own image!' and "made
him hut Utile lower than God" ^ that " there is a
spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty
giveth them understanding." Christianity confers
upon our nature the highest honour, for its central
truth is that the eternal Word became " the Son of
Man,'' that He might redeem and save the nature
which He deigned to share.
Does Christianity come short of Positivism in its
view of the highest law of righteousness, the highest
possibilities of moral character, the highest motives
to self-denial, to true service? On the contrary,
the Bible reveals to us in God the attributes whose
harmonious action constitutes moral goodness, and
the Being who, as the Almighty and Eternal Ruler,
secures the final triumph of the cause of righteous-
ness. And the Bible reveals to us in Christ the
Divine Saviour, whose cross is the condemnation
of sin and the salvation of the sinner, whose love
lu every
respect the
lloligion of
Christ has
advantage
over the
so-called
religion of
Humanity.
In its view
of human
nature.
In its view
of morality,
and of
man's
moral and
spiritual
necessities.
In its
proAision of
ealvation.
^ llevised Versiou.
J
I
anti(?ipation
f
" The Religion of Humanity.** G3
is the principle, and whose Spirit is the power of
the new and higher life of humanity.
Does Christianity take a less inspiring and in its
satisfying view than Positivism of the prospects of \\^^^^^^ ^
humanity? On the contrary, it bids us look for- eirou^^
ward to the time when it shall be said, "The
kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of
our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign
for ever and ever." The " Religion of Humanity **
may promise the virtuous and the wise a name in
the Comtist calendar, a niche in the Positivist
temple ; but Christianity permits us to believe of
the sainted and the glorified that " they are equal
unto the angels, and are sons of God," and en-
courages the devout and faithful to breathe to
Heaven the aspiration, " I shall be satisfied when
I awake with Thy likeness." The brightest hope The limitod
of the Positivist is in the spread of civilisation. Positivism.
the reign of order, and the prevalence of peace on
earth. In this hope the Christian joins. But the
time shall come when the earth and the heavens
shall be rolled up as a mantle, and shall be changed
as a garment. With that time, in the gloomy
apprehension of the Positivist, shall perish and
pass away, together with this material dwelling-
place, those natures that make it their brief, their
only home ; and man, with all his works and all his
knowledge, and all his virtues, shall be swept into
eternal oblivion. But with that time, according to
Gl
Tlie Religion of Humanity.
The Ricrious the stiong and well-founded hope of the Christian,
revelation
which.
Christianity
give? of the
everlasting
destiny of
the saved.
shall appear *^ the new heavens and the new earth,
wherein dwelleth righteousness;" and then shall
he fulfilled the prayer offered for His people hy
Jlim who is the Head of the new and immortal
humanity, " Father. I will that where I am they
also may he with Me, that they may hehold My
glory which Thou hs st given Me ; for Thou
lovedst Me hefore the foundation of the world/'
-*>>! Present Day Tracts, No 47. \-
THE
ETHICS OF EVOLUTION
EXAMINED.
BY THE
EEV. JAMES IVERACH, M.A.,
AUTTIOR OF
'Is God Kxo'wacle?" "The Philosophy of iln. Herbert Spencer Examined."
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY:
56 PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 65 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD,
LONDON.
<^rgitmcnt of the ^vut
Mr. Herbert Spencer taken as the exponent of the
Ethics of Evolution. His statement of the question. The
new aspect given to Ethics by Evolution. Criticism of Mr.
Spencer's account of the genesis of moral intuition. It
fails to account for the influence of education, and for the
inheritance of mankind embodied in literature. Man is a
being possessed of freedom, and any view of morality must
have regard to this fact. Mr. Spencer's use of words of
different moral import as if they were synonymous. Bene-
ficial, good, pleasurable, are identified by him, as also are
detrimental, bad, painful. Fallacy involved in this pro-
cedure. Impossibility of deducing laws of conduct from
laws of life and conditions of existence. Criteria of moral
conduct. Evolved conduct may be good or evil. Indus-
trialism affords no criterion of the morality of conduct.
Moral obligation. Veracity as the test whereby we may
try the validity of the hypothesis of the Ethics of Evolution.
Impossibility of accounting for the binding obligation to
be truthful on any UtiUtarian hypothesis. Mr. Spencer's
prophecy that "the element in the moral consciousness
I which is expressed by the word obligation will disappear."
'Criticism of it. Mr. Spencer's distinction between absolute
and relative Ethics misleading. Failure of Evolutionary
Ethics to afi"ord guidance to man. Christ's life and teach-
ing the sure guide of man to real moral conduct. Christian
Ethics the only scientific Ethics.
THE
ETHICS OF EVOLUTION EXAMINED.
[he latest outgrowtlL of the theory of ^^^
Evolution is found in the Ethics it has stSSent
sought to formulate. Many writers are genesis of
in the field, but by common consent the intuitions
greatest of them is Mr. Herbert Spencer. His
writings are most referred to, his name has most
authority among Evolutionists, and we shall limit
ourselves to his writings.
We begin by quoting from him a statement
which sets forth in few words the method by which
evolution cceks to explain morality. "We make
this quotation, as it is well to have at the outset
a definite view of the matter with which we have
to deal.
"To make my position fully understood, it seems needful to
add that, corresponding to the fundamental propositions of a
developed moral science, there have been and still are, developing
in the race, certain fundamental moral intuitions; and that,
though these moral intuitions are the results of accumulated
experiences of UtiJity, gradually organised and inherited, they
have come to be quite independent of conscious experience.
Just in the same way that I believe the intuition of space to
have arisen from organised and consolidated experiences of all
antecedent individuals, who bequeathed to him their slowly-
developed nervous organizations, just as I believe that this
intuition, requiring only to be made definite by personal cxperi-
The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
that man
has now an
intuitive
knowledge
of truth.
ence, has practically become a form of thought, apparently quite
independent of experience ; so do I believe that the experiences
of utility, organized and consolidated through all past genera-
tions of the human race, have been producing corresponding
nervous modifications, which, by continued transmission and
f.ccujnulation, have become in us certi^in faculties of moral
intuition, certain emotions corresponding to right and wrong
conduct, which have no apparent basis in the individual experi-
ences of utility. I also hold that just as the space-intuition
responds to the exact demonstrations of Geometry, and has its
rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them ; so will
moral intuitions respond to the demonstrations of moral science,
and will have their rough conclusions interpreted and verified
by them." ^
We take note of the concession here made by
Mr, Spencer, because it marks the end of a long
controversy, if from another point of view it marks
the beginning of a new one. We have it here
admitted that man has an intuition of truth, truth
which is recognised as true as soon as it is under-
stood. What origin soever the intuition may have
had, it is conceded that now and hero for the
individual there are truths of intuition, both mathe-
matical and moral. This is a distinct gain, and an
advance on the old assertion that worlds may exist
where two and two might make five. Still, we
must not make too much of the admission, for it
is often the habit of Mr. Spencer to take away
with the one hand what he concedes with the other.
The old controversy was whether custom and
association could account for, and explain the
intuitions of the mind. The old answer was Yes,
The old
controversy.
1 Data of Elides, p. 123,
The Ethics of EvolvMon Examined,
and students of the history of philosophy will
readily recall to mind the various attempts to show
that the laws of association could account for ex-
perience. To the same question Mr. Spencer and The truth
... intuilivcly
Mr. Lewes, and evolutionists in ereneral, answer '^"^'^.^ .
' o ' o prion
both "No and Yes. They answer that if you have individual
regard only to the individual, then it is conceded p^sta-iori
that he has forms of thought and faculties of moral according *
intuition which have no apparent basis in individual spcnccr.
experience, and are apparently quite independent
of it. But they answer that if you have regard to
the race, if you widen the meaning of custom and
association, to embrace the Avhole history of life,
then these can account for all the beliefs of man,
both those which are fundamental and also those
which are less fundamental. Truths which are now
forms of thought, truths which are a ^oriori to tho
individual, are a posteriori to the race.
The concession made to intuition is thus more Tho con-
cession mora
apparent than real. An intuition is only custom JJ|^"r"jj
made inveterate. It is only an association of facts
or ideas which, from frequent repetitions, has be-
come inseparable. Obviously the former contro-
versy has been begun anew, and the issues aro
greater than before. Hume's position was that
all knowledge is the outgrowth of sensation ; the
position of Spencer is different only in the fact
that lie demands a longer time for sensations to
cluster themselves together, and to elevate thcni-
T^ie Ethics of Evolution Examined.
selves into faculties of intuition. It will be well
to inquire into the possibility of this transformation.
"I also hold," says Mr. Spencer, in the passage already quoted,
** that as the space-intuition responds to the exact demonstra-
tions of geometry, and has its rough conclusions interpreted
r,nd verified by them."
The spact-
intuition
fundamen-
tal, and
without its
constant uso
peomctry
cannot
proceed.
The sense
in which
the
conclusions
of the space-
intuition
have to be
verified by
tlie exact
demonstra-
tions of
gecuietry.
"VYhat precise meaning is attacbed by Mr. Spencer
to these words it is difficult to say. It is certain,
however, that the procedure of geometry is the
exact opposite of what he describes. In every
geometrical demonstration appeal is made to, and
the verification is supplied by the space-intuition,
whose " rough conclusions " he thinks require veri-
fication. This is an illustration of a confusion of
thought which constantly recurs in the writings
of Mr. Spencer. It appears most frequently as an
inability to distinguish between things that differ.
Nothing is more common with him than to accumu-
late as proof of a certain proposition a number of
particulars which have no common principle, and
have no common bearing on the point the truth
of which has to be established. In the case
before us there is a sense in which the rough con-
clusions of the space-intuition have to be verified
by the exact demonstrations of geometry. These,
however, refer only to actual matters, such as the
shape, size, distance, and other quantitative rela-
tions of the different objects which are within our
view. But even the determination of these pre-
suppose the space-intuition geometry is supposed
The Ethics of Evolution Examined,
to verify. The space-intuition which emerges as
the consummation at the end of a process, is of
such an indispensable nature, that without it the
process could not have begun. Geometricians
assume the space-intuition, they work from it,
ihey appeal to it at every stage of their demon-
strations, and this intuition has such authority, Authorita-
that a singular act of perception, presentative or of intuitivo
representative, is sufficient to establish the validity
of the truth thus intuitively seen, as a universal
truth, true everywhere and always. In this sphere
one presentation is equal to a thousand ; our con-
viction of the validity of intuitive truth, at the
very first presentation of it to our minds, is so
strong that increased experience does not make it
stronger. The space-intuition has no need of veri-
fication, it verifies itself, and it is the touchstone
of the truth of geometrical demonstration.
Experience is possible because we have intuitions, Expericnco
ossiblc
ecause
iutuitions.
and every experience, however slight, presupposes because of
the intuition, which, by the theory of Mr. Spencer,
emerges as the result of the experience. It is re-
markable also, that the procedure of Mr. Spencer Mr.
himself corresponds exactly with the usual proce- system of
' ^ ^ *^ * _ philosophy
dure of geometricians. The first chapter of his Jtuitfons'^
Fsychology is entitled "A Datum "Wanted," and the
second is called '* The Universal Postulate," which
is thus expressed, " a belief which is proved by
the inconceivableness of its negation to invariably
The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
Attempt of
Mr.
Spencer to
trace the
enesis of
tuitions.
exist is true.'* It is curious to find that the
universal postulate is an intuition ; on it he bases
all his reasoning, and he regards his reasoning as
gaining in cogency in proportion as he can make
direct and immediate use of the postulate. With-
out the postulate he cannot move a step, or draw
an inference. Grant him the datum, and he can
move onwards to complete the great structure of
his philosophy. Eef use to grant him the validity
of his datum, or the sufficiency of his postulate, and
he is powerless. In the case of Mr. Spencer, too,
the experience philosophy is based on intuition.
No doubt he proceeds immediately to show how
the universal postulate has been obtained, and we
have from his pen a number of chapters of special
analysis, of general synthesis, and special synthesis,
in which he endeavours to describe the genesis of
special intuitions, as well as the genesis of that
intuition which he describes as the universal postu-
late. But for that genesis the universal postulate
is needed even at the starting-point, and it is needed
at every stage of the process. "We ask again how
we can conceive of a universal postulate which is
needed at every stage, and yet is itself the product
of the process which it governs aU along? If it
can be shown that the simplest experience is im-
possible if we do not possess these ideas beforehand,
then the argument that intuition is the product of
experience falls to the ground. Reduce experience
The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
to its simplest elements, yet whenever there emerges
a state of consciousness, there are already present
those intuitions which form at once the basis and
the test of valid experience. It is unnecessary to
dwell further on this point, on which so much has
been written since the time of Kant. We pass on
to our proper subject, and we propose to examine ll^^ncer's
Mr. Spencer's account of the genesis of moral ^hfgSJes/s
, ., . of moral
intuition. intuition.
It is well to have clearly before our minds the
fundamental assumption made by Mr. Spencer.
It is
*' that the experiences of utility, organised and consolidated
through all past generations of tlie human race, have been pro-
ducing corresponding nervous modifications, which, by continued
transmission and accumulation, have become in us certain facul-
ties of moral intuition, certain emotions responding to right and
wrong conduct, which have no apparent basis in the individual
experiences of utility."
Concentrating our attention on the central part of ^o^J^L
this statement, we look steadfastly at what is in- becTme''''"^
volved in it. Put nakedly it stands thus, "nervous of moral
. ni' 1* intuition.
modifications have become faculties oi moral in-
tuition.'' Mr. Spencer has certainly the courage
of his convictions, and in this startling proposition
has placed boldly before his readers what is implied
in his system. The sentence passes at a bound
from the outer world of matter to the inmost centre
of self-conscious life and thought, and in a bold
synthesis identifies the two. In the sentence is
gathered up the result of all the work of Mr.
10
Tlie Ethics of Evolution Examined.
The tlicory
fails whcu
brought
face to face
with patent
facts.
Spencer. Here a nervous organisation, which, has
somehow arisen, grown, accumulated to itself in-
crements and modifications ; there in the end facul-
ties of moral intuition. We might have forgotten,
in the long process of perusing the voluminous
works of Mr. Spencer, the identity of nervous
modification with faculties of moral intuition, had
he not in kindness placed them side hy side. The
identification of the two sets us to examine the
process by which they are identified.
The theory receives a fatal shock as soon as it
is brought face to face with facts which are
apparent to every one. I have received from my
ancestors a nervous organisation, modified and
enriched by all the experience through which they
have passed. They have bequeathed to me this
inheritance, and my nervous organisation is such
as to have born with it faculties of moral intuition.
Compared with the immense period during which
this nervous organism has been used, the time
during which I can use it is very brief indeed, and
the modifications which can be made in it by me
must be very slight in comparison. Yet, on tho
contrary, the fact stands thus, recognised as con-
spicuously by Mr. Spencer as by any other writer
on education, that the modifications introduced into
character by education, in the comprehensive sense
of that word, are infinitely more important than
those we have received by inheritance. At all
It fails to
account fcr
the crowth
ol character
ill a maa's
lifetime by
CVOluliOB.
The Ethics of Evolution Examined, 1 1
events, it will be admitted by all that education,
tbo training of the family, the discipline of tbe
school, and tlie influence of social life, are elements
in the formation of character whose importance
cannot be over-rated. Where are the nervous
modifications to correspond with these changes in
the human character produced by education ? They
are not to be found.
Nor do nervous modifications represent all that it fails to
I have received from the past, any more than they the
"^ ^ *' inheritance
can represent all I receive from day to day in the f^^^'^i
present. If they did, I should be Hmited to that if aJrapTA
share in the universal inheritance which my im- nervous
mediate ancestors have been able to acquire and to tioas.
bequeath to me. What they were, that I would
be, with only an infinitesimal change in some direc-
tion. Nervous modification is a costly and a slow
process too costly and slow to fit me for my life-
work. Humanity is thrifty, and has found out a
more excellent way. It has found out other and
less expensive ways of registering its higher ex-
periences. Literature, art, science, the recorded
thoughts, feelings, and deeds of mankind are not
limited by the nervous organisations which each
generation has bequeathed to its successors. And F^^fj^^Jjf^^
to-day my inheritance includes the achievement of includes.
inspired writers like Moses and Isaiah, the thoughts
of philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, the songs
of poets like Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare. In
12
The Ethics of Evolution Examined,
a word, all that has been done by humanity has
become mine, whether my ancestors have had or
had not that particular nervous modification which
might be held to correspond to the BejmbUc of
Plato, or the Principia of Newton. The first
objection therefore to be taken to Mr. Spencer's
view is, that it can neither account for the influence
of education, nor for the inheritance of the past.
It implies also that for every great thought, or
lofty imagination, or holy feeling, there is a cor-
responding nervous modification. From the nature
of the case no proof of this can be given, nor can
there be any proof of the other assumption, that
nervous modifications have preceded or aocompanied
mental and moral development in the past. This
has been put so well by Dr. Martineau, that vro
venture to borrow the statement of it :
There is no
proof that
nervous
modifica-
tions accom-
pany mental
and moral
develop-
ment.
No exact
correspon-
dence
bti-ween the
moral and
the
physical.
"The fact is, that the evolution theory rests mainly upon
the evidence of organisms; and when they have been duly
disposed in the probable order of their development, their
animating instincts and functional actions are obliged, it is
supposed, to follow suite ; and it is therefore taken for granted
rather than shown, that by a parallel internal history, tho most
rudimentary animal tendencies have transmuted themselves
into the attributes of a moral and spiritual nature. But tho
essential difierence between the two cases must not be overlooked.
The crust of the earth preserves in its strata the memorials of
living structure, in an order which cannot be mistaken, enabling
us to associate the types that co-exist, and to arrange those
which are successive ; and, in spite of tho missing links of the
series, to observe the traces of a clear ascent, the higher forms
making their first appearance after the ruder. The archeeology
of nature is in this respect perfectly analogous to that of history ;
and supplies a chain of relative dates with as much certainty as
77^6 Ethics of Evolution Examined, 13
the coins disinterred at different dates, and of graduated work-
manship from the ruins of a buried empire. But just as, in this
case, the image and superscription report to you only the place
and time of the Caesar they represent, but tell you nothing of
his character and will ; so in the other, the fossil organ is silent
about the passion that stirred it, the instinct that directed it,
the precise range and kind of consciousness which belonged to
its possessor. In other words you have, and can have, no record
of psychological relations, in correspondence with the hierarchy
of forms ; for you cannot get into the consciousness of other
creatures ; and if, in order to find room for educing the moral
affections from what is unmoral, you begin with our praehuman
progenitors, and take their private biography in hand, and
catch their first inklings of what is going to be conscience, you
are simply fitting a picture to your own preconception. To a
certain extent there is, no doubt, a definite and known relation
between structure and function in animals, enabling you from
the presence of the one to know the other. The wing, the
fin, the legs, reveal the element and the habit of a creature's
life ; the jaw, the teeth, the condyles for the connected muscles,
disclose his food-appetite, and his modes both of pursuit and
of self-defence. But long before we reach the problem which
engages us we come to the end of this line of inference. .
There are no bones or muscles or feathers appropriated to the conscicnco
exclusive use of self-love ; no additional eye or limb set apart ^5*^ ^^^
' ... . ^01 our
for the service of benevolence ; no judicial wig adhering to the higher
head that owns a conscience ; so that, in this field, i.e., through any tlvsical
the whole scene of the moral phenomena, no help can be had organ.
from the zoological record. Nothing can be more chimerical
than prse -historical psychology."^
It is confessedly difficult to set forth all that is
implied in the notion of heredity, or to assign
limits to what may or may not be transmitted to
us from our ancestors. At the same time, it is
not difficult to see that the equation between nervous
modifications and faculties of moral intuition which
Mr. Spencer endeavours to establish cannot hold
1 Types of Ethical Theory, vol. ii., pp. 340, 3X
14
The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
Pleasure is
evanescent,
and its
results are
limited to
the nervous
organism.
All nervous
changes are
accounted
for and
expressed in
physical
terms
in Mr.
Spencer's
system.
true. The experiences of utility whicli are spoken
of, are experiences of pleasure, and it is not ex-
plained how pleasurable experiences can be organised
or consolidated. lor a pleasurable feeling is an
evanescent state ; it was, and is not. In the moment
of fruition it ceases to be, and the effect of pleasure
on the nervous system is to produce a change in
its structure. The utmost result of pleasure in
relation to the nervous system is to produce a
momentary change or modification, more or less
great. And what is transmitted is the nervous
organisation thus modified. It is a gratuitous
assumption, that along with the changed nervous
system thus transmitted, there are transmitted also
the feelings and experiences which originally gave
rise to, and accompanied these changes of structure.
But nervous structure remains nervous structure
from first to last, and how great soever may have
been their modifications, and however numerous
the generations through which they have been
transmitted, they are in the end nervous modifica-
tions and nothing more. The nervous system,
hoAvever, plays a large part in the system of Mr.
Spencer. Modifications in its structure are by him
held to account for all the modifications of mind.
He has not shown how this is possible as a matter
of philosophy, nor has he been able to show that
it is a matter of fact. He has shown, on the con-
trary, that changes in the nervous organism are
Tlie Etiiics of Evolution Examined. 15
physical changes to be accotinted for and explained
by physical causes alone, and may be described in
physical terms alone, without reference to any such
thins: as feeling or consciousness. For feeling is. Feeling,
" *^ , . according to
on his theory, something gratuitous, something in- ^^p^^wn-'^'''
explicably added to the physical changes of the gratuitous.
nervous structure. And yet Mr. Spencer holds
the correlation to be so close, that he can afford to
make the physical changes of the nervous system a
register of the growth of spirit, and an explanation
of the highest attainments of spirit. Consciousness kis con-
*^ ^ ceptionof
for him begins with a nervous shock, and every in- ^^^^^^^^^^
crease of faculty is accompanied by or caused by a
more complicated shock until the faculty of moral in-
tention emerges as the result of this series of nervous
shocks. One would naturally have supposed that
this had been made out of a series of demonstrations
founded on the examination of nervous structures
in the various stages of their development. At one
stage a nervous system ought to be shown us at the
very time when consciousness began, and that added
modification ought to be pointed out which caused
consciousness to be. Other modifications, corres-
ponding to the growth of experience, and to separate
faculties, memory, hope, imagination, reason, v.ntil at
last moral intuition stands forth with its appropriato
nervous modification. Mr. Spencer's theory assumes atj..
that a series of correlations can thus be made out, theory an
assumption
It remains an assumption, and nothing more, and nothing
IG The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
Jtr. A consequence of tliis assumption is tliat Mr.
Bponcor's . i i i
view of Spencer is constrained to look on man as an aggre-
gate of feelings, wHcli feelings are again dependent
utterly on the nervous organism. As Lange has
pointed out, it remains true that if all the conse-
quences of Darwinism are granted, the conscious
life of man remains still a problem which requires
special treatment. With Mr. Spencer, however,
the problem of ethics is sought to be solved by re-
ference to methods which have been found adequate
in lower spheres of life. He is constrained to
reject the conception of freedom, and to treat it as
an illusion. The illusion arises from the belief
*' that at each moment the ego present as such in consciousness
is something more than the aggregate of feelings and ideas
which then exist."
We have always criticised the pyschological bearings
His incon- and implications of this statement.^ We now look
61. ency ^^ _.^ ^ ^^^ bearing on the problem of ethics. All
mankind have fallen into the strange illusion of
supposing themselves to be something more than
their " feelings and ideas." Even Mr. Spencer is
no exception to the rule ; at all events, he is in the
constant habit of using language which is meaning-
less, unless he is something more than the aggregate |
of ideas and emotions existent for the time.
Supposing, however, that the ego is this aggregate
1 Present Day Tract. No. 29 : Th& Philosophy of Mr. HcrOcrt
^' "I 3j}cncer Emmined, pp, 13-28.
The Ethics of Evolution Examined. 17
and nothing more, how does the further illusion of
freedom arise ? We get, it seems, into the habit
of speaking of ourselves as if we were something
separate from the group of psychical states which
constitute the action, and we fall into the error
of supposing that it was not the impulse alone
which determined the action. Causality does not, supposition
.of unrelateJ
it appears, belong to the ego, but to a particular feelings a3
causes.
feeling, idea, or impulse. How a consciousness of
self can have arisen at all on Mr. Spencer's terms
is not evident. How a consciousness of the freedom
of self could have arisen is even more mysterious.
For if the connection between feelings and actions
be what Mr. Spencer describes it, then the in-
ference for the consciousness to draw is, that the
will is necessitated. The puzzle is hopeless. How
came this ego to have its place in consciousness ?
How could a bundle of conscious states impose
on the " aggregate," that it was something apart
from the aggregate, and could cause changes in
it ? Well, if this be an explanation of the illusion
of freedom, the explanation is more mysterious
than the fact.
If a desirable state of f eeKng be the aim of con- Mr.
duct, as Mr. Spencer affirms, then it maybe remarked affirmatioa
, '' as to the
that when it is so, I look forward to that state as f;^^i^
mine. I look forward, and see myself in the state
in which I desire to be ; and if my action is deter-
mined by it, this follows, not from an impulse which
c
conduct.
18
The Ethics of Evolution Examined,
An aim is
intelligible
only when
viewed in
relation
to the
conception
of self.
Mr.
Spencer's
statement
of the
problem
of moral
sdeuce.
singly and alone produces its own consequence, but
from the impulse as ruled by tlie conception of
self. The self is conceived as now existent, as per-
sistent through changes of state, and as existent in
the desirable state of feeling which it foresaw and
strove after. Mr. Spencer assumes this as true,
though in terms he denies it. He cannot get rid
of the conception of self. For it is through this
conception that every pleasure has the possibility
of becoming a personal good. Pleasure is not the
end, but the satisfaction of self by means of the
pleasure. The consciousness of self originated the
act, persists through the act, and the series of
results set in motion by the act, and bears with it
the knowledge that the act and its consequences
are due to him, and he is responsible for them. A
mere abstract state of desirable feeling, without
relation to the self which accompanies and consti-
tutes it in reference to an object, is one of the
wonderful things which meet us in the philosophy
of Mr. Spencer.
The problem of ethics becomes very complicated
indeed in the assumption, that an aggregate of
feelings and ideas can attain to moraUty. But
Mr. Spencer contrives to get on, and the first step
he takes is to change the nature of the problem.
*' The view for which I contend is, that morality properly bo
called-^the science of right conduct has for its object to
determine how and why certain modes of conduct are detri-
mental, and certain other modes beneficial. These good and
The Ethics of Evolution Examined. 19
bad results cannot be accidental, but must be necessary con-
sequences of the constitution of things, and I conceive it to be
the business of moral science to deduce, from the laws of life
and the conditions of existence, what kinds of action necessarily
tend to produce happiness, and what kind to produce un-
happiness. Having done this, its deductions are to be recognised
as laws of conduct, and are to be conformed to irrespective of
a direct estimation of happiness and misery." Data of HtJucs,
p. 57.1
"Waiving altogetlier the difficulties whicli Mr. isthero
Spencer's doctrine of the effo raises against his ance for *
^ . . conduct
statement of the business of moral science, we shall ?^ t^^^^o
' terms!
look at the statement in itself. Suppose we come
to the Data of Ethics for guidance as to the rules
of conduct. What is right conduct? And the
answer we receive is, that we ought to find out
how and why certain modes of conduct are detri-
mental, and certain other modes are beneficial.
Such information, supposing it possible to obtain
it, would not be without its use. It pre-supposes, impossiwi-
however, that we have made a tabulated account makinp; a
tabulated
of the results of conduct; and have been able to account
' . of the
set them down as beneficial or the reverse. In coSt^'
addition, it pre-supposes that we have advanced
so far as to have got a satisfactory theory of hoio
and why these results have their respective charac-
1 It would be an instructive exercise to substitute for the
language used by Mr. Spencer, the language he uses when
speaking of the ego. It would run in something like the
following fashion : " The view for which the aggregate of
feelings and ideas which now exists, and is called Mr, Spencer,
contends." We have tried to do it, but the result is too gro-
tescjue to pursue it any further.
20
The Ethics of Evohition Examined.
Identifica-
tion of the
beneficial,
tlie good,
and the
pleasure-
able; also
of the de-
trimental,
the bad, and
the T)ainful
by Mr.
Spencer.
teristics. Our knowledge of the laws of life and
the conditions of existence is supposed to be suffi-
ciently extensive and exact to warrant us in drawing
inferences worthy to be accepted as a guide to right
living. All this is a preliminary to real moral
guidance. For it is to be observed that when wo
have accomplished this heavy task, we have not
yet arrived at a distinction which involves anything
moral: we have only reached what is described as
what is beneficial and detrimental. How are we
to cross the boundary, and recsh the region where
moral distinctions obtain ? Mr, Spencer does not
seem to suspect the existence of a boundary. In
the next sentence he quietly substitutes the words
"good" and "evil" for beneficial and detrimental.
We are aware that to him they are identical. All
the same, however, he is by no means unwilling to
receive the help to his argument which the moral
meaning of the new words brings to it. Translating
the new words back into their Spencerian equi-
valents, it is obvious that his argument makes no
advance. We have still another substitution of
terms to notice in this characteristic paragraph.
Good and evil are again dropt out, and we have
instead " the kinds of action which necessarily tend
to produce happiness or unhappiness." Beneficial,
good, pleasurable, detrimental, bad, painful, are
interchanged, as if synonymous. l^To doubt they
are so in the new ethics of Mi\ Spencer. They
Ethics
not a
system
which sets
forth our
pleasures
and advan*
tagcs.
The Ethics of Evolution Examined, 21
aro not so, however, in the ordinary use of language,
nor in the moral consciousness of man. The ethics
of Mr. Spencer can at the best be a system which
sets forth our pleasures and advantages. It does
not touch the margin of the higher region which
answers to the call of duty, and feels the binding
obligation of righteousness, truth, and goodness.
It is not to the purpose here to enter on a dis-
cussion of Utilitarianism in any of the forms it
has lately assumed. Guidance by pleasures and Does evo-
1 lution help
pains has been abundantly shown by many writers, Hedonism?
from different points of view, to be inapplicable to
human beings. What we purpose to show here is,
that the theory of evolution has not obviated the
objections brought against Hedonism ; and it has
brought fresh difficulties of its own. "We may be
permitted here to refer to the able and thorough
discussion of this subject by Mr. Sorley.^ He has
pointed out that the development of life does not
always tend to increase pleasure, and the laws of Develop- ^^
its development cannot be safely adopted as maxims life does
for the attainment of pleasure. He has shown S^Juli
also that it is impossible for us to say
" what kinds of actions necessarily tend to produce happiness,
and what kinds to produce unhappiness."
He has shown, by a lengthened argument, in which
1 Mtlitcs of Natuv'-ilmit by \V. H, Sorley. Messrs. Blackwood
& Soaa, Edinburgh,
9 A
The Ethics of Evolution Examined,
we Lave been able to find no flaw, tliat pleasure
may
"arise from any, or almost any, course of conduct which the
conditions of existence admit of. The evolutionist, therefore,
can liave no surer idea of greatest pleasure even although this
may not be a very sure one than that it will follow in the
train of the greatest or most varied activity which harmonizes
with the laws of life."^
Biological
deduction
of laws of
conduct
void
through un-
certaiuty.
Moral
phenomc'iia
igiKjrcd or
misinter-
preted.
It is obvious, therefore, that Mr. Spencer's pro-
posed deduction of rules of conduct from the laws
of life and the conditions of existence, even were
it possible, is void through uncertainty. It would
be as reasonable to deduce the theory of chemical
equivalents from the laws of pure being. What
is needed is special inquiry into, and a recognition
of, the peculiar phenomena of. the moral world, and
Ethics has to account for and explain the pheno-
mena of that world, and not to substitute for it
another set of phenomena altogether.
Our contention is, that Mr. Spencer has ignored
in some instances the phenomena of the moral
world, and has misinterpreted them in others, and
generally has failed to recognise the peculiarity
of the question. He has sought to apply for
the explanation of moral phenomena a hypothesis
framed for the explanation of physical or biological
phenomena, and it is no wonder that he has failed
in consequence. He is aware of the difference
between the two, and now and then brings us to
1 Ethics of Naturalism^ pp. 201-2,
The Ethics of Evolution Examined,
23
the chasm which, intervenes between the ono and
the other. Here is one of the many descriptions
he gives of the " struggle for existence " :
"The multitudinous creatures of all kinds which fill the
earth, cannot live apart from one another are interfered with
by one another. In large measure the adjustments of laws to
ends which we have been considering, are components of that
* struggle for existence,* carried on, too, between members of The
the same species, and between members of a different species ;
and, very generally, a successful adjustment made by one
creature involves an unsuccessful adjustment made by another
creature, either of the same kind, or of a different kind.
That the carnivore may live, herbivore animals must die;
and that its young may be reared, the young of w^eakcr
crea-tures must be orphaned. Maintenance of the hawk and
its brood involves the deaths of many small birds; and
that small birds may multiply their progeny must be fed
with innumerable sacrificed worms and larvae. Competition
among members of the same species has allied, though less
conspicuous, results. The stronger often carries off by force the
prey which the weaker has caught. Monopolising certain hunting Selfishness
struggle for
existence.
grounds, the more ferocious drive others of their kind into t^^ univer*
less favourable places. With plant-eating animals, too, the * >
like holds ; the better food is secured by the more vigorous
animals, while the less vigorous and worse fed succumb either
directly from innutrition or indirectly from resulting inability
to escape enemies. That is to say, among creatures whose lives
are carried on antagonistically, each of the two kinds of conduct
must remain imperfectly evolved. Even in such few kinds of
them as have little to fear from enemies or competiijors, as lions
or tigers, there is still inevitable failure in the adjustments of
acts to ends towards the close of life. Death by starvation
from inability to catch prey, shows a falling short of conduct
from its ideal. This imperfectly-evolved conduct introduces
us by association to conduct that is perfectly evolved."*
**The spider kills the fly. The wiser sphins
Stings the poor spider in the centre iicrvd
^ Daia of Ethics, 17, 18.
24
The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
Victory
to the
Btroug.
Survival of
the fittest.
Which paralyses only ; lays her eggs,
And buries with them with a loving care
The spider, powerless but still alive,
To warm them unto life, and afterward
To serve as food among the little ones.
This is the lesson Nature has to teach,
'Woe to the conquered, victory to the strong.'
And so, through all the ages, step by step
The stronger and the craftiest replaced
The weaker, and increased and multiplied.
And in the end the outcome of the strife
Was man, who had dominion over all,
And preyed on all things, and the stronger man
Trampled his weaker brother under foot." ^
It is not necessary to add anything to tlie de-
scriptions of the law of life given in the foregoing
extract. Vae metis is the law of life in the organic
^orld, and biological work since Darwin wrote the
Origin of Species^ has been in the direction of setting
forth additional illustrations and proof of the law
** the survival of the fittest.'' Assuming for the
sake of argument that this law is proven, the pro-
blem set to the theory of evolution is to deduce
morality, as we know it in human life, from these
biological conditions. It is a formidable task.
Mr. Spencer is aware of the difficulty, and in the
foregoing extract says
" This imperfectly evolved conduct introduces us by associa-
tion to conduct that is perfectly evolved."
His self-appointed task, as described by himself is :
** to deduce from the laws of life and the conditions of existence
what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce hapi)iness, and
what kinds tend to produce unhappiness. "
Can
morality be
deduced
from the
struggle for
existence ?
^ A Modern Ideal, by S. R. Lysaught, p 53.
>?^e
The Ethics of Evolution Examhi^^,
TT
And when the time comes for this logical deduc-
tion, we must he content with "association/' The Transition
to morality
transition from the conduct of animals to the con- "\V5' ^t ^
duction, but
duct of man can only he made hy association. Now ation?'^^^^^'
association is of various kinds, and one kind is
"contrast" or "antithesis," which is the kind
used hy Mr. Spencer. He speaks very severely of
those moralists who do not recognise causation in
the full sense of the word, and do not use it in
tvhe construction of their ethical system.
" So long as only some relation between cause and effect in
conduct is recognised, and not the relation, a completely scientific
form of knowledge has not been reached."
We venture to ask what treatment would Mr. Failure
Spencer give to a moralist who, having promised spencer to
his readers to recoornise causation in the full sense morality
*-' from laws
of the word, and rigorously use it in the deduction * ^^-
of rules of conduct from laws of life and conditions
of existence, when the most serious step in the
deduction came to he taken, introduced his readers
to the new field only hy ** association " ? Surely
we have reason to say to Mr. Spencer **de tef alula
narratur.'*
Nor does he mend the matter when he asks,
referring to the same difficulty
** Is fc replied that the more intense pains and pleasures Mr.
which have immediate reference to bodily needs, guide us chaUeiv^o.
rightly ; while the weaker pains and pleasures, not immediately
connected with the maintenance of life, guide us wrongly ?
Then the implication is that the system of guidance by
26
The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
pleasures and pains, -which has answered with all creatures
below the human, fails with the human. Or rather, the ad-
mission being that, with mankind, it succeeds so far as fulfil-
ment of certain imperative wants goes, it fails in respect of
wants which are not imperative. Those who think this are
required, in the first place, to show how the line is to be drawn
between the two ; and then to show us why the system which
succeeds in the lower will fail in the higher." ^
Ans'wcr
thereto,
1. Science
has to
recognise
the special
character
ot each
iepartment.
"What is
ample in
lower
regions will
not serve
in higher.
The answer to this is twofold. In the first place,
we say that whenever science passes from a simpler
to a more complex subject, it has to recognise
new conditions of work, and to accept new princi-
ples of explanation. Mr. Spencer has had to
submit himself to this inevitable necessity, though
he has striven with all his might to avoid it, and
has sought to disguise the nature of his procedure.
He does not deduce chemical factors from the laws
of physics. He assumes them. If he has to con-
fine himself to the definite chemical factors present
in the primordial nebulae, he is brought to a stand
at the beginning of life. He is compelled to alter
his method at every stage of the process, and to
recognise new elements and new laws, and to
assume new principles. Genesis, heredity, repro-
duction, are not explained but assumed. So also
when he passes from what is below the human to
the human, he is constrained to assume the charac-
teristics of human nature, a faculty of moral in-
tuition, and so on. It is consistent with the
universal method of science that it recognises its,
1 pp. 84, 85.
The Ethics of Evolution Examined, 27
limitations, and adapts itself to the peculiarities of
each field of inquiry. A sufficient answer to Mr.
Spencer's challenge is found when we say that the
system of guidance which succeeds in the lower
mr.st fail in the higher, precisely because it is
higher.
In the second place our answer is, that Mr. 2. -nr.
Spencer has himself undertaken the task he has imshimscii
shown in.
unposed on others, and has succeeded in showing ^^"g^^^j^^^^
that the system of guidance by pleasures and pains ^"efsu"^ ^''
has failed in the human sphere. He admits the doesSr
failure, and, strange to say, the admission is on the
very page in which he sets forth the challenge :
" Guidance by proximate pleasures and pains fails through- ^>^
out a wide range of cases."
'No doubt he goes on to explain the causes of
failure, and to predict a time when the failure
shall cease to be. We shall look at this prophecy
a little further on. Meanwhile we lay stress on
the admission. "We place side by side two state- ^tatej^entj
ments of Mr. Spencer. One is that spencer.
" the deductions of moral science are to be recognised as laws of
conduct ; and are to be conformed to irrespective of a direct
estimation of happinesss or misery."
The second is
*If the purpose of ethical inquiry is to establish rules of
right living ; and if the rules of right living are those of which
the total results, individual and general, direct and indirect,
are more conducive to human happiness, then ,it is absurd to
ignore the immediate results, and to recognize only the remote
results." (p. 95.)
28
The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
I pain, or, as Mr. Spencer euphemistically puts
it, "disagreeable modes of consciousness," accom-
pany acts that are really beneficial,
"that objection does not tell against guidance of pleasures and
pains, since it merely implies that special and proximate
pleasures and pains must be disregarded out of consideration
for more remote and diffused pleasures and pains."
At one time we are told that proximate pleasures
and pains must be disregarded, and at another time
we are told that it is absurd to disregard them.
How are we to reconcile the two ? "We leave them
in their naked simplicity, with the remark that the
contradiction is a proof that guidance by pleasures
and pains fails with the human being, though it
may have succeeded in lower spheres of life.
Mr. Spencer's answer to himself is not yet com-
plete. He has granted in express terms that
guidance by pleasures and pains fails with man ;
in addition, he has demonstrated, in his criticism
of Bentham and Mill, that
^ "not general happiness becomes the ethical standard by which
legislative action is to be guided, but universal justice" (p. 224.)
And also that in relation to private action
" the principle is true only in so far as it embodies a disguised
justice. "
His chapter on " Trial and Compromise " is one
of the most powerful in the book, and in it he has
clearly shown the inadequacy of guidance by plea-
sures and 2)ains. Happiness cannot be taken as
an end either for public action or for private action.
Happiness
is no end
for either
public or
private
action.
The Ethics of Evolution Examined. 29
In his statement of the problem of ethics he has,
Ihowever, said that the
' " ultimate moral aim is a desirable state of feeling called by
whatever name gratification, enjoyment, happiness, pleasure
i somewhere, at some time, to some being or beings, is an in-
expungable element of the conception. It is as much a
necessary form of moral intuition as space is a necessary form
of intellectual intuitions."
A necessary form of intuition, which is at times ,
unnecessary, is surely a curious conception. For, ^^^^J^p^^
according to the statement, happiness gives place iap!inc2^
ito justice as a guide to action, on the ground that SnTuct?
sit is a more intelligible end, and also because
happiness as an end is indefinite. This is another
illustration of the failure of guidance by pleasures
iand pains, whether proximate or remote. If
justice has become the guide to action, then we
may perhaps be inclined to ask. Is the conception
of justice so perfectly plain and intelligible as Mr.
'Spencer supposes it to be? Nor can the answer
he easily given. "We recall to mind the opening Je^|jfS
chapter of Plato's RepuhliCj and the discussion in it JusticT'tS*
on the nature of justice ; and the discussion by has^to*bo
!Mr. Sidgwick in the Methods of Ethics^ and we are
not sure if the substitution of justice for happiness
can be readily accepted. We are sure, however,
that in either case the result is subversive of Mr.
' Spencer's system ; for it raises the question of the
relation of justice to happiness, a question which
admits of no answer from the standpoint of evolu-
tion.
30
The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
Further
statement
by Mr.
Spencer of
guidance by
pleasures
and pains.
Mr.
Spencer's
] lediction
that guid-
ance by
pk'asures
and pains
will
succeed in
the future.
We feel constrained to quote a passage in whicli
the failure of Mr. Spencer's argument is recognised
in express terms by Mr. Spencer himself :
*' Were pleasures all of one kind, differing only in degree ; were
pains all of one kind, differing only in degree ; and could pleasures
be measured against pains with definite results, the problems
of conduct would be greatly simplified. Were the pleasures
serving as incentives and deterrents, simultaneously present to
consciousness with like vividness, or were they all immediately
impending, or were they all equi-distant in time ; the pro-
blems would be further simplified. And they would be still
further simplified if the pleasures and pains were exclusively
those of the actor. But both the desirable and the undesirable
feelings are of various kinds, making quantitative comparisons
difl&cult ; some are present and some are future, increasing the
difi&culty of quantitative comparison ; some are entailed on self
and some on others, again increasing the difficulty. So that the
guidance yielded by the primary principle reached is of little
service unless supplemented by the guidance of secondary
principles." ^
Could we have a more complete acknowledgment
of the fact that guidance by pleasures and pains
fails with the human being ? How shall we obtain
the secondary principles of guidance? and what
is their validity? If they are derived from the
primary principle, they share its uncertainty. If
they are independent of it, then it fails ; in either
case the result is fatal to the theory of Mr. Spencer.
Guidance by pleasures and pains having thus
been shown to fail, Mr. Spencer finds a refuge in
the prediction that eventually it wiU succeed. When
life is complete, and the organism is fully adjusted
to the environment, and the happy time is come
1 Data of Etldcs, pp. 150-1.
prediction
must fail
for lack
of time.
The Ethics of Evolution Examined, 31
when every action of man demanded by social
conditions shall give him pleasure, then the conflict
will cease, the disparity will disappear. With
great solemnity he says
" Not he Avho believes that adaptation will increase is absurd,
but he who doubts that it will increase is absurd."
Well, we are in the unhappy condition of those
whose belief is here characterised as absurd.
Taking into account only those forces which, ac-
cording to Mr. Spencer, have guided the evolution
^of life, we see no escape from pessimism. If we JJJS
look forward across the years, we come to a physical
condition of things which must necessarily, ac-
.cording to the teaching of science, produce a change
in human life. The process from the first germ of
.life to the highest possible life has been long, and
the conflict has been great. Then must come a
time when this process will reach its culminating
point, and the history of life must then be a period
of decline and fall, until when the sun has grown
cold, and the earth has grown unfit for life, the
end is desolation and annihilation.
"We need not, however, 2:0 so far into the future it must
to free ourselves from the nightmare of Mr. ^^^J^^hat
Spencer's prophecy. All that is needful for this conSis
purpose is to point out that his assumption is un- Lriiy
. . 1 J moral
true. The assumption is that evolved conduct is conduct,
moral conduct. Evolved conduct may be good or
may be evil. Evil does not become good by be-
32 The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
coming definite and coherent, nor does good lose
its character by becoming indefinite and incoherent
The appliances of civilization may be used for evil,
and an evil man may place himself in most definite
relations to the resources of civilization. Nihilists
and dynamiters have been most definite in their
use of explosives, most definite in the aim they
have in view, and their conduct is quite coherent.
They use the telegraph and the railway, the dyna-
mite is a most definite chemical substance, and the
clockwork is accurately timed, so as to release a
trigger at a definite moment to cause a definite
explosion, to accomplish a particular end.
The tests of definiteness, coherence, and hetero-
geneity afford no criterion of moral conduct. The
formula of evolution may be as readily ascribed to
Evil may the development of evil conduct as of good. Evil
consist with
the law of may be traced from an indefinite, incoherent homo-
cvolution. -^ '
geneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, and all
the marks of evolution may be applied to it. We
may trace crime from rudimentary beginnings, to
the most complex conspiracy ever formed, and the
history of the process would be in exact correspond-
ence with the requirements of evolved conduct, as
described by Mr. Spencer. JN'or is the matter
mended by the proposed substitution of Industrial-
ism for the military and feudal spirit which formerly
dominated the lives of men. Industrialism has
been formulated in political economy, and political
TliG Ethics oj Evolution Examined,
economy is non-moral, at all events before tlio
recent revolt against its non-moral character, against
wliicli Mr. Spencer so strenuously protests, political
economy made self-interest its ruling power. It
is well known that the Danvinian law of the Tho law of
struojQ-le for existence is simply an extension of for
^^ , , ^ *^ . . . existence is
Malthusianism, and the doctrine of political ^J" ^.^^Jl^^ j'
economy, in some forms of it, is simply self-interest ^^'^^^^
reduced to system. How are we to evolve a new
morality out of selfishness ? or recognise in Indus-
trialism the new evolving force, which is to teach
us to love our enemies, to do good to them that
hate us, when Industiialism is based on self-interest,
and teaches us to buy in the cheapest and sell in
the dearest market ? We are aware of the hopes
which were burning brightly in the human heart
some forty years ago. We have read the speeches
of Cobden, the pages of Buckle, and the universal
song raised to the praise and glory of Industrialism industrial,
at the time of the Exhibition of 1851. Since then
many things have happened. But Mr. Spencer
seems never to have outgrown the impression then
made on him, nor to have recognised that the in- ?^^^gtyj.^i
dustrial tendency has need of a moral motive, which nJids'a^
it cannot of itself supply. The transactions of the moUvc.
Stock Exchange, the phenomena of Strikes, the
various forms of Socialism, and other things of the
same order, show that Industrialism has no chann
of its own, whereby it may produce good and
The Etliics of Evolution Examined.
Moral
obligation
must be
accounted
for.
remove evil. It may give increased facilities for
good ; it may also afford a new soil for the pro-
duction of evil. At all events, it affords no criterion
of what is moral.
Any attempt to account for morality must have
regard to the essential feature of it. We are con-
scious of an obligation on our part to submit our-
selves to the law which we conceive as binding
upon us, and the problem set to Evolution is to
show how the binding force of the rules of experi-
ence could have arisen, and how the deductions of
the ethics of evolution can have authority. Let us
test the attempt by a special instance. We take
veracity as our example, and we propose to examine
whether it is possible to account for the universal
obligation to truthfulness on the evolutionary
hypothesis. If morality can be deduced from the
laws of life and the conditions of existence, we
have a right to expect that the biological conditions
which have caused success in the lower sphere,
should also hav .? scope in the higher. We find,
however, that with all creatures up to man, a
premium is put on deception. It is the weapon
which the weak use against the strong, the only
effective means which they have. Any work on;|
natural history will afford illustration of the truth
of the statement that deception is universal, and
has the moral stamp of success, that is, according
to Utilitarianism, upon it. The flatfish which
Proposed
deduction of
morality
from laws
of life and
conditions of
exi.^tence
tested in the
particular
instance of
veracity.
The Ethics of Evolution Examined. 85
escapes the jaws of the dogfish is the one which
can imitate most closely the colour of the sandbank pre??
on which it lies. The deception, being found to wr *^^
bring its advantage with it, has become an organised Ufe.
utility, and has been transmitted to its descendants.
We need not multiply instances which will readily
occur to every one. Imitation, mimicry, deception,
prevail everywhere in the animal kingdom, from
the least to the highest, from the insect to the
mother bird, which moves as if her wings were
broken, to entice the pursuer from her nest.
This process of deception has the sanction of Deception
success. It has been advantageous. Those who with
success
have been best at it, have escaped the danger before
which their less skilful relatives went down, and
organised deception becomes the fit rule of conduct
for all who have survived. It is curious to think
that out of this biological laAV of life there should
have been evolved the supreme authority of truth-
fulness, and its full obligation by man.
It becomes more curious when we pass to the Truthful-
world of human life. It cannot be shown on the brshollir
hypothesis of evolution that the habit of truthful- adran-
, , tageou9
ness is beneficial, pleasurable, or advantageous.
The utilitarian sanction for truthfulness is neither
powerful nor universal. Few laws enforce it, nor
is the social reprobation attaching to untruthfulness
very severe. There are circumstances which to
many sccni to justify lying. "All is fair in lovo
36 The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
and war." To deceive an enemy has been held
to be blameless, even laudable. We take the
followhig passage from Ruskin
The view of " Truth, that only virtue of which there are no degrees, but
Mr. Euskiii. ^j^eaks and rents continually ; that pillar of the earth but a
cloudy pillar ; that golden and narrow line, which the very
powers and virtues which lean upon it bend, which policy and
prudence conceal, which kindness and courtesy modify, which
courage overshadows with his shield, imagination covers with
her wings, and charity dims with her tears. How difficult
must the maintenance of that authority be, which, while it has
to restrain the hostility of all the woret principles of man, has
also to restrain the disorders of his best, which is continually
assaulted by the one and betrayed by the other, and which
regards with the same severity the lightest and the boldest
violations of its law 1 There are some faults slight in the sight
of love ; some errors slight in the estimate of wisdom ; but
truth forgives no insult, and endures no stain.
" "We do not enough consider this ; nor enough dread the
slight and continual occasions of offence against her. We are
too much in the habit of looking at falsehood in its darkest
cssociations, and through the colour of its worst purposes.
That indignation we profess to feel at deceit absolute, is indeed
only at deceit malicious. We resent calumny, hypocrisy, and
treachery, because they harm us, not because they are untrue.
Take the detraction and the mischief from the untruth, and
we are little offended by it ; turn it into praise and we may be
pleased with it, and yet it is not the calumny nor treachery
that does the largest sum of mischief in the world ; they are
continually crushed, and are felt only in being crushed. But
it is the glistening and softly-spoken lie ; the amiable fallacy ;
the patriotic lie of the historian, the provident lie of the
politician, the zealous lie of the pai'tizan, the merciful lie of the
friend, and the careless lie of each man to himself, that casts
the black shadow over humanity, through which we thank any
man who pierces, as we thank those who dig a well in the
desert. Happy that the thirst for truth still remains with us,
even when we have wilfully left the fountains of it." ^
^ Seven Lamps of Arcldtecture, chap, ii., sect, i
The Ethics of Evolution Examined. 37
"We are prepared to stake tlie whole question of if the
the evolution of morality in this one point. How ot truthfui-
* ness prevails
can the felt obli":ation to be truthful be shown to ^^ f''}^^''
*-' and tne
be an organized and transmitted utility, when the of ^mdfy
advantage of veracity cannot be shown. On the ufe^cSnot
contrary, if we limit our view to the present life, then
. . . the obliga-
the practice of veracity can be proven to be dis- ?%f^,
advantageous. The practice of this virtue has dcdSced'^
many difficulties to contend with. There are many ex^rience.
instances in which it has brought death to the wit-
ness for truth, and ruin to his friends. Many
moralists and theologians have held a lie to be justi-
fiable to elude an enemy or prevent a crime. May
we tell a lie in the service of duty ? Basil says I^o,
and Chrysostom says Yes. Augustine is of opinion
that if the whole human race could be saved by
one lie, one must rather let it perish. And Jacobi
affirms
" I will lie like Desdemona, I will lie and deceive like Pyladea
who took the place of Orestes."
"We quote these for the sake of shelving that the
utility of truthfulness is by no means obvious ; and
there can be no such experience of the pleasure,
advantage, or benefit of veracity as to account for
the fact that men value truth for its own sake,
and feel constrained to practice it, regardless of
consequences.
So strongly is this felt by Utilitarians of all
shades, that they have given up the attempt to
88 TJie Ethics of Evolution Examined.
derive veracity from an experience of its utility,
utmtarian or to find its sanction in utility. Their way is to
mode of
evading the dcuv the binding oblisration of truthfulness. They
difficulty. ; _ too J
are inclined to hold that the law of truth is neither
universal nor supreme. Whether Ave are or are not
to be truthful depends on time, and place, and
circumstances. If veracity is an absolute and in-
dependent duty, and not a special application of
some higher principle or principles, then it is con-
ceded by all that experiences of utility can neither
account for it, nor explain the sanction of it. This
Testimony has been so well put by Mr. Hussell Wallace that
Busseii we quote the passage :
"A number of prisoners, taken during the Santal insurrec-
tion, were allowed to go free on parole to work at a certain
spot for wages. After some time cholera attacked them, and
they were obliged to leave, but every one of them returned and
gave up his earnings to the guard. Two hundred savages with
money in their girdles, walked thirty miles back to prison
rather than break their v\'ord. My own experience with savages
lias furnished me with similar, although less severely tested,
instances ; and we cannot avoid asking, how is it, that in these
few cases * experiences of utility ' have left such an over-
powering impression, while in so many others they have left
none ? The experiences of savage men, as regards the utility
of truth, must, in the long run, be pretty nearly equal. How
is it, that, in some cases, the result is a sanctity which over-
rides all considerations of personal advantage, while in others
there is hardly a rudiment of such a feeling ?
"The intuitional theory, which I am now advocating, explains
this by the supposition that there is a feeling a sense of right
and wrong in our nature, antecedent to, and independent of
experiences of utility. When free-play is allowed to the re-
lations between man and man, this feehng attaches itself to
those acts of universal utility or self-sacrifice which are the
The Ethics of Evolution ExawAned. 39
products of our affectijus and sympathies, and which we term
moral ; while it may be, and often is, perverted, to give the
same sanction to acts of narrow and conventional utility, which
are really immoral as when the Hindoo will tell a lie, but will
sooner starve than eat unclean food ; and looks upon the
marriage of adult females as gross immorality.
" It is difficult to conceive that such an intense and mystical
feeling of riglit and wrong (so intense as to overcome all ideas of
personal advantage or utility), could have developed out of
accumulated ancestral experiences of utility ; and still more
difficult to understand, how feelings developed by one set of
utilities, could be transferred to acts of which the utility was
partial, imaginary, or altogether absent. But if a moral sense is
an essential part of our nature, it is easy to see that its sanction
may often be given to acts which are useless or immoral ; just
as the natural appetite for drink is perverted by the drunkard
into the means of his destruction."^
As far as regards the obligation to truthfulness, no basis
we can find no basis for it in biological conditions, in uSS^d'
Biology gives its sanction to concealment and de-
ception. Nor is it more hopeful to seek a sanction
for it in the experience of man, that truth is advan-
tageous. But yet the fact stands before us, plain
and palpable, that the truth has claims on us which
we feel bound to acknowledge. We ought to bo
truthful. "Whence this oughtness? and this re-
cognition of universal obligation ? The universality
and supremacy of moral law cannot be explained.
All that Mr. Spencer will recognize is the obligation
to use the means if we are to get to the end ; a
substitute which can never be mistaken for the
original feeling of " oughtness."
The surprising thing, however, is that Mr.
^ On Natural Sclectiony pp, 353-5.
conditions.
40 The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
Spencer can speak of " Ethics '* at all. No ethics
arc inconceivable in which will does not stand foi
something. But acccording to the teaching oi
Mr. Spencer, will is an illusion. With him there
is no self, there are only states of consciousness,
which are again the result of molecular and
chemical changes in the physical organism.
Ethics can, The physical changes always produce the cor-
f*" the T 1 T
theory of rospoudmo: phenomena of memory, volition,
evolution. ^^ or ^ ...
brandf of"^' fcoling. Thought is as mechanical as digestion ;
which' deals conduct is as purposeless as gravitation; and the
natural*' fccling of obligation is a useless and unnecessary
conduct. accompaniment of the molecular changes of the
organism. Can we command conduct categorically
irrespective of and without regard to consequences?
Can we say to men, Thou shalt not, thou shalt, or
must we say it is worth your while to do this and
avoid that? But if conduct depends entirely on
the physical constitution and environment of a man,
why should anything be said to him one way or
the other ? We here touch again on the failure
of evolutionary ethics, which cannot account for the
idea of obligation. If, however, the doctrine of
Evolution could be successfully ajiplied to ethics,
the science of ethics would cease to deal with what
ought to be, and confine itself strictly to what is.
Ethics would become the branch of science which
deals with the natural history of conduct.
This is really wliat ethics have become in the
The Ethics of Evolution Examined. 41
hands of Mr. Spencer. Mr. Spencer does not
care about a feeling or idea of moral obligation.
Believing as he does that freedom is an illusion,
what has he to do with the necessity of self-
control in action? In ordinary belief, a man
controls himself because he is free, is responsible
because free, feels above all the shame of penitence
and the agonies of remorse, because he knows
he could have acted differently if he had exerted
his free volition. But with Mr. Spencer, a man Mr.
, . , . , Spencer's
IS at the most a conscious and social animal; a affinnation Ly
* that the *^
thing made up of atoms and molecules. What obTfgatlon
duty has he to recognise, except the promptings *^*^^^^^"^
of nature? What is right but the duty of
attaining to the fitness which will survive ? As
to the feeling of obligation it is simply the ex-
pression of a consciousness of mal- adaptation to
the environment. So Mr. Spencer says in express
terms :
" This remark implies the tacit conckision, which will be to
most very startling, that the sense of duty or moral obligation is
transitory, and will diminish as fast as moraiization increases.
Startling though it is, this conclusion can be satisfactorily
defended. Evidently, with complete adaptation to the social
state, that element in the moral consciousness which is expressed
by the word obligation will disappear. The higher action re-
quired for the harmonious carrying on of life will be as much
matters of course as those lower actions which the simpler
desires prompt. In their proper times and places and propor-
tions, the moral sentiments will guide men just as spontaneously
and adequately as do the sensations."^
^ .Data of Ethics, p. 127--8,
43
The Ethics of Evoluiion Examined.
Views cf
Bentham
and Mill.
Mr.
Spencer's
inadequate
conception
of conscious-
ness.
How much wiser than Bentham and Mill is
Mr. Spencer! Bentham thought he could do
without the word "ought," carried on a fierce
polemic against it, and the fact which it expressed,
and the consequence was that his system made
shipwreck on it. Mr. Spencer knows that "ought"
represents a fact of moral consciousness. He is
umvilling to lose the advantage of using it. It is
living and active, here and now. But he may get
rid of it quite as effectually hy a prophecy. And
until the time of the fulfilment of prophecy he may
lise the word and the fact for the strengthening of
his system. Stuart Mill, in his innocen3e, thought
he could account for intuitions by the experience
of the individual. Mr. Spencer cannot get on
without intuitions ; he will use them when
necessaiy, but by and by he hopes he can do
without them.
This amazing fertility of resource cannot, how-
ever, be granted to him. We readily grant to him
that if obhgation has no other meaning than that
which he formally ascribes to it, then it wHl
disappear. To him
** the essential trait in the moral consciousness is the control of
some feeling or feelings, by some other feeling or feelings."
(p. 113).
The phenomena of moral consciousness are thus a
conflict of feelings, out of which conflict emerges a
resultant which, being the stronger, takes the lead,
The Ethics of Evolution Examined, 43
and incites to action. The statement is at once in- iiis
statement
adequate and misleading, one loclmQr does not misleading
^ *-' "^ as well as
control another. When we come to the region where inadequate,
control can be rightly spoken of, we have passed
beyond feeling ; we are in the region of comparison,
of judgment. Feelings and desires are known to us
and felt by us, but they do not act in the pure and
simple manner described by Mr. Spencer. They are
elements in the comparison of motives, and are
taken up by the moral judgment in order to the
determination of conduct.
Here we have ao:ain come across that fatal ""^'^
O marked m-
defect in the system of Mr. Spencer, which ^^^"^^i'^teucy
vitiates all his reasoning. We mean his habit
of viewing feelings as if they were something
apart, and could take their own course as if they
were so many detached substances. His habitual
disregard of the self-conscious subject is sur-
prising ; more specially when we also consider how
with the same breath he uses language which is
meaningless, unless the activity of the subject is
presupposed. At one moment he speaks of the
control of one feeling by another, and the next
moment speaks of the
" conscious relinquishment of immediate and special good, to
j^ain distant and general good" as *' a cardinal trait of the self-
restraint called moral" (p. 114).
Is this conscious relinquishment a feeling? we
trow not. The moral consciousness is something
44>
The Ethics of EvolvMon Examined,
"WTiat is
involved in
moral con-
sciousness.
The word
"right"
translated
into its
Spencerian
equivalent.
more than feelings in unison or in conflict. At
the very least it involves the power of looking
before and after, the power of making comparison,
and of determination of conduct in relation to a
foreseen course of action.
This way of representing the moral consciousness
has, however, enabled Mr. Spencer to speak of
obligation as a vanishing quantity. He has a
vision of the time when the control of one feeling
by another will be perfect, and the pain of conflict
will have ceased, and a man will do
" the right thing with a simple feeling of satisfaction in doing
it; and will be, indeed, impatient if anything prevents him
from having the satisfaction of doing it."
He will cease to have any thought of 7nusty he
will have no coercive feeling of ought \ the sense
of obligation will have retreated into the back-
ground of the mind. We shall not inquire too
curiously into the meaning of the antithesis between
the "right" thing and the simple feeling of
satisfaction in doing it. It would be too cruel to
translate the word " right '^ into its Spencerian
equivalent, and read the sentence thus :
"He does the ' pleasurable ' thing with a simple feeling of
satisfaction in doing it."
It would make the sentence meaningless, but that
is the usual fate which inevitably waits on all
schemes of Hedonistic ethics. But the point we
insist on is this, that the sense of obligation never
The Ethics of Evolution Examined. 45
vanishes, even when the doing of duty becomes obligation
easy and habitual. There are various reasons whj^
this sense of obligation should continue. One
reason is that the ideal of human conduct is con-
tinually gro"\ving, and seeks a higher statement and t^^^human
embodiment of itself, as knowledge widens. An- cSnuuiiy
other reason is that the demands of moral law are andraf'
always such as to transcend the utmost range of the infinite
nature of
human fulfilment; and Mr. Spencer's dream is moiauaw
' ^ and its re-
possible even as a dream, only because he has ^^irementa.
lowered both the ideal of human conduct and the
requirements of moral law. Still further; the
conception of moral obli^ration set forth by Mr. Mr.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ' Spencer's
Spencer is radically defective. The idea of ^^^7^^117
authoritativeness, which is one element in the ^<^^<^^*^^*
abstract consciousness of duty, has arisen from
the fact
" that accumulated experiences have produced the consciousness
that guidance by feelings which refer to remote and general
results, is usually more conducive to welfare than guidance by
feeliugs to be immediately gratified."
But why this should generate the authority implied
in the sense of obligation is not apparent. To have
regard to remote and general results does not imply
morality. One may restrain himself from grati-
fying immediate feelings in order to gratify them
more effectively in the future. Nay, he may
sacrifice them for the moment, and yet all the time
in the present and in the future may transgress
TTr^'T^
4G
Tke Ethics of Evolution Examined.
Moral
cocrciveness
not to be
derived
from fear
of punish-
ment.
every rule of morality. A burglar may scorii de-
lights, and live laborious days, may spend money
in buying tlie implements of his craft, in order that
at a fit time he may safely rob a bank or a house.
In so doing would he manifest " a cardinal trait of
the restraint called moral"?
The element of cocrciveness is derived by ^Ir.
Spencer from the fear of punishment, and these
two elements of authoritativeness and cocrciveness
are the main elements, according to Mr. Spencer,
in the consciousness of duty. The fear of punish-
ment is the permanent motive of the savage. If
we ask how this becomes the felt coercive element
of duty, we are led by Mr. Spencer to undertake a
long journey. At the outset we ask, Why does the
savage refrain from scalping his enemy ? and the
answer is, Because he is afraid of the anger of the
chief. This restraint arising from the "extrinsic"
effects of an action, is not yet moral. The moral
restraint arises when we refrain from slaying an
enemy because of the intrinsic effects of the action.
These intrinsic effects are of the following kind :
" the infliction of death-agony on the victim, the destruction of
all his possibilities of happiness, the entailed sufferings to his
belongings. "
The ground of restraint in the case of the savage
is the fear of future pain to himself : with the
evolutionist it is concern for the pleasures an(
pains of others. How is the transition made
The Ethics of Evolution Examined. 47
Mr. Spencer's account of the transition can explani
only those deterrents which he neglects as non-
moral. The restraint which makes a man prudent
from fear of the gallows, has no mode of trans-
forming itself into the disinterested restraint which
guides its actions hy regard to the well-being of
other people.
Along this line we shall never reach the grand
conception of duty or of virtue, as we find it em-
bodied in human life, and expressed in human
Htcrature. A writer who can resolve the authori-
tativeness of duty into a calculation of future
pleasure, and its coerciveness into a dread of con-
sequences, has left out of sight a large sphere of
human sentiment, and the greater part of morality.
He Avho can look at the sense of obligation as
something that must fade away, has not yet seen
that the distinguishing clement of duty is not Duty not
restraint but constraint. Its main purpose is to tut
^ ^ ^ constraint,
prescribe what kind of life we ought to live, what
work to do, what end to accomj)lish ; not merely
to say Thou shalt not, but Thou shalt. Even if
we were to reach the time and state when it would
be no longer necessary to say Thou shalt not, the
sense of obligation would remain, and would make
itself felt so long as there was a further progress
to be made, a higher ideal to reach, and a further
end to be accomplished. Neither by the attempt
to resolve it into its elements, nor by the prediction
48 The MJiics of Evolution Examined.
that it Avill fade away, has Mr. Spencer succeeded
in getting rid of the sense of moral obligation.
Limited use We shall look for a little at Ih\ Spencer's
6f law of ^ ^ ^
SS^'^"^ attempt to find a basis for ethics, and at his ex-
position of the nse of the principle of " causality '*
in ethics. All systems of ethics, save his OAvn, are,
he finds, distinguished by the absence of the use of
the principle of causation, or by an inadequate use
of it. We suppose that ethical writers would admit
the charge and justify it. They believe that to
treat the human world as no more than a chain of
efficient causality, is at the outset to make ethics
impossible. Ethics is possible, if we can rise to a
point of view wliich goes beyond mere sequence,
and can reasonably hope to reach a teleological
interpretation of the facts of human life. A king-
dom of means and ends is something altogether
different from a kingdom of causes and effects, and
the attempt to make conscious life subject to mere
physical causation must necessarily fail.
Mr. Following out his attempt to apply causation to
attempt to moral life, he seeks to find a basis for morals in
find a basis
for morality the physical ordor. So far as the four chapters
oS.^"^ which set forth the physical view, the biological
view, the psychological view, and the sociological
view are concerned, we have to say of them that
what is true in them is common-place, and what is
new in them is not true. The truth in them is
The Ethics of Evolution Examined, 49
the common-place that man has a body, that he is
a living creature, that he has an emotional and
rational nature, and that he is a social being ; but
the attempt to find a basis for morality in these His attempt
, , a failure.
respective orders of being must be frankly set down
as failure. Our waning space warns us to be brief,
and we shall compress what we have still to say.
The main stress of his argument is laid on the
fact that
**the connexion between acts and effects is independent of any
alleged theological or political authority."
Quite so in many cases, but not so in others. His
illustrations are, if we tie the main artery we stop
most of the blood going to a limb, if we bleed a
man, if a man has cancer of the oesophagus, if we
forcibly prevent a man from eating, if we pay him
for his work in bad coin, in all these cases, and
in others mentioned by Mr. Spencer, the man is of non-
' r ' moral and
disabled, and "^^^l
**the mischief results, apart from any divine command or
political enactment, or moral intuition,"
Again we say quite so. But when we come to the
passing of moral judgment on any of these physical
processes and results, we must discriminate, and
must recognise an element not contained in the
physical order. The tying of an artery has always
the result of causing disablement to a limb. But
why was the artery tied ? If it is done for a
beneficent end, then the act is not condemned,
E
agenta.
60
The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
The physical result caused by a cancer may be in
no wise different from the result caused by a robber,
who deprives a man of food. But we must go
beyond the physical order in order to find a ground
for the reprobation we pass on the conduct of the
robber. Physical causation cannot account for the
facts of the moral consciousness, nor does duty,
responsibility, and remorse find a fitting place in
the physical order. We must have regard to the
motives and the intentions of the agent before wc
approve or condemn his action.
The mistake made by Mr. Spencer consists in
not seeing that the ground of moral judgment lies
elsewhere than in the causal connection of the
events to which it refers. The life of a man is
destroyed by a bullet, and the momentum of a
bullet was caused by the explosive power of gun-
powder, confined within the narrow space of a gun
barrel. The gunpowder is of such a nature as to
explode when a percussion cap is struck, and we
may trace the links of causation further back to
the nature of the atoms, and their chemical com-
bination, and to the nature of guns, and so on.
But to trace the links of causation in the physical
order does not enable us to recognise something
which entered into the midst of them, and was the
real factor in the case. The touch of the mur-
derous finger on the trigger is the cause of the
murder, and then we are lifted up to the recogni-
GroTinds of
moral
judgment
not to be
found in
the chain
of physical
causes and
effects.
The Ethics oj Evolution Examined. 51
tion of causes of another kind. We are in the Facts of a
A ,. 1 J i* A i moral order
region oi motive and mtention, among facts of a ^^^^\
moral order, which demand another kind of treat- treatments.
ment.
We have already dealt with the contribution
which, in the hands of Mr. Spencer, Biology makes
to Ethics. All we shall now say is this, that the
command of biology is based on the assumptions
that guidance by present pleasures and pains has
succeeded. We are told that
"the vital functions accept no apologies on the ground that
neglect of them was unavoidable, or that the reason for neglect
was noble. The direct and indirect sufferings caused by non-
conforming to the laws of life are the same whatever induces the
non-conformity."
So we must have regard to the immediate results.
But the whole question turns, not on the sufferings,
but on the purpose and aim which induced the
non-conformity. The laws of life as furnished by ^^f p?'^*
biology may come into conflict with the laws of psychology?
the higher life of man, and when they do so, it
becomes the duty of a man to incur the sufferings
caused by a disregard to the laws of biological life.
The point, however, on which we now insist is,
that the command of biology is to be guided by
immediate results, and the teaching of psychology,
as interpreted by Mr. Spencer is
* the subjection of immediate sensations to the idea of eensa-
tiona to come.*
52
The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
Are we to
be biological
or psycho-
logical in
oxir Etliics ?
and the recognition that feelings
**have authorities proportioned to the degrees in which they
are removed by their complexity and their ideality from simple
sensations and appotites."
Are we, then, to be biological in our ethics or
psychological ? Under which king shall we serve?
Are we to accept the teaching of biology, and seek
those things which are immediately present, and
think it to be absurd to recognise only the remote
results of conduct ? or are we to disregard biology,
and insist on the superior wisdom of psychology ?
If we do so, what becomes of our proposed deduc-
tion of morality from the laws of life and conditions
of existence, and what are we to do in the mean-
Thc socio-
logical
view.
time, while the need presses on us, to obtain a
scientific guide to conduct ? Shall we wait until
biology and psychology have been reconciled to
one another, and are agreed to speak with one
voice, and recommend one principle of conduct?
The vacuum must bo filled, but the sciences Mr.
Spencer calls in to help to fill it have disagreed,
and their dispute is likely to issue in the widening
of the vacuum. Meanwhile we shall content
ourselves for a little longer with the old Ethics
and their sanctions.
There remains the sociological view, wh*')h
perhaps may help to reconcile the discordant
utterances of biology and psychology.
**From the sociological point of view, ethics become nothing
else than a definite account of the forms of conduct that are
The Ethics of Evolution Examined, 53
fitted to the associated state, in sucli wise that the lives of each
and all may be the greatest possible, alike in length and
breadth" (p. 133).
It is to be remembered, however, tliat on the
same principle
"there is a supposable formula for the activities of each
species, which, could it be drawn out, would constitute a system
of morality for that species."
If we follow the ascending scale, we have a series Ascending
of systems of morality, corresponding to the position systems oX
a species occupies in the ladder of evolution. If
we foUow man from his pre-social stage to man in
his social stage, we have at the new position to
include an added factor in the formula. This
addition affords a contrast to all systems of morality
supposed to be applicable to lower species. It
might have been supposed that we should find a
striking likeness between all systems of morality.
But we find, instead, a decided contrast. Man is Man aione
has "a
the only species which has "a formula for complete f^^^^ jj^^^
life." It is very strange that this should be the ^*"
case, seeing that the formula is only the outcome
of adaptation to the environment, physical, bio-
logical, social. For other animals are also social ;
at all events
* there are inferior species which display considerable degrees of
cociality."
Why, then, should the morality applicable to them
be so different from the morality of man ? Is not
54
The Ethics of Evolution Examined.
tlie additional factor of sucli a kind as to necessi-
tate a view of morality altogether new ? In which
case, we ask again, what has hecome of the pro-
posed attempt to deduce morality from the laws of
life and conditions of existence?
The ultimate end, even on the sociological view,
is the individual happiness. In order, however,
the more effectively to attain that end.
Inade-
quacy and
failure
of the
eociolugical
view.
Personal
pleasure
still the
ultimate
end : im-
possible to
deduce
morality
trom this.
" the life of the social organism, must, as an end, rank aboye
the lives of its unity."
We cheerfully admit that the welfare of society as
a whole ought to be put in the foreground, but we
see no reason for the admission on the ground set
forth by Mr. Spencer. If my duties to the social
organism have, as their ultimate ground, the aim
to secure for myself the gTeatest amount of pleasure
and the least of pain, what means are there to con-
strain me to my duty when the two ends conflict ?
" Living together arose because, on the average, it proved
more advantageous to each than living apart."
Let us suppose one to reason in the following
fashion, what answer would Mr. Spencer find. I
conceive it to my advantage to live apart. I find
that others keep the sunshine from me, and my
only request to my fellow-men is that made by
Diogenes to Alexander. There is no answer to
this position on any Utilitarian hypothesis. It is
no answer to the difficulty to say that the good
time is coming when
The Ethics of Evolution Examined. 55
'the relations, at present familiar to us, will be inverted ; and,
instead of each maintaining his own claims, others will maintain
his claims for him."
And this brings us again to Mr. Spencer's favourite
method of escape from difficulty a method which
cannot be allowed to any moralist. "We are moral
now. We have a consciousness of right and wrong.
We feci moral obligation, and it is a mere evasion
of the question to say that there will come a time
when we shall be so moral as to have no conscious-
ness of right and wrong, and so have any feeling
of moral obligation.
It is not to be denied that in these chapters on irrSevant
the physical, the biological, the psychological, and of the
.. . t' argument
sociological views of morality there are many wise g^ed by Mr
observations on nature, man, and society ; nor do
we affirm that they are unprofitable reading. On
the contrary, there is much in them which deserves
the deepest consideration of all men. Our conten-
tion is that the observations made and the views
promulgated are irrelevant to the thesis propounded
by Mr. Spencer. He has set himself to explain
morality, and to devise rules of conduct for man as
he now is. He has substituted for morality some-
thing which is non-moral, and the rules of conduct
are not for man as he is, but for an ideal man in
a state of society which is non-existent. His Data
of Ethics is another Utopia,
This brings us to the last point wc shall consider
56
The Ethics of EvolvMon Examined.
Absolute
and relative
ethics.
Illustration
from the
l>rogress of
mechanics.
at tlie present time. We mean the distinction
drawn by Mr. Spencer between absolute and relative
ethics. At the outset we may say that it is by no
means clear how, on Mr. Spencer's view, such a
distinction is possible, nor how absolute ethics may
precede relative ethics, except on the supposition
that the end is impUed in the process. When Mr.
Spencer says
*' that ascertainment of the actual truths has been made possible
only by pre-ascertainment of certain ideal truths " (p. 220),
he raises the question of how the human mind can
know the ideal before the actual. On the hypo-
thesis of evolution this is clearly impossible; for
it pre-supposes that the evolution is simply the
realisation of a prior idea involved at the beginning,
to be evolved at the end of the series of changes.
From our point of view we have no objection to
such a concej)tion, but it is fatal to the theory of
Mr. Spencer.
He seeks to make his meaning plain by the pro-
gress of mechanics, from its empirical to its rational
form. We may accept his account of the genesis
of abstract mechanics, and need not criticize it too
curiously :
**By easy and rude experiences there were inductively
reached, vague but practically true notions respecting the over-
balancing of bodies, the motions of missiles, the actions of
levers."
This may be accepted as, so far, a true account of
the matter. But the formulated, ideal mechanics
The Ethics of Evolution Examined, 57
must be of a kind which, will truly interpret the
first rude experiences of the race, and not contra-
dict them. They must be consistent with universal
experience. In our ideal mechanics we may assume
a lever which is absolutely rigid, a fulcrum without
breadth, and the weight of the body to be moved
to be collected at a certain point. Abstract me-
chanics does assume this, knowing all the while
that as a matter of fact, we have no such levers or
fulcrums in nature. Still the demonstrations are
true as far as they go. But even abstract mechanics
cannot dispense with space, and time, and body, ^Sgy^
and it assumes those intuitions which are universal meSnics
and necessary to the human mind. It cannot move
a step without them. The intuitions of space and
number are drawn on at every step. The inference
drawn by Mr. Spencer is, therefore, by no means
plain that in a similar fashion
"by easy and rude experiences there were inductively reached,
vague but partially true notions respecting the effects of man's
behaviour on themselves, on one another, and on society'
(p. 220).
And the reason is because the cases are not parallel. Jo^p^'Siei.
Ly this we mean that in the hands of Mr. Spencer
what corresponds in ethics to absolute mechanics
is in contradiction to the moral intuitions of the
human race. If he could set forth an abstract
mechanics, the conclusions of which would show
that the intuitions of space and time would dis-
appear, he would accomplish what he has professed
58 The Ethics of Evolution Examined,
to demonstrate in ethics, when he predicts a time
when the sense of obHgation will disappear. Again
we say, that we do not deny a distinction between
absolute and relative ethics, we say that Mr.
Spencer has no right to make the distinction. If
he had been able to show how the sense of obliga-
tion and the power of discerning right from wrong
were present and operative at every stage of the
process, as the intuitions of space and time are
present and operative at every stage in the evolution
of abstract mechanics, he would have done some-
thing bearing on the proof of his thesis. Instead
we have a categorical denial of the moral intuitions,
and a prophecy of their disappearance.
Mr. Spencer In his zeal for absolute ethics he is quite pre-
that there is pared to assort that relative ethics can afford no
no guidance
iVhirl^^^^^ guidance to man. He affirms that
*' throughout a considerable parj; of conduct, no guiding
principle, no method of estimation, enables us to say whether a
proposed course is even relatively right ; as causing, proximately
and remotely, specially and generally, the greatest surplus of
good over evil" (p. 268).
Let the reader translate this into the language
of mechanics, and see how the parallel between
mechanics and ethics again fails. His illustrations
of the uncertainty of knowing right from wrong,
all turn on the difficulty of calculating contingen-
cies. One case is that of a tenant farmer, whose
political principles prompt him to vote in opposition
to his landlord. The way in which Mr. Spencer
etliics.
The Ethics of Evolution Examined. 59
balances the pros and cons would be amusing, if it
were not so sad
' We have to recognise the fact that in countless such cases no
one can decide by which of the alternative cases the least
wrong is likely to be done" (p. 267).
Here is in truth, no moral guidance, and this is
demonstrated by the only morality which can result
from the balancings of pleasures and pains. Ordi-
nary men, who believe in God and in moral law,
would at once say that the tenant farmer ought to
follow his principles, and leave the issues to God.
Nor does absolute ethics afford guidance to man. No guidance
in absolute
Before its rules can come into action there must ethics.
come a time when right action may be done with-
out leaving a trace of pain anywhere or to any
person.
*'The philosophical moralist treats," we are told by Mr. The philo-
Spencer, "solely of the straight man. He determines the moralist
properties of the straight man, describes how the straight man *|"*;*^^ ^^
comports himself ; shows in what relationship he stands to other man.
straight men ; shows how a community of straight men is con-
stituted. Any deviation from strict rectitude he is compelled
wholly to ignore. It cannot be admitted into his premisses
without vitiating all his conclusions. A problem in which a
croolcd man forms one of the elements is insoluble by him"
(p. 271-2).
But, according to the analogy to mechanics, we
can only get the straight man by abstraction from
the crooked man; and, still adhering to the analogy,
every concrete mechanical problem can be solved
approximately by the methods of mechanics. Why
GO
The Elhics of Evolution Examined.
The categor-
ical impera-
tive not an
abstract
truth, but
a universal
command.
We have a
real guide
to conduct.
should not the problem of practical morality he solved
after the same fashion ? We have been arguing
here on the supposition that Mr. Spencer's analogy
between mechanics and ethics holds good. But to
us the analogy is very misleading. The contrast
between absolute and relative ethics by no means
corresponds to the contrast between abstract and
concrete. To say so would be to mistake the ethical
problem altogether. The categorical imperative is
the expression, not of any general and abstract
truth, but of an absolute and universal command,
which claims to rule the inward life and outward
action of man by governing all his desires, inten-
tions, and aims. It is an absolute command, a
law of inherent and unconditional obligation, which
sets aside all considerations of prudence, personal
affection, and general utility, and asserts its OAvn
supreme authority over all other precepts and in-
junctions whatsoever. A good will is an end in
itself; and a good will, grounded on reverence for
moral law, is good in itself and for itself alone,
irrespective of any outward consequences, irrespec-
tive also of anything useful, or pleasant, or desir-
able, irrespective of fitness for any higher end, for
this is the highest end.
If this be so, then we have a real guide to con-
duct. We are not constraiued with Mr. Spencer
to say that we cannot tell what duty is, and are
not shut up to choose the least wrong. If we
The Ethics of Evolution Examined. tjl
3C0gnise that right has not been built up out of
leasurable experiences, but has a majesty and a
;v inction in itself, then the absolute claim it has on
s may be recognised and acted on, whatsoever the
jonsequenccs may be.
We submit, then, that Mr. Spencer has failed to ^^.^^ ^^
ccount for the facts of our moral consciousness, Sepre^ert
nd that his system confessedly supplies no guidance morai^'con-
moral conduct. We need not consider further and fails
(to afford
ris conception of the straight man in a straight guidance to
ocicty. At present Mr. Spencer is conscious of
m unfriendly environment. He has, by various
terations, to force alien conceptions on reluctant
ninds. He does not expect that " his conclusions
,vill meet with any general acceptance," nor do we.
But his own experience of a great mission and calling
m the world ought to have made him reflect on the
3onclusions he has reached. Taking for the moment
the estimate he has formed of his system of philo-
sophy, looking at the persistency with which he
has forced his conceptions on reluctant minds, and
having regard to the anxiety he manifests to pro-
vide a scientific basis for morality, we might have
expected from him a larger and a more generous
estimate of the value of the work of individual
man for man. He has steadfastly held his own,
and has sought to benefit man for of the noble-
ness of his purpose there can be no doubt. Why,
then, should he not recognise in man what he finds
62 The Ethics of Evolution Examined*
in so largo a scale in himself? Why not take
account of the force of example as a moral mctive,
and of love to man as the great elevating force
over human life ? If the existence of Mr. Spencer
and his work has boon possible in an unfriendly
environment, why should we not go further, and
say, in opposition to his teaching, that the existence
of a perfect man and an imperfect society is quite
possible ? No doubt he says categorically that
**the co-existence of a perfect man and an imperfect society is
impossible."
Ethics J5ut we recall to mind Plato's description of the
aemand a ^
Sample. j^^t man. We quote from Jowett's Introduction
to the Repuhlic :
*'And now let us frame an ideal of the just and unjust.
Imagine the unjust man to be master of his craft, seldom
making mistakes and easily correcting them, having gifts of.
money, speech, strength, the greatest villain bearing the highest
character ; and at his side let us place the just in hia nobleness
and simplicity, being not seeming, without name or reward,
clotlied in his justice only, the best of men who is thought to
be the worst, and let him die as he has lived. I might add
(but I would rather put the rest into the mouth of the
panygerists of injustice they will tell you) that the just man
will be scourged, racked, bound, will have his eyes put out,
and will at last be crucified, and all this because he ought to
have preferred seeming to being." ^
^piauThfs ^^^^^ picture which passed before the glowing ima-
hi^to?ai gination of Plato, has had an historical fulfilment.
And while the memories of Gethsemane linger in the
mind, Mr. Spencer will find it vain to tell man that
1 Jowett's PlatOf vol. iii., p. 21.
fulfilment.
The Ethics of Euolution Examined,
*' conduct which has any concomitant of pain in any painful
consequence is partially wrong."
We find the criterion of riglit and wrong elsewliere, a perfect
, man in the
and we also find that by the confession of all, a midst of an
^ ' imperfect
perfect Man did once appear in an imperfect society, 8<^^^*y-
and gave Himself to the work of redeeming men
from sin and misery, of showing them what human
life ought to be, and may become ; and of making a
new world in which a perfect society may safely,
gladly dwell. He showed man a more excellent
way, not the old way of self-assertion, or of the
rule of strength, or of having regard to pleasure,
but the new way of returning good for evil, of
bearing the cross, and of knowing the blessedness
of sorrow. Christ's moral teaching stands in chnst'a
teaching a
perfect contrast to the teaching of Mr. Spencer, J"^^^^
different in origin, in method, in results, and in ^p^"^^'^'*'
sanction, and we have the testimony of John Stuart
Mill to the fact that no higher standard of living
is conceivable than to live so that Christ shall
approve your life. Those who have this as motive
and reward, are not conscious of the vacuum which
Mr. Spencer is so anxious to fill.
In the life and work and teaching of Christ, we Christ
'^ interprets
learn the true interpretation of the fact of our o"^ moral
moral life. From Him we learn the real meaning
of moral obligation, of our powerlessness to fulfil
it, ?nd of the pain, anguish and remorse, which we
foel because we cannot do the things which we
G4 The Ethics of Evolution Examined,
would. How shall wo become wliat we feel we
ought to be ? We need to be placed in right re-
blcmne lations to the supreme moral law, wo need a
TughtTo be. strength beyond our own to lift us to the level of a
holy life, and through Christ and by union with
Him we obtain what we need. "Why should we be
afraid to say, that from Christ we have received
the true ideal of moral life, as from Christ we
receive the strength to live up to it ? He has
atoned for our sins, He has deepened and cleansed
all the moral convictions, He has embodied the
highest ideal of a perfect moral life, and He has
poured into human life a tide of living strength,
which is making this world a world of righteous-
ness, purity, and peace. We make no rash
prophecy, we are simply stating a fact of human
experience which may bo ascertained by ordinary
historical inquiry, when we say that, whoso has
the life and teaching of Christ, has enough for
life and guidance. He has a motive for living, an
aim for life, strength by the Holy Spirit to bear
and do, and hope to crown and reward his efforts.
The moral life inspired by Christ, and guided by
Him, has also the surest scientific truth; and it
will become more apparent as time rolls on, and
Christian experience widens, that Christian Ethics are the
only true scientific Ethics.
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the Dean of Chester.
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47 Auguste Comte and the "Religion
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53 The Present Conflict with Unbelief .
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55 The Authenticity of the Four Prin-
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56 Moral Difficulties of the Old Testa-
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R. CONDER, D.U.
57 Unity of Faith. A Proof of the
Divine Origin aiid Preservation cf
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61 Argument for Christianity from the
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62 Egoism, Altruism, and Christian
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64 The Psalms compared with the
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68 Theology an Inductive and a Pro-
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71 The 'Psalms of David ' and Modern
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72 Christ's Doctrine of Prayer. By
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" It is an able essay, and the aim is thus summarised by the auth(
'Granted heredity, responsibility is not destroyed, because in the inter
forces which regulate a man's life there is enough to counteract inb(
tendencies, and the grace of God is sufficient to conquer them.'" Christiai
London : The Religious Tract Society, 56 Paternostj^EURow,
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